#it does not help my bones are somehow WORSE than yesterday even after all of the rest i took so that's Super Fun:tm: | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mc-lukanette · 3 years

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Hear me out... Scarlet Lady AU, but it’s Lukanette

(takes place after “Captain Hardrock”)

Luka hunched over his guitar, only for another sting of pain to hit his back. He groaned, straightening up instead, but that somehow made the soreness even worse. Juleka chuckled at him from her place on her bed, having long since given up on moving her muscles at all and preferring to laze around.

He shot her a glare, but didn't comment so as to not encourage her. As he'd predicted, they were indeed sore from trying to stop the Liberty yesterday, his arms wordlessly complaining whenever he tried to do anything with them. He didn't regret it, but it'd also made making new songs a hassle, worsened by the fact that he'd very much gotten inspiration courtesy of Marinette.

After trying to ignore the soreness for around ten minutes, he heard a set of footsteps from above deck, from someone who was clearly heading down below. He knew they couldn't have been his mother - the signature "clack" of her boots sounded much different - but it also seemed somewhat familiar.

He realized it a bit too late, just in time for Marinette to get downstairs and pop her head into the room. "Hi!"

He sucked in a breath as subtly as possible, maintaining his poker face as he replied, "Hey."

"Hey," Juleka greeted, rotating her arm just enough to wave and clearly not wanting to put in more effort than that. She didn't even turn her head.

Luka chuckled. "Jule's busy today if you needed her for something."

"Shut up," she hissed. "It was your idea."

"Huh?" Marinette asked, looking back and forth between the two. "Oh! No, I was here to see Luka, actually—not that I'm not happy to see you too, Juleka! Just..." She grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head.

Marinette was there... to see him? Not his sister?

Luka glanced down, confirming that he was still wearing pants and therefore this wasn't a dream about to go horribly wrong.

Juleka's eyes flicked over to the two of them, her head having to actually move to do so. She squinted, like she was analyzing something, then groaned and slammed her hands down on the bed. She pushed herself up, clearly ignoring the way her body protested, then began her walk across the room.

Just before she reached the doorway, she leaned back to make eye contact with Marinette, warning her, "Careful with him. He's creaking like the floorboards."

Luka shot Juleka a glare, but she'd already zipped out of the room before he could blindly grab his pillow to throw at her.

For being so sore, you sure got away quickly, he thought, very much aware that she left because him being mushy with Marinette (also known as "normal and understandable because look at her") was "gross."

Marinette's eyes followed Juleka until the retreating footsteps could be heard moving up deck, then turned back to Luka. "Creaking?"

"Ah—" Well, there went any hope of avoiding that topic. "We used Chat's baton yesterday to stall the ship, but it was hard even with all seven of us. We're all still a little sore from it."

She furrowed a brow, like something had confused her, but then shook her head and replied, "Oh, that really does sound tough! I'm sorry I couldn't be there!"

"It's okay." He smiled reassuringly, remembering what he'd been told before. "You were the one who got Marigold there. She saved us."

Her cheeks turned pink and he vaguely wondered if it was obvious how cute he thought - knew - she was. She ducked her head, then did a small wiggle of her hips before abruptly looking back up at him. "Um—! That's actually what I came to talk you about? I mean—not Marigold—or her saving you—or me and Marigold—but—"

Luka snorted, lightly patting the spot on his bed next to him instead of replying. The familiar gesture caught her attention, her voice trailing off as she slowly made her way over to sit next to him. She toyed with her fringe, seeming to get her words in order, then turned to look at him.

"I never got to thank you," she said. When he tilted his head in confusion, she clarified, "I wouldn't have been able to call Marigold if you hadn't saved me."

He smiled warmly at her. "It was nothing, Marinette."

"No, really, you thought so quick!" she insisted, leaning towards him with her hands flat on the mattress to support herself. "And you stayed behind too to make sure Captain Hardrock was fooled! That was brave of you."

He leaned away, face flushing red as he tried to control the stupid grin on his face. "Thanks. You were really brave too, finding a way out to get Marigold's attention."

He didn't tell her that he purposefully didn't hide with her because the sound of his heartbeat would've given their hiding spot away.

Marinette beamed at him, but seemed to realize how close she'd been leaning and pulled back with a sheepish grin. Luka returned to his original position too, but flinched when his spine rejected the movement with a spike of pain. He let out a mix of a groan and a sigh, Marinette's brows raising in concern.

"I could give you a massage...?"

The headstock of Luka's guitar hit the bed as he jerked his head up, the instrument in his lap forgotten as he stared ahead at Marinette, eyes wide. She was looking back at him with a blank expression, like she hadn't fully realized what she'd said.

Then, it hit her, and he swore he saw her pigtails bounce up in shock as her face shifted to realization.

"I-I just—I mean—!" She flailed her arms at him. "See, my papa always does it for my maman and—when you groaned like that it reminded me of it—so—"

The fact that she'd compared his bones to those of an aging adult went ignored in favor of noticing that she hadn't even tried to take the offer back. His heart pounded like the inside of his body was a brand new drumset, and he could only utter a weak, "Okay," in reply.

She'd still been rambling at the time, but somehow his voice managed to break through. She paused mid-sentence, her mouth still open as she processed his answer. "...Really?"

He merely nodded, not trusting his voice to avoid cracking if he tried to respond.

"Oh. Um, alright, oh..." she mumbled to herself, clearly having not expected to get this far.

Luka felt the bed shift underneath him as Marinette maneuvered herself behind him, at which point it really hit him that she was seriously about to massage him. He leaned forward, mentally preparing himself, though was quickly reminded of the guitar still resting in his lap. He pulled it off and set it where Marinette had originally been sitting, resting his hands in front of himself afterward.

The silence dragged for a moment, and he could sense Marinette's eyes on him, as if she were debating with herself on how to go about massaging him. He opened his mouth to give her an out, but all manner of coherent speech left him as her hands pressed into his back, thin fingers sliding along his shoulders and squeezing. He sucked in a breath, oxygen having a hard time getting into a body already stuffed full of feelings.

It was heaven, and added several sheets worth of music that he desperately needed to write.

"I-is this alright?" she asked. "Am I doing well?"

He tried to reply, but all that left his mouth was a sound that was both inhuman and embarrassing. Pressing one hand into the mattress, he covered his mouth with the other, his face turning red as he briefly debated on living in the drawer underneath his bed in lieu of having a hole to crawl into.

He changed his mind. It was hell. She was doing amazing but that was the problem and it was hell.

Marinette giggled, the sound he made apparently being answer enough for her as she continued massaging him. Her embarrassment had left by that point and he couldn't help being jealous of it, as his own had doubled.

After a few seconds had passed, Marinette spoke up again, "So, ah..."

He wasn't sure if she genuinely had a question or was trying to spare him, but he'd take it either way. "Mm?"

"I was wondering. Since Jagged's your favorite singer, what do you think of XY?"

He let out another sound, less involuntary than the last at least, though it was still too high-pitched to make anyone believe that he wasn't affected by Marinette's motions. He cleared his throat, making sure he sounded as normal as possible before answering, "The flaws in his music stick out like his hair."

The hands on his back froze, Marinette snickering and then full-on laughing. "Oh, you think so too?"

He grinned like the fool he was, tempted to look back at her but feeling like it'd be rude. "Yeah. I can't stand his music."

"Me neither. It's so... bland and uninspired."

The mental image of them drop-kicking XY into the Seine together entered his mind, a blissful sigh escaping him just in time for Marinette to restart her massage.

"You're really passionate about music," she observed, almost sounding as if she'd been talking to herself. "It almost makes me wish I played an instrument."

"I can give you lessons," he blurted out, then immediately backpedaled with an, "if you want, anyway."

Her tone lightened. "Thanks. I might have to take you up on that. Just... not when I'm so busy."

He shrugged his shoulders, both of which already felt infinitely better under her touch. He could tell she wasn't lying, so he wasn't offended by the hesitance.

As her hands trailed down his back and he tried not to look as if every touch was sending his heart on tour, she hummed thoughtfully, like her body was there but her mind was elsewhere.

"...Hey," she called. He waited, knowing that there was something else, and she continued, "Have you ever... been stuck between songs?"

"Stuck between songs?" he echoed, trying to piece together what she meant.

"Yeah, like—" She made an unsure sound - unfortunately not an embarrassing one like his when she pressed into his lower back - then clarified, "—maybe there are a few songs you like, and it's hard picking your favorite? Or you have some songs you want to write, but don't know which one to go with?"

He got the distinct feeling that she wasn't talking about music, but it was adorable how she worded it in a way relating to his specialty so he could help her. He mulled over the question seriously, the most difficult task just being drawing enough focus away from her movements so he could answer her.

"A few times," he replied. "It all comes down to feeling then. My favorite song or the one I want to write could just be which one I'm curious about."

"What do you mean?"

"Well—" He blushed faintly, completely unaware that his metaphors were syncing with hers. "—a song that I want to know more about; to listen to over and over until I know it intro to outro. A song that makes me want to keep writing." He glanced over his shoulder at her, hoping the eye contact might help carry the meaning along. "I think those are the best kinds."

Her brows were furrowed in thought, as if he'd given her a hard equation that she was struggling to solve. He faced forward again to hide his smile when he noticed the spark of recognition in her eyes, like the metaphor had stuck and he'd actually helped her.

"I think I get it," she confirmed, the massage briefly stopping as she made idle circles on his back; still equally as distracting if he were honest. Even though he couldn't see her face, he could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "I like this one."

"What one?" he asked obliviously, though she didn't answer the question and pressed into his back again, making him squeak and forget his curiosity altogether.

The conversation ended there, lulling into something peaceful and comfortable. Luka actually found himself relaxing without much embarrassment, though there was still some pink to his face from his newfound crush giving him a massage. He just hoped he could make it through the rest of their time together without her realizing what a mess he was.

Then, as if something had occurred to her, Marinette noted casually, "Oh, I should do your arms next."

Luka's face burned. This girl was going to kill him.

#type: story #story: oneshot #Flower Arrangement Shipping #Pro LukaMari #Lukanette #((Zoe: *welcomes Lukanette AUs of her AU*))#((me: Say no more.))

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cherrywoes · 3 years

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crimson king. (diavolo x fem!reader.)

prologue.

“Stricken among a field of poppies,

With hair as red as molten flame,

The Crimson King brought low the thane,

And thus usurped his father’s throne,

For there would be a day the world would end,

And he would not see it until his own life’s end.”

— the records of Paimon, King of the West.

masterlist | i. cruor.

♕

“LADIES, GATHER ‘ROUND.” The Matriarch of House Gascoigne clapped her silk gloved hands sharply. The sound echoed throughout the dance room, cracking through the air with the force of a whip. “We have news from the capital!”

An excited murmur rose amongst the girls. It had been months since the royal family had last issued news on any events regarding the palace, or the King and Queen themselves; ever since their children, the prince and princess, had fallen ill with some unknown illness, not a mere scant of word was allowed outside the palace doors, much less from the mouths of maids and butlers. It had left much of House Gascoigne (their female occupants, at least) with little to do besides practice their waltz, needlework, and plan on wooing the finest bachelors in the kingdom. To have this little bit of gossip to break their melancholy was welcoming—even if it was bad news, for a time.

“News from the capital!” One girl gasped, reaching for the letter in delight. The Matriarch held it high above her head, swatting the girl’s grasping fingers with the paper and striking a deep cut in her hand. She hissed and pressed the well of blood to her mouth, scowling at the older woman.

“Yes, news.” The Matriarch’s stony gray gaze flickered over the throng of girls, counting each head—seven in all, her daughters—and found herself just one shy. She counted once more, just to be sure, and yet again, she was lacking a duckling with particular [color] hair and [color] eyes. “Where’s [Name]?”

“[Name]?” Another of the sisters rolled her eyes and stamped her heel. The hem of her dress caught in the stiletto and she was forced to listen to the slight tear of the seam as it punctured through the expensive fabric. “Please! It’s not like she cares for idle gossip; open the letter, mother!”

“Last I heard she went out hunting with father,” one crowed slyly, waving a lace fan in front of her face coquettishly. Her eyes, sharp and blue, darted over to the matriarch, whose face was unmoving. “Not much of a change, is it, sisters?”

“Girls!” The matriarch’s sharp tone cut through the speculating chatter like a knife. The sisters dropped their gazes to the floor momentarily, then back up to their mother, properly chastised. “I am ashamed of you—all of you. Speaking of your sister as if she is scum of the earth; why, your father would be disappointed in all of you. I do not believe any of you deserve to hear this news today.”

“No, mother! We promise not to speak of her as such again!” Similar sentiment rose, each girl pleading with their mother individually with different promises and different oaths. “Please, the letter!”

The matriarch looked upon her daughters with a narrowed gaze. They returned her stare with ones of silent pleading. She sighed and closed her eyes. “Very well then. Let’s see what it says, shall we?”

She cracked the wax seal upon it and with a cough to clear her throat, began to read.

“Marriage?” You parroted back at your father with gawkish eyes. Your mare came to a still beneath you, snuffling at a patch of vibrant green grass, a product of the new spring. You could feel the stays of your corset protest at the deep inhale of disbelief you took, squeezing hard shards of whale bone against your ribs. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“It’s time, [Name].” Your father sighed, much in the same way your mother would do when she was exasperated with something you or one of your sisters had said. He adjusted the reins of his horse’s bridle, nervous, and stared off in the distance somewhere away from you. “You know I would never force you into an arranged marriage, but…”

“But I need to start looking,” you mocked in a high, posh voice. You snorted through your nose and fixed him with a dark glower. “How many times have I heard that before? Ten? Twelve?”

“I know… I know your mother pressures you,” he amended,”but this time I’m afraid I’m the one asking you to begin searching. You’re twenty years old, [Name], far past the age of marriage already; I just want to see you well off and comfortable, if not happy.”

“And my happiness doesn’t matter as long as I’m well off and comfortable.”

This wasn’t how you expected your day out with your father to go. You had expected to hunt dove, at most, maybe a few squirrels or two; your quiver had been packed to handle it. Instead, you had gotten barely a foot or so into the forest, your mare eager to head into the lush grass, before he was bringing up the subject of your marriage—again. This wasn’t the first time you had heard it, but it was the first time it had come from him, and you were starting to wonder if they were just concerned or wanted you gone.

“Sometimes you can have one thing and forsake the other.” He shrugged helplessly. “I would rather you have money and comfort. But if you can somehow gain happiness as well, then…”

Which was highly unlikely, he was saying, as your marriage would likely be out of convenience, as the majority of your older sisters’ were. Your family was rich and everyone wanted part of the Gascoigne fortune—if not in gold, then in their daughters. Each of your sisters had a dowry large enough to buy off a country or two and every dirty old man wanted a piece of it, whether you were willing or not. Luckily, your parents were not so old fashioned as to arrange your marriage with a far older man, or push you in that direction, but they directly encouraged you to get married soon, and quickly. It didn’t help that a lot of the men repeated the foul saying “Gascoigne pussies are as good as gold”, meaning that if they were lucky enough to get any of your sisters or yourself with child, they might as well be set for life.

