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dr3amofagame · 3 years

Note

Do you consider a possibility that c!Punz never betrayed c!Dream in the first place and whole "I'm sorry, Dream -- but you should have paid me more" thing was a facade and undercover for Punz? Like Dream said that Punz should not associated with him, so it was intentional-

staged disc finale theory my beloved !!! :D it’s definitely one of my favorite theories, though i’m still holding out (for now) as for believing super firmly in one direction or another (tho the staged finale is definitely the one i prefer for Many reasons, haha.) c!punz is so so fun no matter if the betrayal was intentional or not, but oh boyyyy if it was something planned ,,, man .

*c!dream voice, after quackity starts visiting*: the risk i took was calculated, but man am i bad at math.

anyway c!punz and c!dream interactions make me soft as heck so have this !!

tw: implied torture, abuse, violence, blood, injuries, emotional distress, panicking, dehumanization, unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy mindsets, illness, trauma, flashbacks, starvation mention, suicide mention, death mentions, dark content, dark imagery, prison arc/pandora’s vault themes, c!quackity critical/dark portrayal of c!quackity

Dream comes to in vague moments and flashes.

There’s a hand brushing over his forehead, too gentle to be Quackity or the Warden, not Techno because Techno is Gone and he has Left and won’t come again, running through the sweat-soaked locks and pulling them back out of his forehead. He’s unbearably hot, shifting around on the ground, only barely registering it moving beneath him. Water, cool and clear, is tipped in between his lips, quenching his thirst and easing the dryness of his mouth. Someone speaks, voice low and rumbling, and even though he’s unable to make out the words, there’s something about the cadence of them and the specific rhythm in which they move and rise and dip that is bone-achingly familiar, enough to lull him into a fitful sleep. Through it all, there is always something, someone, lingering in the edges of his vision, a shadow standing near and watching over him; part of him remembers Quackity, remembers the Warden, and recoils in fright; another part of him remembers Techno, remembers the barest flashes of a life before obsidian and lava and pain and hell, and wants nothing more than to get closer.

When the fog in his head finally clears away enough to think, the first coherent thought he has is oh fuck, I need to piss.

Which, out of all possible things to think, is probably up there as one of the worst, and he’s sure that when his head feels a little less like it’s trying to actively kill him (ha, let it- it’s far from the first to try) the panic will settle in as it always does. As it is, he’s exhausted, and hungry, and he really really needs to pee- so he forces his eyes open to move away from where he’s probably still stuck in a puddle of dried blood in the middle of his cell.

The second coherent thought he has is this: this isn’t Pandora.

The realization has him thoroughly awake, eyes snapping open out of his previous fatigue to take in his surroundings, feet kicking out to the weight on top of them that he hadn’t even noticed was there, panicking against his restraints that end up not being restraints at all, giving way easily under his thrashing and resolving to what appears to be a thick blanket when he has the mind to look. With the covers gone off of whatever he’s lying on (a bed?) he’s suddenly, unbearably cold - the prison has always been hot, the lava baking into him and leaving his skin sticky with sweat, and he thinks that the room he’s in is probably not meant to feel like a fucking freezer, but after months of being one wrong step away from heatstroke, anything cooler than the goddamn Nether feels like literal ice against his skin. The room is wooden and cozy and oddly familiar, an open door leading to what appears to be a bathroom and a closed one going who knows where, window panes built into the opposite wall to let the sunlight in. It’s a nice room, all things considered, and Dream fucking hates it.

He pulls himself to his feet, cursing at the wobbly edge to his stance when he finally manages to stand, his vision wavering dangerously in time to the spinning of his head. His eyes flick between the two doors - he still needs to go to the bathroom, and using it now will lessen the amount of things to get in the way of his escape in the future - but at the same time, there's no knowing when people will come to (hurt him, beat him, starve him, punish him, leaving him bruised and bleeding and half-dead on the floor just as he deserves) him and he needs all the time he can get to get the hell away. In the end, he slinks into the bathroom, ignoring the thudding in his chest as he does so - at the very least, the cabinets in the thing might provide him with some manner of a weapon.

He’s only just past the door on the way out - a fucking broomstick in his hand because it’s all he could find - when his ears catch on the sound of metal clicking against each other and his eyes fall on the knob of the other door shaking as someone makes their way in. All at once, panic slams into him - goddammit, he should’ve just run when he had the chance - and he directs quick, desperate glances at the window. Maybe, if he’s fast enough, he can book it out of there and disappear into the trees; it’ll hurt, but it’ll be better than getting caught. Anything would be better than getting caught-

“Dream?”

Dream blinks. All at once, the same feeling of getting the air punched out of him returns, but combined with something warm and floaty wrapping around his chest, something almost a little like relief - and hell, if that isn’t something he’s not felt for a while.

“Punz?”

Punz is standing in the doorway, hoodie rumpled, expression more than a little frazzled; Dream’s breath hitches at the sight of the sword strapped to his side, but their face holds none of the harsh edges and cold-dark-hard hatred that had characterized the Warden and Quackity’s visits, mouth slightly parted and eyes shining with nothing but what appears to be shock and concern. The sight of them, again, nearly has Dream dizzy, a swell of tangled, unexplainable emotion rising to the back of his throat as he sways on his feet. He hadn’t thought that he would see Punz again, he realizes, had never thought he’d see his stupid gold chain and his stupid outfit he never bothered changing, ever, or that same lopsided smirk and pale blue eyes- the last time he’d seen them, it was in that vault, their mouth twisted up in the act the two of them had decided on and eyes shimmering with unease and regret; as far as goodbyes went, it wasn’t the worst, not when Punz was one of the few to never leave him, not really, not when something ached in their expression other than the hatred that had colored all of the other expressionless faces watching him die. Months later, alone in Pandora, he must’ve grown resigned, or something, the repeated reminders that he would die alone and afraid and it would be nothing more than he deserved settling into his skin and against his bones; Punz’s expression twists, visible even across the room, and- oh.

They must’ve thought the same thing, too.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Punz asks, finally, and Dream decides not to point out the way his voice cracks harshly in the middle, especially when the other man strides forward and starts to awkwardly herd him back in the direction of the bed - covers still thrown to the floor - in the middle of the room. Dream lets them, not replying because he doesn’t really know where to even begin describing the tangled knot of panic and shock that had strung his muscles tense when he woke up in a room he didn’t recognize, not knowing if he can really describe it all at all, trying his best not to flinch at the hands flitting in the corners of his vision as he falls back into a sitting position onto the bed. His fingers settle into the mattress, pressing into the bedsheets cautiously and marveling when they fall away under the pressure. Punz watches him, expression odd, gathers the blankets from the ground and presses them over and around him in a way that’s entirely awkward but does leave him warmer than he’d been before, before walking back on his heels with an odd expression that makes Dream’s insides twist.

“You,” Punz says after a long second, voice wavering, “are a fucking idiot,” and it’s all the warning Dream gets before a white-and-black blur is rushing towards him, arms wrapping around his chest and his vision whites out in alarm and panic. When the pain doesn’t come, he comes back to his senses enough to realize that Punz’s arms are still wrapped around him, shoulders shaking as he holds him close but not painfully, careful not to pull too much against the places on his ribs and back that leave him gasping with small shocks of pain, head pressed against the crook of Dream’s neck and hair tickling his face. Dream can feel his heart hammering in his chest, but as the panic dies something warm and long-neglected stirs in the middle of his chest, and he melts forward with a quiet hum. This is- nice. Really, really nice.

“What were you thinking?” Punz mutters, too quiet to really be directed at him, hands curling tighter into the folds of the hoodie - oh, he’s wearing one of those, not the same stiff, bloodstained material of the prison uniform that had chafed against his skin, another constant source of pain and discomfort of thousands in the hell that had been Pandora’s Vault - on him, and Dream doesn’t really know what to do except sit there and blink dumbly, listening to the heartbeat of the person leaning against him rumbling against his ears. It’s oddly calming, has the pressure on his chest lightening enough to take a full breath, and then another, the warmth of someone leaning against him almost too much but not enough at the same time - his eyes burn, and he ignores them.

“I-” he doesn’t really think that Punz was really asking a question, but just ignoring his question seems rude, too, and even despite the fuzzy warmth settling into his skin and into his bones from the pressure of Punz’s arms around his body and their head against his shoulder, he’s still unable to shake the anxiety of leaving a query unanswered, a constant murmur to listen obey do as you’re told or you’re going to regret it put on a damn good show or suffer the consequences remaining no matter how hard he tries to push it away. He wets his lips when his mouth feels too dry to keep speaking, eyes fluttering closed as he leans forward further, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You-” Punz cuts themselves off with a wet, incredulous-sounding laugh that has Dream jerking back despite himself, meeting their ice-cold eyes when they pull themselves back to look at him. He doesn’t really recognize the expression he wears, Dream realizes with a jolt, the way his lips are pressed together and the churning in his eyes, and his lungs seize in his chest.

“Sir-”

If anything, Punz’s expression only seems to harden, and the warmth disappears as Dream looks into their eyes - cold, two polished shards of ice, frosted over pools of water in the middle of the tundra, flinty and sharp and brilliant blue. His hands shake as he pulls them back to his chest, trembling from the chill that’s made its home in his muscles and frozen them in place - sir sorry sir please don’t hurt me im sorry please I didn’t mean to

“Fuck, Dream,” he shakes his head, and only then does Dream see the slight wobble to their bottom lip, the waver to their words like they’re struggling to keep themselves together, “why didn’t you say anything?”

What?

You almost died, you know,” he keeps going, not meeting his eyes as they direct their gaze out the window, “Several times, honestly. Fucking hell- when Techno brought you out- I didn’t think you would survive. I didn’t think anyone could survive that.”

Dream swallows. He doesn’t remember getting out, doesn’t really remember much at all if he’s being honest; there was the black of the cell, the heat of the lava, Techno promising to get him out before disappearing in a flash of purple, Quackity throwing him against the wall (Where the fuck did Techno go? You better have a fuckin’ answer, pal, if you want your death to be anything resemblin’ quick-) then nothing. Everything. His heart hammering in his chest and blood slick against his skin and the press of metal against his windpipe and pain, the only constant within it all, the only thing that made any goddamn sense when the room seemed to flip and turn and twist and his feelings knotted and frayed between anger-betrayal-distress-sadness-fear-grief, when reality swirled into a dizzying blur of colors and feelings and sounds carving themselves into the inside of his skull- then here. Dream flexes his hand experimentally, marveling at the feeling - the pain is almost gone.

He’d forgotten how it felt, really, to live and not hurt.

“Dream,” Punz calls again, voice low and worried, and Dream can’t help the way his head snaps up to meet their eyes and can’t help the flinch that twists his neck back when their frown deepens. It’d been a show, at least he tells himself, because Quackity would stop earlier if he screamed more, but- his hands tremble at his sides, twisted into the sheets of the bed, a near-constant litany of reminders and rules beating like they have a heart of their own in the back of his head. It was a show- he feels himself almost buckle, give in under the force of the stare leveled at him, and hates himself for how weak he feels, pinned under the eyes trained on his own. He’s not sure how much of a show it is anymore.

“Dream,” Punz repeats, words even softer, and the ugly feeling of shame and anger twists inside Dream’s chest again. Punz- ever unflappable, deadly with almost any weapon and never letting anyone see him as anything but deliberately apathetic - is watching him with an expression so uncharacteristically and unbearably gentle that it makes his breath catch in his throat. “You could’ve died,” he says once again, and the look that paints his face is so terribly vulnerable, feelings pouring over like a cup overfilled, bubbling forward and bleeding from every corner, and Dream- can’t. He doesn’t know what to do in the face of such stark emotion, doesn’t know how how to handle the way his eyes burn and his heart throbs like an exposed nerve, the way everything yawns wide in the middle of his chest into void and emptiness and pain so deeply carved in the space within his ribs that he half-thinks he’s been hollowed out entirely.

“But I didn’t.”

Punz pulls back, but Dream isn’t looking at him, is staring at the scarred surfaces of the backs of his hands and the knobs of his knuckles sticking out against the thinned-out skin and the yellowed nails he’s pushing against the blanket, the fourth and fifth ones of his right hand missing. They shake, no matter how long he looks at them and how hard he tries to make them stay still, and he can feel a voice whispering in the back of his mind, tone too familiar to ignore. Weak.

“I didn’t die,” he says when Punz doesn’t reply, looking at his scarred hands, weak hands, broken hands. “So it’s okay. We can keep- we can keep going.”

“Dream-” their voice is a blade scraping against an anvil, nails scraping over his ribs, his hands clamping over his ears before he’s realized he’s moved and his brain screaming at him for doing so once he realizes that he has, “-what the fuck are you talking about?”

Still, he hadn’t survived months of Quackity’s visits by bending over the second he was pushed, so he forces his tongue to move from where it’s fallen to the bottom of his mouth like lead, feels his eyes go steely even from under the way his vision has already begun to wobble.

“It’s not over yet,” he continues, trying to keep his words even, “‘cause I didn’t die, so we’re not done. I gotta- we have to reevaluate, of course,” he can’t stop, because the second he stops talking is the second he falls apart, so he ignores the way that Punz stiffens and stills and doesn’t let anything stop the flow of words spilling out of his mouth, “because the vault and the prison- um, obviously didn’t go as planned, but it’s fine. Just a minor- um, minor inconvenience. A setback- but it’s not- it’s not unsalvageable- we just have to-”

“Are you kidding me?” Punz cuts him off with a sharp laugh, disbelieving and just on the wrong side of desperate, and the air in Dream’s lungs freezes into a solid block of ice in the middle of his chest, “you- you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Punz?”

Dream’s voice comes out small, himself shrinking back into the bed, keenly aware, suddenly, of how there is nowhere he can go to run - Punz doesn’t seem to notice that he’s spoken at all, one of his hands moving up to tug through his hair, which is - now that Dream is looking - fluffier and messier than he remembers, sticking up in all directions like they didn’t bother to smooth it down.

“You think this is fine? You think that because you didn’t fucking die, that this is all okay?” Punz’s voice rises in volume slowly, not loud enough to be a shout but enough to go hard and unyielding like a threat, and with each word every remnant of the vault comes crawling, clawing back up to the front of his head, a pounding reminder to play his role, put on a show, behave behave behave-

“Goddammit, Dream,” Punz startles him out of his own thoughts, looking straight into his eyes with their ice-blue ones, “have you seen yourself?”

Have you seen yourself? Lying down in your own goddamn filth like a fucking mutt- prime, you disgust me.

“Your ribs were basically shattered. Your legs had fractures on both sides, and your back was so fucking torn up that it looked like more blood than skin. You’ve been starved- enough for me to see every goddamn bone in your body, it feels like. Your throat was bruised to hell- I wasn’t sure if you were gonna be able to speak again, fuck, and like a day after we got here you got fucking pneumonia.” Punz’s breath hitches, “Your skin was a literal fucking oven- I thought you’d bake yourself from the inside out. You could’ve died- you should’ve died.”

You should’ve died a hell of a long time ago, pal- should’ve saved us all the fucking trouble and offed yourself like Wilbur fucking Soot.

He flinches, and this, Punz seems to notice, eyes widening a fraction before they pitch their voce lower, clearly taking a few breaths to calm down and reaching forward to take one of Dream’s hands loosely in his own, thumb smoothing over the bumps of his knuckles.

“You’re not fine,” he says after a long while, shaking his head. “Hell- I’m not fine. But we’re not doing anything like- like the vault or the prison again, dude. I told you they were shit ideas- fuck. We never should’ve done that.”

“It was worth it,” Dream butts in, because he can’t imagine a world where it wasn’t, can’t imagine a world where all of that was for nothing, “it was worth it-”

“No it fucking wasn’t, are you out of your mind?” Punz replies immediately, voice overlapping over Dream’s own, “have you listened to a single thing I’ve said? You- look at you! How was that worth it?”

Dream shakes his head stubbornly, already feeling the way his jaw is trembling around the words he forces himself to speak. “The server- it was all for the server-”

“Fuck the server!”

Punz seems startled by their own shout, drawing back at the same time Dream does, breathing ragged. He takes a few seconds to compose himself, bringing his hand to his face as Dream sits stock still, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe.

“Fuck the fucking server, okay?” Punz says, finally, voice cracking in the middle, “You lost two damn lives for this server. You got fucking tortured for fucking months for this shitstain of a server. Just- fuck them. I’m not watching you tear yourself to fucking shreds for this- not again. I can’t sit around and watch you fucking die again, Dream, I can’t drag you out bleeding out in my fucking arms again- fuck-” Punz shakes their head, and oh. They’re crying.

“No more. Fuck the server. I’m done, Dream- we’re done with them.”

Dream blinks, so thoroughly surprised that he thinks the shock knocked him straight out of the building panic attack, leaving nothing but a slight thrumming of anxiety still simmering beneath his skin. Almost instinctually, in a motion he doesn’t really remember but still has the muscle memory for, he opens his arms- and in a similar, near-unconscious response, Punz tumbles into his arms.

He blinks, not moving his arms to curl around the other, feeling the weight of another person against his again and the sound of their breathing and relearning them both. This is- new, for both of them. Dream was never emotional, not before the prison, not that he wanted to be after it either- but Quackity always had a particular affinity for tearing him apart, shard by shard. And Punz- he’d never been like this, even back in the day, when things were easier and they didn’t bear the constant burden of netherite against their backs. They’d always been stoic, sharp, sarcastic, cool and dry in a way that chafed against Sapnap’s fire and always led to Dream laughing at them sooner or later. He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, feeling the heat behind his eyes finally sear too hot and boil over, tears squeezing through his closed eyes and falling down his face.

“Okay,” he says, finally, and there’s nothing easy about the acquiescence, not when he had poured blood and sweat and the better half of himself into this place, salted the earth with his tears until no more would come and nothing else would grow. He thinks that he will have more to think and more to say and more to protest come the next days, that the binds between him and his goals have been weaved too deep with the fibers of his soul for him to tear them free without sacrificing what broken pieces of himself he has left, but all he can think right now is how fucking tired he is. He remembers Techno’s voice, going through myth after myth to pass time in the prison, and thinks with something like humor and something like grief - let someone else be Atlas for a day. The sky is too heavy right now. Punz’s arms tighten around his body, enough to remind him that they’re there but not enough to press at his still-healing ribs, and he thinks that they might understand. “Okay.”

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thomaslightwood · 3 years

Text

Blackthorn Detective Agency - Part 1

KitTy Sherlock AU!

It's set in 1930s, slow burn & will have a few parts!

I'm not 100% sure where this is going but I'm already writing the second part, so we will see

Words: 3 862 (I know it's long, sorry, this part is more about the plot and the surroundings)

Kit looked at the grey sky above his head and frowned. It was going to rain. Of course.

He hasn't been in London for over a year now but he wondered how he could forget that. The bad weather, the noise, (and true to be told - very dirty) streets, the men in suits and cylinders, the women in pretty dresses, sometimes with pants. He wondered what happened to the few closet shops he was passing by. One of the many mysteries of life.

And talking about mysteries…

Kit saw at the other side of the street what he was looking for. A grey showcase, thorns all over the frame with a few simple words in the middle - "Blackthorn Detective Agency". There was a small bee on its left.

Kit fastly crossed the street, holding his hat. Some man angrily shooted, cursing the sudden wind that scattered many leaves, newspapers and even a few hats. Kit laughed. He missed London even though it wasn't the most awesome place.

He stood up in front of the agency, hesitating. He knew the guy who ran it is young, very good at what he does and known among people as Sherlock Holmes. Kit didn't know almost anything about him. What if he was a criminal? Or another kind of dangerous person?

But he remembered the look on his father's face. The empty package. Kit needed the money, no matter what kind of guy was this Sherlock.

He quietly opened the door and looked around the room as he was entering. It was kind of a lobby but a lot smaller - there was space only for two comfortable-looking armchairs, mahogany mass and a portrait hidden behind a curtain. The walls were in nice, warm colors, mainly grey and brown, a turned off radio on the desk. In the right corner, almost unnoticeable was a polished ajar wooden door.

Kit cautiously stepped towards it but then he heard voices. He stopped, grateful he was quiet while coming inside.

“... think so?” this was a woman's voice, perhaps a girl's.

“Look. All I know is that my friend disappeared a few days ago,” this was definitely a woman's voice, probably older than the first one. “He didn't show up for our meeting the next day. He didn't send a note. And…” she hesitated.

“What is it?” this time it was a male's voice.

There was a minute of silence, then:

“The only reason I come here is not because I can't do investigation on my own. It's because…” she sighed. “The last day we saw each other, exactly the day before our appointment, he told me there is a secret that was passed to him to protect. And he told me about it. Not everything, not enough details, but I'm sure he told me because he knew he may be… attacked. I think his… attackers may know about me and this would impede the investigation.“

“I understand,” the male voice again. It was a nice voice. Melodic. Kit could listen to it for hours. “I suppose you can't tell us this secret.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I definitely can't. It's not mine to say.”

After this no one said anything but Kit thought he heard a pen writing fast on a paper.

“Is there anything further you want to share?” asked the male voice.

“I don't think so,” the woman said. “Just… be careful. Find my friend. The money is not a problem.”

Kit swallowed. Money. This woman had money. Kit should get the job at all costs.

“Thank you, Miss Loss. We will do everything we can to help.”

This was followed by silence and noise of moving clothes. Tracking of heels. Kit jumped off the door, hoping he wouldn't be caught eavesdropping.

A woman with blue skin and white hair came out of the room. A warlock. She suspiciously looked at Kit but didn't say anything. She walked past him and frowned at the sky.

“London's weather is terrible, isn't it?” Kit chuckled. “Sometimes I forget.”

A shadow of a smile crossed the woman's face. “It is, indeed. That's why I brought an umbrella.”

“Lucky you. I always forget and I'm supposed to live here.”

Then a real smile appeared on her face. But she didn't say anything - just put on her gloves, took out her umbrella and went outside. As she opened her umbrella right in front of Kit her skin and hair became darker and she wasn't warlock anymore - just a regular woman in the rain.

Kit watched after her for a second then turned around. On the door's frame was leaning a girl. Not much older than Kit probably, with bright blue-green eyes that was watching him curiously. She was wearing gloves, white shirt with puff sleeves and coffee brown wide leg pants, almost as dark as her curly hair. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest. Kit noticed a necklace around her neck, with a gold chain and a slim disk of metal on it. On the front was a wreath of thorns - probably the family symbol.

“How can I help you?” she asked politely.

“I'm here for the job. I heard that… Sherlock… is looking for a partner.”

“Yes, that's right,” she said. “Very well. Come in.”

She turned around and got back into the room she and the other woman were in. Kit followed.

It was an office. The shelves on the walls were filled with books - some of them about mathematics and the morse code, about the body language and animals, others - mysteries and classics, fairy tales and mythology, most of which Kit didn't recognize. It was surprisingly cozy - the room was warm and smelled like ink and paper. There were a few maps on the walls - of the world, of England and of London. Three armchairs like the ones in the lobby and surprisingly many tables (at least three) on which were a few little toys and tons of well organized paper - on one was even a disassembled watch. Right against the door, no more than 5 meters away, was a big desk - it was a little messy, with a rotary dial telephone and two chairs on both sides. Probably for the clients.

There was also a board, standing close to the desk - big, see-through board on wheels with paper and written things on it. A young man was cleaning it right now.

As Kit saw him everything around faded a little and his gaze was focused only on him. How beautiful.

This was probably the most good-looking man Kit has ever seen. He was tall, taller than Kit, with messy black hair which showed he probably runs a hand through it a lot. His eyes were grey like the sky outside, carefully reading a piece of paper. He was wearing gloves, a silk white shirt, a little loosened on his neck and black trousers with braces.

This should be Sherlock, Kit thought. He didn't expect him to be so young. Hell, he probably wasn't much older than Kit.

“We have a job candidate," the blue-greened girl said and sat on one of the armchairs.

The young man lifted his gaze to look at Kit. Kit felt embarrassed. He was wearing his favorite overcoat and cap - he wasn't as elegant as the two of them.

“Hello,” he said, trying not to sound too nervous. Or desperate. “I'm here for the job. I heard that Sherlock is looking for someone helping him.”

None of them said who Sherlock was or if the guy in front of him was Sherlock. The black haired one just nodded.

“You can sit if you want.”

Kit sat. The boy took a notebook from one the piles on the desk and a pen.

“My name is Livvy. This is my brother, Ty. We run this place. Nice to meet you.”

They, Livvy actually, asked him a few basic questions - his name, age, occupation. Kit came here prepared to lie for them all. But watching the boys' - Ty's - face while he was writing down the information, he couldn't make himself tell all the lies he had prepared. Kit ended up telling them the truth. His father would be disappointed in him. Well, if he knew his son was here.

“So, Mr. Rook,” the girl started.

Kit shivered. “Please, Mr. Rook is my father. You can call me just Kit.”

“Kit, it is,” she smiled. Kit had a feeling the serious questions begin now.

After almost 30 minutes the interview was at its end.

“Final question,” Livvy said. “Tell us Kit, why do you want to work in this agency?”

Kit paused. “True to be told, it's mainly because I need the money.”

“Oh,” clearly this wasn't the answer she expected. Even Ty looked up. “Really?”

Kit shifted uncomfortably. “Well… I want to help my father and for this I need to find a job. And when I saw the inquiry in the newsletter… I told myself this is what I want to try to work.”

It wasn't the greatest answer, really. But it was the truth.

“Very well,” Livvy said. Ty wrote something in his notebook - he was doing it the whole interview. “Please, leave us alone for a few minutes.”

Kit nodded and got up. He smiled at them and turned around.

When he got out of the room the door closed tightly after him.

•

Livvy turned to him with a playful smile.

“What do you think about him?”

Ty looked at the notes he had made during the interview. Christopher, also known as Kit Rook.

“He looks like he can do the job,” Ty said.

“Oh, come on!” Livvy stepped away from the door and approached Ty's desk. “I know you liked him.”

It was true. Ty did like him. He had a nice smile.

“You're not wrong,” Ty said. “But.”

“But?” Livvy raised an eyebrow.

“I don't think he'll keep up around for long. You heard him. He's here only for the money. When he is financially stable again he'd quit.”

“Ty,” Livvy sighed. “We talked about this. We're looking for someone who will work here, no matter how long. We can't find a full time worker that fast.”