You didn’t want that. Not if you could help it.

With narrowed eyes, you looked at your father once more. He was fidgeting in his saddle, avoiding looking at you entirely, and by the look on his face, you had to wonder if he was just nervous or debating asking you to attend a debut ball knowing full well that you would be five years older than any other girl there—at least, that was your assumption. You had missed your first and subsequent balls after a particular rough bout of sickness that kept you bedridden; you had only recently been able to function normally again, albeit with some lightheadedness if you were too active in a short period of time.

“Right.” You reached up and held a hand over your head to deflect an oncoming branch. “Well, I guess I have no choice in the matter, do I?”

He sighed once more. “You know if I had any other choice, I would give you all the time in the world, [Name]. But the older you get the more you risk turning out an old crone with no marriage ties. I don’t want that for you—your mother doesn’t want that for you.”

You huffed and turned your head. Your mother’s sole goal was to marry off all of her daughters to eligible bachelors to get them off her hands; at least the ones who didn’t cater to her every whim, like yourself and a few other of your sisters. She was not a cruel mother by any means, but she was a thorn in your side at times, especially with her insistence on perfection. Your waltz and embroidery were as perfect as they were going to get, and you most certainly weren’t going to shrink your waist down to her tastes either. You would be surprised if she didn’t have something else to harp on you about when you returned home.

“I suppose.” A glance at the sky revealed it was already lunch time. You had already skipped tea with your mother and sisters; skipping another meal was a bad idea, even if you were out hunting. A very unladylike sport, she would probably hiss. “We should probably get back for lunch if we don’t want mother getting angry at us again.”

Your father almost seemed surprised, looking up at the sky himself. “It is, isn’t it? I heard we’re having pigeon pie today.”

“Pigeon pie?” You repeated slowly. “Father, that was yesterday. We’re having potato soup today.”

“Oh. Are we?”

You didn’t answer, watching him turn his horse around and begin the ride back home. You followed at a distance behind him, watching as he regarded the trail as if it was entirely new to him and familiar in some spots. You had been wondering if his illness had gotten worse and your proof was right in front of you. His father before him had been afflicted with the same memory loss, a product of a few lines of inbreeding centuries before, you had heard, but only in the paternal line. It had started with him mixing up names and stuttering them into the proper ones; then he slowly began to fall out of his routine, eyeing his paperwork in slight confusion; and just now, forgetting days and time.

Before you could call out to him and ask what day he thought it was, you heard an ungodly screech coming from the manor. It sounded faintly like one of your sisters, but it was loud enough that the birds in the trees startled and took to the sky. You urged your horse into a canter, your father following suite, and the closer you got, the more you could make out actual voices instead of mindless screeching.

“—this is ridiculous! How does she get to go to the palace and I’m stuck here?! Mother, it makes no sense! She’s twenty years old, she has no chance—”

“—oh, please, Violetta, like you could do any better at nineteen—”

“—says you two, I could sweep him off his feet without even a—”

“—I wouldn’t even need a dance, just five minutes alone in a—”

“—Adrielle, shut your mouth! I ought to send you to a convent!”

“There she is!” A finger went flying to point to you as your mare pushed through the treeline, hooves clopping on firm stone. “Mother, tell her to turn down the offer!”

All of your sisters, including even the youngest ones, just shy of fourteen, were gathered around the cut in the pathway in a tight cluster. All of them had some range of fury or irritation on their faces as they looked at you, clutching their lace fans or skirts tightly in their fists. You had only faintly heard your mother’s threat to send Adrielle to a convent and raised an eyebrow at the little crowd they made, pulling your horse to a halt with her reins. You wouldn’t dare risk dismounting in a dress, so you stared down at them all from your mount in confusion.

“[Name],” your mother approached your horse with some hesitation, eyeing the mare’s ears in any hint of her mood. “Here. This arrived for you in the mail today.”

You didn’t miss the sour tone in her voice. You accepted the opened letter from her with a raised eyebrow, the broken seal on the back stamped with the royal crest. Your sisters watched you like a hawk, searching for any hint that you weren’t happy with whatever the letter said.

While the envelope wasn’t addressed to you, the letter inside was: it was written in the elegant hand of the Queen herself, even down to a personalized address from her as well.

‘Dear [Name] of House Gascoigne,

It is my pleasure to notify you that you have been selected to participate in the Bride Hunt for Prince Diavolo of the Devildom. As you filled all the requirements to participate, you, along with three other girls in your bracket, will be escorted to the palace to participate in a selection of games picked by the prince himself. As this is a show of goodwill between our kingdom and that of the Devildom, we encourage you to be on your best behavior with your fellow competitors and play to win.

As a more personal note, I do hope you participate, [Name]. I believe you have a true chance at winning, my dear.

Queen Cordelia.’

In the corner of the letter was her personal seal, stamped in shining red wax. Unbroken, you could make out the sigil of the phoenix, a half of the official crest. You looked up at your mother’s expectant face and then at your father’s hopeful one, having likely guessed what it was.

You sighed.

“I suppose I’m going to the palace after all, then.”

Your sisters groaned in disappointment. Some of them even clicked their tongues at you and turned to head inside, your mother turning on her heel and chiding them on their childish behavior.

Your father caught your eye as you moved your horse to head to the stables. His smile was one of pride and hope, as if this had made all of his dreams come true.

You only hoped you wouldn’t disappoint him when it all was over.

taglist (open): @crashica (just let me know if you want to be added!)

#diavolo x reader #obey me diavolo #obey me diavolo x reader #diavolo x mc #diavolo obey me #diavolo x y/n #obey me #obey me:swd #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me barbatos #obey me lucifer #obey me simeon #obey me luke #obey me solomon #obey me shall we date

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darkacademicfrom2021 · 3 years

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The Dark Team (part 10)

<<Previous part Masterlist Next part>>

(Taglist: @lucywrites02, @louieboo87, @the-departed-potato, @jesuswasnotawhiteman, @idontknow296 , @beksib, @spythoschei, @geekwritersworld , @whatafuckingdumbass, @mysticunicorn7)

Warnings: adorable jerks.

As the sun finally came up (for what it felt like an eternity, a night with seven nights inside of it), you rubbed your eyes and greeted your teammates, who somehow were both already up and having breakfast.

“I was wondering when would you join us”, said Loki, covering his mouth with the manners of a Prince while eating a piece of something. “Barnes made dessert for breakfast”, pointed out more amazed than reproachful.

“Desert?”, you laughed. “A cake?”.

“Yes”, said Loki, very sure of himself, and Bucky rolled his eyes and chuckled, correcting him.

“It’s a pancake, Loki. It’s a normal breakfast in Midgard”.

“Actually, probably just in this country”, you added. “What do you normally have in Asgard?”. As you chattered, you started getting ready and fixing your hair, stealing a piece of pancake from Bucky’s plate. “Wow, I didn’t know you could cook. It’s actually great”, you said, tasting a mouthful.

“Well, as in Midgard’s nordic areas, back home it’s often fruit and bread, or porridge with dried fruits” he recalled distracted, and immediately interrupted himself with “are we not supposed to alert the rest of this?”.

“About Buck knowing how to cook? Yeah, I’m impressed, we should tell everyone”.

“I guess we should’ve told them yesterday, instead of going to sleep”, said Bucky, ignoring you. “Only God knows where that supersoldier is now”.

“I don’t, actually”.

“I didn’t mean... nevermind”, he sighed. “I'm calling Stark and let’s hope we don’t get too yelled at”.

You recalled yesterday’s events. You had so many dreams, you could barely remember being awake at all. First, the bearded man’s nightmare. Then, something about… the compound? Then, you remembered distinctly, Loki speaking Old Norse begging Thor about something. You remembered the phonetic of the words, but they were all gibberish now. Then, a last dream, something about buying rotten apples and being forced to eat them by Thanos. Your imagination surely was active on the nights.

Loki seemed paler than usual as he stared at you, without even blinking.

“What?”, you snapped him out of your head.

“You dreamt with me?”, he muttered, getting up and cleaning his plate with a snap.

"I also dreamt with Thanos".

“Don’t get too attached, I’ll be back to Asgard soon”, he promised, or alerted. Intentions unclear.

“I’m not attached”, you protested. You thought he’d smirk or be the smug idiot he usually was. He didn’t. Instead, he looked unsettled; disturbed even. “I didn’t dream with you on purpose, it was probably because of yesterday’s thing”.

“What thing?”, peeped in Bucky. “Oh no, did you two fuck?”.

“I didn’t let them die, big deal. I was just saving myself the amount of annoyance it would be to have Stank on my neck all week long if your blood was sort of in my hands”.

“Sounds like a lot of deflecting emotions to me, buddy”, said Bucky, and you chuckled.

“He’s just embarrassed he saw himself cry in one of my dreams from last night”, you mocked. He got up and you didn’t get to see his face, but presumed it would hold something near a death threat.

“You two have an intense bonding experience and decide to concentrate on it with more insults? You know, this is why you’re single”, added Bucky.

“It wasn’t a bonding experience”, you said, cutting-glass sharpness in your gaze.

“I’m not single”, corrected Loki at the same time, with an equally whetted voice.

Both Bucky and you looked at him with plate-wide eyes, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Neither of you asked, but surely shared a fair amount of desire to gossip about it. Oh, how much you wished to be able to tell Bucky about Loki re-reading Hamlet to reminisce about his beloved. But there was a line you wouldn’t cross in there; you knew where to stop.

“Mr. Stark”, you called through the earbud, “you there, sir?”.

“Painfully”, he answered. You connected the earbud to your phone and held it on speaker, so the rest of the team could join. “Tell me more about what I’m gonna yell at you three about”.

As you walked him through (almost) every event in the past twenty four hours, you could feel how his hands traveled all the way up to his face, and had to hold in a few sighs of disgust and utter hate towards… Well, you weren’t sure towards what, exactly.

“Are we grounded, dad?”, spat Loki with sarcasm.

“Listen, Rock Of Ages, if I could, I’d have you in a prison cell still to this day. Don’t push any buttons”.

“Come on, it’s been, what, nine years since he last fucked up something in here?” you defended him, not quite sure why. Loki grew nervous as Tony laughed obnoxiously at him.

“Sure. He didn’t keep fucking things up in here after that”.

“I can assure you I didn’t. How Odin manages his deals with Midgard does not concern me”, explained Loki, and you frowned at the mention of that name. Of course, Loki Odinson. That was where that name resonated from. Besides the Mythology. Though you weren't sure until where those stories were true or not; in there, Loki wasn't even Thor's brother.

“Going back to your current screw up, what happened to the civilians you frightened in the process? I imagine they didn’t realize about the new supersoldiers”.

“They should be extremely blind or idiotic to not have noticed, since the soldier jumped out of nine floors and survived”, answered Loki, looked at you up and down, and kept going “so, no. They have probably slept on it”.

“Wait, what?”.

“What?”.

“Nine floors? Pretty sure Capsicle and Barnes wouldn’t survive that either”.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”, you asked, concerned.

“I’m afraid so. Loki and Bucks won’t cut it, especially when we don’t know the number of new super-supersoldiers out there. And you’re coming back to the compound, directing the mission from the distance”.

“Are you kidding? I’m fine here. I’m all levels of mean, you said it yourself”.

“You’re too young and inexperienced in combat for these kinds of things, and they have special genetic advantages in their bodies, you know, the serum”, explained Tony as you rolled your eyes. But you understood exactly what he meant, and in fact, you agreed. “Do you understand?”.

“Yes; supersoldiers and Gods only”.

“Good kid. Now, Teleporting Popsicle, would you mind taking there with you the rest?”.

With an overly dramatic sigh, Loki vanished behind a party of green lights and reappeared in a matter of seconds in the same spot, holding carelessly Thor and Steve’s arms. Thor, for obvious reasons, was unfazed by the trip. Rogers, on the other hand, seemed about to throw up. There wasn’t anything balance would help with when your cells are reconfigurated inside and out in a fraction of a second. How the hell did he do all of that? You knew it was magic, but it still wouldn’t stop you from being absolutely astonished by it.

Loki arranged his hair behind his ears and locked eyes with you, followed by his typical smugly smile and a “thank you”, as if you were praising him in your thoughts. Oh, wait.

“I didn’t say anything”, you retorted, hoping to maintain at least a drop of pride left.

“You thought I was impressive”. You were going to correct him but realized that absolutely astonished was even worse.

“And since when do you offer gratitude?”.

“In case you wonder, yes, they’ve been like this the whole mission. You’ll get used to it”, said Bucky to Steve and Thor.

They started arranging their things and got updated as thoroughly as they could. Meanwhile, you stood exactly where you were the following ten minutes, absorbed in your own thoughts. Once you snapped out of them, Loki was still staring at you, standing in the same place too.

“What?”.

“I hate to break it to you, but…”.

“What?”.

“I’m your best option”.

“You’re my what?”.

“Your best option”.

“You’re not giving much context”.

“You’re going back to the compound. I figured you’d think about the mission or something about it for the past ten minutes you were zoned out, but apparently you only have room to think about how terrified you’re of that quinjet”.

Your palms got sweaty and a shiver ran through your spine by the only thought of remembering how heights felt under your feet, and how a simple machine wouldn’t stop you from landing on water and drowning, or crushing against a building and being burned to the bones until all you become is dust and…

“Hello? You’re spiraling again”, he snapped you back. “It’ll be just a blink. You won’t even notice”.

“Uh-uh. No, I’m not doing that. I’m waiting for whatever Tony sends to come and get me”.

“You’ll feel terrible”, he said, and he was right. For a moment, you considered accepting his offer. “And I’m the best”. His humble offer.

“I’m sure you are, but it’s not my best option”.

He sighed.

“Will you allow me to teleport you or not?”.

“Heavens, no”.

“Alright, you little stubborn human mortal”.

“Long nickname, you better come up with a shorter one”.

“Like what?”.

“I don’t know, something that bothers you. I’m not the one supposed to make your insults towards me”.

“Let me think”, he said, looking around the room. His gaze landed on the still unwashed plate of Bucky’s breakfast. “Pancake”.

“Not... that’s not an insult”.

“Why? They’re too sugary. They rot your teeth”.

“Yeah, but it’s not derogatory”.

“Fucking pancake”.

“It doesn’t cut it”.

“But what’s wrong with my pancake?”.

“It’s actually a pet name. You know, like the ones we said when we were in...”, but apparently that was all a distraction (of course, he was the God of Lies, after all), and when you were already thinking about how to explain to him why he shouldn’t call you pancake, he stood in front of you and held you by both sides of the arms, surrounding you almost completely, holding you still.

And just as he said, a blink later you were in the compound, perfectly fine. Peter and Tony greeted you as he pulled out and you stood there in shock. So, you really just needed some stabilization to not die in the intricate process of teleportation. Just before stepping away from you, he leaned over your shoulder and his whisper made your ear ticklish, saying “you’re welcome” with a grin. You didn’t look at him.

You started to gather all your stuff; papers, maps, laptops, and getting ready for the planning of the following steps of the mission as fast as you could, until you realized Loki was still there, and Tony and Peter were waiting for you. For what, you weren’t sure.

“Aren’t you going?”, you asked Loki.

“No, I’m staying, apparently”.

“Why?”.

“That’s what Stark was thinking, I don’t know”.

“Hey, Elsa, don’t read my mind, would you?”, snapped Tony. He was about to explain himself, but you kept talking to Loki, cutting his words.

“What’s wrong with you that you read everyone’s thoughts all the time? You know how unethical that is? It’s invasive”.

“You say that because you think slow”.

“Untrue, I’m actually a very fast thinker”.

“How would you know? You’ve never read anyone’s minds so, how could you possibly…?”.

You stopped dead on your tracks, and didn’t listen to what he was saying. That phrase. That exact phrase you dreamt with. The darkness. It was the exact same voice of the darkness, you remembered. It wasn’t darkness, it was his voice. Were you just imagining things? Too suggestionated? Definitely. How could you dream with something you’ve never heard before?

“Sorry to interrupt, you two seem to be having a long, unnecessary and avoidant conversation that could be resumed in three tiny words, as you did all mission long” interfered Tony, sick of listening to you two. Loki was observing you as heedful as he could; your thoughts had caught his attention. You couldn’t read his face. “So, I’m gonna cut it shortly”.

“What?”, you went back to reality. You needed to actively ignore Loki’s gaze on you to actually pay any mind to Tony’s words.

“The rest of the team has another mission, and both Peter and you are technically still kids…” and as soon as you opened your mouth to argue, he shut it “no, don’t interrupt me. You know I’m right. So, I can’t leave you two alone for the entire week”.

“Oh”, you understood. Peter’s innocent eyes shone at the idea. Yours, not so much. “So, Loki is our babysitter”.

“Yes”, said Loki, while Tony answered “No” at the same time.

"What about Happy?", asked Peter.

“I think we can manage perfectly on our own. Besides, what makes you think he’s more responsible than me?”.

“He’s an adult”.

“He’s seventeen in human years, and fucked a horse”.

“Wow, someone has been stalking my mythology”.

“If you two quarrel too much, Peter will tell me and I’ll be back with Clint Barton in charge of you three. So you better behave. Alright, I’m leaving”.

“Wait! What are the rules?”, asked Peter. You grabbed your face and Loki muttered what a damn nerd.

“Eh, don’t burn down the compound, I don’t know, kid”, said Tony getting inside his bright red suit.

“The bar is on the floor. Let’s play macarena”, you whispered.

#loki #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki fanfic #loki headcanon #loki fic #fanfic mcu #loki masterlist #laufeyson #loki friggason #loki x gender neutral reader #loki x avenger!reader #loki x y/n #mcu loki #marvel #marvel loki #avengers #tom hiddleston

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laffodil-daffodil · 3 years

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The day was beatifull. The birds were singing happily, the peacefull sound of the water running from rivers near by. Everything seemed quiet, calm. Nothing could ruin the moment of peace the forest was having.

The peace, however, did not reach everything.

The sound of a door slamming closed interrupted the calm, the sudden and loud noise resonating trough the forest, cutting the quietness like a knife would do to butter.

Regulus ran out of the cabin door in a hurry, muttering scoldings to himself under his breath. Just this morning (when he was going to make himself some breakfast) he realized that he had no food left (it was obvious, he went hunting over a month ago, the fact that he was too lazy and too depressed were the things that kept him all day on his bed)

He decided to go to the nearest town, he had some money on him from when he helped an old couple out with their strawberry cultives (the couple then gave him a wood box full of strawberrys', which he ate almost inmediatly after he got home).

Regulus never went to towns or villages or cities anymore, faking your own dead didn't allowed you to go in public (being from The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black didn't help eithet). Besides, all that he needed he could find it in the woods.

Like in the books Sirius read to him when he was a kid, like a bedtime story, and he would wait patiently until Sirius tip-toed to his room as quietly as possible so he wouldn't wake up Walburga and then give her a reason to beat them up and-

He stopped himself from remembering more. He always stopped himself from remembering things from his past, from when the time things weren't perfect but they weren't hell either.

He hasn't heard of his parents for years now, and even more less from Sirius (being supposedly dead kept you from keeping track of things outside from your bubble). He just hoped Sirius was finally happy, maybe even be together with that best friend of his (Remus, was it? He couldn't remember quite well his name), he always saw how his brother looked at the other guy with eyes full of adoration, like if Remus had brought him all of the stars in the nightsky.

He hoped his parents were dead, too. They deserved it, after all the shit they made Sirius and him go trough, all of those nights awake hearing his brothers' screams, or the banging of the metal door they locked Sirius in.

And when Sirius left, when his brother was finally physically free from them (because no, Sirius would never be completly free from them, neither of them both would ever be) ,it all just got worse from there. For Regulus, that is. His skin got paler and his eyes got duller, but he felt relief. His brother (the only one he had, the one he held close to his heart, even after being ignored) was finally out of the house they called home.

Regulus noticed (since the day Sirius ran away from "home") that his skin got healthier and his eyes got brighter, unlike him.

Regulus felt relief that his brother was finally able to be freely happy, to be able to love whoever the fuck he wanted to love, to wear whatever he wanted to wear. He truly was.

But what about me, Regulus thought, as he entered the little magical village. I want my happy ending, too. He knew he shouldn't ask for more, he should be more gratefull that he finally, after so much fighting, was finally free from his parents' grasp.

So why wasn't he?

He said an apology under his breath to the old witch that bumped into him, and while she was yelling profanities at him while picking up her groceries, he continued to walk down the crowded street.

Regulus saw, from the corner of his eyes, an old looking bookstore. He walked towards it and pushed the glass door open, might as well buy some more books, no?

The little bell anounnced his entrance to the people inside the shopp, not that anyone cared about it.

Regulus made a bee-line towards the mitology section and picked up two books. One had a deep red cover, with bold golden letters as a tittle. The other had a black cover in its totallity, (also) with bold golden letters.

He made his way towards the front desk to pay for the books, when a wood table that had the newspaper got his attention.

He didn't exactly knew why did it catch his attention, he just knew that he just had to check it out (something in the deepest part of his heart told him to do so).

So he followed his instinct.

"MURDERER SIRIUS BLACK, ARRESTED FOUR YEARS AGO AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO, WAS CAUGHT YESTERDAYS' NIGHT TRYING TO ESCAPE AZKABAN"

He what

Regulus lowered the paper a little and stared at it with incredulity. Sirius was arrested?

Sirius was arrested four years ago?

Regulus did the counts on his head. Four years ago he faked his death to be free, when he tought Sirius wasn't in fucking prison? What in the actual fuck?

He lifted the paper a little with shacky and malhourised hands, those hands that were once soft and didn't know hard work, now, those hands were covered in scars, all of them because of years in the woods, from cutting trees and building his small cabin and fighting wild animals to survive.

He did all of that to survive, all of this- he did it for himself.

He was enjoying freedom while his brother (the brother who neglected you after being choosen in a rival house, the brother who, in a far away past, held your hands on his own and looked at you in the eyes and told you everything was going to be alright) was in prison for murderer, something Regulus believed was false.

Sirius would never kill anyone, Regulus was sure of that.

But that didn't mattered, no. It didn't make any difference to Regulus. His brother ignoring him didn't changed anything, the younger still loved him with all his heart, with all that he had.

His silver eyes looked at the newspaper again, a burning fire making its way into his heart.

"Sirius Black is responsable of the death of a wizard, Petter Pettigrew and thirtheen muggles"

Okay, now Regulus was one-hundred percent sure that his brother had been framed. Regulus knew his brother would never kill muggles, besides, wasn't Petter Pettigrew one of his closest friends?

He continued reading, he needed as much information as he could find. He reached the end of the paragraph, and one or two drops of sweat appeared in his temple.

"-Black is now behind the bars again, the security involving him has increased and is now stronger than ever."

Okay, Regulus wasn't freaking out at all, why would he? The fact that his brother is in fucking Azkaban doesn't inmediatly means he will freak out, nu huh.

Because he is a calm, cool-headed individual, yes he is.

He was not freaking out, and anyone who said otherwise is a liar.

Steps resonated in the small wood cabin owned by the younger heir of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.

Regulus swears he can hear his own hearbeats, beating in his ears and, somehow, telling him to do something, anything.

He doesn't quite know what to do, what to expect of this. This was crazy, right?

He knows it is, so why was he having second thoughts?

Do it, Reg. Just go for it, what could go wrong? A small voice says inside his head. It sounds deep and raspy, but also (for some reason) bubbly and playfull. ‘Like Sirius', he thinks.

Is it risky? Yes, definitly so. Would it be possibly worth it? He hopes so.

This is one-hundred percent a crazy, impulsive idea, but he was willing to try and give it a shot if it meant his brother would read him bedtime storys at night again.

He just wants his brother back, was that too much to ask?-

‘But it is! That lazy blood-traitor scum left you behind, for you to rot in that house, all by yourself while he had fun!’ A different voice screams at him and Regulus flinches, because it sounds so much like his mothers' voice it scares him to the bone.

"Please stop talking..." He begs to the empy room. He takes a shacky breath-in to try and get these voices of people that are not even there with him out of his head.

‘Reggie please listen to me! You have to get me out! I know you can do it, you're really smart!’ Sirius says inside his head, and Regulus can almost imagine him with puppy eyes while saying it.

‘Don't listen to that disgrace, Regulus! You are better than that, you will not hear whatever nonsense comes out of that stupid boys' mouth-’ ‘Im not stupid, you are the one in the wrong, Regulus knows-’ ‘Regulus will know best than to hear anything from you, unlike you, he knows what is best for him-’ ‘Like if you would know what is best for him-’

He feels overwhelmed, the voices are yelling at him to do things and Regulus doesn't know who to hear. He feels his heart beating faster, and he can hear his shaky breaths, and he feels the sweat in his forehead, and his hands in his ears-

"Stop!" Regulus yells, and the voices grow quiet. Hot tears stream down of his face as his knees make contact with the floor of wood.

The voices aren't talking anymore, but he still covers his ears tightly. He wants to get rid of the uncomfortable weight his chest has on it. He wants the headache that is starting to form to go away.

Suddlendly, its like he's five all over again. Just, this time, Sirius is not around to hug him.

Sirius wasn’t going to be around ever again.

Regulus tries to calm down. Breath in, breath out. He was going to be alright, he would find a way. He always does. He’s smart, Sirius always said so.

He remains kneeled on the floor for what feels like an hour, but were probably just two minutes (for him, it felt like a whole lifetime).

Regulus sighs and starts to stand up slowly, like if he went a little bit more quicker, then everything around him would dissapear in an instant.

Supporting his body on the wooden walls (he is still too dizzy to walk by himself, still too weak), Regulus makes his way towards his small bed made out of straw he borrowed (stole) and throws himself at it, exhausted of the events of today.

He has a plan, it is all clear in his mind already. And altough he is scared (of being taken to Azkaban, of dying while trying to save Sirius), a feeling he is not familiar with snuggles inside his chest. It has been there before, Regulus knows it has. (It feels like greeting an old friend who was there for you in your lowest point, but then dissapeared out of the blue. Regulus knows its name, but he can't shake its hand like old buddies would).

And then he closes his eyes and dreams about how his life has been so far. How cold it has been, how lonely it all felt (And Regulus wishes it would had passed like a blurr, (like when you zone out in a conversation and you miss a part of it) but it didn't, and Regulus hates that).

The next morning he wakes up with a headache that forces him to close his eyes tightly.

In all honestly, Regulus feels like shit, both physically and mentally.

Feelings suck, and he would stand by that until the day he became nutrients to the Earth.

He sits on the uncomfortable excuse of a bed slowly, trying not to make his headache worse than it already is. He sits there for a minute or two, before deciding to stand up and go see if there is anything he can eat.

He believes he bought food yesterday, but he couldn't really be sure about that. Everything that he did after reading that newspaper was blank, there was no memory of something else happening after that whatsoever.

His legs are better now that he rested properly. 'There is nothing a good nap can't cure!' Regulus remembers Sirius' voice telling him one day, after Walburga went particularly rough with the Cruciatus Curse on them.

Regulus remembers, that same night, Sirius cuddled up to him on his bed, and held him tight against his chest. Regulus never got in the way when Walburga was insulting Sirius, but that time he did. It did not end pretty.

They both ended up getting tortured, Regulus more than Sirius that time.

They were ten and six at that time.

Now he realized that he, in fact, did bought food yesterday. Some bread and cheese, along with a loaf of bread that didn't look in the best condition (he couldn't really afford that much after all, there was so much a few coins could buy).

As he started cutting some of the bread, he tought about his options, about what he could do and about what was out of the question.

Regulus could only think about two viable options that would (probably) (hopefully) decrease the chances of everything going wrong.

One (this one was crazy) he could try and become an animagus. An animal form would surely help him get in and out of the prison.

Now, that option would take him months of preparations, maybe even years.

(He knows most wizards and witches with animagus form had taken several years to even figure out how to become an animagus, but he is Regulus Black for Godric's sake. He isn't most wizards)

(He is better than most, after all)

The black-haired male stands there in the middle of his tiny kitchen, a knife still in his left hand. He thinks he has an idea, someone who would surely help him if he asked.

But in order to ask them, he would have to find them first.

Where exactly are you, Remus Lupin?

. . .

Remus wasn’t having a good morning (he never was having anything good). First, he woke up past 6 am and ended up arriving late at work (again), and his boss yelled at him for 5 minutes (again), and then, oh and then, he ended up getting fired (AGAIN), which, by the way, was the cherry on top to his shitty morning, and it wasn’t even 1 in the afternoon yet.

Now he would have to search for any jobs that would accept him, again (this was the second time in the month that he was fired from a job; in the first one he may or may not had punched a co-worker (in his defense, the bastard was talking shit about a female co-worker, and Remus just got really really angry).

And as he stomped angrily in the direction where his house was, he came to realize that he fucked this up really bad. Now he had no job, not even one kind of support to survive another month, and he sure as hell didn’t have any friends to go back to if things got more rough.

Ah, now he’s just sad.

He glanced at the plants and flowers growing at the sides of the road made of dirt, and he remembers.