Ty ran a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and breathed. He looked at the empty board. He already imagined how he filled it with paper, the possible connections and people, places and details, the web of the case - could this stranger help him solve the board?

“I know you don't like strangers,” Livvy said quietly. “But at least give him a chance. From all the people that came, he is… I don't know. Most reliable-looking, I suppose. He would talk with people and he's smart. And I have a feeling he may know a thing or two about London's criminals.”

Ty looked suspiciously at the door, even though he couldn't see Kit through it. “Do you really think he would be helpful?”

Livvy sat on the chair in front of the desk, looking amused - Ty wasn't sure why. “I think he is worth a try.”

Ty looked at his notes one more time, tapping with the pan on them. He looked at Livvy. Sighed.

“All right,” he said. “Let him in. He must hear the good news.”

Livvy smiled at him and got up. Ty almost didn't hear their conversation. Still tapping with the pen on the papers, he read again all the information Catarina Loss gave him. He should talk with some people. Check some places. To think about it.

“Ty?”

“Yes?” he looked at Livvy.

“When is Kit starting?”

Ty thought about it for a second. “Right now.”

•

Well, Kit thought. These guys are intense.

He watched, sitting on a chair, as Ty and Livvy together "prepared" for the case. Ty cleaned up one table, while Livvy moved the London's map closer to the see-through board. At some point they were finished and Livvy sat on the same chair she was sitting on during Kit's interview, while Ty remained standing.

“Let's retell get the case from the beginning,” Ty said and grabbed his notebook. “Before four days, on 10th October Ragnor Fell arrived in London, around 2 p.m. After that, around 4 p.m he and Catarina Loss met on George Street, in a restaurant whose name is unknown. They sat there no more than three hours and left between 6 and 6:30 p.m. This is the last time Catarina sees Ragnor. The next day, 11th October, they should have met at Arthur Street at 11 a.m. but Ragnor never appears.”

He looked up from his notebook and said, “Do I miss something?”

“I don't think so,” Livvy, who had written fast while her brother was talking, shook her head. She turned to Kit as she was handing the paper to Ty. “This is the 'skeleton' of the story. The very basics we know. The details come after this.”

Kit nodded, fascinated by the team they were. What was Kit even doing here? It was obvious the twins worked well together - they didn't need a third wheel.

“Now,” Ty said slowly, looking at the paper with the information Livvy wrote on. “Ragnor told Catarina the secret during their meeting on 10th, correct?” On another list, which he pinned next to the first one, he carefully started to write what he just said. He was making a timeline, Kit realized.

“Correct,” his sister said. “Also, in the same conversation he mentioned he's going to meet with a person named Raphael Santiago, but it's unclear when and where.”

Ty wrote that too.

Then he stared at it, tapping the pen on his hand.

“Do we know when he comes from?” Kit suddenly asked.

They both turned their heads at him at the same time. A little creepy but impressive.

“What do you mean?”

“I was talking about Ragnor and his train. Do we know where the train started from? Or from where Ragnor was before arriving here?”

Ty intensely searched his journal. “I don't think so.”

“It's probably not important anyway…”

“It may be,” Ty just said and took one more paper, wrote something on it and pinned it on the other side of the list with the 'skeleton'. “This is the first thing we're going to check tomorrow.”

For a few more hours they discussed the case. It was Ty mostly and Livvy. Kit was only following their conversations (and Ty's monologues), adding some little details time to time.

He was amazed. After spending a few hours in their company he could understand why "Blackthorn Detective Agency" had this reputation.

Kit looked at the clock on his hand and stood up. “I'm sorry but I have to go.”

It was almost 6 p.m. His father would wonder where he was.

“All right,” Livvy said. “Come here tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. Or earlier.”

Kit shivered. So early. But he only nodded and left.

•

Kit was running down the street. The wind was blowing in his face, his lungs were burning. He could barely stop in front of the door of "Blackthorn Detective Agency". Kit took one deep breath and entered.

Ty was in the lobby, sitting on one of the armchairs. He was reading his notes, in one hand holding a calabash pipe and in the other - his journal.

He glanced at Kit. “You're late.”

“I'm sorry,“ Kit said. It was his first day - it was a bad impression to be late, wasn't it? “I didn't correctly estimate how long it would take me to get here. I promise it won't happen again.”

“Good,” Ty said, closing his notebook. He got up from the armchair and grabbed the overcoat that was on the other.

He was as tall and handsome as yesterday. Under the overcoat he was wearing clothes similar as the day before - only the shirt was green. The braces remained the same.

“Let's go.”

“Shall we not wait for Livvy?”

“She is not coming with us.”

“Oh. All right.”

Ty eyed him as they were leaving the building. “Are you disappointed?”

“Well. No. Just surprised I suppose.”

Ty seemed like he accepted his answer. They walked side by side on the street.

“Where are we going? To the train station?”

“We shall,” Ty said. “But our first stop is Ragnor's apartment because it's closer. Then we'll take a taxi to the train station.”

“Sounds good.”

They walked together in the chilly London. Kit could see his breath in the air. The streets were rather empty. Maybe it was because it was too early? Anyway, he liked it this way. It was calm.

“So,” Kit said. “Why do you choose to call yourself Sherlock? Where does it come from?”

“Livvy came up with it,” Ty said, glancing around the street. Maybe he was searching for Ragnor's apartment. “And I'm not Sherlock.”

Kit was so shocked he stopped walking for a second. Then he caught up with Ty and asked, “Wait, you're not Sherlock Holmes? Then who is it?”

“Well,” Ty said and turned towards the street on the left. “It's Livvy and I. Although she probably will disagree.”

“Interesting,” Kit said absently. This explained some things. Like why no one could tell how Sherlock looked or his age. Even if he was male or female even though most people thought it's a man.

“This is it,” Ty said and they stopped in front of a tall but narrow building, reminiscent of a tower. “I believe Ragnor's apartment is on the third floor.”

Instead of entering the building from the main entrance, they went around to the rear entrance. While they climbed the stairs (because around the elevator too many people would see them), Kit asked, “Do you have a key to the apartment?”

“No,” Ty simply said.

“You say we're going to break in?”

“Well, technically, yes. But Catarina Loss said we should do everything we can to find him. Even if this includes "some not so legal actions", in her words.”

“Dear god,” Kit murmured. “So, we, kind of, have her permission to break in her friend's apartment?”

“That's right.”

Does he know how to do that? Kit thought but didn't say it. He probably knew. This was Sherlock Holmes (or at least half of it).

They quietly sneaked throughout the floor, until Ty stopped in front of room 66B.

He frowned at it.

“What is it?” Kit said.

“It seems that the lock is not... what I expected it to be,” Ty sounded deeply displeased when he said it.

Kit signed. He didn't want to seem like a criminal but desperate situations require desperate measures.

“Have you brought some instrument to open the door?” Kit said, already looking at the lock. “Small screwdriver perhaps? Or something like it?”

“I did,” Ty said absently, tapping with his foot. He was probably thinking of other ways to open the door without breaking it. Well, with a bit of luck Kit was going to do it for him.

“Can you give it to me? I want to try something.”

For a second Ty just looked at him but did as Kit asked.

Kit took the little object and kneeled in front of the door. The lock was better than he expected from a place like this but nothing unbearable.

After a few minutes, a few clicks and pressure on the mechanism Kit unlocked it. He stood up and gave the screwdriver back to Ty.

Ty was looking at him with amused eyes. “Unexpected but very helpful. Thank you.”

Kit felt warm and smiled. He wasn't used to people complimenting him. Shyness he didn't know existed in him woke up and he just said, “Nothing special. You're welcome any time.”

Ty gave him a thoughtful look for a second but didn't say anything.

They walked in the Ragnor Fell flat. It was a rather simple room. Pale red wallpapers, boring green sofa. A dresser and a desk with a few books about Spanish language on it. Bookshelf and a few plants. In the end of the room was a door, as boring as everything else here, that was probably the bedroom.

“This doesn't make sense,” Ty said, looking around the room. He approached the desk and looked at the books.

“What? That this flat is awfully boring for a warlock to live in? If so, yes, you're right.”

“No. I mean,” Ty ran a hand through his hair. “You have a point. I suppose. But I meant that such a warlock as him would protect his own flat at least. We get into it too easy. There were no spells, no protection, nothing. This is strange.”

Kit closed the door to the apartment and stepped in it. “Maybe he just didn't have the time?”

Ty shook his head, opening a drawer in the desk. It was empty. “Between his meeting with Catarina and his arrival in London are two whole hours. After that too, if we guess he hasn't been kidnapped right after meeting her.”

“Fair point.”

Kit looked around as well, approaching the door. There really wasn't anything interesting. Most of the books were classics, the sofa looked old but unused. Kit opened the door to the bedroom which creaked quietly.

This room was even simpler. One big bed, two nightstands on both sides of it and one more wood door, probably for a bathroom or closet. At one of them though there was a frame. As Kit took it in his arms he saw it was a black and white photograph. In the middle Kit recognized Catarina Loss - she was smiling quietly with crossed on her chest arms. On the right was a tall guy with cat eyes and a big smile, maybe a little drunk.

Kit decided the man on the left was Ragnor - he couldn't imagine a guy like the other one would live in place like this. Maybe-Ragnor looked grumpy and annoyed but Kit could see in his sparkling eyes that he was happy. He probably loved his friends but would never admit it.

On the right corner with a thick pen was written 'Peru,1890'.

“Did you find something?”

Kit looked a little startled at Ty. He almost forgot they were here to investigate. Almost.

“Something,” Kit repeated. He handed the frame to Ty and watched as his grey eyes were running through the photo.

“Peru, 1890,” he said thoughtfully. “This photography is from more than 40 years ago.”

“It's the only personal piece here. Probably in the whole flat, except the Spanish books.”

“You have a point,” Ty agreed. “But this is not his-”

A sharp sound interrupted him. It was the front door. Someone was trying to break it.

Kit breath stopped. Before he could do anything Ty grabbed his arm, opened the wood door and dragged them both inside.

Ty closed the door to the narrow dark room. Kit couldn't see anything. The only material thing was Ty's body against him. A moment later they heard how the stranger broke the lock and their steps as they came inside.

To be continued...

#kit herondale #ty blackthorn #kitty #tda #tsc #the dark artifices #the shadowhunter chronicles #livvy blackthorn #kit rook #history au #alternate universe #1930s au #tsc fanfiction #sherlock holmes #sherlock au #sav's writing #my post

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weallsimpfordabi · 3 years

Text

Switching Sides (Part Six)

Find the other parts here

A/N: Two chapter in one day, I know, but I’m on a roll ☺️ y’all I apologize in advance, this is literally just smut lmao

Pairing: Dabi x Reader, Ex!Bakugou x Reader

Word Count: 2,966

Warnings: POSSIBLE MANGA SPOILERS, SMUT (I’ve literally just written sin for this chapter), choking, spanking, edging, oral (female receiving), fingering, lots of biting, unprotected sex, overstimulation, mentions of genital piercings, small bit of fluff

Tag List: @platinumbelle @sweet-bunny-writing @bunbunsblog @kimyona-san @bamboozledfck @deathmemeiverse @criminal-strawberry

———

You weren’t sure how long Dabi had been holding you, but eventually, your tears had dried out. You were instead just shaking, your breath only catching up to you in small, gasping pants. He stood up, gently pulling you up with him. You looked up at him, his guilt still all over his face. You had no idea he could even feel guilt, but it was the only look he could muster. His cocky demeanor was gone. He wrapped his arm around your waist, leading you to a door. It was only then that you noticed he hadn’t taken you to the hideout. It was a completely new place.

It was a smaller place, a little run down, but it still had a cozy kind of atmosphere. You could immediately tell it was his place. It was covered with burn marks that clearly had been scrubbed, just not well enough. A little messy, but overall still nice. He had furniture that wasn’t burned to a crisp, so you were impressed.

The door had led you to a small bedroom. Not much decoration was around. It was like it was just a pit stop for him, though the bed was definitely used a lot. The sheets were messy and the pillow cases were pretty dirty. He sat you on the edge of the bed as he got the pillow cases, walking to the living room. You heard him hitting the pillows against something, probably trying to get all the dirt off of them. You smiled softly, a giggle bubbling out of your throat as the hits got harder with his frustration. You heard him sigh as he walked back in with one of the pillow cases gone. He put the covered one back on the bed, then started taking his jacket and shirt off. You watched him, too drained to question anything.

You let your eyes wander, however, noting that the burns really did go all over his body. He glanced at you as he put his white shirt over the pillow, smirking softly before putting it on the bed. His scars were so interesting, the way they looked and where they were. You hummed, continuing to study them.

“Take a picture baby, it’ll last longer.” He chuckled, a blush spreading across your cheeks. He walked over to you, gently taking your hands into his. “Or do you want to touch them?” He asked it so quietly, like he was scared of your answer. You looked up at him, tilting your head.

“Would it be okay?” Your voice was just as soft as his, still sore from crying. He nodded, a genuine smile on his lips this time.

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t ask.” He let go of your hands, letting you free to touch his scarred skin. You hesitantly touched his abs, running your fingers over him. His eyes closed, a shaky breath shared between you two. It was so soft, though the texture was different. You were completely entranced in him, and he was as well. He watched as you looked at him in awe instead of disgust like he thought you would. Your hands moved up to his chest, your legs lifting you up so you were standing. He opened his eyes, looking right at you. You met his eyes, palms massaging up to his neck. He leaned in closer to you, resting his forehead against yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck, his lips getting dangerously close to yours.

“Dabi,” you whispered, starting to play with his soft hair. He sighed deeply, his eyes falling closed once again. You pressed a kiss to his stapled cheek, a whimper leaving his lips that surprised you both. He grabbed your hips tightly, pulling you against him.

“No.” He looked at you, boring his eyes into yours. You gave him a questioning look, and he looked down for a moment before looking back at you as he was before. “I’m gonna tell you something that I’ve never told anyone before. And I mean anyone, okay?” You nodded, and he held your face with both hands. “Remember when you asked me to tell you something no one knows?” You nodded again, leaning into his touch. “Dabi isn’t my name, Y/N. I changed it so no one would know who I was.”

“What? Well, what’s your name then?”

“Touya. My name is Touya Todoroki.” He let go of your face, looking away. He didn’t want to see your face when he admitted it. He looked out of his window, expecting some huge, freak out type of reaction from you. You took a second to process this information, your eyes widening.

“You’re Shoto’s brother?” As you spoke, things started clicking together. I don’t want to necessarily attack UA, I just have personal business that I don’t care to share with you. His words flew around your head as you put it together. “That’s why you wanted to get into UA? To see him again?” His body, which had been tense before, relaxed as he looked at you with disbelief.

“You didn’t even wonder if I wanted to hurt him?” You shook your head, wondering why he would think that. Then you realized. He was a villain, anyone’s natural reaction would be to assume that his mission was to cause pain and destruction. Before you could say anything back, he walked over to you, grabbing your face again so he could kiss you. His kiss was so deep, full of desperation to get closer to you. You kissed him back, pulling him closer to you. It was so unlike the first kiss you shared. He was just trying to annoy you the first time, as far as you knew. This time, his lips were needy, and his hands quickly followed suit. “Say it please. Say my name, I wanna hear your sweet little voice say it before I make you moan it.” Your stomach almost exploded with butterflies as you kissed him again.

“Touya,” you whispered, looking up at him. He started kissing your neck, pleading with you to keep saying it. You did as he asked, sitting back on the bed, repeating his name in soft whispers. He crawled over you, lips still attached to the skin of your neck. He started biting you gently, kissing the same spots right after. You leaned back, propping yourself on your elbows so you could watch him. He was savoring you, making mental notes of how you tasted, your curves, your little whimpers. He pulled back, lifting your shirt over your head. You help him take the rest of your clothes off, tossing them away. He took in your body, devouring you with his eyes.

“Fucking hell, little mouse, I’m gonna fuck your brains out.” His words went straight to your core, making you blush and squeeze your thighs together for some relief. He chuckled, sinking to his knees in front of you. “You’re so beautiful, baby. I can’t wait to see you begging for me. You’re gonna be a mess for me.”

You whimpered, watching as he spread your thighs. He ducked his head, meeting his tongue with your clit immediately. You moaned, head falling back almost immediately. He knew exactly what he was doing with your body, like you two had been doing this for years. He focused on your clit, tongue rubbing circles around your little bundle of nerves. One of his hands gripped your thigh tightly as the other made its way to your entrance, two fingers sinking into you. Your hand went to his hair, hips bucking up against his mouth. He chuckled, pulling his tongue away, but he continued to move and curl his fingers inside of you.

“You’re already so needy for me, sweetheart. Made my face all messy.” He leaned forward, hovering his face over yours as his fingers stayed where they were. “Lick it off,” he demanded. You did as he said, licking yourself off of his mouth. When you got to his staples, you made sure to go slow and trace the metal all the way to his ear. He groaned, using the hand that was on your thigh to grip your throat. “You’re not being a very good girl, are you?” He took his fingers out, leaving you a whimpering mess. He stood straight, admiring the sight in front of him as he unbuckled his pants. “I think I figured out a way we can use my belt, baby doll. Turn over.” You gave him a scared look, but did it anyway.

You heard him unzip his pants, and then toss them away. You ached for his touch, but he made you wait. His cool hands grabbed your hips, pulling you towards the edge of the bed so your ass was sticking up. You turned your head to look at him, but he told you to put your head down. You, again, did what he said. The belt was wrapped around your neck, tightened around, effectively making it a leash.

“You ready to find out what a Jacob’s ladder is, Y/N?” He chuckled, swinging his hand down to meet your ass with a hard snack. You cried out, the pain quickly tingling into pleasure. He did it again, kneading the already sore skin in his large palm. Then, you felt him press against your ass. It was rock hard already, and you wanted to see it. You turned over, the belt tightening and twisting around your throat. He looked at you with a darkness behind his eyes, pulling the belt even tighter. “I didn’t say you could turn over.” You glanced down, your eyes widening as you saw what you were in for. It was a lot bigger than you thought it would be, and you saw what he was talking about. A ladder-like line of piercings went down his shaft. It was slightly terrifying, but you were more excited than anything. “You really need to learn who’s in control, little mouse.” He pulled you by the belt, making you sit up so he could get very close to your face. “Because it isn’t you.”

He grabbed your face, kissing you with such a force that it made you dizzy. He bit your bottom lip, pulling back on it until you winced. He then pushed you back down, positioning himself between your legs so he could slide his pierced cock between your lips. He was moving achingly slow, making sure that each piercing grazed over your clit. You moaned his name, making his lashes flutter. He continued doing this, never picking up the pace so you couldn’t get close to your high. Though, the amount of pleasure surging through your body was almost unbearable.

“Beg me for it, baby. That’s all you have to do and I’ll fuck you into the floor.” He grabbed your hip bones, squeezing harshly. You arched, pushing harder onto his dick.

“P-please, Touya, I need you.” You looked up at him with your eyes glazed over. He smirked, shaking his head.

“Be more specific, kitten.” He stopped moving all together, making you mewl in desperation.

“Fuck me, please, I’m begging you. I need you to fuck me.” You reached up, hooking your hand around his neck to pull him into a lip bruising kiss. He moaned against your mouth, pulling away to turn your body around. He pulled you towards the edge of the bed again, his hips pushing against yours. He kept the belt in his grasp as he sank into you, making sure to go in slow. It was like nothing you’d ever felt before, his stretch burning in the best way possible. You felt each of his piercings as they slid into you as well, your hands gripping the sheets tightly.

“Oh shit,” he whispered, suddenly forcing the rest in. You almost collapsed right there. He filled you up so perfectly, like you two were made for this. He continued slowly, making you try and move your own hips to make him go faster. You were just met with a hard slap on the ass and a harsh tug on the belt, making your head start to get cloudy. Eventually, he started to quicken the pace, slapping his hips against yours. You felt your body tighten up as your high started to hit, and he noticed, pulling away from you once again. “No, baby, not yet. You cum when I tell you.”

He flipped you over again, latching onto the exposed part of your neck, biting down hard. You cried out in pain, but it was immediately drowned out by him rubbing your clit again. He moaned in your ear, nipping at your earlobe. You had never felt anything like him. He dug his nose into your neck, inhaling your scent deeply as he sunk back into you. He moaned, his vibrations against your neck making your eyes roll back into your head.

“Fuck, you’re so addicting, kitten.” He mumbled before biting your skin harshly, your hiss only fueling the fire inside of him to go harder. His room was quickly filled with the sounds of his skin slapping against yours and both you moaning loudly. You weren’t even worried about being heard by his neighbors. If he had any, anyway. You felt your high coming again, your eyes pleading as he looked down at you.

“Please let me cum, Touya.” His eyes rolled back slightly as his name dropped from your lips like honey. He groaned, nodding.

“Cum for me, baby, go ahead.” You let go, your body starting to twitch from the insane amount of sparks that flew across your body. He watched as you came unraveled underneath him, continuing the grueling pace of his hips. When you came down, he pulled out, lying on the bed beside you. “Get on top, I’m not done with you.”

You blushed, nodding as you straddled him. He chuckled darkly, shaking his head. He told you to turn around, so that’s what you did. You were a little nervous, not ever trying this position before. He sensed this, so his hands found their way to the area right above your ass, helping you get into position. He sat you down onto him, your body feeling like it had been set on fire. You started riding him, holding on to his thighs for support. He moaned, your name sounding so hot coming from his mouth.

You felt his hands wrap about both of your arms, pulling them behind your back. He folded them, holding them against your back with one hand. You did your best to continue riding him, and he sat up, his other hand cupping the bottom of your chin. He pulled your head back, making you arch backwards toward him. He then took control, ramming his hips up into you. Your eyes closed tightly, your breath getting caught in your throat. His pace was once again brutal, but you were too focused on how he was making you feel. Fire wasn’t enough to describe it anymore. It was like lightning struck, igniting a plethora of fireworks inside of you. You started trembling in his grasp as your overstimulated walls started convulsing around him. He growled, suddenly biting deep into your back, the pain sending you over the edge.

“Who the fuck do you belong to, baby? Who’s pussy is this?” He squeezed your chin, and you did your best to look back at him.

“Yours, Touya. I’m yours.”

As you spoke, he wasn’t too far away from you, a few more thrusts making him hit his own high. He continued to buck into you, both of you shaking and sweaty. When he finally finished, he pulled you off of him, laying you down on the bed. He curled up behind you, holding you close. He kissed the back of your neck, trying to catch his breath as you were.

“I think I might be falling in love with you, little mouse.” Your mind was far away, but you still heard his confession. You cuddled into him, eyes closing as you sighed deeply.

“Yeah, I think I might be too.”

#smut #dabi #mha #mha x reader #dabi x y/n #x reader #bnha #dabi is touya #dabi x reader #anime #angst #fluff #reader insert #my hero academia #boku no hero #x y/n #x you #dabi my hero academia #bnha dabi

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Alt Ending, Part 5

Hot take but finals kinda suck

First part

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Tag: @solangelo252

You’d think her body would be grateful that she was finally giving it food, but no. She put it in her mouth and instantly felt nauseous. It didn’t even want to go down her throat, and keeping it there felt basically impossible.

But Tim had looked so happy when she had tried, so she forced it down.

(Well, she forced some of it down. If he noticed that a good amount of the food she brought to her mouth actually disappeared into the sleeves and folds of her dress he didn’t say anything.)

Tim started coming by three times a day with food after that. She didn’t complain despite her discomfort, she had really missed him.

Also, he looked stressed out and/or exhausted whenever she saw him. She worried about him. They both had a tendency to overwork themselves when they hit blocks, hell she’d sometimes joined him in his week-long deep dives into cases, but now that she was an outsider looking in… she was kind of shocked she’d ever let it get that far for either of them. When was the last time he’d slept through the night? Taken proper time to clean himself, even? A while, she guessed from the deep bags under his eyes and the way his hair was frayed from running his fingers through it.

“Timmy,” she chirped.

He flashed her a tiny smile. “Hey,” he said, coming over and taking a seat beside her on the bed.

She took the bag from him and set it aside, much to his dismay, but then she reached over and dragged him into some cuddles and he suddenly had new concerns. He groaned into her shoulder.

“Bean, come on, I don’t want to sleep.”

She didn’t let go. “You need to.”

“Don’t have time.”

She rolled her eyes, bringing a hand up to start attempting to smooth out his hair. “You have to sleep eventually.”

“And I do!”

She didn’t answer, which he took to mean she didn’t believe him (a good assumption, she didn’t).

“I do! I get at least a few hours a week.”

“Wow, amazing. I take it back. You totally have a healthy sleep schedule.”

“Worry about yourself, first. You don’t sleep either,” he huffed, but he was starting to relax into her hold nonetheless.

“I’m also literally dead.”

“You used to say you’d sleep when you were dead.”

Marinette scoffed. “Well, to be fair, I thought I’d actually die when I died.”

He gave a short laugh, and she opted not to acknowledge that it was a little forced.

She yawned and laid back with his face in her shoulder. “I’m surprised none of the others have drugged you to get you to sleep yet.”

“They’re too busy drugging B --.” He winced just slightly. “They’ve just got a lot on their plates is all, I’m the least of their worries.”

She didn’t say anything about his tiny slip up, just gave a light hum to say she understood.

She didn’t dare to move until she was completely sure he had nodded off. Even then, she only did so to pick up the food he’d brought for her.

Her nose scrunched a little at the prospect of eating, but when she opened it and saw it was fried rice she perked up a little. She nibbled at her food.

Honestly, she didn’t know if it was working. It seemed to be, but then again most of the things that got better could be attributed to other causes. Her skin was gaining color again, but the bleach may have just started to wear out. She was feeling more energized, but then again she was now getting a total of four cups of coffee a day thanks to Tim and Jason fueling her addiction. Exercise was getting easier and she was packing on muscle again, but she was also working out enough with Dick for it to be explainable that way…

She didn’t know if it was working. She didn’t even know if she WANTED it to work. The plan had been ‘kill Bruce and then quickly off yourself before the others can react’ and not having an instant out was kinda problematic when it came to finishing that plan.

Not that the first part of that plan was working out for her, either. Bruce still hadn’t come to see her. She doubted he ever would at this point.

She didn’t even have a way out, as the door was automated and presumably opened by someone outside.

No. The only way she would ever leave was if she managed to ‘fix’ herself, and that wasn’t happening because there was nothing to fix! She would know. Her entire thing as Ladybug was fixing things.