Remus remembers the times when he used to be happy, when his only concern was passing his exams and not letting his crush on Sirius (oh Sirius, i miss you terribly) showing up and exposing him. When he would hang out with Lily at the library, and talk about how classes were starting to get more difficult as the days passed, or how they would gossip and talk badly about Severus ("-and have you seen his hair today?"), and they would talk and talk, and then talk some more.

Or when he would help James with his game plans, and they would stay up until the sun appeared again at the next day. Or when he would bake with Peter at the schools' kitchen at really late hours at night.

And he remembers, too, the times when he would look at Sirius and he would just get lost in his silver eyes. And Remus would look at him like Sirius was the most beatifull being in the would (in his eyes, he was).

He misses those times, he yearns for them. He wants them back, with all of his heart.

Life has always been rough for him, its just the way things are.

Because he deserved it.

(or so his father said)

Remus sees his little house at a distance. It looks deteriorated and in ruins, that house. The wild flowers are all around it, and there’s plants climbing on the walls and covering the windows.

He sees a cloaked figure standing on his porch, and Remus feels fear.

But he won’t show it, no, he won’t, ‘because fear is for cowards’ , his father would say, and the voice he would use left no room to question him.

“Can i help you with something?” Remus says, loud and clear.

The person in black tensed, and turned around to face Remus slowly, like if they were scared (’of what?’ Remus wondered, but he kept quiet- like he always does)

Facing each other, silver and brown met.

“Oh”

The wind roared from outside, strong and merciless as ever. It made the trees dance and the leaves from them to roam free on the sky.

The raindrops that fell from the sky were hitting on the glass of the window with force, on the roof, on the dirt. It left nothing untouched.

“How have you been, Remus?” The man in question turned his gaze from the window to the person in-front of him. The years had taken a ton from him, it seemed. Yet, the beauty he owned many years ago had not left him, no. It made him even more handsome, Remus concluded. His silver eyes (oh, his eyes were so smilar to his Sirius’-) were bright, a shine in them Remus has never seen before in the younger man.

Remus gripped the handle of his mug of tea. The sweet honey tea with lavender inside of it warmed his hands, full of calluses and old scars, it soothed him and the pains he felt in them. “You should be dead” He says, looking at the eyes of Regulus, searching (searching?) for an answer to his one-hundred-and-one questions.

“Let me explain, Remus. Please, would you listen to what i have to say?” Regulus says, and he sounds so hurt, so exhausted and done with everything. He says nothing in response, just goes back to looking out of the window, where the wind and rain still are. Where everything follows its course.

“I faked my death...that night i-, i saw an opportunity and i took it, and then i--”

“You left Sirius” Remus says, and the voice that comes out of him sounds so not like him, so aggressive and upset and loud and so much like his voice-

Still, Remus doesn’t back off. He looks up at Regulus and flinches. He looks so upset and angry, like Remus just did something so disgusting and wrong that he can’t take it.

Those silver eyes (One of the distinguished features of the oh so noble and honorary Black Family) burn in his soul like silver things burns in his skin. And it’s terrifyng and powerful in equal portions.

“He left me behind first, Remus” Regulus says, his voice filled with venom and as aggressive as Remus’ voice before. “He left me behind the moment i got into Slytherin” He adds, and Remus can hear his erratics breaths over the muffled sound of rain.

They stay silent, for a while. Not wanting to fight but not wanting to talk either.

“Why are you here, Regulus? We hardly ever talked back at Hogwarts, so i can’t imagine a reason behind your visit” Remus finally says. With the new need to do something (-anything), he stands up from the badly hand-made wood chair and takes his mug of half finished and still warm tea, walking with rapid steps towards the tiny kitchen connected to the living room. He occupies his hands with cutting the remains of the bread he baked yesterday.

“I came to ask you for a favor “ He starts “,you see-- Don’t look at me like that, Remus, hear me out first” Regulus says, and stands up too.

The black haired male takes a deep breath, as if he’s preparing himself to say something difficult to speak out loud. “Sirius is innocent, Remus, i am sure of it”

Everything goes silent from there. Remus can’t hear a thing because of the annoying ringing in his ears, and even before muffled sound of the rain is in the background now. He sees Regulus moving his mouth, and Remus is sure he is saying something (most probably something important), but he can’t hear a thing.

And Remus is so angry right now. It bubbles in his chest, from deep beneath with all of the emotions he repressed all of those years, and if he doesn’t calm down now then it’s going to explode. What could Regulus know anyways? He wasn’t even there in the first place! He was too bussy faking being dead, and hiding somewhere away from civilitation, like the stupid coward he is.

(Remus know he is a coward too, he knows it all too well. Because he knows that, (deep down) Sirius is innocent. He just hasn’t come to terms with it because he is so angry and he feels so betrayed and-- how could them leave him behind like this?) (Remus knows that he is stupid, too, because all he wants is someone to blame for the death of Lily and James and Peter-- someone to blame for little Harry slipping away from his fingers like sand)

(And Remus knows that he is a hypocrite, too)

“...--and you know, Remus, that Sirius would never do such a thing, we both know it!” Regulus says, his voice sounds more clear now, less muffled and silent. And it sounds so desperate, begging for understanding and someone to hear him out.

“Those were his best friends, and even i -that a i wasn’t even close to him-, knows that is a fact! He couldn’t had killed them like that!” He yells, and Remus feels sick.

“...get out...” The words come out of his mouth before he can register them, just above a whisper.

“What?”

“I said get out!” He shouts at Regulus, the boiling feeling of anger finally snaps inside of him, and now he just wants someone to yell at, someone to discharge all of his repressed emotions at.

And he does. Before he knows it, Regulus is out of his house and into the pouring rain, because Remus takes his wand out of his back pocket and yells a ´Crucio!’ and fires it to Regulus, who dodges and sprints out of the house.

And Remus is all alone again, inside of that small and old house, with the feeling of anger and guilt and sadness washing over him.

He feels his knees too weak to support him, and falls to the floor with a ‘thud!’. And for the first time since his loved ones left him, for the first time since his life fell apart, he allows himself to cry and yell.

And he feels like a little kid again.

. . .

Okay, Regulus admits, the plan did not work out like he thought it would.

Maybe he did broke the news too strongly, he kind of got angry at first. But it wasn’t really his fault, Remus said something he couldn’t even had known! His relationship with Sirius and how broken it was wasn’t any of his business.

But it’s fine, Regulus can do this on his own. It’ll be harder, but he’ll do it.

No matter the cost.

Two years pass by and Regulus is ready to start with the second and hardest part of his plan. Getting Sirius out of prison.

It too him a whole year and a half to even figure out how to become an animagus, and the other half of the year to learn how to switch to his animal form. But he’s finally ready, and he is so excited to mend things with Sirius and be brothers again.

Now he’s standing on the port, unleashing the rope that’s tied to a boat he’s about to steal. The boat is old, but it looks solid still. Regulus wonders what kind of adventures it has lived, the people it has carried, the tales it had heard from other peoples’ mouths.

Regulus gets in the boat before it couldbfloat away from shore, and sits.

He feels the texture of the wood under him. It's cold and damp, and he can feel the old carves in the wood forming the word he assumes reads 'fishy'.

He chuckles under his breath, shaking his head side to side. Probably a little kid wrotte that.

Maybe many years ago, a family had a trip to catch fishies in this very boat. Regulus pictures a father and his youngest son, on a sunny day, in this boat. The father tries to teach his son how to catch a fish, but the child, as most little kids usually do, gets bored with the waiting and as there's no other way of entertaiment, he carves the word on the old boat.

He wishes that instead of being in this situation, in the thick, thick fog, he would be fishing with his older brother. He wishes things turned out differently.

Regulus wishes he could live his youth with his brother, instead of trying to rescue him from a crime he definitely did not commit.

Oh, Regulus wishes were so many. But those were only wishes, thoughts that are in the past now. Realities that already lost their chances to exist a long time ago.

And with these thoughts clouding his mind like the fog cloudes his vision, Regulus grabs the oars and starts paddling.

The splinters in the oar feel like nothing against his tough and scarred hands, instead of hurting him, they keep him on the real world, away from the one where he goes when everything is too much, when he loses himself.

Regulus doesn't know how many hours went by until he could see the impotent building that was Azkaban. And as he was nearing it, the waves kept rocking his small boat, threatening him to flip.

He wonders if everything he's doing right now would be enough. He wonders, as the boat flips harshly to its side and throws him off of it into the freezing water, if Sirius knows he loves him more then life itself.

Regulus doesn't fight back the cold water, not at all. Instead, he lets it settle in his bones, in his belly, in his lungs.

If being held feels like this, then Regulus decided he liked it. No one ever held him before, maybe as a baby, but as he grew older, the only one who held him close was Sirius.

Sirius... who is Sirius, exactly?

He tries to remember, he feels the name belongs to an important person, but his mind is as numb as his arms and legs feel, if not even more.

It doesn't matter, he thinks, because im dying anyways.

Life is cruel, he decides with a heavy feeling in his chest, as his heavy body sinks him deeper and deeper on the ocean.

He'll be sleeping forever next to sand and rocks and corals of multiple colours, and the black of his hair will meld perfectly next to them.

Regulus doesn't fight, but he dies with a ball of hatred and love and yearning in his heart. He'll be dreaming for eternity of wishes and unspoken words, of hugs and arms that will never hold him ever again.

Life is cruel, and Regulus Black knows it all too well.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

IM SORRY I JUST COULDN'T GIVE THE BLACK BROTHERS AND REMUS THEIR HAPPY ENDING SKSNEKEMS what can i say, im a sucker for an angsty ending.

anyways, this was inspired by this blog (https://eronlupett.tumblr.com/post/642858372635475968/i-need-a-writer) by ". and before you mentuon it, yes, i was going to writte a happy ending, i just couldn't, like, cmon on, it was right there, i couldn't resist.

i had lots of fun writting this, but it still took me almost 5 months to finish it lolz. guess i just didn't had the motivation.

let me know what you think of my witting style, or if you have any opinions, just dont b disrespectful!

byebye^^

#Remus Lupin #Sirius orion black #regulus black #lily james #lol this sucks #angst headcanon #harry potter angst #bad ending #im honeslty not sorry #im an asshole hehe #no fluff

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yeojaa · 4 years

Text

NOT YOUR FAIRYTALE - ft. myg

What do you do when you've called your wedding off but forgot to cancel your cake tastings? Why, you ask your brother's grouchy best friend, of course.

pairing. min yoongi. sort of.

genre + rating. fluff-adjacent. general.

warning / tags. mentions of infidelity, cake tasting, cake tasting isn’t a euphemism, fluff and hurt/comfort, alternate universe, alternate universe - modern setting, friendship, friendship/love, childhood friends.

reading. n/a. a stand-alone three part one-shot.

word count. ~1850

chapter iii.

“I didn’t mean it, Yoongi.”

The apology is off your tongue and crashing into his ears before you have a second to consider it, pleading colouring syllables in soft shades of blue. You hate the way he’s looking at you, like you’ve found the chink in his armour and are on the verge of exploiting it.

“It’s fine.” Over a decade of friendship tells you it’s decidedly not fine. His concession comes far too quickly, meant to placate whatever guilt he’d accidentally kicked up.

It makes you feel worse, the weight increasing tenfold when he offers you his seldom-seen smile. Gums flash, corner of his mouth hitching over soft pink tissue. It doesn’t quite meet his eyes though, falling just short of the endlessly dark depths of his irises.

“Seriously. Forget about it.” You know he’s doing his best to force you onward but you can’t help but dig your figurative heels further into the dirt. An immovable force.

“I’m really sorry,” you repeat, voice thick with meaning.

Yoongi huffs a little, seemingly frustrated. You shrink a little further in on yourself, shoulders dropping and lips shifting in tandem. You’re probably pouting. You feel his stare from your periphery, feline gaze focused wholly on the way your mouth turns and turns around words you’re trying to perfect.

Silence stretches on, longer than you can stand and far more awkward than you’re used to. You can feel it like a suffocating weight, a goose down comforter in the heat of summer - heavy and unpleasant.

“I’m sorry.” It squeaks out in the same instant he sighs. He sounds less irritated, though you can see the tension in his chin, how it jumps the muscle in his jaw.

“You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“But I don’t think you’re heartless, Yoongi. I shouldn’t have said it.” You say it like it’s crucial - as if you might perish if you don’t get them out. They sweep into the spaces between you, earnest and full of fear, filling all the cracks left by your own hand.

You layer your reassurances as best you can, tongue tripping over teeth as you ramble about all the different ways you see him.

In shades of diffused morning light, lined with silver like a physical reminder that there’s always hope. Through the lens of childhood admiration, sprinkled with childish laughter and doe-eyed awe. With as much unconditional love as you’ve ever been capable of, wrapped up in furtive glances and curious, miserably nonchalant texts to your brother.

It comes and comes, word vomit that won’t stop until you’re brought back by the expression on his face. It’s tender, bemused - reminiscent of a parent of an overzealous child. You’ve seen it a million times before, though the instances were much fewer and far between now that you were older.

You immediately backtrack. “I’m sorry.” This time it’s for wasting his time, for being his best friend’s annoying little sister.

You’re tumbling over your own two feet again. You’ve said too much by the time he speaks at all.

“You’re more than that.” A statement of fact, seemingly, by how he delivers it with such ease, as if it hasn’t just set your heart off in your chest, the poor thing stuttering to life (or death). You’re not sure.

Despite your best efforts, the singular word gives you away, coloured canary red with hope. “What?”

If he’d heard your question at all, he says nothing, footsteps never faltering. He’s walking ahead like he hasn’t just turned your world on its axis, throwing you completely off-balance. He doesn’t even offer a glance back, halfway down the block by the time you come to your senses.

You jog to catch up, fingers eager to close the distance you quickly eat up. You settle into a measured pace behind him, though your mouth moves at a mile a minute. You can feel the maddening persistence in your bones, hear it as it carves demands into what was once comfortable silence.

“Why did you say that?” No response. “Yoongi!” He doesn’t even flinch, gaze trained ahead as if he’s never been in Apgujeong before and he’s terribly interested in everything but you.

The distinct urge to stomp your foot fizzles through your limbs and you almost do. You’re rooting yourself to the spot, sneaker raised comically, when he rounds on you. Brows have disappeared into his swath of dark hair and his chin tilts just so, studying you quizzically. It looks like he’’s having an internal debate as to whether he should rib you further.

He decides against it - returning to the conversation you’re so adamant to have. “You know, for being a Kim, you’re not that bright.”

“Excuse me?” Indignation bursts out your mouth. You’re focusing too hard on the words he’s spoken than the implication behind them. They sail over your head, lost to the pretty coral that streaks across the sky and eats up the horizon.