She looked down at Tim. When he slept all the little wrinkles in his forehead smoothed to make him look much younger. She smiled a little at the sight, pressing a kiss to where she knew the creases usually were.

At least, even if her situation couldn’t be helped, she could still help others.

She’d come to expect a routine of sorts, so the moment it was broken even slightly her brain short-circuited.

Duke stood in the doorway as usual, but when she glanced past him…

“Where’s Cass?”

His grin disappeared a little, but he pulled his back to his face with ease. “Wow, I’m really feeling the love here, Mari.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, we both know Cass is the best person to ever exist.”

Duke nodded his agreement and came over to take a seat next to her. She cozied up to him as usual, curled under his arm as he pulled up their newest show on his laptop…

She had a lot of thoughts about Cass being missing.

On the one hand, she just missed her friend’s too-warm body pressed up against her and quiet complaints about how the actors were doing it all wrong.

On the other hand… Marinette was completely aware that they had Cass stopping by as much as she did to check on Marinette, to see if they were making any real progress with her. Cass was a human lie detector, able to detect when someone was going to be dishonest before they’d even realized it themselves, and they’d be stupid not to take advantage that. So, the fact that they were no longer making Cass drop in as often… either they thought she was doing better, or that she never would do better.

Marinette hoped it was the first. She knew it was the second.

She found it harder than usual to enjoy Duke’s snide comments about how dumb and cliche some of the characters were. She turned and pressed her face into his side. The glasses on the bridge of her nose dug into her skin.

Fuck. She was never getting out of there, was she?

She felt his free hand come up to run through her hair and she sighed.

“Duke…”

He pressed pause on the show.

“Tim told me you’re a meta, that you can control light. Can you do it for me?”

There was a beat.

“Why do you ask?”

She laughed a little. “Does it matter? Can’t I just be curious about why my favorite brother didn’t even bother to tell me that he has powers?”

“I thought you already knew. It’s common knowledge.”

She huffed. “Maybe I just prefer to be told things than meticulously look through every piece of information to figure it out.”

“What kind of bat are you?” He joked.

She winced and the hand in his shirt balled it just a fraction tighter. She didn’t respond.

There was a few seconds before he sighed and moved his hand from his hair to her chin, gently pulling her face out of where it was hidden in his side. She refused to meet his eyes.

It was silent again, neither of them sure what to say.

“Here,” he said after a moment, putting his free hand out and making light dance across his palm.

Her face lit up, literally and figuratively, at the sight of the tiny ball of light. She leaned a little closer.

“Aw, it looks like a tiny sun!”

He laughed a little. “Yeah. I can also…”

There was a moment of silence as he concentrated and the tiny ball of light split into the colors of the rainbow. She giggled, reaching out to cup his hand in hers. It was the first non-artificial light she’d seen in months, the first rainbow she’d seen since… Paris, actually.

Well, even if she wouldn’t ever see the outside world again, at least she could still have this little fake sun. It was basically the same, just as good, she told herself. She ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks that were telling her otherwise.

She tossed the plastic spoon she’d stolen from one of her meals in the air idly.

The plan had been to turn it into Baby’s First Shank but that probably wasn’t going to work out. Pen to the throat was at about a .01% chance of working, attacking him with a spoon-knife needed a few more zeroes added to that already insanely small number. She gave it a .000000001% chance at best.

Then again, the other option was trying to strangle someone who had an insane height and weight advantage to death before someone else could interfere...

She sighed to herself and put the spoon in her teeth, starting to pull.

She didn’t get very far before she heard the metallic whoosh of the door opening and she barely glanced up to see Dick.

He stared at her from the doorway, his eyebrows slowly raising as he watched her attempt to bite an edge into a spoon of all things.

She pulled it from her mouth with a ‘pop’.

“I think your eyebrows are trying to escape,” she told him.

He blinked at her before rolling his eyes and walking inside fully. “Thanks for the assist. Would have lost them otherwise,” he said sarcastically.

“I’ve seen you lose your phone three minutes after putting it down, Dickie, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

He gasped and rested a hand over her heart. “You think that low of me?”

“Lower. I was being nice.”

Dick pouted and walked over to the bed. She didn’t think much of it until he was diving onto her stomach. She put her hands out in an attempt to soften the blow, but it wasn’t enough to save her. She groaned in pain as his extremely hard head made contact with her not-so-hard stomach.

“FUCK. This is why your parents called you Dick, y’know!”

He only laughed at her.

Despite herself, she gave him a smile.

She rested her head back in the pillows for a moment (mostly just to catch all the breath she’d lost) before pushing him off. “Ready?”

He groaned into her comforter before rolling onto the floor. “‘Kay.”

Marinette grinned as she took a seat beside him, starting her usual stretches. He pushed himself up to sit with minimal groaning and started working on his shoulders.

It was quiet for a while as they stretched.

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek and kept her eyes on her foot when she spoke next: “Dick?”

She could feel his gaze on her.

“I… can I have some more stuff? Everything here is so boring. I just… I want new things to do. Or, at least, new things to look at.”

There was a long silence between them. Anxiety bubbled under her skin. She switched legs so she could gauge his expression through her bangs. His expression was carefully neutral.

She cringed.

“Obviously I’m not ungrateful! You guys have all been really nice and accommodating! I get food and a phone and, honestly, that’s fine --!”

“Mari!”

Her mouth snapped closed.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize. Anyone would be bored here. I can talk to them. It’ll probably depend on what you want.”

She finally looked at him properly, eyes wide. She really hadn’t been expecting that to work.

He slowly pulled his legs to him to sit criss-cross applesauce, head resting on his hand. “I can probably get some baking things, a sketchbook, just blunt objects in general. Deadly, but not before someone could get there.”

Marinette nodded her understanding, a smile making its way across her face.

“You’re the best.”

“You constantly say Duke and Cass are the best.”

She was torn between agreeing with herself and flattering him. Since she wanted something, she decided on flattery: “That was, like, a few hours ago. I’ve grown since then. You’re my favorite now, Dickie.”

“Can I get that as my ringtone?”

“Only if you only use it to mess with Jay.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

The door whoosed open and she barely moved her head to look at it.

She froze.

Bruce?

No. No way. There was no way in hell.

But was there? Cass HAD stopped coming. Maybe she had somehow convinced them that everything was working out and everything was fine.

Marinette hadn’t done anything differently, though, so that probably wasn’t it…

Oh. Oh shit.

Maybe she was actually going insane. Because there was no way the bats would have made that kind of mistake by letting Bruce in when she was still intent on murdering him. He had to be a hallucination, because nothing else really made sense. Kwami, Tim was going to be SO smug about this one.

Actually, no, he didn’t have to know.

Her gaze slipped away from Fake Bruce and back to the dots on her ceiling. Because, as everyone knows, that if you don’t acknowledge hallucinations they go away…

“Marinette,” Fake Bruce said, trying to trick her into outing herself as losing it.

“Marinette,” he tried again, starting his way over.

She did her best to ignore the footsteps and the way the bed shifted when he sat down. No wonder schizophrenics fell for this shit, this was all so real…

Except... weren’t schizophrenics not supposed to be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t? Wouldn’t her knowing (thinking?) he was fake be an indication that he was actually real? Or was that just her mind trying to justify believing it?

Marinette bit inside of her cheek and let herself look at Fake Bruce again.

He cracked a smile for her. A hand reached over and pushed some hair away from her face. “Hey,” he said.

She hesitated.

It would suck if this all was fake, the others would get confirmation and she really wouldn’t have a way out. But if it was real then this was her only shot. If it was real Cass would be watching the cameras to see what she was thinking and she would know for sure that Marinette was still intent on killing Bruce…

Fuck.

Marinette pushed herself into a sitting position and looked Maybe-Bruce up and down before grabbing him by the front of his suit and pulling him into a hug. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes when he hugged her back.

“Fake.”

The man tensed underneath her and then sighed as he pulled back.

He gave her an awkward smile. “I’m sorry, Marinette.”

She shook her head slightly and fell back. With a flick of her wrists the knife she’d created out of her plastic spoon was in her hands and she absently tossed it at the hallucination. Either it would make him disappear or it would look like it stabbed him and she could pretend that it actually happened.

But then it didn’t do either of those things.

Her eyebrows knit together when the spife shattered upon impact.

He looked unconcerned as he gently swept all the pieces into his hand and then put them in his pockets.

“The fuck?”

“Language,” he chided lightly.

She grinned. “You really need to work on your ‘Bruce’. Accepting a hug that quickly is one thing but chiding someone for language? In OUR family? I’m pretty sure he gave that up by Jason.”

The man chuckled and shook his head. “I’m Superman.”

“Oh.” She blinked a few times before shrugging to herself. “Okay. You look just like Bruce. It’s kinda creepy.”

“Yeah, trust me, we know. It’s pretty helpful, though. One time a person tried to assassinate Bruce and ended up fighting me. It wasn’t their day.”

She smiled a little, but it didn’t last very long. She fell back in her pillows and glared at the ceiling. “This sucks.”

“I’m sorry this all happened to you. You’re just a kid.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d long-since given up on denying that something had happened to her. Not because she no longer believed it, but because it wasn’t worth the effort. No one ever believed her when she said it.

(Could she blame them? No. She almost believed it herself just a few moments before. Still annoying, though.)

Instead of saying any of that, though, she brought a grin to her face.

“You and B should switch houses for April Fools. See if anyone notices anything.”

She really should have noticed something was up when her coffee didn’t energize her at all.

It had all been going fine. She was making Jason dispose of all the pieces of food she’d used sleight of hand to get away with not eating (she was still a little bitter about him stealing her pen and this was the most she could really do to get back at him, compromised as she was). They made idle conversation, mostly just about how Damian had got himself a new pet cat that he had named BatCat (though, apparently, they had heard him slip up and call him Charles a few times). They debated over how good that name was and the merit of Jason’s suggestion -- BatPussy, of course -- as she drank her third cup of coffee of the day.

It was about halfway through her drink that she began to notice that something was off. She squinted at Jason suspiciously.

“Decaf?” She asked, her voice worryingly sweet.

He raised his eyebrows and tried to look unimpressed despite stepping back a good half-step. “Please, if it was decaf classical conditioning still would’ve made it work at least a little.”

She opened her mouth to retort, then realized he was right. Or, at least, she was pretty sure. She couldn't seem to think of anything against it.

She frowned, looking down at her drink again and swirling the contents around. She drank the rest of it, trying to figure out why exactly it wasn’t working.

Was she already at the point where caffeine had little effect on her again? She didn’t think she was that bad yet… hell, she probably couldn’t be because she was depending on others to give her her fix…

She shook her head slightly and then quickly realized that was a bad idea. Pain stabbed through her skull and she stumbled into Jason. The plastic thermos slipped from her fingertips and went rolling across the floor. Her head crashed into his chest and arms were quick to wrap around her.

“You got shitty coffee, try a different place next time,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

He laughed a little. “Yeah, okay, kid. I’ll be sure to do that.”

She nodded as much as her headache would allow and felt the arms around her slip down to pick her up. She blinked her eyes open blearily and regretted it when the light attempted to murder her via knife to the head.

Heh. Little light particles with little knives.

Wait.

Did she get a concussion? Somehow? Without getting hit?

She buried her face in his shoulder and it was then, as he set her in bed and tucked her in, that she realized what had happened.

“Bitch,” she murmured above whatever drug they had put in her drink.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and she could do little more than scrunch up her nose and vaguely wave him off. Her eyes fell closed again.

Marinette woke up a while later.

The first thing she noticed was that the lights were dimmer, something she didn’t have to open her eyes to see because her head wasn’t pounding as much.

Then she realized a person was with her. They had entwined themselves around her, tangled their limbs with hers. They needn’t have bothered, everything felt like lead. She wouldn’t be moving for quite some time.

… why was she being held down? Oh no. That was probably bad, huh?

Marinette made a sound in the back of her throat and started trying to shift away from the person pressed against her back. She needed to see who they were. They didn’t bother to tighten their hold on her, she wasn’t really getting anywhere.

In fact, a hand stopped holding her down. Instead, it came up to pet her hair.

Oh? This was nice.

A voice by her head told her it was all okay. After a moment she realized she recognized that voice. She smiled sleepily. Cass. She liked Cass. She pressed closer to her and was rewarded with a hand rubbing up and down one of her arms.

She nearly fell asleep again. Cass was safe, Marinette was safe… the warmth against her and the soothing touch… of course, it certainly helped that the drug was still in her system and she was exhausted...

But then her mind wandered back to her first question. Why WAS Cass holding her down? Why did they drug her in the first place?

She moved so her hair could block some of the light and then cautiously cracked her eyes open.

The batboys were all moving things inside almost silently. Jason was carrying an entire fridge on his own. Dick and Damian were arguing over the positioning of the table they had just brought in through angry hand motions. Tim and Duke were working together on… was that a gaming set?

And she was being held down because the door was wide open.

Marinette looked at the doorway for just a moment longer. She allowed herself to imagine getting out and swinging through the city with her lasso, allowed herself to pretend she could lay in the grass, allowed herself to believe that she could see the sun and the stars and just breathe fresh air again…

And then she closed her eyes and sunk into Cass’s grip.

What was the point in trying? Even if she could somehow beat out all six of the people in the room with her and get past whatever security Bruce had to have outside of the room all while drugged… then what? No money or idea where she was… and she’d be running from the bats of all people…

Yeah. Useless. She curled up and allowed sleep to take her again.

Quite a while later she woke up and blinked a few times when she realized she wasn’t the only person in bed. At first she thought it was just Cass or Tim, they were the most likely culprits, but then she realized everyone had managed to cram themselves onto the bed with her. Her and Cass had gotten brushed to the side of the bed to make space for Tim, Dick, and Damian. Jason had collapsed across the end of the bed -- presumably for space, but Duke was laying half on top of him so that obviously hadn’t worked out.

Marinette smiled faintly and buried her face back into the crook of Tim’s neck.

When she woke up again, most of the drug flushed from her system (somehow…?), she thought she was alone.

This was fine. She was able to stretch out and sit up.

She blinked when she saw Damian, who was sitting on her floor and playing a video game.

Huh? Video game?

She looked around her room confusedly. The bats had basically made her a one-room apartment, complete with kitchenette and a tiny study area. Of course, it was much higher quality than the apartment she’d had, with a high tech gaming system and a little dining area and holy shit that was a MINI LIBRARY?

Wild.

“You’re finally up.”

She hummed lightly as an agreement. She crawled over to the end of the bed and smiled when he handed her a twizzler. It was objectively one of the worst candies, but she liked having something to do. She twirled it in her hand idly.

“Do you think… do you think it’s working?”

She frowned confusedly and dropped off the bed to sit beside him on the second beanbag chair. She chanced a quick glance in his direction to gauge how he was feeling... his expression didn’t let anything on other than that he was thinking hard, though she was pretty sure that was about the game.

“Gonna elaborate on that?”

He clicked his tongue. “Are you going to join the Undead Robins Club?”

She grinned at him. “I wasn’t a Robin.”

“You know what I mean.”

Her smile disappeared a little and she trained her eyes on the game. “I don’t know.”

“You know we never will know for sure, right?”

She blinked. She hadn’t expected anyone to acknowledge it. They were the bats, they were never going to chance taking off her glasses because if they were wrong and she WASN’T better… well, it wasn’t the kind of mistake they could easily come back from.

“Yeah, I know,” she said after a few moments.

“Do you care?”

“Doesn't really matter if I do. It won’t change anything.”

He frowned. “That’s not answering my question.”

She bit her cheek. “I… yes. I care. It still doesn’t matter.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but instead he just went back to playing the game.

“Damiiiiiiiii…” she whined and, when he gave a vague grunt to show he was paying attention, she continued with “... shouldn’t I get to play first? It’s mine.”

“You slept in too long,” he said without looking up.

She huffed. “Only ‘cause I was drugged!”

“Unfortunate.”

She got off the beanbag chair and whacked him over the head with it. He barely acknowledged it outside of an annoyed click of his tongue.

She huffed and pulled the chair back to herself to sit again. “Is it two player?”

“Nope.”

“You’re a bitch.”

He clicked his tongue again.

She pouted for a little while longer before looking back at the screen with a smile. “... heard you got a cat named Charles. Wanna talk about him?”

Damian’s face lit up. “Can I?”

“Only if you let me play.”

He looked pained. If he gave it to her then he’d be giving her something she’d want, which was a sibling no-no, but if he didn’t then she probably wouldn’t listen to him gush about his cat. A few moments went by before he reluctantly handed over the controller.

She beamed and scooted her chair over to rest her head on his shoulder. She could feel him stiffen underneath her but, when she didn’t move again outside of what was necessary to play the game, he relaxed again.

“I thought you were going to listen,” he chided lightly when she didn’t take a break between levels.

“I can listen and play.”

Damian sighed a little and shook his head.

“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want --.”

“I’m getting to it! So, he’s a black cat that apparently hadn’t been adopted because everyone thought he was evil so the pet store was going --.”

Marinette noticed something was up the minute the door opened.

First of all, it was Duke and Damian. That’s all that really needs to be said. Those two together… it’s never a good thing.

Secondly, they were there as Signal and Robin. Most of the time the others avoided even talking about their lives as vigilantes for fear of setting her off in one way or another, but here they were showing up in their suits? No, something weird was going on.

“Hey, Mari, can we skip a fight and you just put a bag over your head and let us pick you up?” Tried Duke.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You want to…? Huh?”

“We don’t really have much time to explain. I’ll tell you on the way.”

Damian held up a potato sack and some twine, which really wasn’t all that encouraging.

She hesitated. “... what’s something only you two would know?”

“Really?” Said Damian with more than a little exasperation.

“Hey, we’re all bats here. I’m not moving until you prove you’re who you say you are.”

(Technically, if they were really Duke and Damian, they could fight her and do it anyways. She probably couldn't beat both of them at once. Still, that kind of fight would hurt all of them and she really didn’t want to have to do it at the moment.)

Duke hesitated before shrugging. “Your favorite ice cream flavor is mint. Which I don’t understand. Just brush your teeth if you like that taste so much.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Alright, you’re who you say you are. Robin?”

“… early on I lied and said that Nightwing’s real hero name was actually BatNightwing to mess with you both.”

She frowned. “I forgot about that. You’re a dick.”

“No, Nightwing’s a Dick. He’s a Damian.”

Marinette was THIS CLOSE to fighting them anyways.

But she didn’t. She was kinda curious about where all this was going. So, she allowed them to bind her hands and slip a bag over her head. Arms wrapped around her -- she didn’t really care who it was -- and she was lifted off the ground. Then, they were walking.

Part of her wondered if this was some kind of test. They were checking to see how compliant she was or how likely she would be to run once outside. Maybe they had Superman on call in case she tried to escape.

She really couldn’t tell.

She didn’t think that they had any reason to take her out of the perfectly safe and well-stocked place they had put her in.

Maybe her location had been compromised and they were moving her to a backup? No, that didn’t make sense. Duke made sense for transport, Damian didn’t. Damian was one of the worst fighters in the family (he was in no way BAD at fighting, of course, it was just a byproduct of being in the game the shortest amount of time and not being a meta) and he was the second most likely person to end up fighting her after Jason. What the fuck?

Wait, Duke said he’d explain on the way.

“What’s going on?”

“New idea on how to bring you back,” said Duke simply.

Well, she guessed that was more information than she’d previously had. She’d take it for now.

She heard a quiet whooshing noise and frowned confusedly, only to feel herself get set down… somewhere. She felt carpeting underneath her, which meant she was in… a house? No. A car, she thought as she noticed the quiet hum of an engine. She’d been put in the fucking trunk. She kicked out as much as she could without knowing exactly where they were and gave a cry of protest, but then the lid was clicked over her head and she was thrown into uncomfortably complete silence.

She scowled to herself. She shouldn’t have thrown her spife at Superman, it would have been really useful right then. She tested the bindings against her hands and winced at how tight they were. Did they really use zip ties? Those were notoriously bad for circulation.

… oh. Yeah. She was dead. That actually wasn’t that bad, then.

Still annoying. Hard to get out of. Assholes. She wondered if it was worth dislocating her arms…

Yeah. Probably. If she could get out then she would be OUT.

She flipped herself onto her stomach. She pulled her feet up to her arms and then started pushing back. Her body strained in protest and she bit down on the front of the bag over her head to stop herself from making any sounds.

And then she felt a pop in her left shoulder and a flare of pain and the makeshift gag wasn’t enough to hold back her sobs. Her arm throbbed and it was only made worse when they reached the city proper and the roads started getting choppy. Every little bump in the road sent a new wave of pain rolling through her and all she could do was ride it out.

They started hitting smoother roads what felt like hours later... it was kind of concerning because she had no clue where they could be, those were uncommon in Gotham, but at least she no longer felt like she was going to die every few seconds.

She took a few seconds to bring her breathing back to normal before she started slowly wiggling her arms out under her butt and legs and then they were in front of her. Great. She picked herself up as much as she could in the tiny space, checked her angle mentally, relaxed her muscles, and then dropped down on her shoulder to get it back in place.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. It felt weird and still kind of hurt but at least it was mostly better.

She pulled the bag off of her head and relished in the slightly fresher air.

She looked down at the zip ties on her wrists and she sighed a little. Time to do that hack that looked stupid but actually worked if the kidnappers were stupid enough to leave you alone.

She brought her feet up, untied the laces of her shoes, and tied them back around the ties. Then she set to work trying to saw at the zip tie.

She paused when she heard the low rumbling of a plane. Were they near an airport? Oh. That was going to be a problem. She went faster.

Unfortunately, Marinette didn’t get very far before there was a click and the trunk opened.

She cried out in pain at the sudden light and squeezed her eyes shut, turning to press her face into the carpeted interior.

Hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the trunk. Before she could do much to look around so she could get her bearings and make herself a portal, the bag was forced over her head again and a strong grip on her arm (the good one, thankfully) kept her from pulling it off again. Then someone knelt in front of her and fixed her shoelaces.

“Really, NightMare?” Duke said, unimpressed.

“In my defense, I was left unsupervised.”

Damian scoffed.

Someone picked her up again and she sighed as they carried her along. They were definitely at an airport. She could hear people milling about. She was sure it was Gotham, too; she could feel a few stares, but most people seemed comfortable with the vigilantes among them.

Then came the normal airport stuff. Walking. Some arguing over whether she counted as luggage or if she could go through the metal detector with them. Sitting. A little chatting with civilians. More walking. More sitting. Very light chatter, just formalities and asking for drinks (Duke, who she figured out was the person carrying her, slipped a box of orange juice up her bag so she could have something). And then they were in the air.

After some time in the air the bag and zip ties were removed. She kept her eyes closed to let them adjust to light naturally and instead focused on rubbing feeling back into her hands.

One English alphabet later, she opened her eyes.

They were in a private plane (or was it a jet?), which explained why it was as quiet as it was. Damian was drinking a glass of water and reading something on his phone. Duke was nibbling at some complimentary pretzels and working a Rubix Cube. They both glanced in her direction from time to time, but they seemed pretty confident that she couldn’t do anything while they were in the air (which was true, but annoying).

She looked around a little more and found that there were no other bats.

“Um… where’re…?” She trailed off, unsure.

They stopped glancing in her direction, ignoring her and her question. The frown that had been on her face since pretty much when they’d first taken her from the room deepened.

“Do they… do they know what’s going on?”

The silence spoke volumes.

She rested her head in her hand. “I’m going to need something stronger than a juice box for this.”

Duke sighed but called a friendly looking woman inside to get her some wine. Marinette and Duke sipped at a glass each (Damian wasn’t allowed any, something Marinette took a little too much joy in). She scrutinized the two over the rim of her glass.

“Are you going to explain or let me guess? Because letting me guess is going to end up with me assuming you’re doing something way worse than you actually are.”

Damian sighed a little. “It’s hard to explain.”

“We’re in a plane. I’m going to guess we have time. Start talking.”

“We drugged them all -- except Orphan, she’s just out doing patrols and won’t know what’s going on for a good few hours -- and grabbed you.”

Duke gave Damian a pleading look to make him continue for them.

Damian, reluctantly, put down his phone to talk. “Signal and I have an idea on how to bring you back from the dead. The others won’t like it, especially not Red Hood, so we’re making the executive decision to not ask.”

Marinette didn’t know a lot about when Jason had been resurrected, it was a sensitive subject so it was avoided pretty much at all costs. All she’d gathered was that it was a rather messy experience for everyone involved.

She rested her head on her hand and then looked back down at her drink. She snatched the bottle from the table and, when Duke protested, set him a glare and started drinking directly from it. They were actually going to bring her back through probably shady means. She was NOT drunk enough for this shit.

She got stuffed in a suitcase when they left, which was extremely insulting (and a little embarrassing, if she were honest).

She rested her head against the side of the suitcase and listened to the dull thrum of people talking on the other side. She vaguely recognized the language, both Nino and Damian both spoke it when frustrated, but the words were all Greek to her.

Well, they were all Arabic, but you get the point.

She didn’t even realize she had been asleep until she was awoken. Rather abruptly. The zipper for the suitcase was opened and she tumbled out. Marinette cursed in French as she hit the ground and laid there, her entire body aching from not moving for so long. She hadn’t known her face could get pins and needles, she wished she could go back to her blissful ignorance.

“Are you sure about this? You want to save her?” A woman’s voice said above her, sounding a little skeptical.

Marinette forced herself to roll over so she could glare at whoever it was, she knew when she was being insulted, and then she blinked up at the new person.

A tall woman with dark skin and hair and a body to die for stood above her, hands on her hips.

“Holy shit, Dami. You got terrible genes. She’s gorgeous and you’re… you? What?”

Duke hid laughter behind his hand and Damian scoffed.

Amusement flickered behind Talia’s ‘I could kill you before you could even scream’ expression. “I’ve changed my mind. I like her.”

“Cool,” said Marinette as she quickly pushed herself to her feet. Her body wasn’t ready for that, but that was the least of her concerns. The pretty lady was ushering her along and Marinette wasn’t going to hold her up if she could help it.

“How did you die?” Talia said, which was an interesting choice for conversation.

Marinette shrugged, though, unconcerned. “I don’t know, really, there wasn’t this ‘oh, wow, I’m dead’ moment. My guess is I either drowned in acid or died of dehydration at some point. Does it change anything or…?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Oh. Good.”

“... do you not know why you’re here?” Asked Talia carefully after a moment’s contemplation.