To Yoongi, it’s like watching his literal heart fly out the window. He’s a little exasperated when he speaks again. “You’re my best friend’s little sister. I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“What’re you saying?” Because you’re really confused now. You think Namjoon would be too.

Are you even having the same conversation?

“Do I need to spell it out for you?” The line of his mouth quirks, corner stretching into something that borders on a smirk. It’s devilish - decidedly not something you’re used to - and you imagine your stomach kickflips before wrecking itself on the pavement.

Your silence seems to be answer enough.

He heaves a sigh as if he’s been terribly inconvenienced, arms folding over his chest. The gesture should read as don’t come near me! but you have the very distinct urge to fold yourself under his arms. You resist it by biting down hard on your bottom lip.

“I’ve had feelings for you since we were kids. Specifically since you had your 10th grade ballet recital and you kept the bear I got you.”

You remember the day like it was yesterday. You’d been lucky enough to land the coveted spot in the winter showcase and he’d been there, shoulder to shoulder with your brother, when you’d taken your bow. The bouquet of peonies he’d brought you - in soft shades of blush and violet, your favourite colours - had nearly engulfed your frame and you’d had trouble holding both it and the sweet brown bear that came with it.

The same bear that still sat on your bedside table, propped up beside your charging cable and yearly planner. The one you’d cried yourself hoarse over after you thought you lost it during your freshman year of college.

“I don’t understand.” You frown, deeply. You can feel the little dent between your brows. It comes out when you’re stressed or confused or, in this instance, both.

He’s more teasing than unkind: “Like I said - not that bright.”

You ignore the dig. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t do that to Joon. I promised I wouldn’t.”

Somehow, that’s more of a revelation than Yoongi’s confession.

“He knows?” You can’t help the gasp that ricochets out of your mouth, belligerent and betrayed. You’re already running through the 100 different ways you’re going to kill your brother. Because he’d known! While you’d pined, Namjoon had known and simply stood by. “He knows how I feel about you and he didn't say anything?”

You know if you think about it, you can’t blame him. You’d given him a hard time too when he and Sora seemed to get along a little too well. Call it a sibling thing.

In the heat of the moment though, you’re livid. So Yoongi does what he does best and redirects effortlessly.

“—feel?”

The prompt reassigns all focus back to him, your anger toward your brother all but forgotten. You think you could give Pikachu a run for his money by the surprise that works itself into your expression. Heat licks itself across your cheeks, rolling like a steam engine over the exposed skin of your neck and up past your ears. Had it suddenly jumped 20 degrees?

“I mean felt.”

When Yoongi steps forward, you’re hyper fixated on the way his mouth bends and bows, gums and neat white enamel revealed by the motion. You’re rooted to the spot as he’s suddenly all you can see, crown of dark hair blocking the light from behind him, narrow shoulders curling in on you. He’s near enough you can smell his comforting, woody scent.

You haven’t been this close in - well, ever, you think.

Then he kisses you - a chaste thing, right on the cheek - and you forget how to breathe.

“I guess we’ll need to change that.”

SIX MONTHS LATER

“I’m honestly surprised,” your boyfriend drawls, the picture of disinterest as he leans himself against the packed counter top, elbows propping himself up. He’s staring out at the sea of people swarming the apartment, a comfortable group of new and old coming together to celebrate something very important.

He watches as your brother narrowly misses knocking over the beer pong table, earning a groan from the participants. Jungkook yells something about his shot being messed up; Jimin denies a re-throw. There’s more incoherent shouting.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You’re at his back, arms twined neatly around his slender waist as you press your face into the warm expanse of his back. The sweater he wears is overly soft from years of wear and it feels good under your reddened cheek.

You’d had a bit to drink and you were feeling exceptionally affectionate.

“You actually kept it a secret.” Not that he hadn’t figured it out himself. It was in your nature to throw surprise parties - you did for Namjoon and Jin and that loud best friend of yours - so he’d only figured he would get one when the time came.

“We’re very good at keeping secrets in this family, remember?” Your voice carries past the cotton of his clothes, filtering through laughter to kick his beating heart into overdrive.

“Oh, how could I forget.” He snorts quietly, turning in the same instance you unlatch yourself from him. He has to fight the look of disappointment that threatens to pull his mouth into a pout, brow knitting in disapproval as you round on the refrigerator.

It’s only when you spin back to face him that his expression cracks and re-sets itself with glee. Now he’s actually surprised.

Because you’ve got a cake box from the same bakeshop you’d gone cake tasting at. He recognizes the logo on the front and the pretty frosting behind the plastic cover. It’s shades of cream and citrus and decorated with cherries. Your - and his - favourite cake from that day.

“You’re not supposed to see the cake ahead of time!” It’s Namjoon bursting into the kitchen looking alarmed.

You laugh first, bright and sunny. “It’s a birthday cake, not a wedding dress.”

But as you kiss him, cake cradled gingerly between your bodies, Yoongi thinks he wouldn’t mind seeing you in that, either.

notes. this final chapter was short and sweet but i hope you enjoyed it. thank you for reading! x

tag list. @hoodmeup @loveyoongles @vi-hoshi

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extremelyblackandwhite · 4 years

Text

innocence - 12

PAIRING: bodyguard!bucky barnes x innocent actress!reader

WARNINGS: age gap, anxiety, ptsd, trauma, angst

A/N: i do know i was supposed to post this yesterday but i got lost doing a bit of cleaning around my room so here it is a bit late. hope you enjoy it! let me know what you think, much love xx

NEXT CHAPTER

Y/N liked the dark of the night, it brought her comfort. She could never explain why but the ambience of the dark night only disturbed by the glittering lights of the tea light candle on a heart cut glass which flashed little heart shaped golden flecks of light onto the wall. The TV volume was low, playing When Harry Met Sally which Bucky had insisted to watch after confessing he had never seen it, yet he was not the slightest bit interested in the movie. She, however, was. Cuddled in chunky yarn ticket blanket, oversized sweater pushed up to her chin and eyes glued onto one of her favourite romantic movies. Bucky was more interested in how she was curled against him, head laying on the side of his torso. She looked adorable with her shiny eyes in the romantic comedy and maybe Bucky would’ve shown some interest if he was watching the movie with Steve or Sam but whenever she was close by, he didn’t want to look at anything else but her. In all honesty, he didn’t think he ever wanted to look at anything else after h saw her. He’d be happy to protect her, as long as he could look at her. As long as he could look at her, he’d be happy.

He remembered the goggles they made him wear, it distorted his view, it made everything clearer yet somehow darker. He could never see people’s faces, he could never see their expressions but he could hear them scream, he could hear them telling him to stop and he wanted to stop, he really did, but he couldn’t. He was a bad person, he was a terrible person.

- James? - her voice dripping with worry cut through his thoughts. - Are you okay? You look spaced out.

- Yeah. - her hand escaped its blanket confinements to hold his hand. - Just tired.

- You can spend the night if you want. The couch doubles as a bed and I have some extra blankets. - she moved around from her place so she could sit straight. Bucky wanted to say no, he really did. He probably knew Steve was going to freak out at the idea of him not returning, he could do something to hurt her and he just didn’t want to risk it. However, looking into her hopeful eyes which held nothing but love and sympathy for him as if he had never caused anyone harm ... as if he wasn’t a monster, as if he wasn’t someone, or rather something, people should fear, knocked all his defences down. He wondered if it was a perk or a flaw to be that forgiving, to be able to look past the past, specially in an industry like hers. He wondered how long it would take to harden her and he wondered how long it would take for her to become a cynic. Most importantly, he wondered if he could protect her from that. - If you want you can take my bedroom, I can sleep in the couch.

- I can sleep in the couch, princess. - he sighed, smiling at her sleepy form who had begging eyes and a little sleepy smile. - You’re awfully good at persuasion.

- I was Capitan of the debate club. - she perked up, excited about the compliment. Bucky wondered what else he could do with that, knowing she liked to be complimented. She deserved to be complimented. - I’m very persuasive.

- No, princess. It’s those doe eyes. - he pointed at her eyes, little smile on his lips. - Saying no to you is like shooting Bambi. You have a very weird soft kind of persuasion.

- Thank you. - she smiled, pushing her blanket away to get up. - I’ll go grab you some blankets. Do you want fuzzy ones?

- I don’t need blankets.

- Yes, you do. - before he could tell her again that he didn’t need blankets, she was already rushing to a little closet nearby the door of her room. She opened it with her foot before placing herself on her tip toes to grab some blankets she had folded and put away. Her arms could barely wrap around the thick winter bedding and Bucky found it amusing how she started to waddle around with them before dropping them on the coach. - I’ll get you some pillows.

- You have pillows on your couch.

- They’re decorative pillows, Bucky. You don’t sleep on them, you decorate with them.

- Y/N ... - he wrapped her hands around her waist, pushing her to the couch as she got ready to go grab some pillows. - This is fine, princess. You don’t need to accommodate me.

- You’re my guest. It’s common manners, Bucky. - she tried to snake away from his grip but Bucky was much too strong and she had never been very good at leaving holds. - Let me grab you a pillow.

- No.

- Let me help you make the bed then. - she pulled onto his arm so she could raise her head to look at him.

- If it makes you happy. - his grip softened on her waist allowing her to escape him and get back on her feet. He let out a mindless little smile, raising from the couch along with the blanket.

Y/N quickly got to work, leaning to pull at the bottom of the couch which unfolded down onto a quite big bed. He tried to help but she shushed him away, placing the sheets in a way which would make a five star hotel jealous. Bucky couldn’t help but pick onto how much love and attention she seemed to lay onto every single motion she did. It was feather like, like the movements of a ballerina, so light, so soft, hypnotising even.

- There. - she pointed to the bed happily. - A nice comfortable bed for the night. Are you sure you don’t need some pillows?

- I’m sure. - he walked over to her side. - Wanna watch a movie?

- Sure. What do you wanna watch? - she jumped onto the bed, remote in hand as she wrapped herself back with her blanket. Bucky sat down on her left, lifting his legs to rest over the comfortable, now extended couch.

- You can pick.

- I have terrible taste in movies. You pick.

- You’re an actress.

- So? Cliché and chick-flicks make me happy and I don’t think you wanna watch any of those.

- Sure, I do.

- You big liar.

They two of them weren’t sure what movie it ended up being picked, maybe some preview just played on a loop but it didn’t matter because in less than half hour the two of them had fallen asleep.

Bucky disliked falling asleep, it always felt like falling. Falling reminded him of falling from the train. He could never exactly explain it, not to Steve, not to his therapist yet it wasn’t like he wanted to. It was an indescribably feeling; when you’re a child and you feel like falling you known warmth is gonna be at the end, you know someone is gonna catch you but no one caught him, there was no warmth. There was only cold. He could still feel his bone break, looking down at his arm to see half of it was gone. He remembered looking up at the skies, waiting for death to take him as the snowflakes fell onto his face. Bucky thought that was the worse, he thought that was the worse which could happen until they dragged him, dragged him through the snow. Whatever was left of his arm was chopped off, he felt it all, he felt it all through a numb-like status of mind and once he regained consciousness he rose his arm to see the metal arm.

- Buck? - she could feel him move and hear him whimper. It had woken her up and it was breaking her heart so she decided the best was to wait him up. She poked his arm once more yet when she tried to shake him, he topped over her, metal hand going straight for her neck, eyes wide open. It just hoovered there, over her neck, no grip but there was a look of pure fright on his eyes. Disbelief. - Bucky?

He immediately got off her, looking around before starting to walk quickly away from her. Bucky pushed the door open which sounded alarm bells in her mind. She tried calling out to him again but he ignored, leaving her home. Y/N rushed off her bed and followed him, not caring if she was in her pyjamas in the hallway.

- Bucky, stop! - she asked him, rushing after him. Bucky, however, kept walking away, pushing the door which led to the staircase open and expecting her to tire herself out but she didn’t. Y/N kept running after him, going down the stairs until she finally caught up to him. Her small hand grabbed his much larger arm. - Bucky!

- I need to go.

- No. - she said, calmly, hand over her chest to regain her breathing. She placed her hands on top of his shoulders, pushing him from a hug. Her head tucked in the space between his shoulder and neck feeling how tense he was. He was never this tense around her. - You need to go back to bed.

- Y/N.

- No. - she rose her head to stare at him. She sighed before leaning in to kiss him, giving him a soft, dragging kiss. - You need to rest.

She turned around, hand lowering to hold his before climbing up the stairs back to her floor. Her door was still open and she led him in, closing the door with her foot. She continued to walk through her apartment until she stopped at her bedroom.

- You’re okay. - her hand caressed her cheek. - You’re okay.

He wanted to believe her, he really wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe he was okay but he was not. He was still damaged, held together by tape which was losing its glue and it was only a matter of time until it broke loose and the pieces fell back into the shattered mess. Bucky was not okay but she was persistant and as she laid him down, he almost believed he was okay. Her thumb caressed his face while her other hand was firm against his chest. He didn’t want to fall asleep, he didn’t want to hurt her but his body didn’t agree with him and her soft touch lulled him to sleep.

The morning came with a crash, he woke up earlier than her, feeling her close to him, tucked under his chin. He pulled away softly not wanting to wake her up. He didn’t even know what to say to her and so he left, closing the door on his way out. Steve was probably freaking out at the tower and he didn’t want to have to deal with the after mat of almost chocking her. He reached the tower and most were still asleep except for Steve. Here we go again.

- We were worried. - he started.

- You don’t need to say “we”, Steve. I know it was you who was worried.

- Where were you? You were out the whole night, I tried calling you.

- My phone was dead, I stayed over at Y/N’s for the night.

- Y/N’s? - he raised an eyebrow. - You didn’t, Buck ...

- I didn’t fuck her if that’s what you’re so worried about. She just asked if I wanted to stay and it seemed like the better idea.

- Buck ... - Steve sighed. It was a hard conversation to have, one that he definitely didn’t want to have but he had to, he had to had this conversation either he wanted it or not. - We need to talk about Y/N.

- I don’t wanna talk about it.

- But we need to talk about it. You just ... The therapist and I think it’s not a good idea to get into a relationship. You still have some work to do until you’re ready to be in a relationship specially with someone who is not in our world and doesn’t understand that you’re still ... having some issues.

- I know.

- Maybe in a few years, after you’ve worked through every ...

- I KNOW! - he screamed at him before leaving Steve speechless in the kitchen.

He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to hear Steve but most importantly, he didn’t want to think of her waking up alone in a cold bed.

taglist: @disasterbii @lookiamtrying @buckysteveloki-me @nsfwsebbie @americasass81 @jamesbarnesappreciationclub @lostinthebeans @mariahthelioness29 @buckyandsebastian @peaches-roses-sins @theadorasabditory @sipsteacasually @tonystankschild @saiyanprincessswanie @booktease21 @noiralei @learisa @everythingisoverrated @uglipotata72829 @naturalthrone22 @husherstan @mandiiblanche @vicmc624 @newyorkgoddess @itsallyscorner @chipilerendi @emzd34 @writerwrites @bluevxnus @that-girl-named-alex @captnrogers

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kmpac · 3 years

Text

Caught in the Rain

➸ 13+

➸ Summary: Being a college kid is a lot of stress, especially when you get deserted by your best friend and have to ask your crush to give you a ride in the rain...