Marinette shook her head. “Nah, they’ve been avoiding telling me. I assume it’s painful.”

“... yes. Very.”

The four lapsed into silence after that.

Marinette felt weirdly on edge as they walked through the facility, her hands rubbing the goosebumps that were prickling along her arms. The further they walked, the more on edge she felt. They were approaching something unnatural, something so undeniably WRONG, and she needed to GO.

But Damian and Duke were behind her, probably sensing her unease, and running ahead would only get her there faster… so she walked.

She bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to ground herself.

But, the moment they stepped into the room, she froze.

Green water. That apparently hurts.

Acid.

“FUCK.”

Duke was ready for her to run, apparently, stood in front of the only exit and ready for a fight before she could even get a full step away from the hell that awaited her.

“No no no no no no wait it’s fine I actually don’t mind being dead it’s fine guys please --.”

Damian grabbed her arms and she choked out a sob,

“Damian god damn it I was kidding about the mom thing you’re perfectly attractive or whatever I promise I really didn’t think it would hurt you that much we don’t need to do this let’s tALK IT OUT --!”

“It’s not about that --!”

Duke managed to get a hold on one of her legs and lifted and all she had to struggle against either of them was a foot and she was SO fucked --.

“PLEASE DUKE PLEASE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I DID BUT I PROMISE I CAN BE BETTER YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GO I’LL BE FINE WE CAN FIGURE SOMETHING OUT PLEASE --.”

Talia grabbed her last leg and she sobbed as she thrashed around uselessly. They started dragging her towards the acid. Nothing to do no way to run no help in sight no --.

“PLEASE! I PROMISE I’LL BE BETTER PLEASE JUST LET ME GO!”

And they did. They let her go and she fell into the acid.

#did i forget what the name of this was at some point #maybe #its whatever #alternate ending #alternative ending #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #harley quinzel #harley quinn #joker #maribat

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lovingrosewho · 3 years

Text

Fake Dating (pt. 3)

Part 1 // Part 2

Here’s part 3! As usual, I hope you enjoy and any feedback is highly welcomed! 💕

MULTICHAPTER

Pairing: Crowley x Reader

Rating: T. More fluffy this time

Word count: 1.3k

Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester need your help with a case, which involves pretending to date the King of Hell.

Warnings: I think none, some cursing maybe

The evening goes as planned. You don’t talk much except for the occasional question directed at you, so you mostly dedicate to eat, report to Sam and Dean discreetly on your phone, smile, and squeeze Crowley’s hand under the table. He’s been a charm to be honest, his entrancing smile and deep chuckle could definitely make anyone fall for any lie, you’re not surprised he’s sold sin to saints for centuries.

It’s weirdly... easy, pretending to be a couple. And you’re astonished to see and listen just how much he knows about you just by indirect comments with the boys. Your favorite bands, your favorite color, he even knows you think roses are lame, and much deeper stuff, about your family, your past. It could be catalogued as weird, but thing is, it isn’t. It just seems normal. And truth be told, you know a lot about him as well. All those late nights doing research on the bunker’s library, on your own, with just the company of a single lamp and a pile of books, and him popping in, looking for the Winchester brothers, not realizing what time it was, trying to make just a little of small talk with you, it surely looks like you picked one or two things about him. It’s nice, not having to pretend to hate him for once, but quite the contrary, you can, for a few hours, let him peck you on the cheek and smile, or kiss each others hands, taking special care on the knuckles, running your fingers mindlessly on the surface of the skin of either your legs, palms or arms. Yes, it’s nice.

Now it’s been almost three hours and you think you’ll go crazy if you hear one more anecdote about some luxurious art gallery where rich people go to satisfy their ‘spiritual needs’.

“Excuse us but,” you say when they’re finished speaking “we should get going. You know, Queen and King of Hell and everything”.

Crowley’s eyes spark when you refer to yourself as the ‘Queen of Hell’.

“Of course!” the lady says in a tone you don’t quite like “But wouldn’t you prefer if we moved the party to our house?”

You consider the possibility for a second, if you could get there, perhaps you could help Sam and Dean too. You look at Crowley, who is watching you expectantly, waiting for your verdict. When he sees the silent sign for approval, makes an affirmative gesture.

Crowley pays the whole tab, which you’re certain wasn’t cheap, but he insists and doesn’t even let you nor your companions see the bill. Not that, being the King of Hell, matters a lot, apparently. You get going, driving along the shifters on an, also fancy, surely private, cab. The whole drive you don’t talk and you can barely look at Crowley, but his hand never leaves yours, and you’re relentless to let it go even if it seems, and probably is, wrong, given the facade is supposed to be over by now. He respects the silence filling the space, and keeps to himself any kind of comments he might have about the evening, or about you, conforming with watching you admire through the car window the few snow flakes that have started to fall from the sky.

About thirty minutes later, you arrive to a medium-sized house, considering you were expecting a mansion.

“What is this?” you ask quietly to Crowley.

“They’ve got plenty of houses all over the country, this one might just happen to be near, they move all the time” he explains in a shrug.

Even if Crowley’s explanation seems logical, you still have a bad feeling right in your gut, you take a firm grip at the silver blade you’re carrying to at least be prepared.

When you enter the household, the coziness of it immerses you; wooden floors and warm light surrounding you all of a sudden. You’re frankly impressed and glad to have left the luxurious side of it all back at the restaurant, but when you turn to Crowley, his face tells you something’s off.

“Everything alright?” you mutter closely to him.

“Yes, it just seems... weird. There’s no security system in this one and, one other minor detail, where are the Moose and Squirrel?” he mutters equally. Damn it. You forgot.

“Maybe they got the house wrong?” you keep speaking the same way, but the shifters interrupt you, conducting you to the living room, taking your coat off your hands and putting it on the rack. You obey, following carefully, looking for Sam and Dean on every corner, until they push a button at the side of the switch, hence you and Crowley are surrounded by metal walls, being left with only the center portion of the living room, meaning, just the sofa, a rug, and a lamp on top of the end table, the room being illuminated only by that single light, leaving you almost in gloom. You immediately take out your phone, but of course, it reads ‘no signal’.

“Ah” Crowley expresses “There’s the security system”.

You look at him in irony and turn to the nearest wall, punching it several times, like if it was gonna make a difference.

“You really thought we wouldn’t recognize a stupid hunter whore?” the shifters say through the wall.

“Bite me!” you scream, punching the metal again, taking your silver knife out and stabbing it too, only causing it to blend and almost break. You throw it furiously across the room and Crowley barely dodges it.

“Somebody’s got a temper” he mentions but regrets it the moment you storm towards him, ready to beat him too, he catches your fists in the air and backs you against the wall, his hot breath against your mouth “Easy there, love. I’m the last person you should be aiming your dandery nonsense to”.

“Really?!” you yell, liberating from his grip, not being able to control yourself “Cause it seems to me you set this all up and now you’re gonna snap someplace else and leave me all on my own!”

He rolls his eyes in a bored way.

“In case you haven’t noticed, which wouldn’t turn up as a surprise given the insane amount of anger you have in you as of now, there are devil traps right in this wall,” he starts pointing at the right one “and that other one”.

He’s right. The light makes it hard to perceive, but there are devil traps set with stainless steel all over the right and left walls.

“They’re not idiots, love” he tells you calmly “They know what they’re doing”.

“I should have known...” you say, more to yourself than to him.

“Kitten...”

“I should have fucking known. Fucking stupid. Flashed by the decor. Fuck!” you scream. Crowley comes up to you and engulfs you in a hug. You shake him off and walk a few steps away “Leave me alone”.

He looks in awe at you.

“You’re not about to behave like five hours ago, are you?” he exclaims, not exactly angry, but unsettled at the very least “Are you really going to pretend we didn’t share a moment back at the restaurant?”

“I said. Leave. Me. Alone” you repeat, going to the furthest corner of the room, sitting down and bringing your knees close to your chest. Crowley stares at you in disbelief.

“Suit yourself” he says, tone still calm but more severe.

A couple of hours pass. Room is still dim, the only light creates some harsh shadows and the temperature has started to drop since you’re in the middle of January. You can’t help the shivers, and the cold metal on your skin isn’t helping at all, but you’re too prideful to walk by the sofa, where Crowley is.

“Love...” he murmurs, trying to sound irritated still, watching you “You’re gonna freeze to death over there. Come here”.

You don’t make a single move, but are tempted to. Degrees keep lowering by the second, every time you exhale, a puff of steam comes out. Even thinking about a way out is becoming more and more difficult, with the lack of heat you’re unable to concentrate.

“Love?” Crowley calls again, this time there’s more concern in his voice. Your mind has started to drift, it feels as if any minute you were about to faint or quake uncontrollably. Lights begin to fade, Crowley’s voice too, your body seems to be shutting down to prevent you from going into shock from the unbearable cold.

Part 4

MASTERLIST // TAG LIST: @enby-thesbian (if you’d like to be tagged feel free to let me know! 💕)

#supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #crowley #crowley supernatural #crowley x reader #crowley spn #crowley x you #crowley x y/n #supernatural masterlist #supernatural multichapter #multichapter #crowley multichapter #crowley x reader fic #crowley x reader fanfiction #crowley fic #crowley fanfiction

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lunar-lair · 4 years

Text

Bakusquad Headcanons

Uhhhh idk how but I ended up with a ton of headcanons for these dork kids, so uh. Here I guess??

After Bakugou really settles into the group and begins to let them actually physically touch him, Ashido's hand is basically constantly buried in his hair, especially when she's comforting him. Of course, she does this with all the others too, and has been doing it with Kirishima since their middle school days, but she's always saying Bakugou's is the fluffiest. ("It's just cause I use the best conditioner," He'd always huff.)

Kaminari has this habit with all of them. He'll put his pointer finger on some part of their body-usually their cheek, since that makes them laugh more for it's cuteness-and let a small, sm all static shock run through their skin. It never fails to make them laugh, and along with his jokes, he's one of the best at cheering people up in the team.

Whenever they're all cuddling, and one of them is cold, they snuggle up with Bakugou, and he'll heat up his hands like he does before he blows something up. But it's just really nice and warm. Not a bad warm either. Plus, he just runs warm anyways. (So does Kaminari-he's got electricity running around in his veins, they're gonna be warm-and Sero's not bad himself, but they don't have that advantage. (On the contrary, Kiri runs pretty cold, and Bakugou calls Mina 'barbie' just because she's basically freezing all the time.))

Any time Bakugou gets the chance, he'll just idly braid anyone's hair that's long enough to braid; aka, everyone except him and Mina. It's just really relaxing for him.

They all have these special hoodies, shirts, whatever, that they wear when they're real unhappy or just feeling really cozy comfy warm and shit and it's real easy to tell which one it is, so they just adjust the way they treat that person to accommodate

They all brought a bean bag a bit into the year that was their favorite color and they're all just piled in Sero's room cause he has the most room.

After realizing saying 'we need to talk' is a bit daunting, the squad made a little code phrase for when it's Serious Talk Time, whether that means later or now, and it's "I've got a story to tell". They decided on it pretty early on, but late enough that Bakugou was willing to participate in said talks in the first place, obviously.

They always have excellent nail polish, make up, whatever. Mina's pretty good at it, and Bakugou had fashion designers for parents. He wasn't getting out of his childhood without some Knowledge. Anyways, they're always perfectly presentable. It's great.

The whole squad is constantly secretly trying to destroy all of Kiri's crocs. Shh, don't tell.

Bakugou is entirely infuriated with Kaminari and Mina's hair, 24/7. Kaminari's won't settle down from it's staticyness for more then two seconds, and Mina's is just fucking untameable. He doesn't like Sero's much, since it's not long enough to do as much as he can with Kaminari's, and it's th ick, bitch. Kiri's is the most agreeable when it's down.

At some point, they bought a giant teddy bear. They only bring it out when someone is in severe emotional destress. It is The Happiness Bear. It has a few rips and burns and torn off fur, from Kiri, Kami Baku and Mina, and Sero respectively.

None of them agree on music choice. Mina likes bubblegum pop, Kiri's about more somber stuff, Sero listens to indie, Bakugou listens to rock, metal, and pop-punk-that scene-and Kaminari just listens to whatever he comes across. He had some really obscure music on his playlist, some emo, and even some shit like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, sittin right next to Ricky Montgomery and The Altogether. He's the most agreeable when it comes to listening with others, but theirs is always a bit...too much for him, since he's in the middle. Think of him as the circle and everyone else laying just outside the circle. The circle can't really expand, but the points aren't as broad. He's gets along best with Kiri and Sero, since he had plenty of chill music on his list, and some real obscure indie-ish shit somewhere. Bakugou likes some of the darker stuff he's run across, like Autoheart. He used to be REAL into All Time Low, but burnt himself out on their music. He knows every song, and every lyric; he doesn't hate it. It's just not his first pick. And then he's still got some shit like Owl City and Fun lurking around somewhere, and that's the shit Mina likes. Basically, he gets the most band recommendations, and gives the most.

Bakugou gets REALLY into Autoheart and Lincoln, shit like that as he gets older and mellows out-kinda like mid 2nd to 3rd year and on?-since it's still that kind of depressing feel but it's a lot more lowkey.

Kiri gets DE EP into The Altogether and Ricky Montgomery, and maybe Cavetown and The Oh Hellos, Sleeping At Last, Alec Benjamin...all those almost-sleepy singers, who sing about both sad and happy shit with the same calm tone.

Kaminari gets just,,,,SO into The Wrecks for like,,,,a month, with their party music vibe that's almost All Time Low but with more energy this time.

Mina's always been a Beyonce and Owl City stan, man.

Sero doesn't mind Owl City, either, though; got that kinda tone to it, yknow? Absolutely into Fun.

Skskdkdk sorry I got into a BIG tangent,,,,I just know so many obscure bands that they'd like man

Also I hella projected onto Kaminari bc I feel like he's that dork to be into a song called "Favorite Liar', another called 'Mediocre At Best', one called 'Agrophobia', and ANOTHER called fucking 'Light'.

Also he's definitely into Mother Mother. That's a must. Sero might be too.

Might make,,,,,a separate post abt that

Kami and Sero rlly like fall

Mina's a winter gal

Kiri's all for summer

And Baku's all bout spring

They have had multiple discussions about scars for no reason other than to discuss something.

Kami is ALWAYS letting off a static shock of SOME KIND and he shocks the first person he touches when he wakes up. Once he did this to Jirou and it partly fried her buds for a while, it blew Bakugou up because he had just walked in from his jog, it conducted with some of Mina's acid and fucked her over, etc etc. So Kirishima is always sent to wake Kaminari up, and all of them have rubber gloves on hand early morning just in case he wakes up before Kiri can be the first to touch him and he groggily tries to touch anyone

Bakugou's room smells like caramel due to nitroglycerin smelling like it 24/7, and it's calming as hell, so that's where they go when they need a good calming cuddle pile

They always do a group hug before and after dangerous missions

...just in case.

They go to the park at least once a month bc why tf not? And they always hog all the swing sets. Bakugou usually goes on a jog.

One of Kaminari's favorite ways to fuck with them is to let his hands hum with just a small bit of static and then POOF up their hair

It's always hilarious

Especially on Bakugou, since it just makes it kinda,,,,poof mo re??? It's hilarious trust me-

If Sero could make a conductive kind of tape, him and Kami could totally have a type of electroweb attack. Or maybe if Mina's acid could conduct well enough she could like spread all over the ground and it would work as a way to direct his electricity his pointers may not help with. Like zeroing in his electricity in little spots under villian's feet and giving Kami good control in the ground too and it could cause less damage! Plus maybe if he lost his pointer or smth she could put it on the villian and then they would get electricity right to the skin? Idk something like that

Hm...his combos with Baku are limited. It's possible he could like coat his hands with his sweat and then Kami could blow it up himself if his quirk is out of commission? Or his arms; we know they get recoil in canon. But maybe he could soak something in the nitroglycerin using the grenades-just open em i guess?-and then set it ablaze?? It'd have to be a PRETTY special case tbh

If civilians could possibly be harmed Kiri could act as a lighting rod,,,,using a lightning rod attacked to his head?? Or some super conductive clothing or something. Idk.

Everybody knows you could bathe Kiri in the sweat and then he'd ignite it no prob

Sero could swing one of them (or multiple) and then 'oh shit a flying bomb/rock/acidic substance/electricity plants comin ur way' i guess

Idk. I swore to God Baku was my fav but I'm bein real biased towards Kami. Sigh...oh well. I'll work on it later. It's late.

#this got fuckin long #but i have;;;;no regrets #take it. it took like and hour anf a half to make lol #bnha #bnha headcanons #bakusquad #trash talks

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himbowelsh · 4 years

Note

your fics are amazing ❤️ can i have anything about baberoe but julian also appears in the fic🤣? thank you so much ❤️

This is probably way more than you wanted, doll, but here you go!!

It’s been a long time since Gene picked up a late shift at Smokey’s Bar. Longer than he’s proud of, really. Medical school don’t pay for itself, even on a scholarship, and it’s a stretch to think that changes on an intern’s salary. Just because his daily routine is filled with a lot more triages and tracheotomies now doesn’t mean he’s forgotten where he came from.

Hell, Gene spent two years in this cozy backstreet establishment, serving drinks well into the midnight hours with his textbooks stashed just below the counter. The job at Smokey’s was the only reason he could afford an apartment at the time; without it, he might not‘ve even had a shirt on his back. The regular crowd was always great, the bar’s owner was a true gentilhomme, and there was no hard feelings when Gene left to start his internship. Smokey accepted it with grace, and everybody wished him well.

Of course, if he’d known he’d be back just a few months later, he’d have protested the going away party.

“You’re a real lifesaver,” Smokey declares as Gene steps back behind the familiar counter. “Skinny’s out tonight — something about helping his Granny with her pet cat, which I’d be glad to believe, if I didn’t know for a fact his Granny lives across the country — and we called Blithe about ten times, but no answer there.”

“It’s no problem.” Gene offers his old boss a thin-lipped smile, running hands hands lightly over the oiled bar top. It’s been a while; best to get the feel of the place before the night rush arrives.

“It is, though, Gene. Big favor you’re doing me. If you ever need anything —“

“Don’t worry about it.” Maybe in two years he and Smokey got past the point of “boss and employee”. Gene wouldn't call them friends, but they’re close enough. Helping out a friend is just what you do, and you don’t complain about it. “I’m happy to be here. Missed these old walls more than I realized.”

Smokey barks out a laugh. “Yeah! See it every night, and you get tired real fast.” The bar door rattles open without warning, ushering a familiar crew — half a dozen guys, all with the same swagger and grins on their faces. “Same old ugly mugs each night, too!” Smokey exclaims, brightening like the sun’s come out at midnight. “Not sure why we let you guys in at this point!”

“You’d go broke without us, Smoke!” Bill Guarnere’s voice is loud as ever, and as rowdy as Gene remembers it. “You know we pay half the bills ‘round here.”

“Lose us and you lose your nightlife too,” Floyd Talbert adds with a grin, already stripping off his heavy jacket.

The atmosphere is familiar; every corner is known, and fondly remembered. Across the room, a 90s rock beat pulses from a pseudo-modern jukebox, all but rattling that side of the building. Smokey’s has got a dance floor, a pool table, a dartboard... everything a person could need for a rowdy night out. “Except the dancers,” Smokey said once. “We tried to put in these nice cages, but seems like you need permits and all that. Why waste the money when Luz gets up on the tables after a few drinks for free?”

It’s a respectable place, and a cozy one. The city will never feel like home — home to Gene is warm air, thick as honey against your skin, the symphony of the bayou floating around you like zydeco in the night air — but Smokey’s is close. The closest Gene feels anywhere in the city, and he’ll take what he can get.

Gene settles back behind the bar, and falls into the familiar dance; he still remembers all the steps, and hasn’t lost his touch yet. Smokey’s isn’t a cocktail place; Gene’s job is generally restricted to serving up beer and chips, with the occasional harder drink coming in. He can toss together a good whiskey sour, and his Dark and Stormy’s are excellent, so he’s been told. It shouldn’t be this easy to pick up the old rhythm again; his days since leaving Smokey’s have been filled with nonstop work. The nights he isn’t on shift, he spends studying, memorizing so many conditions and treatments that there shouldn’t be room for anything else. The brain works in mysterious ways, though. This old job carved grooves into his memory, and he slides back into them now without even having to try.

George Luz grins at him, loudly proclaiming how good it is to have Gene back. “Place just wasn’t the same without you, Doc,” he declares, and a round of cheers from Luz’s group echo their agreement. Muck and Malarkey team up on him, pestering him about how work at the hospital is going. Gene suspects they’re only in it to hear the stories every doctor acquired over time. He humors them with one about a man who’s ent swimming in the buff, ending up with a fish stuck where no fish should ever be. Offhandedly, he tacks on a mention about the frequent cases of alcohol poisoning they get in the ER. Plenty of gory detail to go into there. From the grimaces on the duo’s face, and the way Muck eyes his third beer of the night warily, they definitely get the message.

A ruckus near the dance floor rings out, distracting Gene from mixing a whiskey-and-lime. His hands fumble with the bottle; it nearly slips from his grip, but he catches it without looking. The commotion is much more interesting. some spaghetti-limbed kid, all deer-in-the-headlights, is squared off against Roy Cobb, who’s already had one drink too many. Flushed and surly-eyed, Cobb steps up into the kid’s face, rearing up like a pissed off moode.

“You think I can’t hear you? What, you think no one in here hears you running your mouth?”

“Christ, buddy, I didn’t say a word about you!” the kid replies, stumbling back a clumsy step. “Why don’t you siddown, huh?”

“Don’t need to sit down, don’t need you to tell me —“

Now, Smokey’s isn’t the sort of place where fights break out as a rule; sometimes men get a bit riled up, but it rarely turns ugly. When it does, they’ve got Bull on hand to break up any fight before it can start, and probably break some costly furniture in the process… but it’s Bull’s night off. By now, the rest of the bar’s taken notice of the fight. Tension thrums through the room like a live wire, sparking off and just itching to catch on something. Everyone’s watching them, and no one’s looking towards the other side of the room. Gene does, and he spots the kindling.

Bill Guarnere, fists clenched and face red, is slicing straight through the crowd. At his heels is another kid, gangly, with a mop of messy ginger hair; he looks twice as pissed off as Bill, but doesn’t wear it quite as threateningly.

Gene moves forward without a sound, setting his drink on the table. In a few seconds, the situation’s gonna get three times worse. Better snuff it out before they get the chance.

“Cobb.”

Gene’s the quiet sort by nature — but when he wants to, his voice can ring through a room, cutting over shouts and curses as clear as a roll of thunder. Before he spoke, he might as well’ve not even been in the room. Suddenly, every eye’s on him, and Smokey’s is silent. He braces himself against the bar, red-hot gaze trained on the troublemaker. “Come here.” One hand gestures Cobb over; it’s not a suggestion. “Free drink for your trouble. Sit down, we’ll talk.”

“Don’t need to talk,” Cobb replies, voice dropping low and rough. The kid takes the opportunity to remove himself from the situation, scurrying back to his friends’ side. Bill Guarnere claps him on the shoulder, and sends a glance towards Gene; his nod, short and grateful, is all it takes to finish the threat off. Reluctantly, with the tension broken, Cobb trudges towards the bar and accepts the beer Gene slides towards him.

“Now,” Gene says, strictly business. “What’s goin’ on with you? You tell me, I’m here to listen.”

Offering an ear to a drunk’s sorrows is always a shot in the dark. God forbid Cobb disappointed. Gene ends up spending the next forty minutes listening to Roy Cobb’s woes about his job, his girl, and everything in between — until his last drink’s done, and he’s vented enough that he no longer seems ready to snap. Gene calls the taxi for him, and sees him out.

It all goes smoothly after that. Not an interesting shift; for his first time back, and probably his last time, Gene’s a little let down. At least on his last night there was cake. Tonight, all he gets it a thank-you text from Smokey, complete with copious emojis, and a few “see ya, Gene!” and “thanks a lot, Gene!”s at last call. Once all the patrons have cleared out and the bar’s gone dark, Gene lingers in the doorway for just a minute before locking up. Just one more minute… and then he’ll say goodbye to the old place. For good, this time.

“Aw christ, Julian, my goddamn shoes!”

A shrill voice echoing from around the corner… kind of kills the moment.

Uncertain, Gene lets the door fall shut, and hastily turns his key in the lock. Something about that voice is familiar, but he can’t put a finger on it. There’s no one else in sight, not even any stragglers from closing time… but as he tucks his key in his pocket and rounds the corner, the source of the disturbance makes itself painfully clear.

Some idiot is sticking ass-first outta the dumpster.

“No!” The idiot’s friend exclaims, bouncing on his heels as he tries to grab hold of a thrashing, sneaker-capped leg. “Get out of the — get out — this ain’t my job! Do I look like your mother to you?”

“Ain't my kink, babe,” echoes a voice from within. One second later, and the set of legs vanished completely; the dumpster consumes its victim, leaving nothing behind but a loud rustling, and the clank of limbs against metal.

I don’t want to know, Gene acknowledges, weighing the situation like a detective at a crime scene. I don’t need to know. It’s late. I’m tired. I’ve got a shift in twelve hours.

“Everything alright here?” he blurts out, before god-given common sense can talk him out of it.

The friend turns on his heels, with a soft grunt of surprise. Immediately, Gene realizes why he sounded so familiar — the head of messy red hair is familiar, as are the lanky limbs and the telltale freckled Irish skin. Bill Guarnere’s buddy, in the flesh.

Since it’s definitely not Bill in the dumpster, Gene’s got a good clue who it is.

“Your buddy’s recovered well,” he observes, crossing his arms, “from the mess earlier.”

“Huh? Yeah! He, uhh — shit, he sure has. We don’t make a hobby outta this, you know.” The kid goes to run a tired hand over his face, then seems to think better of it. There’s a puddle of liquid near his feet, with the telltale sheen of half-digested liquor. His eyes are haggard, mouth twisted up like he’s not sure whether to laugh or scream. Maybe it wasn’t an awful night for Gene, but someone’s clearly taking the brunt of it.

“I hope not,” he observes, cocking his head slightly at another thud from inside the dumpster. “Strange sorta hobby.”