➸ Word count: 2K

➸ Pairing: college student Min Yoongi x college student y/n

➸ Genre: So much fluff

➸ Warnings: like...one curse word, maybe?

➸ A/N: Two nights in a row I had this dream of Yoongi. He had something to say for his birthday, so for his birthday, I decided to put it on paper for you all. I have not edited it at all, so please be gentle with me until I’m able to go back through it. I didn’t want to miss his birthday...

You knew you shouldn’t have opened your big trap. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here in the cold, drenched with rain. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

It was a regular Wednesday evening for you, a college student, desperately trying to juggle your 19 credit hours, as well as study time. As such, you were entirely focused in that moment on getting a few studying hours in before you inevitably had to get home and go to bed, only to start all over again, especially since you had a test tomorrow in Anatomy. Your best friend, Sarah, however, had different plans for how to spend her free evening and talked to you non-stop, while you stressed over your grades versus being a good friend.

Her boyfriend was acting suspect, and being a pretty big jerk when Sarah confronted him about a text message on his phone from a girl that looked like a request for a booty call. She hadn’t snooped, just seen his phone light up on the coffee table, while she was over “Netflix and chilling” with him one night. You were trying so hard to equally be a good friend, and a good student, but after mixing up the Parietal and Occipital bones in the skull for the 5th time in a row, you turned to Sarah and said “Honey, he is cheating on you. You need to break up with him. Cut ties. You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

While the sentiment was certainly meant to help, it was said in a raised voice that instead communicated frustration, rather than understanding, and it sent a bulldozer straight at Sarah. Your brain took a little longer to catch up to what you had done, but Sarah didn’t have the same problem as she grabbed her bag and, with tears in her eyes, flew toward the stairs. When you woke up from your temporary daze, you started down the stairs after her, trying to apologize, but Sarah wasn’t hearing it. Down the stairs through the humanities building she went and out the front door into the rain and cold of night. You were a bit behind, so when you finally made it out into the pouring rain, she had already entered her car and drove away when you remembered she was your ride.

You stood under a portico, trying to shield your phone as you called Sarah repeatedly, to no avail. She refused to answer. The realization that the campus was mostly empty and it was 10pm on a Wednesday night suddenly struck you, and the tears started to fall as you kicked yourself at your stupidity.

Sarah always had been sensitive about her boyfriend. She should have broken up with him 10 times over, but you always dried her tears and ate ice cream with her listening to her problems, but never interfering. It would have continued to be that way, if not for that stupid test. Remembering the test had you running back up to the second floor to grab your bag and pack it the best you could with tears clouding your vision. The building was dead silent and most of the lights were off at this point. You hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. Somehow, being alone always intensified the awareness of silence, and this was no different.

You were shivering as you had gotten soaked to the bone in the rain, and were only wearing a hoodie over your tee shirt and jeans. You pulled your phone out again to call Sarah. She again didn’t answer. You tried Deanna, your neighbor, no answer. You tried Amy, your lab partner, no answer. You weren’t exactly the most social sophomore on campus, and unfortunately your family were all miles and miles away, unable to help, so why scare them with this?

You were frantically searching your brain for anyone you could call, while also contemplating trying Sarah’s boyfriend, the jerk, when you noticed a light on in the building next door. It was the library, and should have been your study spot, but there were generally too many people there, and you preferred the quiet of the Humanities building, where you could stretch out on a couch and comfortably absorb information. But right now, that building might be your saving grace. You scanned the lit window for a familiar face when you stumbled upon Min Yoongi.

THE Min Yoongi.

Coolest guy on campus, as far as you were concerned. Quiet. Speculative. Barely spoke or acknowledged anyone except when absolutely necessary. Always had a pair of headphones in his ears, even during class, like he didn’t even care if the teachers noticed. And while such a person might normally seem like a snob, he was the opposite. He had a kind of quiet patience with everyone around him. You had first met him Freshman year in a Music Theory class and you were astonished by his knowledge and creative thinking. You started sitting next to him, to hopefully absorb some of his genius, as you were not the most naturally gifted at Music of any kind, though you loved to listen to music (hence why you chose the class for your elective). 2 years later, you liked to think of him as a friend, but the kind of friend you want to make out with.

Did you mention he was also incredibly hot? With cat like eyes, a soft nose, skin like porceline, and the poutiest mouth you’d ever seen, you were constantly one bad choice away from attacking him. You had always held back, worried that a guy like that would never see a total nerd like you as anything but a friend. Hell, here you were with your hair pulled into yesterday’s ponytail and your baggiest hoodie and jeans, and that was before you got drowned in the rain.

Either way, you needed a ride home, and Yoongi was your only shot at a knight in shinning armor.

Thinking that thought had you imagining him scooping you up and rescuing you, even as you ran down the stairs and back out into the rain.

It was embarrassing to say the least to walk through the library, probably looking a hot mess as you passed other late night studiers who lined the library tables and chairs. You got more than one odd look as you tried to tuck your frizzed wet hair behind your ears and make your way to Yoongi, but you felt the tears coming again as your situation only grew worse with each step. Not only had you lost your ride, and precious last minute studying hours, but now you were being stared at like a lunatic, while you went to beg your crush to rescue you, while looking the exact opposite of how you wished to look in his presence.

When you made it to where he was sitting you noticed he had headphones on and was working on something on his laptop and didn’t notice your approach until you were directly in front of him. When he did notice you, his eyes only marginally widened at the look of you, but otherwise his face remained unchanged as he slowly removed one headphone from his ear in a universal signal to speak.

You coughed and tried not to cry more as you explained your situation. As you gestured, you noticed water cascading from your sleeve and something about it set you off again and you burst into silent tears as you turned around to hide it from Yoongi. This was a bad idea. But then you heard his laptop close with a snap and when you turned around he was standing and slinging his backpack over his back.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, y/n?” He said in his deep monotone voice. “I’m taking you home.”

You started to apologize and tell him, he didn’t have to leave that you would find another way home, but he told you to shut up, so you did. You followed him out into the rain and into his car that was parked in the adjoining parking lot, berating yourself the whole way. What were you actually thinking? This was a terrible idea. The voice in your head was so loud, you almost didn’t hear him ask for your address until he handed you his phone with GPS open. You typed in your address and put on your seatbelt, apologizing silently for all the water you got in his car.

At first, you traveled in silence, with only the radio to fill the awkwardness of the situation. You had never been in such an intimate setting with Yoongi before and you were feeling it, but for his part, he looked as cool as a cucumber.

“So what is Sarah’s deal anyway?” He asked suddenly, snapping your attention back forward to the road.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does she put up with that guy? He’s a jerk.”

“My words exactly.”

“So she got mad because you told her the truth?” He asked with a laugh in his voice, though his eyes never left the road.

“It’s kind of girl code. Only offer your opinion if it agrees with the person you are giving the advice to.”

“That’s stupid.”

You laughed in a nervous manner as you agreed with him.

For a time after, you both drifted into companionable silence as the music coming out of the speakers mixed with the rain sounds outside. It was like a lullaby to calm your wounded soul, and you finally felt at peace and content; healed by this quiet soothing man beside you.

“This song is pretty,” you said as your head rested against the window, letting the vibrations of the song float through your body.

“Thanks. I wrote it,” he said causing your gazes to clash, one in astonishment and one in shyness.

“Yoongi, it’s...amazing.”

You were lost for words and his face looked sheepish, but the darkness of the night didn’t reveal if his cheeks were colored pink in that moment.

“Almost there,” he said and coughed to draw your attention away from him and onto the road. Sure enough, you had just turned onto your street, lined with apartment buildings, and at the end stood yours that you shared with Sarah. You sat up and mentally prepared yourself for the fight you would have when you went in, so you didn’t notice Yoongi assessing you from the driver’s seat.

As he pulled to a stop, you noticed Sarah’s car wasn’t in it’s normal spot. She must have gone to her boyfriend’s place. You felt a wave of emotions again, but you stamped it down, not wanting to fall apart in front of Yoongi again.

You turned to him with an affectionate smile, and he returned it with his signature grin of a flat line with just a slight upturn on either end. It had more of an impact on you than he probably intended. He not only rescued you, but he was acting as though it was the easiest thing in the world, to pick up everything and drive you across town because you didn’t have a ride. And maybe for him, this wasn’t a big deal, but it was to you. It made your cold, wet body glow in affection for this man who quietly stood up from a table like the obvious answer was to drive you home.

In light of this fluttering feeling, your body seemed to have a mind of its own as it lunged forward to kiss his cheek. If you had time to realize what you were doing, you would have certainly stopped yourself. What a silly notion, to kiss your crush on the cheek! AND so spontaneously. That was so not you!

And yet here you were, whole body in motion toward your savior, your crush, your friend. But in your bid to sweetly wish him a goodnight, you miscalculated and ended up just a few inches to the right and your lips, however briefly, made contact with the corner of Yoongi’s mouth. Your eyes went wide, as did Yoongi’s once he realized what was actually happening, and as though time went from going much too slow to going much too fast, you flinched as your face became a flame.

“I am so sorry, I don’t know why I just did that,” you started to say as you turned away toward the door, but before you were able to pull the handle, a hand at the back of your head was pulling you back again.

You had no time to appreciate the coolness of his fingers against your feverish neck or the look on his face, for before you could even form a thought your mouth was firmly pressed, not to the corner, but fully on his pouty mouth. You were sure you were imagining it, but it definitely seemed, and felt, like Yoongi had pulled you into a searing and rough kiss. It was just lips to lips, and probably only lasted a moment, but the electrical current that ran through your entire body, set you alight. And then before you knew what was what, he was letting go again and turning back to the steering wheel.

“Goodnight, y/n,” he said, and now that you were only inches from his face, you could clearly see the blush, and notice the way his fingers tapped in a jittery pattern against the steering wheel. Your shyness somehow caught up with you and you pulled away abruptly and turned again to the door with a mumbled, “night,” or so you hoped. You couldn’t be for sure, as your head was reeling.

You were right at the door when you heard a voice in your head tell you to shoot your shot. Oddly it sounded a lot like Yoongi’s voice, which made you giggle and bite your lip as you turned. The view was one of a nervous Yoongi looking like he was internally berating himself, and you were pretty certain you had never seen anything cuter in your life. So before you had time to second guess yourself, you turned your whole body toward this perfect, wonderful man…

And kissed him.

Not like he had kissed you. No. That was rushed as though you would never get another chance. Full of uncertainty and nervousness.

No, you kissed him so tenderly and gently that he could not misinterpret your intentions.

Your mouth caressed his and he returned in kind as his arms left the steering wheel to latch onto either side of your head, fingers buried in your hair. You opened your mouth as invitation and he didn’t hesitate as his tongue found yours in a dance of equal energy. You found yourself gasping, and your wet fingers found either side of his hoodie to pull him closer. You wanted to be sure he knew exactly how you felt about him.

Suddenly a low deep moan escaped his mouth and you realized where you were. In his car, 10:30pm the night before a test, drenched and probably getting sick from the rain, with your dream man’s tongue down your throat. This could easily become something else, but you still had a friendship to redeem and a test to ace. Giving Yoongi the biggest smile you were capable of, you pulled away. His face was lit up, like it so rarely was, with so many emotions and you knew this would not be the last time you’d find yourself lip locked in his car.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” you said softly as you rubbed your nose against his cute one.

“Anytime,” he said with a half grin, showing his teeth.

You turned again to reach for the handle and this time he let you. By now the rain had stopped and you marveled at how you hadn’t even noticed. You pulled the door wide and felt a shiver run over your wet clothes and you grabbed your bag and exited.

Before the door closed though, Yoongi called your name.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he was asking as he leaned against the center consul to get a good look at you from under his hair.

You smiled and laughed as you walked backward with your bag swinging in your hand.

“You better.”

You laughed at your absurdly flirtation response as you jogged up to your apartment and went in the main doors. From the other side you peeked out the window to get your last good look at Yoongi and he was leaning back in his seat looking like the cat who got the cream, and you figured you probably looked the same.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. You were glad yours was a cute cat eyed, gummy smiled, gorgeous boy.

#yoongi fic #yoongi x reader #min yoongi #bts yoongi #college student yoongi #happy birthday yoongi

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florenceandthemachine · 4 years

Text

BROKEN TUMBLR ASKS PART ??: WHY DOES THIS WEBSITE SUCK SO BAD.

anonymous asked:

“For Buddie prompts: Eddie looking after a sick Buck?”

ooo, sorry, we actually all out of fluffy sickfics, here’s... this instead xoxo

“You’re exhausting.”

Buck hears the words ringing in his head as he clears another room, smoke swirling above him, his gear heavy on his frame. The chatter on the radio was drowned out by the roar of the flames, and it was about all he could do to keep an ear open for his name.

Kicking another door in, Buck has to grit his teeth to keep a groan of pain behind his lips, his leg throbbing—not for the first time that night. The screws had come out of his leg months ago, but that didn’t mean he was back to 100, not yet anyway; sometimes he just hurt. Neuropathic pain was something he could expect to have flair up until the wound fully healed—which could take years, according to his doctor, but...

“We all have our problems, but you don’t see us whining about it.”

But he was not about to bring it up, not about to risk... everything. His team was finally talking to him again. He was finally being brought on calls again. He could keep this to himself. He could go on without whining about it.

He had to.

Fuck, his leg hurt. Neuropathic pain was supposedly a dull, throbbing pressure, but all Buck could feel was fire, like a hot knife had torn him to the bone. Not for the first time, he only allowed himself a moment of “it isn’t fair” before he bottled all that down, gritting his teeth as he braced himself against another door, prepared to burst through the brittle, burning wood.

“Get clear, everyone. The building is getting too unstable—that means you, Buck.”

“Right, Cap.”

As if Buck would have risked disobeying another order, as long as he lived. He wasn’t about to let his problems become someone else's problems, never again.

“Somehow, we all manage to suck it up.”

“Cap, I have another resident down here!”

“Got it, Eddie. Buck, give him a hand.”

They were both on the ground floor, thankfully, and the screen on Buck’s wrist led him right to Eddie, who was trying to help an older woman up and out of her bed. It was becoming rapidly clear that she was going to need to be carried, and Buck didn’t waste any time in latching his arm with Eddies, hoisting the woman out of the apartment and bringing her out to a waiting gurney.

“Somehow, we all manage to suck it up.”