“It’s just that Julian — well, he’s an asshole, right, and he ain’t used to drinking like the rest of us — lightweight. You know how it is. He don’t have any rights.” As if to emphasize the point, the kid aims a kick at the side of the dumpster. From within, Julian yelps. “We try not to give ‘im too much, but he was real rattled from the whole thing, so we thought —“

“I remember.” Gene distinctly recalls Bill Guarnere’s unusual order, and the effort it took for him to remain stone-faced through it. “Vodka schnapps.”

“Yeah. A fuck-load of ‘em.” The kid offers up a smile, crooked and half-desperate. Whatever the hell his heart does in the moment, Gene isn’t prepared; it feels like a mini heart attack. To cover up, he hastily turns his gaze back on the dumpster again, making out like he’s more concerned than he really is. “I was gettin’ ready to call an Uber, but my phone — if some jackass hadn’t tried snatching it outta my hands, and then not let go ‘til it went flying —“

“Blamin’ me? Babe! Butterfingers!”

“Shut up, you!” Butterfingers Babe aims another kick at the dumpster’s side. This time, Julian shouts . His friend doesn’t seem a bit concerned. “Just find the damn thing!”

“You got an iPhone 6! ‘S right where it belongs!”

“You wanna buy me a new one?”

Julian has to pause, like he’s genuinely considering it. Butterfingers Babe taps his foot. Eugene crosses his arms and waits.

“Like hell,” Julian finally declares, and a new round of thunks echo from within the garbage can.

“Okay,” says Gene. That’s all it takes to get Butterfingers’s attention back on him, like for a moment he’d genuinely forgotten Gene was there. As soon as their eyes lock, though, the kid flashes him a smile like Gene’s never seen before — downright fluorescent, definitely lit up by liquor, but something more, too. Gene’s never smiled like that at a stranger; hell, he’s never smiled like that in his life, and definitely never had one sent his way.

It takes a minute for his thoughts to snap back on track again, still wavering dangerously, like the kid’s grin has shot the wheels right out from under him. “Okay,” he says again, clearing his throat. “Uhh, if you want, I can just call you a ride.”

“Nah, that ain’t your job. Thanks, but you don’t gotta —“

“I don’t mind.” Gene shrugs, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans to hide them from the biting cold. “Don’t actually work here anyways, so…”

Butterfingers Babe’s brows furrow. Slowly, he tilts his head.

“You mean, you… just walked in and started pouring drinks, then?”

It takes an inhuman amount of effort for Gene to hide a smirk. “Yeah. Call it a hobby.”

“You can do that? Holy shit.” The kid stamps his foot on the ground, turning to the trash can as if genuinely forgetting that his buddy can’t react back at him. “Did you hear that? Julian! We could take over a bar for real!”

“Always been your fantasy, babe, not m— ahh , god dammit, there’s a rat!”

As the eight circle of hell echoes from inside the dumpster, Butterfingers turns his wide grin back on Gene. “So, how do you even — like…” As his words trail off, his smile calcifies at the corners, before crumbling away. “Hey, you’re yanking my chain, arentcha?”

Now Gene really can’t help it — he smiles, quick and unashamed. “Sorry.”

“You really got my hopes up.” He doesn’t look too upset, though, even as he drags a hand through his struggle hair and shakes his head. “Damn. New plan, Jules.”

“Call,” shrieks Julian, “the police! The army! Satan!”

“Must be the name of the rat,” Gene observes sagely.

Butterfingers crosses both arms over his chest, and takes a step back, bracing against his heel. Gene mirrors the casual posture. The both watch for a few moments, enjoying the show, as Julian apparently wrestles with one of Philadelphia’s notorious cannibal street rats and emerges victorious from the fray. At last, he breaks into fresh air, exploding from between bags of garbage like the parasite in Alien . His black hair is a scruffy mess, there are scratches on his cheeks that he’ll definitely need some shots for, and when he thrusts his arm into the air, a banana peel dangles from it.

“I found it! I found your goddamn phone!”

“Amazing,” Butterfingers drawls. “Now can we get outta here before my nose freezes off my freakin’ face? All the booze in the world can’t make tonight warm.”

Julian makes a noncommittal noise, and suddenly vanishes back into the garbage bag abyss again, like someone’s grabbed his leg and pulled.

“For chrissakes , Julian!”

“He always like this?” Gene can’t help but ask. “I mean… has he done similar stuff, in the time you’ve been…” Butterfingers stares blankly at him. Gene gestures vaguely, as if that stands a chance of making his meaning any clearer. “I mean. Not to be rude.”

“You ain’t being rude. He’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, but…” Gene clears his throat, intensely uncomfortable. “Did he do this on your first date, too?”

“Dating?” The word escapes the kid’s mouth in a squawk loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Gene jumps, and scrambled to regain his composure; in that time, Butterfingers has already doubled over, wheezing. “Jesus, Julian, didja know we’re on a date?”

“No kidding,” Julian calls from inside the dumpster. “Y’gotts tell me these things, Babe.”

With two drunken strangers laughing in his face at three in the morning — one of them hanging out of a dumpster — Gene suddenly feels like the fool. To be fair, what else is he supposed to think — hearing Babe, Babe, over and over again?

“My name’s Babe,” the Babe in question clarifies. “I mean — it’s really Edward, but everyone calls me Babe, even my ma, though she says —“

“No one cares,” says Julian. “Now goddamn help me, huh? The rat’s comin’ back.”

Suddenly, ending this encounter as soon as possible— and saving whatever dignity he has left — is more tempting than a twelve-hour nap. Gene gestures towards the struggling Julian with renewed eagerness. “We should probably —“

“Yeah, we really should!” agrees Babe, spinning back around again. Only then does Gene feel comfortable getting closer. Somehow, with lots of trial and error, they each manage to seize hold of one of Julian’s gangly arms. With a great tug, they haul him out. He ends up sprawled on the pavement, a lot worse for wear, but with an iPhone in his hand.

“Ha ha,” he declares, and, victorious, flops backwards onto the filthy ground. “Ha ha ha, ha. I did it.”

“Sure did, buddy,” Babe agrees, snatching the phone out of his hand. His nose crinkles as soon as he’s holding it; too quickly, he tosses it back down onto Julian’s chest, wiping his hand off on the rear of his jeans. The alleyway isn’t that well-lit, but when he looks back up, Gene catches a spark of hope in his eyes.

“Hey, y’know, I don’t mean to ask —“

Gene’s already ordering the Uber. “It’s no problem.”

Grateful, Babe gives him his address, and tucks his thumbs in his pockets as Gene sends the order through. When Gene holds up the phone for his inspection, he huffs in relief. “Twelve dollars, huh? I’ll pay you back.” He goes pawing through his pants, urgency increasing when both pockets turn up empty. “Shit, I mean — when I come back again, some other night, I’ll —“

“I won’t be here.” In spite of himself, Gene feels a stab of regret. “Actually don’t work here, I was just filling in tonight. As a favor to Smokey.”

Babe huffs a laugh, and it inflates Gene’s chest, warming him in spite of the bitter January chill. “That’s real great of you.” Babe runs a hand through his hair again, almost awkward, though the way he bounces on his heels dulls any tension between them. “I mean, I still feel bad —“

“Uber’s coming in two minutes,” Gene observes.

“Right! Umm, umm, ya know what —“ Babe snaps his fingers, then suddenly lunges forward, gesturing towards the phone in Gene’s hand. “My number! Is that okay? I could give you, and then, we could just —“

“Sure,” Gene says, in the same second as Babe blurts out, “Yeah?” They blink at each other for a second before Gene echoes, “Yeah,” and Babe exclaims “Sorry”, still at the same time.

As Babe claps a hand over his mouth, he can’t seem to help snorting. “Jesus Christ, I’m a lot better at this when I’m less sober — swear to you, just gimme the chance to prove it. My number, it’s 215—“

Gene’s quick fingers tap the number into his contacts, despite the chill gradually creeping its way into each digit. He titles the contact “Edward”... and then, after a second thought, adds “Babe” in parentheses. Just to keep from mixing him up with Cousin Edward from Lafayette.

A sleek grey car sidles up to the curb. Gene checks the license plate and nods towards it.

“That’s your ride,” he says, and the weight of parting presses down against his chest until his ribs creak beneath it. “See you… around then, Edward.”

“Edward?” A squawk like that has no right to sound damn charming . “Aww, c’mon, what’d I just say —“

“Save ‘Babe’ for the second date,” Julian advises, still flat on the ground. His friend aims a precise kick to his ribs; grunting, Julian jolts upright, only to be hauled to his feet by Babe’s grip on the collar of his jacket. They lead each other forward, both stumbling over their own feet — though for Babe, that might be just the effort of leading his friend along. Or the vodka schnapps. Hard to be sure.

At the last moment, Babe looks up through the Uber’s brightly lit window and raises a hand to Gene. Gene waves back, half-smiling, until the car pulls away.

Left alone on a street corner at well past three in the morning, he sighs and tucks his phone back in his pocket. It’s an ungodly hour; he’s got work tomorrow; his schedule can barely accommodate his body’s inconvenient need for sleep, let alone falling in love.

But maybe, just maybe, Gene can fit in a few extra shifts at Smokey’s sometime soon.

#baberoe #babe heffron #eugene roe #band of brothers #hbo war

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geethedentist · 4 years

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The Sassenach Warrior

Catch up on Chapter 8 here and read this chapter on Ao3!

Chapter 9: Tea Leaves and Existential Crises

Torrential rain battered the windows. It was loud but I enjoyed the static as I sat curled up in an arm chair near the hearth with a cup of tea. My boots were strewn on the floor below in favor of woolen socks. The back of my head had a large, sensitive lump from where it had made forceful contact with the floor last night. It was now accompanied by a dull throb and minor light sensitivity. Brady had thought me unconscious, and had turned his back to celebrate a premature victory. The power I felt surging off the ground to claim the true victory was indescribable. The match was hard won but I had triumphed, and Dougal got his hands on another bag of coin this morning.

Becoming more accustomed to the fighting techniques, I determined that I had graduated to a different opponent. A larger one, whose size I could use against him. These matches were hardly about strength, and anyone who thought otherwise was surely going to lose … to me.

As Jamie entered the room I sat up straighter, stopped squinting, and tried to appear altogether non-concussed. His face was buried in an empty teacup as he sat in the chair across. “There’s an auld woman in the taproom readin’ tea leaves! Give her yer cup once ye’re finished.”

I shifted in my seat, letting my leg hang over the side. “You actually believe that stuff?”

“Well, I suppose not fully. But there’s always a voice in the back of yer mind asking if it could really be true.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes and there is another, louder voice asking how the hell a bunch of soggy leaves could know that.”

He feigned a pout. “Ye’re no fun, Sassenach.”

“Well? What did your leaves say? Oh please don’t keep me in suspense.” Waving my hand in the direction of his cup, I took another sip.

Jamie inhaled deeply, as if he seemed unprepared for me to ask him this. His voice turned serious. “Well, she told me a lot had happened to me for one so young.” He shifted his shoulders, and I knew he was thinking of the scars, Randall, the death of his father. It was silly how something like this could dredge up those memories for him. How could this woman have possibly known what his life was like?

“She said my hardships were far from over.”

I wondered what more the world could possibly do to Jamie Fraser.

“But there will be one thing to make it all worth it.”

I looked up sharply to find his blue eyes staring intently into mine. “One thing?” I whispered.

And with that, the door from the taproom banged open announcing Rupert, brandishing his empty cup. “I knew it!” He said. “I’m goin’ to be a hero in battle! That will impress the lassies for sure.”

“Let me see that!” I grabbed the cup from him and inspected the contents. “Well this lump looks a bit like a pile of shite … and would you look at that! This one looks like Dougal!”

Rupert snatched the cup back. “What do you ken? Ye dinna have the sight!”

I ignored him and looked into my now empty cup. “I’ve got a snake that’s eating itself, and what appears to be a lopsided bannock.”

Jamie was trying unsuccessfully to hide his laughter at Rupert’s rising anger. Rupert held his hands out for both cups; I gave them to him. “Ye ken on second glance, this clump does bear a slight resemblance to Dougal.”

“It would seem I have got the sight after all.”

Rupert suddenly began staring very intently into my cup. “But I would be lyin’ if I said I wasna curious about Claire’s leaves.”

I stiffened. They still knew next to nothing about me. It wasn’t that I was afraid the leaves were going to reveal my true past. But that whatever they did reveal, true or not, they would likely believe it. Sure enough, Dougal was lurking in the corner of the room as Rupert handed my ‘fate’ to Mrs. Graham.

She spent an awful lot of time with it, rotating it this way and that. She was squinting the whole time; her pale eyebrows knit together and she looked worried. I had noticed my heart had begun to knock against my ribcage. At last, she set it down on the counter. The only sound was some muffled conversation from some patrons in the corner; all the other mouths were shut for once and all of their eyes were locked on the fortune teller.

“I read yer tea leaves,” she said finally. “Here’s some whisky.”

I silently reached for the glass and took a large sip. Clearly she was about to drop a large problem onto my head. Another large problem. Why was I gripping the glass so tightly? I had just finished telling Jamie how this is a load of crap. Who was this women to tell me my fate? She could be making it all up for all I knew.

I pictured her sitting back and laughing while she watched a bunch of sorry fools running around doing ridiculous things just because they believed it was their fate to do so.

“Your life has been full of tragedy.” She began. “No family, nowhere to go back to. You are an outlander no matter where on this earth you think you can run to.”

Breathing heavily, I abruptly backed off the stool. Jamie got to his feet as well. “No… you can’t know that.”

“As for the future,” Mrs. Graham consulted the leaves again. “Should ye so choose, ye can be an integral part of something greater than yourself. It will bring ye much more sorrow, it will bring crushing defeat. But it will also bring great joy, and great passion. Ye can replace what ye’ve lost.”

All the while she was talking her voice was mounting in intensity, and I was involuntarily backing up towards the door, pricks of tears behind my eyes. With the end of the proclamation, I turned and sprinted out.

With absolutely no idea where I was going, I kept running. The woman had just laid my whole miserable life out before me, and before everyone. In times when emotions like this began to take control, the cool metal of my ring would give me comfort. I couldn’t even remember how many months it had been since I’d seen the damn thing.

Should I run off without it? Is it even worth it? All throughout this roiling confusion I was dimly aware of the pouring rain. It didn’t even matter now if I was crying or not. Also becoming apparent was the fact that I didn’t bring my weapons, my cloak, or even bothered to put my boots on. I stopped and looked down at my feet. The once cozy and inviting wool socks were now soaked with mud, and my toes were quickly turning numb.

So what will it be Claire? Go back, grab your shit, have an awkward confrontation and leave? Or shall I just keep running and lose a couple toes to frostbite? I had a nice head start anyway; everyone else was likely still standing open mouthed in the taproom.

The scariest thing was not even the harsh reminder of the death of my family. I had always considered myself a solitary person. But when she had declared that I truly had nowhere and nothing to return to, a strange weight of soul crushing loneliness had settled upon me. I had spent so much of my time trying to escape from Dougal that I didn’t even stop to think about what I was going to do when I returned to the pile of rubble that was formerly my parent’s house. My books, my wooden sword and bow, a scorched portrait of my mother lay strewn about in the ash in front of me. I don’t even remember what they looked like.

I belonged nowhere.

And it was during this insane inner turmoil when a sound materialized that appeared to be the approach of many riders on horseback. A streak of red between some of the farm buildings at the edge of town, and suddenly I was back in the glade in which I had first met Jamie. A bright red blob in a mass of green, and I stood cursing at myself to move, climb a tree, do something.

With the same absence of thought with which I sprinted out of the tavern, I was sprinting back. The need to warn Jamie had overshadowed the tea leaves, and my feet squelched in the mud as I picked up speed, barreling back through the door. Mrs. Graham was gone.

Jamie had returned to the chair by the hearth, his head in his hands. My boots were still on the floor a few feet away. It was as if I had never left, as if I wasn’t standing over his now startled face soaked to the skin and looking like an absolute lunatic.

“Sassenach, what …”

“Redcoats.” I blurted out. “You have to hide.”

“Me? You have to hide!” He spluttered.

I grabbed his hand and yanked him up the stairs. “All right we both have to hide.”

I brought him into my bedroom and we crouched just inside the door frame, across from one another. The hallway overlooked the taproom, allowing us to see below. Jamie was looking around the small chamber with wide eyes, as if he found it scandalous for him to be here. I laughed to myself at the thought. My room was a complete mess. The blankets had fallen off the bed, there were empty tankards everywhere, and to be quite honest, it didn’t smell that great.

Dougal was striding around the bar, inquiring about Jamie. “The lad’s done well to make himself scarce. I think some soldiers are headed towards this tavern.” He commented to Angus. “Although don’t ye find it strange the second that sassenach ran out of here, a whole squadron of English show up?”

“Insufferable fucking bastard. After everything I’ve done.” I groaned angrily and banged my head back against the wall; the doorframe rattled. Pain immediately radiated in all directions and I emitted a high pitched gasp, having aggravated the sore spot from my head injury the previous night.

Jamie turned his head sharply in my direction. “Claire,” concern dripped from my name, and his hand involuntarily flew up. He forced it back down again. “Are ye all right? Ye’ve been acting quite funny lately and …” He broke off,

So my strained movements and small winces of pain had in fact not escaped his notice. Of course not. He was more attentive to me than my own damn self.

“What are you talking about I’m fine.” I quickly removed my hand from the back of my head.

His eyes narrowed. “Ye never let anyone help you.”

“I don’t need it or want it. I can take care of myself.”

Whatever his next rebuke was had gotten cut off when the front door slammed open and in strode about a dozen redcoats. Loud and boisterous, they showed a complete lack of respect for the establishment. Jamie was intently scanning the crowd, undoubtedly looking for Randall. I had no idea of what he looked like.

“He isna here,” he whispered, more to himself than to me.

The redcoat in charge had made himself right at home. “Well what are you waiting for?” He sneered at the barman. “Ale for myself and the lads.”

The poor flustered man scurried about behind the bar, dropping and splintering several glasses in the process. The Englishman had taken up a seat and placed his muddy boots on top of the bar. After the fifteen or so glasses of ale had been served, the redcoat flicked a penny at the barman’s head.

“Keep the change!” The rest of the men roared with laughter.

I started to get to my feet. “He can’t just do that!”

Jamie quickly grabbed my wrist. “Yes, Sassenach. He can.”

The barman’s face held an expression of utter defeat. Jamie was right.

“What brings the patrol in today, sir? Ye’re early.”

“What? We can’t pay a visit to our favorite tavern? Didn’t you miss me?” Came the mocking reply. “Well first off, we’re about to run out of food again, so you’d better tell that little brat of yours to come load up our wagons.”

“Right away, sir.” The man’s head remained directed at the floor.

For the next hour, the soldiers laughed and drank and harassed the women serving them beer. Jamie and I still sat across from each other. We had started to toss a balled up pair of my socks back and forth.

“Ow! What did ye have throw it so hard for Sassenach?” He huffed, rubbing his eye.

I shrugged. “I was bored.”

Downstairs, the conversation had resumed. The Englishman in charge approached the bar with quite a nasty smile on his face before he spoke. “Rumor has it, you’re harboring fugitives. What’s more, there seems to be an attempt to stir up the rebellion in this very tavern! Among other illegal activities in this shitehole of a town.” Ah. The real reason for the visit.

Where the hell was Dougal?

My eyes snapped up to Jamie’s at the very second his eyes came to mine. And for the second time that day, I wanted to run as far away from that tavern as humanly possibly. I made to get up again, wildly turning my head in all directions. Jamie had risked a quick maneuver over to my side of the doorway. His hands held my forearms, and the effect stilled me. Breathing slowing down, I wondered what ridiculous thing I might have done if his touch hadn’t brought me back.

“Claire. Ye’ve got to stay put. What can ye possibly do at this moment?”

There it was again. His words had driven home the feeling of complete powerlessness conferred to us by the English. My arms trembled with anger and panic under his hands.

“Fucking nothing.”

“Nothing aye? All we can do is wait and see what happens.” He said matter of factly.

“Jamie what if they find us?” I already knew the answer to that. I would be sent to the noose and Jamie would be sent into the arms of Jack Randall. I had never thought my days as a fugitive would come to an end like this. We crouched pressed together, sharing the tiny amount of wall between the left side of the doorframe and the washstand, waiting to see what happened next.

Downstairs the barkeep, ever the Jacobite, was lying straight to the ugly bastard’s face. “I run a simple, honest establishment sir. I’ll no have ye comin’ in here accusing me o’ such a thing. Not to mention drinkin’ all the ale that I ken well and good ye have no intention of payin’ for! Agh!”

He crumpled onto the countertop clutching his face into which the redcoat had just emptied his glass.

The solider grabbed the man by the front of his shirt. His eyes were red and streaming. “See to it that you’re telling the truth then. Because there is a little English bitch and a red headed Scottish brute both of whom the Crown would love to welcome into its custody. The next patrol will be by again in two weeks. If you don’t have more food, we will be taking more coin. Get up lads, we’re leaving.”

As the last redcoat lurched out the door, Jamie and I let out simultaneous breaths. I turned to look at him. “Are you all right, red headed Scottish brute?”

“Better than ever, little English bitch. But my arse seems to have fallen asleep.” He grinned. “I want to thank ye for coming back to warn me. I ken those tea leaves really unsettled ye.”

I had completely forgotten about the tea leaves.

“Jamie!” Dougal’s voice sounded from somewhere above. He must have made his way up to the attic during the little English tea party.

“Right here, Uncle.” Jamie rose, and extended a hand down to me.

Dougal stopped in front of the doorway, and narrowed his eyes at me. “Where in the devil have you been?”

I stomped my foot and opened my mouth to give him a wise mouthed answer when Jamie gently squeezed my wrist, a sign which I took to mean shut up.

“Claire was here with me the whole time. She was the one who told me to hide in the first place. She was the one who first spotted the patrol. I should think ye can place a bit more trust in her, Dougal.” He snapped at his uncle.

I had the grace not to smirk at him over Jamie’s shoulder.

A couple days, a couple more bags of coin, and more than a couple bruises later, I was about to return to the tavern from my latest fight. Of course, it was decided that we would be leaving this town in a few days time, before the redcoats tore the place apart looking for us, and I told Gavin as much.

“Aye it seems that surprise patrol has put everybody on edge. I was actually going to close down the ring for a bit after tomorrow night.”

“Well you can be sure to see me tomorrow. I wouldn’t miss my last fight for the world.” I would miss this, and I hoped I would have the opportunity to do it again someday.

“Dinna tell anyone, but ye’re the bonniest fighter that I’ve ever seen.” He smiled. “Half the lads are scared of ye!”

“As they should be. Goodnight, Gavin.”

After going through my ridiculous ritual of hiding behind the stables for twenty minutes and then creeping up to the window to make sure the coast was clear, I caught sight of the heinous reflection starting back at me and heaved a sigh. My breath caused a bloom of fog across the glass.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.”

My left eyebrow was almost completely split in two, a dark mass of congealed blood in between. It was surely going to leave me with a lovely little bald spot after it healed, and not even a win tonight to show for it. Given only half the coin I normally receive, I groaned at the prospect of a disappointed and now spoiled Dougal in the morning.

I had been cocky and overconfident in my big genius plan and I could have split my other eyebrow myself because of how foolish I’d been. Who knows how much money I had just handed over?

Do you not think things through on purpose or are you that stupid, Beauchamp?

And yet, despite the fact that Scotland was accepting my donations to its fight for freedom in the form of Dougal Mackenzie’s greedy hands, it felt right somehow.

The footsteps were completely silent.

“Claire?”

#outlander #outlander fandom #outlander fanfic #outlander fanfiction #Jamie Fraser #jamie and claire #jamie x claire #the sassenach warrior #claire beauchamp

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turquoisephoenix · 4 years

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What's A Little Galaxy-Wide Destruction Between Friends?

A Ratchet and Clank One-Shot

Five days after saving the galaxy from the Deplanetizer, Elaris is greeted by an old friend, who wishes to talk to her, vent a little, and give her life advice. Unfortunately for her, her old friend also happens to be a freshly transformed robot version of a dangerous criminal madman that everyone believed was dead. Elaris & Dr. Nefarious friendship Characters: Elaris, Dr. Nefarious, Lawrence, Qwark (mentioned) ————————————————-

Author's Notes: I saw the movie and immediately made the connection between Elaris and Nefarious, and by god, I was going to get this down. I realize this isn't the first "Nefarious talks to Elaris about her job" fic out there, but I kinda wanted to write a version where Nefarious and Elaris were friends before the whole evil thing kinda split them apart and, despite everything, they still have positive feelings about each other. It was a challenge writing Nefarious as a mixture of absolutely terrifying and also completely vulnerable and a bit in a fragile state. It's been a bad last couple of days for Nefarious. Also I was going to explain where Lawrence came from but it also came off as more "fitting" that he just *has* Lawrence.

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

"Yep, this sure is Umbris alright."

Elaris, technical support of the Galactic Rangers and one of the saviors of the galaxy a mere five days ago, was doing a menial patrol shift above the atmosphere of Umbris with no one to keep her company.

Despite not being in her expertise and despite this being a rather boring shift, Elaris had asked to be on Galactic Ranger patrol today. She got a few questions from her coworkers - after all, today was double XP weekend and a holiday event in League of Legendaries and they expected her to be holed up in her lab for days - but she won out in the end. She took the same spaceship she normally did, a beaten up little thing that could be best described as "dependable" and "cozy" and nothing more.

She didn't want to admit it out loud, but she was getting cabin fever from being in her in the lab, just a glorified broom closet, all day. She was kinda hoping that, by helping with the Deplanetizer and helping to save the galaxy, she would at least get a bit of a laboratory upgrade as a reward. Instead, with the media breathing down their necks and Qwark doing his big apology tour, her tiny comments of "can I please get a proper laboratory?" were written down as "things to do later" as they asked the new rookie Ratchet question after question of his upbringing and his mysterious past.

And she couldn't help but feel that she was going to be in that broom closet for quite a while now.

Sitting alone in a spaceship - with no sound to greet her but the steady hum of all the ship's computers - while keeping an eye on the airspace of a muddy, near uninhabited planet was at least brightening her mood a bit and allowing her to clear her head.

Anything to get her mind off the fact that the weapons technician before her died in the process.