They may have been free of the inferno, but Buck’s leg was on fire. He had to make sure he was the last on the engine before they took off so no one would notice his unsteady footing, and he managed to pass off his groan of relief as a sigh when he sat down, feeling the sway of the engine as Bobby started to drive away.

They still had a good six hours left on their shift—God willing, they wouldn’t get any other major calls, and Buck could get some rest. All that he wanted was a shower and some sleep.

“Somehow, we all manage to suck it up.”

He managed to hide his pain with a smile as he de-geared with the rest of the team, always making sure that he was back far enough that his gait would be ignored, but not so far as to arouse suspicion. As much as he wanted to jump into the shower, he wasn’t sure how well he would be able to hide his pain if he had to bend over, or if, God forbid, he were to slip against the tile. He chose a bed instead—he probably still smelled of soot and sweat, but he was beyond the point of caring, and found himself obscenely thankful that the quiet room was on the first floor, and not up the stairs where the loft was. Buck was usually the last to sleep on shift, too busy being around everyone else, working out, anything he could be doing to absorb the companionship and company that came with a shared 24 hour shift, but… that was just another thing that the lawsuit had taken from him, he thought to himself, blindly propping his hurt leg with a pillow as he collapsed into the nearest cot.

“Why can’t you?”

Six more hours. He could make it six more hours.

Eddie was not having the best day.

Week.

Month?

He had been struggling, okay?

Part of him had hoped, maybe naively, that once the lawsuit was done, once Buck was back on the house, that… things would be back to normal. He had hoped that he and Buck could be back to normal.

Buck, obviously, hadn’t gotten the memo, because somehow, things were even worse than they were when the lawsuit was in full swing. Buck was still there, he was going through the motions, but that was it. Eddie should have known it would be too easy to hope for the easy camaraderie that there was before, but he had at least hoped they would be able to talk—even that was proving to be harder than pulling teeth.

In hindsight, of course, Eddie had realized that a good amount of the distance that had grown between them was his fault—he knew his anger had gotten the best of him when the lawsuit had started (hell, the near fatality in his little fight ring had proven that), and once it was wrapped up, it was still nearly impossible for him to look Buck in the eye.

He wasn’t proud of it, but that opinion really didn’t change until he realized what Buck had given up just to get back on the squad.

Millions of dollars. Millions. Eddie loved his job, but if someone offered him a chunk of change like that, he would have taken it and never looked back, but all Buck wanted to do was come back to his team—his family—and didn’t that just dig the knife in a little deeper?

Now, though, Eddie was determined to make it right. Even if it meant waking Buck up, dragging his ass out of the sleep room, and forcing him in to a family dinner with the rest of the squad.

“Buck, you up?”

Eddie could see the other male splayed outing a cot, his silhouette barely visible in the dimmed light. He felt bad about waking the other up—especially after how hard he had known Buck had been working—but the best time to start to apologize would have been yesterday, and today was just delaying the inevitable.

He took a few steps into the room and gently shook Buck’s leg, blinking in surprise as his hand touched dampness—was Buck sweating?

He pulled his hand up, examining it in the light from the doorway. It was… dark?

It was red.

“Buck?”

Fuck, it was red.

“Buck… oh fuck, Buck, oh fuck—“

Eddie felt his hands flying now, his voice kicking up as he spoke, throwing blanket and pillows across the room. Buck was pale, inhumanly so, and he immediately started checking for vitals as he started to shout.

“Buck, come on, wake up, Buck!”

Pulse was present, barely, thready and weak.

“Buck! Hen, Chim! Help! Buck, no, Buck!!”

It was a laceration. A cut, only a few inches long, along his leg, that had cut right through his PPE, and right through the first few layers of tissue in his leg. The doctor that had cleaned out the wound had pulled out shards of splintered wood, which was concerning in its own right; even though he was off blood thinners, the constant motion had kept the wound open, for… fuck, for what must have been hours.

Eddie didn’t need a doctor to get that confirmation. The blood that had pooled around the cot certainly didn’t come from a few moments—and even before then, the spatters on the floor, the soaked tear in the pant leg... it was more than enough to set Eddie on edge.

He had sent up a silent thanks to Carla, patron saint of child care, as he sat beside Eddie in the emergency room, patiently waiting for Buck to regain consciousness. No surgery required, thank God—just a dozen or so stitches, about three pints of blood, and a steady drip of pain medication.

And, okay. Maybe he was indulging himself, holding onto Buck’s hand as he started to stir once more, not bothering to hide the massive wave of relief that crashed over him when Buck started to stir again.

The pain-medication-laced smile that Buck shot him was one of the most beautiful things Eddie had ever seen.

“Hi Eddie!”

“Hey Buckaroo.”

He even sounded happy. God, Eddie missed that, seeing a shadow of his old Buck, the one who smiled and was happy and pain free, and it definitely disturbed him that he couldn’t remember the last time Buck had seemed so happy.

The moment wasn’t designed to last, though—as Buck started to take in more and more of his surroundings, his smile slipped off of his face, and it didn’t take the heart rate monitor amping up its speed to tell Eddie that Buck was starting to panic.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay, Buck. You just needed to get patched up and you’re going to be okay.”

“Fuck, Eddie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Wait, what the fuck? “Buck, it was an accident. You’re okay.” He really hoped his voice was more soothing than confused, because Buck looked dangerously close to tears.

“It was an accident, Eddie, I promise. I swear I didn’t mean to, I was trying to be careful and I didn’t mean to get hurt, you can’t let Bobby kick me off the squad again, Eddie, please.”

Eddie felt like his voice might have been as raw as Bucks, shaking off the shock at that admission, moving to gently grip Buck’s shoulders. “Woah, Buck, we know you didn’t mean to. Bobby isn’t mad, he and the rest of the squad had to bring the rig back, they’ll be here soon, they wanna see you, and—”

“I just—I didn’t want to bother anyone, I know it’s exhausting trying to put up with me sometimes, so I didn’t want to—“

“Woah woah woah, Buck, slow down, you—you’re not exhausting, who the fuck even told you that?”

There was an auditable click as Buck shut his mouth, his eyes pained and his face bright red, and Eddie had a minute to look him over before reality came crashing around his head.

“…I said that, didn’t I? Oh fuck, Buck, you have to know I was just talking out of my ass, okay? I was just angry, of course I didn’t mean it.”

“But it’s true, Eds, I have to suck it up and deal with it, it’s not fair for me to lay all of it on you guys at work, and I’m sorry, but you can’t tell Bobby—it’s hard, but I’m getting better at it! I promise, I can’t lose you all again, please, I—“

His voice dies in his throat as Eddie pulls him into his arms, crushing him in a tight hug, and Buck can’t breathe, his eyes burning with tears as Eddie buries his head in his neck. Eddie didn’t speak until Buck finally started to hug him back, arms uncertain. “You’re not going to lose us, Buck. Never again. I promise, okay? You’re basically stuck with us until the end of time, I’m not going to let you go, and neither is Chris, and neither is the 118.”

The muffled sob that Buck let out into his shoulder told Eddie all he needed to know. They had all fucked up, hard, if that had been the looming fear behind all of Buck’s decisions lately. He had been self isolating from the team, he wasn’t cracking jokes, he didn’t even come up for family dinners unless he was specifically asked to—and while Eddie thought they had all just needed some time, Buck had been suffering in silence since he returned.

Fuck.

“Buck, listen to me. We are your family. We fight sometimes, and we all make mistakes, and I’m so, so sorry that we made this mistake, okay? But no matter what, we love you. Chim, Hen, Bobby, Mads, hell, even Athena, and... and me, Buck, we love you. I love you. So please, stop beating yourself up over it and just... let us love you, okay?”

Eddie reluctantly let go as he felt Buck start to pull back, his face contorted in fear and pain, but his expression started to smooth out as he nodded, the machine next to him beeping and whirring as his heart rate started to go down. The pain medicine couldn’t have picked a better time for another dose. Eddie started to ease him back onto the bed as Buck’s eyelids started to droop, only comforted by the even rise and fall of his chest.

"Thanks, Eddie...”

Eddie let out a short, wet laugh as Buck finally relaxed against the bed, treated to another smile before Buck slipped into unconsciousness.

“...love you, too.”

And Buck was out again.

Eddie didn’t even have time to process what Buck had said, distracted by the swoosh of automatic doors, multiple voices talking at once as the 118 poured back into the emergency room, officially off shift, and Eddie gave Bucks’ hand a squeeze—just one—before he stood up and left the curtained off bed, ready to face the team with the grim reality Buck had just tossed into his lap.

They had work to do.

But Buck... Buck was worth every minute of it.

#buddie #911 #fic #evan buckley #edmundo diaz #hurtfic #fixit #kinda #flospeaks #anon #ask #prompt #buddiefic #911fic #like Katya says:#things are gonna get better #but first... they gotta get a whole lot worse.

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sondepoch · 4 years

Text

130 Days Before Rebellion

All Hail (Diavolo x Reader)

The current ruling class is brutal. Draconian. Tyrannical. Every demon who has sat the throne for the past ninety thousand years has brought nothing but hardship to the Devildom—something Diavolo and his father intend to remedy by seizing power as leaders of the Resistance. When Diavolo happens to come across the princess of the Devildom, he’s overjoyed. He sees you as an opportunity, a sign from a higher power that his cause is just; and he plans to use you as a pawn in his Rebellion. But life rarely goes as planned, especially in Hell. And when Diavolo realizes that he’s falling in love with you, things suddenly feel a lot more complicated than they used to be.

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | ✔

MASTERLIST

The healing process is slow, to say the least.

You study the man's leg, squinting at the scabs that have begun to form around the edges of his wounds, but the flesh has only just started to return around the bone. Even with the superior healing of demons, this man will need nearly a full month before he's back to normal—a testament to how severely he was injured.

You sigh, walking around the makeshift bed to study the demon's arm.

His wounds are a little better here, given that you spent the first few days practically slathering the area in medicinal salve straight from the palace, but now that you've had to ration your treatment, the herbs you've collected are only doing so much to keep the man's pain away.

A huff of exasperation leaves your lips.

This would be so much easier if the demon would simply fall into unconsciousness once more.

The first time you'd brought him here, he had been dead to the world. He hadn't woken up even when you let an undead chipmunk run across his face. It had been simple to cast your spells then, while there was no threat of him waking up to see you in the middle of an enchantment.

But now?

Even when the demon sleeps, he seems to be on edge—as if he's somehow scared of you without even knowing your identity.

A light frown forms on your lips as you push your mask up, a habit you've developed over these past few weeks. You know, rationally, that the clay covering bears no chance of slipping or falling off, but you still need the reminder that the mask is there. That your identity is protected. That despite you helping him, this man does not know who you are and has no reason to suspect you.

"Sir?" You question softly, approaching him on the other side.

His eyes are closed—you can see that much through the thin slits on his mask—but you can never be sure.

You wrap your fingers deftly around his bicep (the only place on his body where he isn't injured) testing to see whether the man is truly asleep. Whether you might be able to speed his recovery along with a little magic.

His eyes dart open instantly.

You flinch at the amber scorn he instinctively regards you with, almost feeling scared of his glare, but it hardly lasts a second before the demon has hidden the expression away, masking it with a more neutral tone.

But even as he continues to regard you with an apathetic curiosity, the look in his eyes remains in your mind.

You know that look.

That's the look you get from the public when you tail behind your family, when the royal escorts bring you to lower districts and you try to smile at the commoners, only to be met with expressions of scorn and distrust.

An all too familiar look.

You have to reassure yourself that you must have misread the demon's eyes.

You know for a fact that he does not know your identity. He cannot know your identity. The green cloak you wear was purchased from a flea market, hardly constructed of royal silk to indicate anything of your high birth. And your mask does an equally brilliant job of hiding your face, your whole outfit so plain that even the guards pay you no attention when you pass by. The only people who pose a true threat to learning your secret are your parents, and they're rarely caught outside the palace.

The only possible way this demon might have an inkling of who you are is if he happens to be of a pure bloodline, one of the demons descended from the first rulers, able to sense and practice magic like you. But, again, most of the remaining descendants in Hell don't even know that they're descendants, and they've had little opportunity to learn magic the way you have, much less grow familiar with it to the point where they might sense that it's been used on them.

Right, you reason with yourself, taking a steadying breath. There's no way this demon knows who I am.

You shake your fears to the back of your mind.

"How are you feeling?" You ask tentatively, beginning to unwrap some of the herbs lain along the demon's cuts. "Sir?"

"Fine," He grunts. "When you were gone yesterday, I was able to sit up."

"Oh?" You replace the herbs with fresh ones, bundles of green and orange and yellow that you freshly picked on your way here. "That's certainly an improvement. Have you tried to move your legs yet, or is the muscle still too weak?"

"The muscle is..." The demon trails off, and you're certain that if you could see underneath his mask, he would be scowling right now. "Weak," He mutters, as if he hates the word.

"Hey," You draw his attention, squeezing lightly on a patch of uninjured skin. You wait until the demon makes eye contact with you. "The Victor did a lot of damage to you. There's nothing wrong with needing time to heal."

The demon makes a dismissive grunt.

You sigh.

That whole exchange is a pretty accurate depiction of what your relationship is like with this demon. You push a lot, he gives a little, you push some more, and then he ends the conversation. And while this progress (if you can even call it that) is incredibly slow going, so tortuously lagging that you don't even know the demon's name yet, it's something.

And that's all you need.

"Do you know what they say?" You continue, rambling on despite knowing that the demon doesn't particularly care. "Sometimes, when you get injured, your body is even stronger when it heals back!"

"I'm sure," The man says drily, sarcasm laced so thickly into his voice that there's no doubt he doesn't believe your words.

"It's true!" You protest, pausing in wrapping his forearm in gauze to show him your wrist. "Look, can't you see the scar? I injured my wrist there a few centuries ago. And I thought it would trouble me for the rest of my life, but it healed wonderfully under the same herbs and treatments I'm giving you. And now, my right wrist is miles stronger than my left, even though my left is the one that's never been injured."

"Right," The demon mutters, his tone utterly disbelieving even as you huff and go back to wrapping his arm.

So much for that, you think, internally sighing at another failed attempt to make conversation, redirecting your attention back to the demon's arm.

Even without any more magic, it should be completely healed within twenty days, you muse, cutting off the gauze and tucking it in, stepping back and smiling briefly at your work.

Perfect.

You move up to the demon's chest, quietly slipping open his robe and swiping a damp handkerchief along the patches of skin where blood has collected, deciding to let the herbs from yesterday sit for another day before you replace them. It takes hardly any time for you to exchange the soft bandages on the man's neck with new ones, and then you've finished work on his upper body completely, and you're ready to redirect your attention back to his legs.

Except...

You glance upward at the demon's mask, your eyes narrowing when you see the crusted blood underneath the wooden frame. It's painfully unhygienic. You've entirely avoided the demon's face and head ever since you brought him here, mostly out of fear for what his sharp tongue might say should you try, but he seems to be in a better mood today.