That was the biggest bummer of the whole Deplanetizer ordeal in her eyes. At the end of the day, Dr. Nefarious was dead. He fell from a space station onto the surface of planet Umbris and that was that. Elaris was hoping that they'd be able to arrest him and that she'd get a chance to talk to him somehow, but instead they found a barely identifiable pile of flesh that had his DNA.

She couldn't help herself. She felt sad that he had to die like that.

Her other coworkers in the Galactic Rangers thought that she was being too idealistic about her old science partner and friend, that Dr. Nefarious was too far gone even before he tried to blow up the entire galaxy with a giant laser. But she wasn't asking for any miracles. She just wanted to ask him why.

And if he was thrown into a maximum security cell for the rest of his life after she asked him what was going on in his giant skull of his, that would be enough for her. They haven't spoken in two years and it'd be nice to hear his voice again, even if his voice could not be described as pleasing to the ear.

But now she couldn't, because he was nothing but a pile of squishy goo on planet Umbris.

Fitting to her mood, as she contemplated her now dead friend, the lights in her spaceship began to flicker ominously. "No, no, no, no-" she pleaded with the ship's computer before the lighting system went dead.

"Oh come on!" she shouted to the spaceship as she was enveloped in darkness. The universe sure knew how to tell sick jokes sometimes. Muttering about budget cuts, she got up from her seat and walked towards the back where she could probably whack the power supply with a wrench until it began working again.

She didn't get that far. She entered the hallway connecting the cockpit to the other small quarters of her spaceship while complaining about how she should've checked the fuses before she left headquarters when a shape with glowing eyes detached itself from the shadows, skittered over to her position, and then suddenly pressed her against the wall in the span of two seconds.

"Don't. Sound. The Alarm."

Elaris stood paralyzed, a cold metallic claw wrapped around her face. The main source of illumination in the dark hallway came from piercing red eyes set in black, empty eye sockets of the most terrifying robot she's ever seen. It was a bony creature with sharp metal claws and fearsome wings, looming over her even in its hunched over position, smelling of the same harsh cleaning chemicals used to remove blood stains off of metallic surfaces. Acid green lighting came from the creature's skull, transparent and revealing the many horrible devices whirring within.

Her immediate thought was that some horrible zombie robot had risen from the grave and came to wreak vengeance for his fallen crew as she stared at the skeletal features. Her mind racing, she wondered just what ancient pirate curse was roaming around this sector as the creature watched her squirm.

"Elaris, it's me." the horrific creature said in a electronic voice that sounded oddly familiar. The voice was high and gravelly and grating to her ears, but it unlocked memories of several years ago when her fellow Galactic Ranger Dr. Nefarious was yelling at Qwark from another room that yes, he was still working on the Combusters, Qwark, and that if he continued rushing him he was going to shove them right up his-

"Nefarious!?" Elaris shouted, which sounded like "Mmmarmemous?" through the hand placed on her mouth.

"I am going to let you go now, and when I do, I want you do not run away or to scream or anything like that! I just want to talk!" Dr. Nefarious continued. "Got it?"

She nodded, her brain immediately noting the cosmic irony in this situation. Gently, he removed his hand from her face and quietly backed up a step, watching her as she shrank against the wall. Immediately he cackled in the kind of laughter that sounded more anxious than joyful.

"Good! Good! You're not calling the Rangers or trying to pull a weapon on me! You're actually going to listen to me that's-" he quickly broke out in a giggle that sounded both nervous and utterly deranged. "You know honestly I didn't expect to get this far!"

As the panic melted away to be replaced with a more cautious fear, Elaris could examine him more closely. She worked with sentient and non-sentient robots on a daily basis - hell, one of her coworkers was one - but he looked...uncanny.

He was breathing for one, something even the most realistic robots never did. His movements were too lifelike, from the way he could set his jaw to the movements of his eyes. He was very twitchy, his parts fidgeting in a way that was normal with organic lifeforms but looked neurotic on robots. This was not a simple consciousness transfer into a robot double as a back-up in case his organic body was destroyed; this robot clearly worked from the same blueprint as his original body.

Or was his original body, just horrifically modified.

Mentally she placed her memory of Nefarious over this creature and could pick out places where things were missing. He was skinnier, his facial features gone as if forcefully removed. If Nefarious had built himself a robot double, he would've remembered his ears and nose. Something about this robot creature seemed...wrong.

'He didn't plan this,' Elaris thought. 'Something else did this to him.'

"What....happened to you with the Deplanetizer?" Elaris asked. 'I thought you were dead' remained unspoken but very much implied. She reached out to touch him and he flinched away from her hand with a tiny yelp, a very fresh and vivid memory of pain flashing through his databanks. She withdrew her hand and he exhaled - there he was doing more things that was really creepy for robots to do - and ran a hand up his glass dome of a head.

"I survived the fall from the space station to the planet's surface. Thankfully my prototype armor suit was able to keep me from not dying, falling from a great height like that, but I was badly injured, and I was swarmed by a bunch of repair droids. They're programmed to help with situations like a rescue but they were confused. They mistook my armor's energy frequencies as a part of me so they..." a tiny sob got caught in his throat from the memory as his shoulders sagged and he looked down at his hands. "-ha...thought I was a robot..."

He paused and looked up at her and a heavy silence fell between them. The very implications of what he said hung in the air. She said nothing but judging by his changed expression, which looked absolutely wounded, her face was betraying just how horrific she found this. Another not-quite-a-robot sigh.

"...I kept telling them to stop. I would black out at times, so I don't even remember how long I was being operated on. Even when my vocal cords weren't online yet, I was pleading for them to stop. They...left a big SQUISHY pile of my removed organs and skin and bone in a corner and still I was screaming at them to reverse it!"

Suddenly he slammed the palms of his hands into the wall and his voice turned into a harsh, metallic yell.

"AT ONE POINT THEY PULLED MY BRAIN OUT OF MY SKULL WHILE I WAS STILL CONSCIOUS!"

"Oh..." She wasn't sure what else to say beyond that. Sorry? Ouch? She wasn't sure if a friendly assuring pat on the back would do it in this situation either since he seemed very adverse to touch right now.

"I needed to talk to someone - besides Lawrence -and well, I knew what your spaceship looked like, figured, oh hey, might as well talk to an old friend!"

And climb into the spaceship uninvited through an airlock and mess with the programming for the lights so that he could surprise her in the cloak of darkness without the risk of her shooting him first (because who can blame her?) but he didn't mention that.

"That's why I'm here. To vent a little and finally tell you stuff I've been meaning to tell you! You know, before my mind snaps and I become a mindless creature of destruction with my new robot body."

Elaris stared at him, trying to decipher if that last part was a joke or an actual worry of his. Nefarious always did have a dry sense of humor. It didn't help like his smile looked absolutely terrifying.

"Like...?"

Another deep robotic breath. Did he have lungs? Did the repair bots keep some of his organ systems intact?

"I want you to quit the Galactic Rangers." he said, pressing the tips of his fingers together.

"Wait, what." was her immediate reply. The gruesome metal skeleton of her former science partner was going to give her career advice?

"Hear me out! I've been meaning to have this conversation with you for a while now after I left but, wouldn't you know it, I was tied up with work." The word "work" was doing a lot of heavy lifting in this conversation. He said it real casually, like the prison escape and the faking of his own death in order to join up with a criminal and start blowing up planets was just another blip on his resume.

"Elaris, I know how they're treating you. They gave you my old office after all. You know, the one that's just a glorified converted broom closet!" She winced, his words cutting deep. "I know exactly how they behave and I know for a fact that they just treat you like a doormat and like an automatic weapon dispenser! They call you a Galactic Ranger but you're not a part of their little friend group! They see you as a nerd, a passive little thing they can push around! You're not one of them!"

"I'm a little confused..." she started, saying the understatement of the century. She didn't get this patrol shift to get a pep talk from an undead robot after all. "You come onto my spaceship, back from the dead, all the flesh torn from your bones, but...instead of asking me to join you, get the recognition you truly deserve and have all your dreams come true by storming the galaxy side by side, yadda yadda, you...just want me to hand them a pink slip and leave?"

"Elaris, despite what it looks like, I'm not trying to sound like a lunatic here." he said, dragging his hand across his face.

"I just want you to get a better job than the one you have now! I don't want you to continue to be abused by those people - by QWARK - until the bitterness inside of you grows and grows until you snap and become just. Like. Me!"

"And I'll be honest - I don't want what happened to me to happen to you! LOOK AT ME!" he said, gesturing at himself.

She was about to respond with a retort that she was positive she wasn't going to land on a planet full of repair droids while wearing highly experimental armor that confuses them and they turn her into a robot in an incredibly gruesome and long surgical procedure, but Nefarious could see she was thinking just that and held up a hand, silencing her.

"Please....just get a desk job or a job working at a computer repair store. Anything where you don't have to work with Captain Qwark. He's using you the way he did me! And trust me, he's never going to stop! He's never going to change! He'll abuse you and think nothing of it because no one cares about people like us!"

"But I won't end up like you!" Elaris shouted back, their faces so close that they were nearly touching.

Nefarious's voice suddenly dropped to a normal speaking volume.

"How can you be so sure?"

Silence fell. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, withering under his gaze as he folded his hands underneath his chin and examined her. The worst part about it was that he didn't look smug or mocking. He just looked tired.

"Why do you even care?" she asked, dodging the question.

"Because I like you, Elaris. All the other losers in the Galactic Rangers can go end up in a black hole for all I care but I don't want you getting hurt!"

Elaris had to admit, she was a little stunned hearing that come out of his mouth. 'Well, chalk that up as one positive trait for Dr. Nefarious, he actually has the capacity to care about other people while he's going about trying to blow up other planets.' she thought to herself as she tried to decipher his concern as genuine or just an insane whim.

"That's all?" Elaris asked.

"That's all." he replied. Elaris couldn't help but make a little snort of disbelief in response, causing the robot to instantly be defensive. "What?"

"Oh nothing. Just a little amused that you look like the specter of death and climb into my spaceship after returning from the dead, emerging like a horrendous butterfly out of a fleshy mound of rotting flesh, one of the most wanted criminals in the entire galaxy, but you came into my spaceship to admit you still have feelings for me."

She immediately regretted saying that for two reasons. The first reason was that she realized that she shouldn't be making fun of the madman who had just been turned into a robot. The second reason was that caused Dr. Nefarious to start ranting very loudly, and that made Elaris realize that one of the side-effects of being turned into a robot was the loss of the ability to have an indoor voice.

"Yes, YES, it sounds crazy!" he screamed. "I sound crazy right now! That's the problem with this new robot body! Instead of being emotionless, like what you'd expect when you're transformed into a robot, it's like the exact opposite happened! All of my emotions have been intensified a thousand degrees! This worry became a paranoia! My hatred is now burning with an intensity of a thousand angry suns! My bitterness is like raging venom in my heart!"

"You have a heart still?"

"I DON'T KNOW!!! See? SEE? I'm SHOUTING! I'm MONOLOGUING! I don't MEAN to shout but then it just comes out ALL LOUD AND INTENSE AND GOES ON FOREVER aaaaaand oh GOD I am losing my mind aren't I?" His last vestiges of sanity - tiny and rapidly going extinct, but still there and doing a valiant effort to keep him from being totally lost to reason - suddenly halted his rant in mid-sentence, causing him to drag his hands across his face. It's been a week for Dr. Nefarious, where being hit in the face with a wrench by a Lombax was the least of his worries.

"-please tell me I don't look like a complete nutcase right now."

Elaris sucked in air through her teeth and looked away from him in embarrassment. "Uh...do you want the truth or a little white lie?" she asked.

"I don't know! Give me whatever makes me feel better!"

"You don't look like complete nutcase."

Nefarious narrowed his eyes at her as she smiled innocently back and he looked ready to say something when suddenly a very crusty, digitized version of the pop song "Your Eyes Are Like Quazars" started playing.

"Hang on." He pulled out a cell phone out of his belt - flip phone model - and held it to the closest thing on his metallic skull that could be called "an ear". He shot her a "I'm sorry I know this looks rude but this could be important" look at her as a very dignified voice rang out from the other line.

"I do hate to bother you, sir, but you might want to wrap up whatever it is you're doing to that Galactic Ranger-"

"We're just TALKING, Lawrence!"

"-right. Anyhoo, there is another patrol ship heading your way and I'd hate for your current plans of lying low for a couple months to plot out your next scheme of horrible vengeance to be ruined because you wanted to talk to your old girlfriend."

"SHE'S NOT-ugh, fine. FINE, I'm GOING!" he said, and hung the phone up with an undignified clack of the flip phone closing in-between two metal claws.

"Just think about what I said, Elaris!" he yelled dramatically while pointing at her as he shoved his phone away in his back pocket. She wasn't going to question why he had pockets as a robot. There were a lot of things about this situation she was just not going to question.

"I wouldn't do this if I didn't have this fear that you're going to walk the same path that I did! Call it weakness or the last remaining thread of my former organic self! ...or craziness. I dunno. I'm kinda playing it by ear at this point." he said, twirling a finger in the air, as he started to move his way towards the airlock.

"Wait, before you go-"

She reached out and grabbed his hand, and when he turned to glare at her, eyes filling the hallway with a harsh red light, Elaris briefly wondered if she made a horrible mistake and that this was going to be the moment where he snaps and uses his cold metal claws to claim his first victim in a gruesome robotic rampage. But then his expression softened and he just looked grumpy, the killer robot expression fading away.

"I know you're planning something! Just promise me that your next mad scientist-"

"-Vengeful-" he corrected.

"-Vengeful scientist scheme doesn't involve the mass murder of millions of innocent people like last time. Do something, I don't know," she gestured in the empty air as she looked for the right word, "-nonlethal this time? I'm asking for the bare minimum from you. Please?"

"Why Elaris, I'm shocked." he said, placing his one free hand on his chest. "I'm surprised you didn't aim for something higher like 'quit being evil' or 'turn yourself in'. You could be saving the whole galaxy right now by stopping me!"

"You asked for something smaller, so I'm asking for something smaller. I'll keep what you said in mind. At the very least, I'm going to ask for an actual office rather than the broom closet the next time I come into work. I'll quit if they-" The 'they' meaning 'Qwark' in this case, "-start pushing me around again, I promise."

"If they push you around, push back. Push back until they bleed." he hissed.

There was something in that statement that reminded her of a day that happened at Galactic Rangers Headquarters two years ago. Dr. Nefarious - the Nefarious that still had flesh and skin - was busy stirring his coffee and talking to his trainee Elaris about the new episode of Annihilation Nation when Captain Qwark 'accidentally' bumped him while walking past, spilling it on his shirt. This caused Nefarious to throw down his coffee mug down on the ground and yell "It's a good thing we're on the same side or else you'd be DEAD, Qwark! DEAD!"

He quit several days later to start plotting an evil scheme that involved atomizing all of Aleero City.

"I will." she said with that comforting memory still hanging about in her brain. "Thanks for still looking out for me." And with those words, she let go of his arm and let the supervillain go.

He stood there, looking like he had something more to say, but then he decided to turn around and skitter into the shadows, disappearing from her sight. There was the sound of an airlock opening in the distance and then he was gone, disappearing like a bad nightmare.

Two minutes later, Elaris was able to get the lights working again in her little spaceship just as Cora radioed in and asked if everything was alright. Elaris cheerfully lied and said "sure, everything's fine, nothing's happened since you last checked in, lighting's a bit funky but otherwise nothing new!" and then she was alone again, still staring at Umbris.

As she sat back in the driver's seat and stared out at the endless sea of stars and planets stretching out in front of her, the rest of her patrol shift weighing down on her shoulders, she had to give voice to a lingering thought in her head.

"If this is just a really weird dream I'm going to be so mad."

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

Back in the current makeshift lair of Dr. Nefarious (a repurposed garage situated on the surface of planet Umbris littered with the broken corpses of several dozen repair droids), the vengeful scientist-turned-robot was brooding dramatically in a chair as his butler Lawrence polished him. He sat there, hand propping up his skeletal chin, and sighed. Giving an old friend some helpful life advice never turned out the way you wanted it to.

"So how did it go, Sir?" Lawrence asked in a tone of voice that implied that he really couldn't care less.

"I asked her to quit the Galactic Rangers, and in return, she asked me to not kill anyone in my next evil scheme." he said nonchalantly as his butler sprayed him with cleanser and started wiping his glass dome of a head. "I think she's worried about me, Lawrence!"

He didn't say it out loud, but he was worried for Elaris too. Maybe he should've asked her to join him after all. He saw the news articles coming out involving the Deplanetizer incident. All the praise was aimed at Ratchet and Qwark with nothing mentioning Elaris. He was certain that she had a hand in moving the entire space station. At least if she was working by his side, two vengeful scientists, both outcasts from the Galactic Rangers, she'd get the recognition she'd truly deserve!

The irony of him plotting out her delightfully evil future after warning her not to become evil like him didn't even cross his mind.

"Did you tell her 'why don't fret, my dear, my next evil scheme merely involves turning all organic lifeforms into robots with a giant non-planet destroying laser'?"

Dr. Nefarious laughed maniacally.

"Of course not!" he yelled, springing from his chair and knocking Lawrence aside. He was practically strutting like a peacock, his feet crunching as he stepped on discarded robot parts, as he marched his way towards a wall, where a giant red button just waited for him to slam his fist into.

He cackled in glee as the room was suddenly illuminated with the hologram of a massive, planet-sized device, the latest of evil concoctions pulled from his brain, now converted into wires and chips by the cruel hand of fate.

He called it the Biobliterator.

"I want that part to be a surprise!"

---

END

#ratchet and clank #elaris #Dr Nefarious #Ratchet and Clank Movie #turquoisephoenix tells a story #Dr. Nefarious #Fanfic #Lawrence #this takes place in the reboot universe #Implied gore #some headcanoning going on here in regards to how Nefarious got turned into a robot

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etlunainmorte · 5 years

Text

You patiently and cautiously waited for the Fury to attack you. The wounds you received from it didn't really bother you but, your inability to actually defeat it was starting to really annoy you. The others must have already retired from the mission and you knew you were the only one left in the battlefield.

You were actually used to it, being left alone by others who were physically stronger than you.

Yes, you have admirable skills as a gunslinger but, still, like most of the Devil May Cry clients, you're just a mere human. Well, Lady, the one called the Walking Arsenal, is one, however, she was clearly a lot stronger than you.

And your weakness was starting to catch up on you.

You turned around just in time as the Fury materialized right above you. You pointed your dual guns at it and fired at its face, fatally wounding it and finally bringing it down, killing it instantly.

Your arms dropped to your side as you collapsed on the ground, your chest getting heavier and heavier by the second,...

***

💙 Chat Buddies ( ?! ) 💙

***

Day 17

***

You opened your eyes as memories of that day rapidly flashed through your mind.

The moon had already risen high above the evening sky, and the little lights that adorned the picturesque city of Paris rivalled that of the summer stars.

You realized you were staying in the balcony for who knows how many hours, and it's actually starting to take a toll on your knees.

With a sigh, your dainty fingers left the metal railing as you made your way back inside the little vintage house you were renting during your indefinite stay in the city of love. You slid the glass door open, went inside, and carefully closed it. With what little amber light your lamp ( a gift from Nico ) provided for your small and yet cozy room, you made your way towards the bed, climbed on top of it, and pulled the covers over your tired body. Your hand idly reached for the lamp on the bed side table and turned it off. You desired so much for a long and peaceful slumber with a promise of a brighter and more positive tomorrow.

You pulled your favorite stuffed animal closer to your chest, curled on the side, and closed your eyes. Not a few seconds in and you could already reach a nice dream,...

Tap tap tap,...

Your eyes snapped open at the strange sound you just heard. You stared into the darkness for a while, thinking about what you just heard.

Nope, you simply thought as you closed your eyes once again. It's only my over - active imagination,...

Tap tap tap,...

There it was again! But, this time, the noises were a bit louder. You opened your eyes and turned to look at the glass door, feeling so scared fo what will happen next.

Tap tap tap,...

Came the noises once more, and this time, you were sure: someone, or something, was knocking on the glass door.

You nervously gulped as your hand reached for the spatula near the lamp. You carefully left the bed as you made your way towards the door.

Impossible! Impossible! There's no way in hell -

"(Y/N), it's me."

Came an all too familiar voice on the other side of the door. Your eyes widened as your bare feet automatically made their way towards the source of the sound like lost a little lamb wanting so much to reunite with its shepherd. You parted the heavy cream curtains and slid the door open, and what greeted you outside simply took your breath away.

His eyes widened in admiration as he scanned your features from head to foot, and his lips almost cracked a smile when he saw the weapon in your hand.

"A spatula." He began. "Against the likes of me. Really, mon amour?"

"Vergil!" You literally moaned as you breathed a sigh of utter relief. "What are you doing here?"

The tall man in blue finally smiled as he looked into your eyes with something you couldn't quite tell.

Was it,... desire?

"I will absolutely tell you, but you must, first, put the spatula down and let me in."

With those playful words, you brought the metal thing down at the same time you let your guard down.

But, you remained vigilant.

"And what if I say no?"

"Then, I will have to force my way in. And take the spatula away from your hand."

For a moment, no words were said between the two of you, and when Vergil's attempt at a cop joke finally set in, you couldn't help but giggle.

"I don't believe you!" You cracked through your suppressed giggles. "Can you even do that?"

The man's lips curled at the side as he stepped into the threshold of your home, closed the glass door, and simply walked towards you. You stopped giggling as you looked up at the man who was now glancing at you with such gravity that made you utterly powerless in front of him.

"Do not,..." he whispered as he gently touched the fist that was holding unto the tool. " ... tempt me."

"I'm not,... " you mumbled as you felt the warmth of his hand. If it weren't for the embarrassing and awkward situation you were formerly in, namely the incident with the group chat, you would have thrown all attempts at pretense and simply wrapped your arms around the guy. You missed him so much, and you cannot contain yourself from letting out your real emotions to him. "... tempting,... you."

"Then,... " he answered as his fingers slowly slid against your knuckles and carefully grasped the tool, gently prying it loose from your hand. " ... let us not start with violence, shall we?"

Your eyes followed the movements of his slender hand as it stole the spatula from yours and carefully placed it on the rosewood table near the door. And, of course, your eyes did not miss it as it touched your cheek, gently cupping it, his thumb brushing against your smooth skin.

"You haven't answered my question." You managed to say as his other hand also went up to your cheek and commenced its caressing movements.

He hummed as he brushed your (H/C) locks away from your face. "Isn't it obvious? I came here for you."

"Why?"

Instead of answering your question right away, he pulled you into his warm embrace, his arms ever so emollient against your body. He buried his face into your hair as his hands went up and down your back, giving you sweet sensations and effectively calming your nerves.

"You're not answering my calls and I'm so worried." He told you. "Were you mad at me?"

"W - what? No! I'm not. I will never be mad at you,..."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

You whined a bit as he stopped caressing your back. His hands went back to your face as he cupped your cheeks, his light - colored eyes not leaving your (E/C) ones even for a moment.

"You are still upset of what happened. I know."

You slightly shook your head as your hands went up to touch his.

"Then, why won't you talk to me? Answer me, my love, please."

My love,...

"I thought you loved someone else?" You sincerely asked, your own question seemingly making your heart twitch in slight pain. Not a good sign,...

To this, Vergil only smiled. Of course, he knew the truth about the woman called Vicky.

But, apparently, you haven't realized it, yet.

"My dearest, I love one and only one." He answered with a teasing smile.

You smiled at him and finay accepted how oblivious you were from the very beginning.

The moment you walked through that door and saw him for the very first time, you knew that the encounter, and all other things about him and you, would someday lead to this very moment. You rehearsed the words you would say to him night and day, even envisioned the moment countless of times.

But, now,...

Why must your tongue betray you?

"B - but, Vicky! She - "

You began but, his lips captured yours in a passionate kiss, drowning everything else within you. His hands left your face as he pulled you close to his body, his swift movements making your hands clutch the smooth fabric of his coat. Your hands, then, went up and snaked around his neck, making him pull you even closer to him if it's still possible. And with that subtle permission of yours, he deepened his kiss, eliciting a sweet muffled moan of pleasure from you which almost sent him to insanity.

He wanted you so, so much. He knew it right from the very beginning when you gave him that innocent look and sheepish smile as you introduced yourself. Months and months and months of denial to his ever growing feelings towards you finally led him to this moment where nothing else matters, not even his lack of etiquette for entering an unchaperoned maiden's room in the middle of the night.

But, alas! He doesn't care.

You are his, and his alone.

And him? He's yours,...

... until the end of time.

And just before the storm of passionate kisses could turn into something else entirely, he reluctantly broke it off. With shortness of breath, he observed your delicate and disappointed face as you tried to initiate round two.

"I haven't explained why I was absent for a week." He whispered. You only raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on. He chuckled as he let you go for a brief moment to retrieve something from his coat pocket.

Your eyes widened in surprise at the beauty of the antique jewelry in Vergil's hand. It was a silver - chained necklace with a simple sapphire gem.

"It's,... breathtaking." You gasped as Vergil put it around your neck.

"This belonged to my mother when she was still around." Vergil explained. "Apparently, my foolish brother traded it for money with a shady dealer who I've tracked down a hundred miles away from Red Grave."

To this revelation, you simply laughed. "Electric bills, I guess?"

"And water. Not to mention his wifi connection."

"Oh, my God,..."

"But, now, it's all yours. So is my heart, body, and soul. I'm yours, (Y/N)."

Your fingers glided on the chain around your neck as you looked up at him. But, then, your smile vanished as a small inconvenience finally hit you.

"Are you,... are you going to leave?"

"What? No! Do you want me to?"

"No!" Your high - pitched voice almost startled you. You got Vergil now. "Of course, not,..."

And you don't intend on letting him go, ever again.

"So, you'll stay with me?"

Vergil took your hands and gave each knuckle a kiss. "For as long as you like."

"How about forever?"

The man smiled proudly as he pulled you close once more.

"Gladly." He answered, then took a good long look at the room, which was slightly cluttered with art materials. After your retirement from Demon hunting, you pursued your art career, which made your life a little less boring. "But, please, don't show me that spatula ever again."

You giggled as your arms went around him. "Don't hate on the spatula."

"I'll try."

"What now?" It wasn't your intention to make your question sound suggestive but, Vergil picked up on it automatically.

"Dante and the others would definitely tease us to no end if they found out that we finally shagged."

"Oh, you're right."

You gave him a serious look and after a few moments of awkward silence, your lips curled up, imitating his smirk from earlier. This earned a confused look from the man.

So was the one question that came out of your lips.

"Wanna shag?"

"Yes, please."

***

~ TO BE CONTINUED ~

***

💙💙💙

***

#devil may cry 5 #vergil #chat buddies ( ?! )#vergil x reader #vergil x you #chat fic #day 17 #😏😏😏#shag for the win!

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mariamermaid · 5 years

Text

Sweater Weather

Bucky Barnes X Reader

Summary: Just some cute fluff

Words: 2.1k

A/N: Inspired by the iconic song by the Neighborhood

Halloween Masterlist

All I am is a man

I want the world in my hands

I hate the beach

He remembered the vague idea of the beach in the back of his mind. It was hidden within the crowded thoughts, but Steve had mentioned it. He was there with his family and his little sister Becky. And now he was there again and everything was different.

Bucky stood at the beach, the weather wasn´t beachy like at all. Grey clouds spread across the sky, from the horizon crawled up even darker ones. Far away it poured in buckets, a hint of droplets hitting his bare skin as well. The wind almost felt like punching his face at an unpleasant speed, the feeling of sand itching under his clothes and his cozy sweater. But a small smile played on his lips.

But I stand in California with my toes in the sand

Use the sleeves of my sweater

It didn´t matter to you that it would soon rain and that the palms looked like stripped down toothpicks. The sand was cold and the icy water crashing against your feet. Or the trained assassin by your side.

You were happy.

You turned to look back at Bucky, his eyes watching you closely, never leaving your body. A hint of angst, as if you could disappear any moment. Instead, you pulled the sleeve of his thick sweater, pulling him a little closer and his feet reached the hard waves as well. His arms hugged your waist, he smiled as you put a strand of hair back behind his ear. A few short strands didn´t make it into the bun, you had precisely taught him the use of bobby pins, but apparently it was too much for him. The hair tie around his wrist was already good use for Sam to make fun of him.

“What are you thinking about?” You asked him, his eyes travelling down to your lips, then back to your eyes. He shrugged. You rolled your eyes.

Let's have an adventure

Head in the clouds but my gravity's centered

Touch my neck and I'll touch yours

You in those little high waisted shorts, oh

The sun had set, just a few minutes ago and the last rays left the surface of the ocean. The back window of the van was decorated by fairy lights and you stared out the window. It was nice and cozy inside. You already wore your pajama pants, which were still short, not caring about the close to freezing temperatures outside. The smell of tea crept through the van, then you felt Bucky´s weight on the bed. A few seconds later he appeared next to you, handing you a cup with tea. His shoulder brushed against yours and then remained there. The cold metal of his prosthetic arm piercing through the clothes, touching your bare upper body. You turned your head to find him already looking at you.

She knows what I think about

And what I think about

One love, two mouths

One love, one house

No shirt, no blouse

Just us, you find out

Nothing that I wouldn't wanna tell you about no

When you woke up, which was usually before Buck, you felt your legs tangled up with his. In the night you hadn´t felt the cold sneaking into the van, in which you lived now for two weeks. But now that you climbed out the heavy sheets, you almost shivered. With a surprising amount of hand skill, Bucky and Sam were able to put a small oven into the van. You started the heating process and fetched your book, to read a few pages before Bucky would wake up. The fall weather allowed you more than ever to stay in bed all day. The sun hadn´t made an appearance in four days and it was dark and grey all day long. You spent your days reading, watching movies and talking and you enjoyed and appreciated the time. You truly did. It was a peace neither of you had for a long, long time. A warm arm suddenly reached around you, pulling you against his body, your back against his chest.

“How´s the story coming along?” He asked in a raspy morning voice.

“They´ve reached the elves now.”

'Cause it's too cold whoa

For you here and now

So let me hold whoa

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

A few days later you found yourself in probably the most stunning forest ever. All the leaves were colored in an auburn tone, some of them already fallen down. You ran through the heaps of leaves and laughed as Bucky finally caught you. Your feet left the ground as he spun you around until you both landed in a giant heap of leaves. You laughed exhaustless and your voices echoed through the trees. You couldn´t remember how long it took, but when your laughter died down, you stayed there. In an unfathomable amount of brown leaves and starred at each other. You had never imagined to be at a place like this, hell, you hadn´t even thought it was possible. The golden autumn sun reflected in Buckys blue-greyish eyes.

And if I may just take your breath away

I don't mind if there's not much to say

Sometimes the silence guides our minds

So move to a place so far away

The goosebumps start to raise

“What if we looked for a house?”

The question completely took you by surprise and you almost chocked on the spaghetti, Bucky had so carefully prepared. He chuckled, but in his eyes was honesty.

“I thought you liked the van life?”

You had been three months on the road and it was the best time of your life. But you hadn´t expected Bucky to grow ready so soon. It always seemed to far away in the future to even think about.

“I do, I really do. But what about a nice house? Maybe close to the mountains and with a view over the forest? With a small herb garden for you?”

You wanted to protest but resisted the urge. You had enough reserves to buy a house and why not? You had been together for a little more than two years, friends for five, the timing couldn´t be more perfect.

“Do you have anything specific in mind?”

The minute that my left hand meets your waist

And then I watch your face

Put my finger on your tongue

'Cause you love to taste yeah

These hearts adore

Everyone the other beats hardest for

Inside this place is warm

Outside it starts to pour

Autumn was coming to an end and you still hadn´t found a single house or apartment that you genuinely[AK1] liked. You weren´t picky but…

The first one was too big, with three bathrooms and awfully artificial. Too clean, too much of a hospital feeling and the white counter tops were cold.

The second one, was an apartment in a small city, but the neighbors were nosy and the people in the town were driven by prejudices and vanity. You didn´t feel welcome what so ever.

The third one did technically seem fine, until the realtor hit on you, tried to kiss you and therefore got his nose broken. A truly unfortunate event.

It was a catastrophe. The more you thought about it, the more you fell in love with the idea of moving into a real place. But nothing seemed to work and you had already given up the idea of happily ever after, when Bucky stormed into the van. It was pouring and a small puddle already formed under his feet in the heavy boots. There were magazines and papers stacking up in the van and taking away valuable room, you grew annoyed of them with each day.

“I think I found something!”

Coming down

One love, two mouths

One love, one house

No shirt, no blouse

Just us, you find out

Nothing that I wouldn't wanna tell you about, no, no, no

“Something.” It was a very precise description. And you couldn´t put it into other words. It was indeed something.

A house just like you wished for; small, cozy with a view over the foggy woods. The only problem? It wasn´t finished at all.

The windows hung tilted, the roof wasn´t finished and therefore not leakproof. The wooden floor was wonky, but it was gorgeous. In the way it built up when you reach it with the car, how it appeared between the thick trees. How the kitchen and living room window perfectly faced the forest, and the backyard rose above the valley. How you smelled the wooden scent of firs and moos. How the few birds left the country to fly somewhere warmer.

You walked back from the second floor; your mouth opened in awe. “It´s beautiful, but….”

The realtor was nervous, he truly was and he had every reason to. You were the last couple to even see the house, he needed to sell it. But who would want a hovel like this?

Bucky didn´t even need to ask you, he was sure, like he never had been in his life.

“We´ll buy it!”

'Cause it's too cold whoa

For you here

And now

So let me hold whoa

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

It had taken a lot of work, nights of staying up late to ensure that there were no more water leaks. Then there was a long blackout that threw you completely off from your original plans. And a heavy storm that blew around half of your supplies- all in all; it was a rocky path, but now you finally stood in the house you could call your own. Not because you bought it, but because together you made it a real home.

The thick sweater hugging your body barely gave enough warmth, the mug in your hand steaming into your face. Just like so often, you admired your newly gained view.

Two strong arms hugged your body from behind and yawning, you leaned against Bucky.

“Y/n?” He asked quietly.

“Hm?” “You´re happy here? Right? Here with me?”

Surprised by his question and the nervous sound in his voice, you sat down the mug on the ceiling. “Yes, of course! Why would you ask that?”

“Because there is something I´ve been waiting to ask you since we met…”

'Cause it's too cold whoa

For you here and now

So let me hold whoa

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

You found yourself awaking in a bed, it wasn´t the van. It felt surreal as you watched the sun fight through the clouds and the off-white curtains. Your alarm echoed and you almost flinched, but then you quickly fetched the phone.

Reminder: Dinner with Avengers, today, 6pm.

Bucky was awake now as well, he grunted tiredly but then grabbed your hand with his. The freshly placed ring on your finger was perfectly fitting. “I need to go shopping”, you explained with a whiny voice, while he kissed your hand again.

“Why did you have to promise them that we would cook?” He asked instead and you punched his shoulder playfully.

“You wanted to invite them over!”

After a short break and you staring at his still tired eyes, you brushed back his strand of hair. It felt like a deja-vu, but in a good and calming way. You knew Bucky liked his rituals; they gave him a sense of security and safety.

“You wanna come?” He shook his head and kissed your nose, while slowly but surely making his way out of bed. “Nah, I´m gonna make some good pancakes and orange juice, so when you come back, we can have breakfast together.”

'Cause it's too cold whoa

For you here and now

So let me hold whoa

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

It's too cold whoa

“And you seriously said yes?” Sam asked now for what it felt like the hundredth time. He still couldn´t believe it, Steve on the other hand, sat proudly nodding at the table. He couldn´t do more than wish you and Bucky all the best.

“Who would´ve believed that our little winter soldier could be that romantic?” Tony commented and the table erupted in laughter. A little awkwardly, Bucky pulled you by your waist to his side.

“It was you, who wanted to tell them immediately, don´t you dare forget that”, you hushed him and kissed his cheek.

“I knew I would regret it”, he chuckled. “Inviting them or asking me?”

It was his time to playfully punch you again. “Them, obviously them.”

“Well I´m happy you told us and Y/n, you cooked wonderful as always.” Thor exclaimed and raised his cup, the others joined him in the action.

“To Y/n and Bucky!”

For you here and now

So let me hold whoa

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

It's too cold

The holes of my sweater...

[AK1]

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes #mariamermaidimagine

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redeyedryu · 5 years

Text

Cross Dimensional Problems

Chapter 6 - Drained | [Ao3] | 1 | « | x | » |

Aaaand here’s another chapter! Bit shorter than last time but uh.... enjoy?

Summary: They don’t trust you; you don’t trust them.

Sans crosses a boundary but what you don’t know won’t hurt you... right?

“Hey, does anyone gotta charger that’ll work with my phone?”

The room, which had been rather loud and boisterous seconds before you had opened your mouth, is now silent. If there had been a cricket present, it would have been chirping loud and clear.

“Uh…? Is that a no?”

Stars be damned. They're all just staring at you. Again! This is like the fifth time today, what the hell guys, stop it!

“Look, the vacant staring is getting kind of old.”

Red is the first to snap out of it with a shake of his head. He's actually not scowling at you for once.

“ya gotta phone?” he asks, for some reason in complete disbelief.

“...yeah? Kind of a staple of life in my native reality…?” Are cell phones not as big of a thing here? They're not still those clunky brick phones with hella tiny screens and number pad keyboards here, are they? Man, you hope not. Also you really hope someone can charge your phone because you’ve got a lot of stuff on this chunk of plastic, metal, and glass. It would suck to be stuck with a useless brick you had spent hundreds of dollars on.

“lemme see it,” Red demands, now suddenly standing before you. His clawed hand is spread before your face in a very clear gimmie manner.

“What? No!” You protest, clutching the device to your chest. You have things and stuff in it that you would really rather none of them see!

Like the home screen, which just so happens to be a commissioned piece of you and a certain skeleton. The lock screen should be fine, you think; you doubt Deltarune means anything to these guys.

When you cast a quick, cursory glance over the room and spot Black lounging on the love seat across from you, you absolutely do not sputter and panic. The red dusting your cheeks is all because you're trying to fend off Red and his grabby hands, aiming for your phone!

Case in point: he’s currently pressed up against your back, arms wrapped around your sides and claws making grabby motions at the device clutched tightly in your hands, huddled close to your chest.

“If you don't gotta charger you can just say so!” You nearly shout, shifting your weight to keep him at your back as he moves to get in front of you.

“heh, y’actin’ real suspicious, kid. whadda ya hidin’?”

“Nothing!” you screech, voice only slightly cracking.

“c’mon, babe,” Red says and your face just scrunches automatically. “fork it over n’ maybe i’ll lend ya mine.”

You twist away from him when he tilts at just the right angle to wedge an arm over your shoulder, claws inches from your phone. “Don't call me ‘babe’, Red, that's disgusting. And for the last time, no! I don't want your phone, you've probably got like weird mustard themed porn on that thing or something!”

He sputters and falters. “wh-wha?! no i ain’t!” And you take the opening, easily rolling out from under him so you now stand a few feet away.

“Fine, regular porn! But my point still stands, I'm not handing my phone over!”

The skeleton scowls and clicks his metaphorical tongue.

“c’mon, ain’t such a big deal.” Red growls at you, a scowl spreading across his face. He crosses his arms and flops back onto the couch, jostling Stretch, who had already been seated. The taller skeleton is watching with one half-lidded eye socket, skull resting in his palm as he cozies up to the couch’s arm. He doesn't say anything, just watches as you and Red bicker.

You huff and cross your own arms, grip tightening on your phone. “Yeah, well my privacy is.”

“tch. s’rich, commin’ from someone i ain't never met who claims they know so much ‘bout me.” Red sneers at you, his crimson eyelights flashing, before his expression shifts to a downright malicious grin. “heh. betcha yer th’ one wit sum nasty shit on there.”

Excuse you? Excuse you?!

You can't formulate a proper response to the asshole’s very obvious baiting. You know what he’s doing, you do, but that doesn't make it any easier to control yourself, to formulate a cohesive reply. A quick glance around the room, from Red to Stretch, to Black, to Serif and back again, doesn't help. Maybe you were hoping someone would jump in in your defense or… or something! But no. They're all just very obviously listening in, clearly unwilling to offer you any kind of assistance—you, the weird, suspicious human who knows too much.

None of them trust you. None of them like you.

Your stomach rolls and a tightness constricts in your chest. There's an uncomfortable tingle spreading out from beneath your skin that you try to ignore. The hand not gripping your phone digs into your upper arm and you dig your nails into the flesh, dragging them across your skin in an effort to ground yourself, to distract your spiraling mind.

You turn on your heel and leave the room without so much as another word. You don't need to put up with this kind of bullshit.

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

Papyrus, Classic™ Papyrus, finds you sitting in the kitchen, alone, not too long later. You're seated at the small table you had devoured that bag of popato chisps just the night prior. Somehow that already feels like it had happened days ago.

You’re hunched over in your seat, your hair curtaining your face as you glare down at your phone. It's the only connection you have to your home, to your life, and it's sitting at a measly twelve percent battery life. Why hadn't you charged it when you were home? It's not like anything had kept you from doing so, aside from your own stupid laziness. You bite your lip and dig your nails into your thighs, relying on the pain to distract your treacherous, wandering mind.

The skeleton is hesitant to say anything at first, the tension and unease rolling off you in near tangible waves an uncomfortable pressure on his soul. You apparently hadn't noticed his entrance, too focused glaring at the small device sat on the table before you. Papyrus frowns. He doesn't know you, and your story is a strange one, but you had seemed nice enough. A little strange and worrying, but you appear to be a good person overall. So it upsets him, to see you sitting there in obvious turmoil.

He walks up beside you and clears his throat. You merely pull in your shoulders, head dipping lower. There's a shudder to your body and he isn't sure, but he thinks he hears a soft hiccup. Are you… crying?

“Human?” Papyrus questions gently, placing a gloved hand upon your shoulder. “Are You Alright?”

You choose to ignore the way you jolt at his sudden touch and sniffle, bringing a palm to wipe at the treacherous tears pooling along your eyes. You take a deep breath and h o l d i t i n. Then release.

Feeling grounded enough, you utter a frustratingly meek affirmation and hope that's enough to appease the skeleton. His hand does not leave your shoulder.

He crouches down so that his skull is level with your eye-line. From your peripheral and through the curtain of your hair, you can see the concerned, tender expression he is giving you. You bite at your lip and dig your nails into the meat of your thighs.

“If Something Is Wrong, You May Talk To Me About It, Human.”

His voice is so soft, almost pleading. It almost lulls you into giving in. Almost.

You shake your head and wipe at your face, gulp in a deep breath and then toss your head back, posture straightening. It's easy to slap a smile on your face as you address the skeleton, “I'm good, Papyrus, don't worry!” You ignore the way his sockets narrow in a suspicious squint. “Just a bit bummed I don't have a way to charge my phone. It's almost dead.”

And here, you snatch the device from the table and wave it at him and shrug. He lets his hand fall from your shoulder as he moves to cup his chin.

He appears to be pondering something for a brief moment before he looks at you with wide, excited sockets.

“Have You Spoken To My Brother?”

Your brows furrow. “Sans? No, why?” Honestly, you think he might be avoiding you. You haven’t seen hide nor hair of the monster since your little confrontation earlier.

“Well, I’m Sure You Know That He Is Quite Great—Not Nearly As Great As I, Of Course.” You nod blankly. “Speak With Him, Friend, I Am Sure He Is More Than Capable Of Putting Something Together!”

Your shoulders pull in and the grin you give Papyrus is tight. Something clenches in your chest. “Ah… yeah, that's a good idea.” Somehow you doubt you will be able to locate the elusive skeleton.

“I’M GLAD YOU AGREE!” Papyrus all but shouts as he picks himself up from his crouch. “WAIT HERE! I SHALL GO FETCH THE LAZYBONES!” And without another word, Papyrus is off and running.

The tension eases from your muscles at his exuberant exit. Papyrus will probably have better luck at tracking down his brother than you ever will. Especially considering 1) Sans can teleport and 2) He likely doesn't want to see you on the count of whatever he saw.

You sigh and slouch in your seat and fiddle with your phone. Guess you'll wait here.

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

Sans taps a phalanx across the surface of his desk as he stares at your phone.

Papyrus had searched him out earlier and proposed putting something together for you to charge it. His brother had posed it as a chance to level-up his “Friendship” with you or some such nonsense. When Sans had attempted to protest, to toss out an excuse, Papyrus had brooked no argument. So here he sits, slouched against the side of his chair, cheek propped in his palm. It was child’s play to throw together a charger for your phone. Couldn't have taken more than an hour and yet here he is, nearly five hours later, still in possession of the device on the pretense of working on it. Considering the fact it’s presently ass o’ clock in the morning, though, you likely won’t come searching him out for another few hours. Which works out for him.

Sans doesn’t plan on telling anyone and he’ll take it to his grave but he absolutely took the opportunity to snoop through your phone. It wasn’t hard, puzzling out how to unlock the device.

He stares at your now fully charged phone, the screen dim.

He had scrolled through the years upon years of photos saved in your library (apparently you never delete anything) and as much of a breach of trust it was, he appreciates the extra insight into who you are. Besides, could anyone really blame him, after what he had seen? He needed answers and sure, he could ask you but he just couldn't get a read on you like he could everyone else. Was it because you didn't have a soul? Or… did you have one? Multiples? Were you even a real person?

He groans and scrubs at his face, bones clacking and clicking upon contact. He still doesn't know how to unpack all of… that. But after sneaking a peek at the device, just a little bit of tension and apprehension about you ebb away at what he had found.

Photos of a clearly beloved pet (a stupid, hairy white dog; a beast of a hound; a gorgeous, if not derpy, cat; a slithering snake; a trilling bird).

You, smiling with who were undoubtedly your friends.

Pictures of birthdays—yours, your friends’, family’s.

Food, the ocean, an interesting rock formation, a curious number of pictures of garbage (he wants to ask about them but that would give him away).

There are reference pictures. Pictures of art likely saved from the internet of your various fandom interests. They’re sparse, but he stumbles upon a few pieces of himself, of Black, Serif, Ink. A couple of versions of himself he’s not too happy you know about (and hopes you never wind up crossing paths with). That was a bit disorienting, if not unsurprising. You had mentioned how much fan created content exists of them in your world but hearing about a thing and seeing it are two completely different things.

There are thousands of photos and at least a hundred videos. He doesn't look at everything on your phone—that would take far too long—but he is able to glean a significant grasp of your character and interests. And what he finds is… well… He’s not sure how he feels about it. Relieved? Disappointed?

You're completely and utterly normal for a human from an alternate reality. It really makes him wonder why you, how you. The mystery of it all almost makes him want to get back into the science of things, past just trying to figure something out with that malfunctioning hunk of junk in the basement. And it's not like they’ve actually been working all that hard on it lately anyway. They haven't told you, but some of them have been here for years already. Nearly a decade, last he counted. A lot of them have already accepted they're here to stay.

You had been the first new arrival in such a long time.

They're hesitant to broach this particular subject with you so soon after your appearance. Maybe in a few months’ time, when you've settled into things a bit… then they'll sit you down and explain it.

At least he now knows he’s likely not dealing with some kind of sick freak. You’re a bit weird—and the confrontation has undoubtedly raised so many more questions than answers, he won’t discount that—but harmless.

He resumes tapping out a steady rhythm against the surface of his desk as he lets his mind wander.

For the moment, he doesn't believe you to be a threat. The weirdness with your soul(?) can probably be chalked up to you being from an alternate reality. Perhaps things work differently where you are from? Maybe that's… normal for your people?

Sans lets loose a heavy sigh and sinks atop his desk, arms splayed before him and forehead pressed against the surface.

Why can't he ever just catch a break?

#Red Drabbles #Undertale Fanfiction #Reader Insert #Cross Dimensional Problems #Reverse Harem #big mood Sans. Big mood

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wilsonsnest · 5 years

Text

winter, Sweetheart - VIII - Finale

Here we come to the end. Writing this has been a hell of a journey, but its been a project I’ve been truly passionate about. Thanks to all the people who have been following along, I hope you enjoyed.

Other plans for this series: posting on AO3 after some chapter clean-up and formatting, maybe some one-shots, and i tentatively have a loose sequel idea called good things. which is pretty much what it means because this journey has been hell on wheels.

warnings: hurt/comfort, trauma, bad medical practices

Bucky knows that Steve is perturbed by his seeming lack of interest in talking about the history between them. During the mission to retrieve the Falcon’s files, Steve made every attempt to coax information about his time with Hydra out of him. Bucky shuts him down at every turn, and he’s too concerned about Sweetheart’s well-being to really care. He can tell it hurts Steve, his earnest blue eyes dimming with every prolonged silence or sharp word Bucky throws his way.

Objectively, he realizes the cruelty in his actions towards Steve. Theres a place in the back of his mind, where the jumbled remains of what Hydra tried to erase is clawing to get out. But he ignores it in favor of the mission. He can’t blame Steve for wanting to monopolize Bucky’s time, but he also isn’t in a place to cater to it either. He’s still getting used to the whole ‘expressing emotions’ bit that comes with being a human with your own free will.

He feels so off-kilter, like he wants to crawl out of his skin. It’s been a long time since he’s had to truly think for himself. Hydra had never succeeded in completely erasing his emotions, their neuroscience had never quite gotten that far. But they made up for it in their ability to instill the fear of failure in him so that hiding his emotions became a necessity. Now, suddenly and almost anti-climatically he was free from that and he had no idea what he should be doing about it. At over 90 years old, he suddenly feels like how he must have as a teenager. Emotions swinging from one extreme to the other, little things send him into a panic or threaten to shut him down entirely. His ability to multitask feels practically non-existent unless he has a task to focus on.

Right now, Sam’s well-being is his task and Steve will just have to forgive him if thats what he prioritizes.

Finding the files is easy enough, and Steve is able to send them over to Stark instantly. Bucky keeps it together enough to help Steve burn the Hydra facility to the ground. He has to take a long walk after that, and Steve is kind enough to follow him at 100 yards behind.

Steve is tentative when he asks Bucky to go to Avenger’s Tower with him, and seems surprised when Bucky answers affirmative immediately. But Bucky isn’t going to pass up a chance to get access to Sweetheart and make sure he’s being treated well.

Steve warns him that Stark, Dr. Banner and Riley Thompson will be at the tower as well. All of them have been working to help Sa-Sweetheart in his recovery. Strangely enough, it’s Riley that puts Bucky on edge. Riley is the one who knows Sam. Riley is the one who shot him anyway. Maybe his distrust isn’t so unearned after all.

Steve tells him that the surgery was a success, Sweetheart is doing much better than before. Bucky is only slightly relieved, he won’t believe it until he sees it with his own two eyes. He could barely trust the Hydra techs who had put Sam’s wings together, so forgive him if he doesn’t trust these people who hadn’t the slightest clue what they were dealing with.

Of course it’s Riley who greets them at the door, and immediately Bucky is on edge. He slinks in behind Steve, fists clenched and immediately scanning for easy exit points. It doesn’t escape him that this could be a trap. The government isn’t likely to be happy that the world’s mightiest heroes are playing nice with two ex-Hydra assets.

The tower isn’t anything like Bucky expects it to be. It’s not at all like a military base, or even an office or state building. It’s lavish, but in a comfortable and homey way that makes his skin prickle uncomfortably. He thinks of the easier missions, where all he had was a scope, a silencer and his target in sight, eating dinner in their living room unaware their life was moments from ending. He’s done it so many times, the victims all blend together.

He fears where they’ve stuck Sweetheart. Half-expecting it to be a cage or some other containment unit where they can stare at him like he’s a lab experiment. Bucky’s glowers at the thought, and he hopes Steve understands that the slightest sign of mistreatment will see him breaking Sam out of here and killing anyone who gets in his way.

When they do reach the elevator, he’s surprised to see them go up. Each floor is labeled, a few are general like Gym, Lab, Other Lab, Conference Room. But then there are names, Tony, Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Thor, Clint and to Bucky’s annoyance, Riley. They go past those floors though, until they stop and the Elevator doors open onto a cozy looking apartment. The carpet is a soft, calming blue and the walls are creamy-tan, purposely not white. The room’s lighting is comfortably dim to accommodate sensitive eyesight. Theres a couch, a coffee table and a television and two doors that must lead to other rooms.

Riley and Steve step out and Bucky follows more slowly. He doesn’t think he’s been in a room with a carpet without killing someone is the last 70 years. They don’t have to wait long before one of the doors opens and Sam steps out, alert and slightly wary. He looks at them all as if he’s analyzing a threat, and it reminds Bucky of when Sam would come out of cryo.

“Winter?” Sweetheart’s voice sounds only vaguely awed as he takes a step into the room. He’s barefoot, wearing gray lounge pants, a long-sleeved blue shirt and over-ear headphones around his neck

Bucky swallows thickly, he can’t help but stare. Sweetheart looks good, safe and comfortable. He’s even got stubble growing, and some part of Bucky’ brain distantly tells him now would be an appropriate time to cry. He doesn’t, but he drinks in the sight of his partner and lavishes in how bright and well he looks. His palm feels oddly sweaty though, in a way it never has before when they’ve faced one another after a long time.

This is completely different from the Falcon waking up from cryo.

Sweetheart stares at him for a moment longer before walking toward him, his pace measured and precise. Steve and Riley move out of the way, apparently aware that Sam isn’t about to stop for them. He stops half a foot in front of Bucky, and he looks….uncertain.

Bucky’s flesh hand lifts for a second, and then he realizes he’s reaching out and he stops, unsure. Sweetheart’s face betrays nothing except that a vague wariness in his brown eyes. It’s reminiscent of the careful blank stare Sweetheart would have whenever he came out of cryo. For a moment, Bucky wonders if Stark and Dr. Banner had to wipe him again to fix whatever the damage was.

But he sees something, Sweetheart shifts from one foot to another, a nervous tick he would have never expressed in Hydra’s presence. While the rest of his face betrays nothing, his eyes are clear with recognition.

Oh.

That’s right, they’ve never done this in front of people before. Bucky reminds himself that Steve and Riley aren’t Hydra, and even if they don’t approve, Bucky is fairly certain he can take them. He does’t consider things much further than that before reaching out and pulling Sam to him, arms wrapping around him tightly in a way that he never allowed himself before. All the morsels of affection he had given Sam had always been in dark corners, hidden from prying eyes that might see it as a weakness. But now they no longer have a reason to hide.

No one was going to take Sam away and wipe him because Bucky wanted to hold him.

He finds himself burying his face into Sam’s neck, breathing in his scent. Sam’s fingers grip almost painfully into his back, but Bucky could care less. They hold each other too tight, and it feels good, it feels grounded. They don’t let go for a long time, they just stand there and exist with one another.

Somehow they had made it.

Eventually, shakily, Bucky pushes Sam away, not far only enough so that he can see his face. The color is back in his face, he looks rested, well-fed and seeing the hairs on his chin make Bucky’s stomach flip in a good way. Sam is smiling and for a moment Bucky thinks he actually could cry. They’ve been taking good care of him here, and Bucky feels like he owes Steve a little more leeway now. Later.

He grips Sam’s shoulder gently and tries to turn him, he needs to see his wings and make sure they really are alright. But before he can, Sam stops him, refusing to move and Bucky looks at him confused. It may be the first time Sam’s ever refused a check-up from him.

Sam is gentle though, and places a hand on Bucky’s metal arm. Theres the smallest crease between his brows. “I’m fine,Winter. I do need to look at your arm though.”

Bucky blinks slowly, surprised. He hasn’t thought twice about his arm since Sweetheart became ill. It’s been working fine. Theres a bit of a stick in the rotation and his wrist and shoulder and the plates between his elbow and upper arm aren’t as tight as usual. But he’s used to overcompensating for shoddy Hydra craftsmanship when Sweetheart isn’t around.

“You’re movements are 15% slower than usual,” Sam mumbled slowly, eyes analyzing damage just from visual cues. “And it’s hanging about 5 centimeters lower than it should be.” He frowns and then looks up, brown eyes wide and imploring. “Let me help you, Winter?”

Bucky’s heart feels tight in his chest. This doesn’t have to be Sam’s job anymore. Theres no Hydra to constantly asses his usefulness in the field, and if he wanted to he could just tell Bucky to take it to Stark to fix. But Sam wants to help him, asked him even. Bucky can’t even begin to explain how relieved he feels.

His spine stiffens as he hears someone clear their throat behind him. He had gotten so distracted he nearly forgot that Riley and Steve were still in the room. Watching every single move they made.

It makes the hairs on the back of Bucky’s neck stand up and he carefully pulls his arm from Sweetheart’s grasp. He turns to face the two of them, carefully angling himself between the two of them and Sweetheart. Right, this could still be a set-up, a trap. And he was so desperately happy to see Sam that he let his guard down before it was safe.

“What do you want for this?” He asks coldly. He and Sweetheart may still be considered weapons, the people they had been long dead to the rest of the world. An asset can still be an asset, just in different hands.

“Want for…?” Steve questions, sounding legitimately confused. His face is so honest and open it almost hurts to look at him. “Bucky, we just want to help the both of you.”

“And then what?” Bucky’s tone dips impatiently. He feels Sweetheart touch his arm gently with the tips of his fingers, calming.

“I..don’t know?” It seems to dawn on Steve that he hadn’t even thought beyond that. “Whatever you want, I guess? You could do anything. You can raise chickens for all I care. As long as you’re safe.”

“Sam’s got a whole family that’ll be happy as hell to see him.” Riley speaks up, voice wavering with emotion. “I haven’t told them, yet. But Sammy, you’ve got a bunch of people who’re gonna be so happy to see you.”

Bucky hears Sweetheart let out a small uncertain noise behind him and he stiffens immediately. He hadn’t even considered the fact that Sam would have family on the outside world. Bucky’s eyes narrow on Riley, the other man’s green eyes are bright and watery, focused on Sam. It sets Bucky’s teeth on edge. He’s soft and plays unassuming, but he’s too smart to be harmless. He knows things about Sam that Bucky doesn’t and Bucky doesn’t like that.

Silence falls between all four of them, before Steve is the one to heave a sigh and hold up his hands in surrender.

“We don’t need to figure this out now.” He says placatingly. “Why don’t we give you some privacy. We’ll let you know when dinner is ready.”

Bucky snorts at the cute way Steve says that they’ll be checking on them again tonight. Riley looks like he wants to protest, but Steve goes to him and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. He leads the shorter man to the elevator without a word.

Then its just the two of them in the room. Bucky turns around to face Sam again. He looks, conflicted, brown eyes seemingly desperately drink in Bucky’s face. His mouth on the edge of smiling or frowning, and maybe he’ll be the one to cry first.

Bucky sighs and gently cups Sweetheart’s face in both his palms, thumbs running over his warm cheeks. Bucky is sure he’s always thought Sweetheart looked lovely, but he’s finally in a place where its safe enough to let himself acknowledge it. He leans in close and touches his forehead to Sweetheart’s. He feels like he could stay like this forever.

“You’re okay? Really?” Bucky needs to be sure. He needs to know that he’s done the right thing. That they’ve faced hell and somehow come out on the other side.

“I am. Really.” Sam answers honestly, and he smiles, small and warm and just for Bucky. “Thanks.”

Bucky hums an answer, not quite trusting himself to say anything yet. He put everything into keeping Sam alive, it still doesn’t feel quite real yet. He feels Sam move, and lets out a the slightest whimper, surprising himself. Sam lets out a soothing sound and doesn’t move way, but carefully brings a hand up to rest over Bucky’s metal one, pressing him close.

“You’ve done so much, Winter. We can rest.” Sam looks into his eyes. “Let me help you.”

Bucky nods, the slightest bit and he can see the smile reach Sam’s brown eyes, lighting them up like he’s just given him a great gift. “Yes.” He sighs, content and closes his eyes. “Yes.”

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

And thats a wrap! I truly hope you enjoyed aaaand I’ll be posting the ao3 link here when I get it up. There may be a surprise or two in store one I get it finished ;)

#sambucky #winterfalcon #sam wilson #bucky barnes #riley thompson #steve rogers #mcu fanfic #wintersweetheart #alls well that ends well #spoilers i guess?

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brieannakeogh · 5 years

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Ambition, Butter, and Wine- Chapter 3

Ambition, Butter, and Wine- Kylo Ren x plus sized reader. Crack! Fic. You’re a new First Order recruit. Trained in the culinary arts at the top schools and they dare make you serve the common folk. What happens when you have the opportunity to serve Lord Ren?

Master List / Previous Chapter

Warnings: Some light accidental torture

Chapter 3

Kylo was in bed two more days. On the second day your mouth went tight as he declined your offer to call the medbay. You were fully aware he was a “grown adult, who could call if he needed it.” but he wasn’t doing that. He was stubborn. You felt more pressure in the back of your head again. It had been happening with more and more frequency and you just knew it was him, poking at your thoughts. You had simi given him permission to and now it was like he was in your head all the time when you were around.

Everything had gone back to normal except for that. It was starting to give you a headache how frequently he was in there. You tried very hard to school your thoughts. Going over recipes in your head, measurements, the gossip of the day, anything except the two small things you wanted to keep from him. One, the fact that you had started making enough during his meals for you to have a portion, and two that you had a crush on him. It was ridiculous and it was easy enough to ignore when he was stalking around the halls in the dramatic cape and stupid helmet with his saber in easy reach, but in the morning he was so soft looking. His hair tousled and sleep still in the corners of his eyes, it just wasn’t fair that his man could go from soft cozy Kylo to Lord I’ll-kill-you-if-you-look-at-me-funny Ren. Not that you really cared as long as it wasn’t you he was killing.

The first secrete was spilled one day when he decided to be ‘nice’, and drop the tray off himself since he “had to pass by anyway.” and found you eating a not as nice version of the same meal you dropped off at lunch. The pressure was back and you could hear what you thought was a snort come from the metal helmet. You couldn’t clamp down your thoughts in time to something mundane like “I messed up the first batch and didn’t want it to go to waste.” No he had to read the whole alarm bells going off on a repeat of, I’m a thief! He’s definitely going to kill me now!

“Stop panicking. It’s a perk, not stealing.” You swear you could hear the smirk in his voice. He sat the tray down next to you and walked out. Well if that didn’t sound like permission to keep doing it, you don’t know what did. So that’s exactly what you did.

The second came out one night a few weeks later. By this point you had been solely cooking him meals for 4-5 months at this time. You’re not sure what he told the other chef or officers, although you expect he had come up with some special force secret dietary bullshit excuse. Especially after what one of your coworkers...that wasn’t right….people who work near you...asked what restrictions you had. You had pointedly ignored them, but when they continued you growled out menacingly that it wasn’t any of their business and to leave you the hell alone. You made sure to run that scene on repeat in your head when you dropped off Lord Ren’s food. His lip twitched, which was the equivalent of a full grin from anyone else.

Tonight wasn’t going as good as that night. In fact this went even more poorly than the first night when you walked in and he was in all of his comfortable night clothes, which he was in again. However you had gotten use to it, at least at night. You went about your business, setting the tray at the table while you waited for him to sit, have his obligatory bite, and either lip twitch or finger twitch in dismissal, depending on how happy he was with the meal.

It all came to a grinding halt when you turned and saw him reach for something. You had no clue what, and it could have been a stretch for all the good your observational skills did you, because your entire focus was on the small strip of skin that had been exposed on his belly. It was pale and smooth, and you really wanted to touch it to see if it’s as velvety as it looks. Your hand even raised up a little subconsciously. That’s when you felt it, the pressure at the back of your head. At the realization that he was in your head and had seen all of the thirst, a cold shiver ran down your spine and you started stumbling back towards the exit.

“Oh calm down!” He half shouts exasperated. “If I cut the head off of everyone that found me attractive, I really would have to wear the helmet all the time and Hux wouldn’t be here anymore.”

“Oh.” Well thank fuck for that! Wait...did he say…

“Yes, now get your head out of the gutter, I’m trying to eat here.”

“Yes sir.” But you couldn’t. Your brain conjuring up all sorts of things without your control.

“I said…”

“I know sir,” You interrupted, “and I’m trying. Maybe just stay out of my head for tonight. I’ll work on it so it doesn’t happen tomorrow.”

He narrows his eyes at you as he stands by the table. “Noted.” He concedes.

Well if he was going to stay out maybe you could just...yep that sweater makes his arms look good. It doesn’t hurt to look while he’s locked himself out, right? And oh stars you did look. Only for a minute until he twitched his hand and dismissed you.

You paused after you started to walk out, turning to face him again. “Just out of curiosity...when?” You felt another poke when he couldn’t sus out what you were asking.

The smirk spread on his face had you worried. “Dinner, day one.” Was all he said and turned back to his meal.

Well bantha tits, he’s known from the beginning! Than what’s the point of you hiding it all along? “Because I don’t want to hear about your sexual depravity towards my person. Your food isn’t that good.”

“Yes, sir.” You acknowledged as your body crawled back into it’s skin from which it jumped, scared. As you walked out, you broadcasted ‘Yes it is.’ and sort of hoped he was still listening in. It was getting harder and harder to tell.

He smirked as he bit into another mouthful. “You’re right, it is.” He said to himself.

Kylo knew he couldn’t keep you as a secret forever. With all the gossip on the base it was only a matter of time before someone became suspicious. He expected Phasma would find out first, which he wasn’t oppose so much about you making extra for her, but Hux on the other hand, he wasn’t going to let that happen. The others had been dumb enough to be fooled or weren’t so foolish to question about the special dietary restriction of a force user. That had been a good idea he picked from your brain. However, the other two commanders wouldn’t be persuaded so easily.

It happened! It finally happened! Hux had learned about you and asked for you to make his food as well. Kylo thought he was having such a good morning too, but he had seen the poorly constructed barrier in your head to try and keep him out. That wasn’t like you so of course he tore it down easily and watched as Hux cornered you in the kitchen. Of course you couldn’t turn down his request, but he could. He would march right in there and demand that Hux go back to the generic officer swill. As he watched you set the table like normal, a little bit of tremble in your hands, he uttered out a low “Mine.” that you surely couldn’t hear.

He pushed in further to your mind and saw you wince in pain at the pressure. He wanted to see the whole interaction in detail, usually he only skimmed your thoughts and emotions, most of the time you didn’t even notice. This he went a lot deeper.

Watching as Hux barged into the kitchen, hands behind his back and not a hair out of place. You were momentarily startled, but then ignored him in favor of the omelette you were plating up. It didn’t come out as nice as you wanted so you had set it aside to work on the second one for himself. He thought it looked fine, but learned early on you were a perfectionist. Hux grabbed the plate and started eating as he grilled you about your duties. You gave short, polite responses, but vague enough that Kylo could work with. He watched as Hux moaned around the fork in his mouth and told you to have his lunch ready too, “Whatever you were already fixing was fine.” Kylo also felt your jolt of response at the General’s moan, which made him growl out another “Mine” that you did hear.

Your head was pounding so hard that you had to stop what you were doing and press your palms to your temples. It felt like your skull would explode if you didn’t keep it in place. Flashbacks of this morning assaulted you and when the same pang of lust you had at hearing the General moan hit you this time, it brought you to your knees. Lord Ren had said something after that, but you couldn’t think straight. Finally you couldn’t contain it anymore and a whimper of pain left you.

Kylo’s refocused on the here and now when he heard the sad noise you made, shocked to see you almost curled in the fetal position at his feet. He scrambled back into his own head after seeing enough, leaving both of you panting with the effort. Tearing into the closet after composing himself, he sees you sit up out the corner of his eye. He handled your mind too roughly. Honestly if you had less semblance of self, it could have broken you, but you seemed fine. Anger and hurt rolled from you, but that was to be expected.

By the time your head clears and you can sit up properly to know you are still on the floor, you see Kylo with his pants changed and pulling his shirt off, his armor in hand. The food left untouched on the table. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to talk to Hux, straighten out this mess.”

“Don’t. Just sit and eat. I’ll handle it.” You groan as you stand.

“Did you just order me?” He whips around to you, armor thrown to the bed as he stands before you. Pride is what you are giving off, along with a heavy dose of ambition. If he wasn’t worried about breaking you he would be digging into your mind again to see exactly what you were thinking.

“No sir. Sorry sir. I just like to fight my own battles and…” You lick your lips, trying to decide if you should say what you were thinking. Oh fuck it, you only live once right? “It also won’t hurt my career any to provide specialized meals to both you and the General.”

His eyes had started to soften, he could understand wanting to fight for yourself, but then you went and fucked it up. Sharing wasn’t in his nature and your ambition was too great. He grabbed you by the upper arm, squeezing just a bit too tight and pulled you to the table.

“Sit, eat. Hux ate yours and I’m going to go deal with him now. There are pain meds in the bathroom for the headache that will be on you soon.” He went and grabbed his armor off the bed, throwing it on as he exited his quarters, leaving you utterly confused.

Next Chapter

Didn’t finish Ch 11 of Dog Days in time, sorry. Hopefully this is a good substitute.

If you want to be tagged just send an ask or reply. Thanks!

@stevieang, @albinotigerpython, @paintballkid711, @lilypalmer1987

#kylo ren #kylo x plus sized reader #kylo ren x plus sized reader #kylo x reader #plus sized reader #star wars fanfiction

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silencedtechnophile · 5 years

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==> Do something about it

The ship hummed around him in the darkness. Something, somewhere, was beeping near the meat puppet hung in the rigging that limited his abilities with a biological bottle neck. His head was so fuzzy. Which is what they wanted. He was too smart, they knew what kind of damage he could do if he werent forcefully throttled.

He worked slowly. The plan had come to him in an instant, as he'd gotten encouragement from the helm chat. He could do something. He could affect his situation. He was not fucking helpless, he refused to be.

First he carefully hacked into the mediboard that controlled his blood chemistry. He fiddled around with it so its output would remain steady, but it would cease giving him the brain fogging drugs.

That took a while to make it out of his system, every moment of it afraid someone would draw a random blood draw to double check the mediboard, though that was passingly rare. They trusted their equipment.

As his head cleared his body began to hurt, he had a sudden more complete awareness of the agony of the living wires burrowed under his skin, and the way his shoulders were wreched and taking all his weight.

He had to adjust the output again to smooth out his heart beat so they wouldn't be alerted.

Pain was fine. He could deal with pain, he could think and that was what mattered right now in this moment. Blessed clear thoughts. Every moment he delayed was a moment his gamble might be discovered so he worked quickly, spoofing his address from outside the ship while he expanded his own permissions. HE could open and close doors, he could even open and close airlocks, but he wasn't trusted with them.

He wormed his way into the controls, granting himself admin powers at the root level.

Then he just had to wait.

This was the part he had the least control over. Her movements.

Now that he'd given himself root acess and no longer needed the clarity to hack the ships permissions he left the door he'd created open, and went back in to fix his medications and outputs back the way they had been, by the time he had his opertunity he would be fully drugged again, they wouldn't be able to tell it was him. ------------------ Being the Empress had its perks. No waiting in lines, getting to take par in destruction and culling without consequences, running fleets of ships, not having to tolerate any mischief, being feared and respected by everyone at default. But most importantly? Not having to do shit unless you want to. This is one thing Meenah took advantage of as much as possible. If she didn’t have to get up and go somewhere to get something done, why would she?

In her younger years, the idea of taking the throne had caused her nothing but annoyance and disgust. Being taken care of like a wriggler, being responsible for a planet full of easily influenced and hasty trolls. Taking care of her lusus indefinitely, and having to personally feed her each night. Making a quick and not very discreet exit from her original planet had been a great decision. She’s stood by it since it happened, all those sweeps ago in an universe that never quite fit to her tastes. Being born there had felt like a cruel joke once she knew what she had missed out on.

So when she had spawned here some number of sweeps ago, she had been horrified. Devastated. They won and she, as always, got absolutely shafted by the universe. That is... until she took a good look around and evaluated her situation. Beforus had been a little pond, full of toothless guppies. And she had been a shark, unable to even turn around in the limited space. But Alternia? Alternia was a vast sea, with plenty of prey to sink her teeth into and depths to claim as her own. It was as if this gift universe was molded for her, a refined combination of two planets and the two lives she had lived through. The best part was that she had gotten to float over the hard parts, the initial rise to power and the conquering and culling of her personified roadblocks. The endless cycle of teaching her throneworld to submit.

There’s no shame in admitting she’s fully enjoyed the spoils of her new life, entirely content with trading a few sweeps for her position. Hell, she was a tyrian. There were plenty of sweeps to spare, she would do it again.

Which led to this, a three night streak of kicking up her feet in her own block on the flagship. The Battleship Condescention.

Okay, fine, maybe she should have been doing something more important than catching up on dramatic cinema when there was a rebellion to stomp out with her boot. But things were fine. They were starting to close in on the short, mouthy, ship thief. Her biggest potential problem was nice and cozy some number of floors below her, tucked into his ports and wires like a wriggler to coon. And no one else was stepping up to oppose her. Even the most powerful and feared leaders of societies had to take a break, let the tide ease them out.

Of course, all good things come to an end. This time, it’s the portable communications device implanted into her tiaratop. Already missing her makeshift getaway, she flicked a claw against the gold and her features were illuminated by the live footage of one of her on hand advisors. She scowled at him, lip jutted out and pierced brows raised to put emphasis on her annoyance. “We got a, y’know, a problem.” He grunted, the last word coming out like pr-ah-bl-im. “Sum’thin’ funny, ‘kay. Minor. We’re handling it, swear it ma’am. Got someone on the f’rewalls, set that right. But...”

When the purple hued troll went on to explain, she was furious. Someone had managed to nudge at their security systems and give them a test and it took them a few nights to tell her? Her pan whirled to the worst and most paranoid conclusion. Someone from their session, probably that infuriating time wench or the pirate enthusiast, maybe a turnaround from her own Makara if he’d been fully awakened in their new planet.

She stormed about to get ready, pan immediately set to force her commandeered pissblood battery to help her track down and eliminate the source. If her goons couldn’t get the job done, he was going to do it for them.

“Soon as I grill this guppy, you’re gettin’ sautéed. Fried.” Meenah, better known as the Condesce, set her focus entirely on a stomping beeline for the exit and her threatening tangent. “Pike it or not, best get ya’ affairs in order. Boat t’ sea what the pointy end a’ my golden prod ‘eels like embedded in ya’ b’ass. No shrimp-athy for the in-conch-petent, set a bet’a example for the school.”

The door to her block opened with quiet ‘swish!’ as she took her first step out. And then another. Somewhere, a number of clicks below stationed near the central engines, a troll was probably filled with justifiable anger and excitement. With the Empress there was nothing but the light, sharp sound of her heeled boots in the metal corridor paired with the rough undertone to her flurry of words. The advisor on the other end of her video chat cowered, sputtering excuses as she glared down her defined cartilage nub at him. “And if you e’fin conch-sea-der tryin’ to catch a wave trout’a here, I ain’t mako-in it snappy.” She continued her tirade, satisfied by the way the other troll’s eyes went wide and his jaw slid open. “Yeah, that’s moray p’ike it. Best get ya-shelf practicin’ on a look a’ ray-morse.”

“Actually,” he started, gaze averted to the light over the airlock behind her. It blinked red once, yellow twice, and began to shift to green. “I think -“

“Clam it, small fry!” She stopped her determined march to point a claw at him, as if he were really a few feet ahead of her. “Can’t bay-lieve ya’ got the swimmers to gab at me, blowin’ bubbles slap full a’ bullshark.”

Just behind her, the light held steady at green. The advisor stumbled in his warning, horrified and relieved and stalled by his shock as her hair whipped away from her face and her words trailed off. There’s a second where the familiar sound of the airlock opening seemed to halt time. Meenah looked over her shoulder, and then to the projected feed of the lower blooded troll. For the first time in sweeps, she barked a laugh. And then? “Son of a’ eldritch pailin’ bitch.” She bared her impressive chompers, fins flared backwards in her surprise, disbelief, and pure offense that someone has made an attempt on her life. The tyrian scrambled to dig her claws into the metal wall beside her, a cringe worthy noise produced when they drag through the reinforced metal. “You gotta be krillin’ -“

“Maybe if -“

In what might be the most anticlimactic turntables of a story ever, the airlock smoothly opens the rest of the way. Sweeps in the past, there is a time traveling maroon blooded, grudge obsessed troll glancing through the ages and chortling at a joke no one will understand much less believe. The seadweller’s yellow painted claws dig and clip away in a desperate swing at survival. The hatches to the other blocks through the stem are sealed shut, and whatever artificial air was being released dissipated the minute the immediate area was exposed to space. Meenah had a moment, maybe two, to reflect on the mistakes that led her here. Putting an airlock directly outside the door to her block, entirely for the purpose of disposing of any unwanted visitors. Not once considering that someone might turn this around on her, or capitalize on her desire for the dramatic. Leaving her block using her balancing prongs at all, when a transportalizer would have been safer and faster - but would ultimately have lacked in the build-up of intensity and hostility that a chance to strut and lament and publicly humiliate and shortly thereafter kill her most recent workplace pest. If she had more time, she might have thought of a few more excuses to shift the blame a bit.

Including, but not limited to: This Must Entirely Be Megido’s Fault And Here Is Why, the three part series of essays assembled by Meenah Peixes. Or the potential ways Aranea could have somehow subverted death and the fate of their session altogether to somehow ruin the one fun thing she has EVER had the chance to do, seriously, what a Jealous Jude. Or maybe this is the fault of the younger Vantas, who mysteriously fell into her lap around a sweep ago and... well, he was disappointing as a whole until he managed to actually do a backflip off of the handle and body his way out of holding.The diversion of resources from the facility had been an oversight, and the cause of it was promptly replaced and reassigned to dinner duty. A more appealing way to refer to the main course.

Any of those things could have led to this, but none of them did. All the time in the world, and she likely never would have thought her laziness would play a part in her downfall.

It did, though. The metal peeled away from the support column, and the lurching movement broke her grip. It was inevitable. Meenah tried to yelp out a curse, perhaps one last bit of defamation for her last words, but nothing actually came from her throat. Her lips twisted and her expression caught somewhere between anger and fear. The last thought to coherently hit her ends with ‘- and this bucket of chum is the last thing I get my peepers on, really?’ as she wS forcibly removed from the flagship and sent careening into space.

A few blocks and a couple lifts away, the flabbergasted advisor had already dispatched armed forces. Not that it mattered, he decided. The connection to the tiratop flickers more and more as she departs, but the image of his frozen taskmaster tells him there’s no rescuing from that.

Her skin was flaking with ice, fins back and shining tyrian as they stretched, thin eyes obscured by the ice on her lashes, teeth exposed from where she tried to get the last word. The sight of her being quickly and surprisingly easily dispatched hadn’t left him hopeful for saving her, and the last glimpses of her expression deterred him from even attempting to recover her corpse.

The Empress was dead.

#plot post #bulgerot #character death #murder//

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