Surely it can't hurt to voice your concerns, right?

"Sir?" You murmur, withdrawing your hand.

"What?" The demon snaps, evidently not used to you trying to start a conversation up again so soon after him ending one.

"Would you mind if..." You trail off, voice hesitant.

No, you decide, flattening your palms. Yes, it is your responsibility to care for this demon, after he was injured so heavily as a direct cause of your actions. But as his caretaker, it is not your obligation to tiptoe around what you need to do.

And each day you put this off, the worse things get.

"I need to take your mask off," You declare, voice authoritative. "The Victor injured your head as well during the fight, and I need to know how bad the damage is. And I'm sure you can feel the sheer amount of blood that is stuck to your face right now."

The demon quiets, his eyes narrowing at you. And normally, you would look away out of respect for the fact that he has every right to resent you for getting him into this situation in the first place—but this time, you level your gaze and return his stare with equal force.

You're not going to budge on this, and he needs to know it.

"Fine," He mutters after what feels like a full minute of just staring at each other. "Do what you need to do. And do it quickly."

A light grin forms on your lips at that, and you quickly move your hands to both sides of his wooden mask, tugging on it.

But the mask doesn't budge.

"Oh," You mutter softly, feeling a twinge of sympathy. "The mask appears to be stuck to your face, Sir."

"Then work on my legs."

"No, that's not what I meant." You sit down on the edge of the stone table the demon is lying down on, gripping his mask more tightly. "I can still take it off. But it is going to reopen your wounds. And it will hurt, Sir. A lot."

"Then make it quick," He hisses, his tone so vicious that you almost feel the beginnings of irritation prick at your side, a quiet frustration rising at this demon's blatant ungratefulness. But you push the feeling aside, opting instead to focus on sympathy for this man because you already know how much this is going to hurt.

"Feel free to scream," You whisper.

And you begin to pull.

To his merit, not a sound leaves Diavolo's lips when you pry the mask off of his face, an explosion of blood bursting forth as the wounds that had crusted over and hardened into the mask are ripped from his face.

Unfortunately, the demon blacks out barely seconds afterward, so his efforts to appear strong and collected mostly go to waste.

When Diavolo comes to, the pain on his face is less acute. It's a dull ache, and the demon can feel the blood as it continues to seep out of the open injuries on his face, but the discomfort is almost entirely replaced with an odd, tingling sensation, one that is all too familiar.

Magic.

Forbidden to all but the royal family, entirely unfamiliar to commoners, and only a vague word to those like Diavolo, who have it in their blood to master the craft but have never had the opportunity.

The demon might chuckle if he weren't scared to move his face.

It's almost like you're trying to reveal your true identity.

"Can you see properly?" He hears you ask as you continue to dab at the unending flow of blood trickling off his face. "Did the Victor do any damage to your eyes?"

"I'm fine," Diavolo mumbles, holding his face as still as possible. And the words are true. After nearly three weeks of lying down on this bed while waiting for his injuries to heal, this is the first time he has been able to look up without his vision impaired by the sight of his mask obstructing it. The world feels brighter this way. Shrouded in darkness as the Devildom eternally is, but brighter all the same.

"Does this hurt?"

You apply pressure on a certain point.

Surprisingly, it doesn't bring Diavolo any pain.

"No."

You lean back, dipping your white handkerchief (turned red with Diavolo's blood) into a makeshift bowl, squeezing it in the water until it returns a paler shade.

"I can't tell where the bleeding is coming from, Sir," You say, almost apologetic. "I'll need to press different points on your face and you'll simply have to tell me when it hurts. Is that alright?"

Diavolo grunts in response.

"Actually...it must hurt for you to speak, no?"

The demon feels your eyes turn sympathetic as you gaze down at him, a gaze so soft and pitiful that it irks him.

"I'm fine," He insists, raising his voice the slightest to emphasize his point.

But the jolt of pain that runs down his back the moment opens his mouth a little too wide, the already-injured skin stretching beyond what is comfortable, isn't missed by your observant eyes.

You nod your head quietly, mumbling a brief "Of course," before you move your hand into Diavolo's own, calmly pressing his fingers around your wrist. "But I realized that if you move your face, it'll make things difficult for me, even if it doesn't hurt. So squeeze my wrist whenever you feel me touch a spot that doesn't feel like normal, healed skin, alright?"

And as much as Diavolo wants to fight you, as much as he wants to hold his ground and resist, as much as he wants to live up to the expectations of a proper Resistance member and insist that he's fine and you don't need to pity him like this, a meek squeeze of your wrist is all he does in quiet acquiescence.

His father would not be proud.

But for a short moment, Diavolo listens to your urges to close his eyes as you begin dabbing your handkerchief along his face again, squeezing your wrist compliantly every time you brush against skin that is too sensitive to be unharmed.

It's almost peaceful—he thinks—letting you take care of him like this.

Almost.

"I'm waiting for an opportunity to kidnap her," Diavolo explains, crossing his arms. "Give me some time, Father. It shouldn't be long. She's just begun to let her guard down around me," He lies, pretending as if you haven't treated him with your defenses lowered from the very day you met. "I will bring her to you soon."

Good, son.

Diavolo flinches, as usual, the moment his father's voice rings out in his ears. The man mastered the magic of minds long before Diavolo was born, supposedly learning the craft before the current rulers came into power and banned its usage—but Diavolo has never had the same opportunity, and the sensation of another's voice ringing out in his mind is wholly uncomfortable.

Your wounds. How are they?

"I've healed," Diavolo answers, experimentally flexing his fingers. "My face may require some more time, but the princess has been using magic to advance the process."

She uses her magic on you? Is she a fool?

"It would appear so. She has no suspicions of my true identity, nor the fact that I know hers."

Good. And Diavolo?

"Yes, Father?"

Barbatos told me of your pitiful performance at the cage fighting rink. If you bring me the princess, I will not punish you for disobeying my orders to stay back, nor will I punish you for your disgraceful defeat. However, should you fail me again, do not expect me to be merciful.

"...I won't, Father," The demon mumbles, the beginnings of shame pricking at his heart. "I promise, I'll bring her to you as soon as I am at full strength."

Don't.

"What?" Diavolo's voice is sharp, almost seeming the puncture the nighttime silence as he looks up. When he speaks again, he sounds like a boy once more, indignant in his demand for knowledge. Like a petulant child, offended and hurt. "Have you already given my task to someone else? Father, I may have lost a single cage fight, but I assure you that I am beyond capable of—"

Calm yourself, my son. I have not given your task to any other. All I need is for you to wait until the time is right to bring the princess back to the Resistance.

"You are...asking me to wait?" Diavolo questions. "How long, Father?"

I do not know. I will tell you when the time is right. But be ready, my son. Rebellion draws near.

Diavolo is about to respond, about to ask another question about how long he is expected to stay by your side, to pretend to be some poor, ignorant fool who needs aid, before hears your footsteps approach.

His father must sense his instinctive panic, because the soft hum of sorcery which they had been using to contact each other disappears instantly.

Diavolo curses inwardly. He'll have to wait again until his father contacts him.

Of course, he's not upset that the man left. Diavolo knows that it's too risky to leave the connection open, to risk you detecting the hum of magic radiating off his body. It's borrowed magic, sent down from his father, but it's magic all the same—and Diavolo knows by now that you're too skilled in witchcraft to miss it.

The demon steps back, trying to act as inconspicuous as possible while you shuffle your way into the temple, looking around curiously.

"Sir?" You call, blinking in surprise. Instinctively, your eyes go to the stone table in the center of the room where he usually lays, sleeping his days away while waiting for his body to heal, but he's not there.

You glance around the room in confusion, eyes flitting from the ornate benches to the intricate stone tablets littered around the room, searching in every corner for the familiar man who seems to be in an unfamiliar place.

"Here," Diavolo calls down, deciding to humor you.

You jump at the sound.

"Sir!" You yelp, but your tone is strict, admonishing as you cross your arms and look up. "I know I told you that your wounds have healed enough for you to begin moving around, but I know for a fact that I never implied you should be climbing."

Diavolo keeps his face straight at that, hiding his internal amusement as he glances around at the indoor balcony he's standing on. It's high up, overseeing the entire room—but it's clear that the only way to get up here is to either enter via the door behind him, which is locked like the rest of the rooms in this temple, or to literally climb up.

It's clear that you know which option Diavolo chose.

"Relax," He sighs. "I am better healed than you think."

To emphasize his statement, he jumps off the balcony entirely, landing swiftly on his knees. He suppresses the urge to wince as his legs bend as they hit the unyielding ground, instead standing up to his full height, staring you down with confidence.

"Your wounds are going to..." You begin, but the protest dies on your lips the moment you look into Diavolo's eyes. The fiery ambers are lit bright with confidence, no signs of weakness present anywhere on his face.

"Fine," You mutter, glancing away. "But if you insist on walking about, I'd rather you do it outside."

Diavolo is slightly taken aback at that. His lips part briefly, and though he holds it back, he's certain that there's a flash of confusion on his face because seconds later, you're holding your hands up, sheepishly explaining.

"O-oh! It's just that, on my way here, I couldn't help but notice that there seems to be a beautiful cliffside where there are no guards standing post. And you know what they say, right? That fresh air is, um, the best medicine?"

Diavolo blinks.

You're an awful liar. Awful is a compliment, really—there's not a single doubt in the demon's mind that you either bribed some guards to get them to leave this supposed 'beautiful cliffside' or you personally changed their posts, but the demon doesn't comment on it as you continue to dig yourself into a hole with words, now mumbling something about nighttime being safer than daytime, and eventually, Diavolo decides to put you out of your misery.

"Enough," He says, holding up a hand. "I'll come with you."

"Ah, really?" You exclaim, and though Diavolo can only see your eyes through the clay mask you wear, he can tell that your entire face is lit up with happiness. "That's wonderful, Sir!"

You grab his hand instantly, tugging him out of the temple where he's remained hidden inside for so long, pulling him into the fresh outside air. And, although Diavolo knows that you wholly butchered the adage when you claimed that fresh air is the best medicine, it really does feel like the cool wind against his skin has a healing quality as it rushes through his silk robe, embracing his body whole in a crisp hug.

The demon is so preoccupied with enjoying his first moments outside the temple in so long that he doesn't even comment on the way you're still tugging him along, your fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist.

And really, why would Diavolo say anything?

These past few weeks, you've made yourself almost unbearably comfortable around him. You've gone from asking and touching to simply touching in your efforts to wrap and heal his injuries, going as far as to slap his hand away every time he tries to stop you. A grip on his wrist is nothing compared to the places you've touched him, especially given that your fingers often delved beneath skin when you first treated his wounds.

"Isn't it lovely?" You call, leading Diavolo through a field. But lovely is hardly the word the demon would use to describe this region—the grass so overgrown that it goes up above his waist, practically enveloping your figure whole, as the two of you walk through it.

He opts not to answer your question, deciding not to shoot your joy down with an arrow of sarcasm as he usually does, simply following.

But when you bring him to the edge of the field, now trying to pull him through a swamplike area, he pauses.

"Sir, what's wrong?" You call, tugging his wrist. "The ground is more stable than it looks, I assure you. If you'd like, I can carry you through it, though—"

"Enough."

Diavolo crosses his arms, glancing away.

"Excuse me?" You ask, but your tone isn't indignant. Instead, the words are soft as the breeze carries them to Diavolo's ears, unbearably kind as your grip on his wrist weakens. "I'm sorry, Sir, I can—"

"No. Enough Sir this, Sir that. Call me by my name."

"I don't know your—"

"Diavolo."

And Diavolo will never truly understand what possessed him in that moment, where he gave you his name.

But, oddly enough, he doesn't regret it when he sees the way your eyes light up.

The rational part of his brain will claim that it was a necessity. That, since his father has effectively ordered him to gain your trust and remain at your side indefinitely, giving him your name was bound to happen, and he may as well have done it sooner rather than later because he was growing so sick of the word "Sir."

But the irrational part? The section of Diavolo's brain that is in tune with his emotions? In tune with his feelings?

That part knows he gave you his name because he wanted to, and for no other reason.

"Diavolo, huh?" You whisper. "Named for the Devil himself. An honorable name."

A common name, Diavolo wants to respond, as if he's justifying the statement to himself, as an excuse to why it was okay to give you his real name when he knows his father would mock him for such a thing.

But before the man can say a word, you've stepped closer to him, resting your hands on his shoulders in a motion that is far too close for Diavolo's liking.

"Thank you for trusting me," You whisper.

And then Diavolo truly doesn't know what's more astounding: the fact that you have the boldness to hug him or the fact that you whisper your real name into his ear as you do so, absentmindedly overloading the demon's mind with such shock that he only stands there dumbly as you hug him, neither reciprocating nor pulling away.

You're hardly fazed by it, though, and you're pulling him forward once more without a care in the world, but Diavolo's mind is racing a mile a minute.

He can hardly process the fact that you gave him your real name.

The name everyone in the Devildom knows to be the name of their princess.

The name that no one else shares.

Does she trust me that blindly or is she truly such a fool? Diavolo wonders as he follows you, entirely unsure of what to make of this development. You seem entirely nonchalant about it, though, nearly skipping as you tug the man closer to your destination.

"You are..." The man trails off, eyes softening as he watches your hair bounce with each step you take.

"Wonderful?" You ask, and Diavolo knows that there must be a cheeky grin on your face under that mask. "Brilliant? Lovely?"

"Special." The man finishes, deciding on a word that can be used as an insult just as surely as it may appear to be a compliment.

"Are you trying to imply that I..." You begin, pausing to throw a disbelieving look Diavolo's way—but before you can finish your sentence, the two of you hear the familiar hoot of a Purgatorian Owl.

You glance back down the path you were traveling.

"We're here," You declare proudly, placing your hands on your hips in confidence.

"We...are?" Diavolo looks around in confusion.

Sure enough, there seems to be nothing but swamp: dreary vines, suspicious sounds, and the muddy ground that sinks every time Diavolo stands in one place for too long. It hardly sounds like the beautiful cliffside you promised.

"I don't think—"

"Come on!"

You begin sprinting ahead before Diavolo can even finish his sentence, lifting your green robe as you begin to escape the demon's line of sight, your laughter ringing out in the swamp as animals cry out when you pass them.

"Wait—" He tries to call after you, but you're already so far ahead of him that he has no choice but to grit his teeth and follow, internally cursing himself for ever going along with the whims of a princess.

Diavolo keeps his pace steady as he follows you from afar, somehow moving not half as gracefully as you appeared to as he darts through the swamp, and the man has to keep an arm in front of him to slash away any vines which only seem to trouble him as he sprints along.

But, sure enough, after what feels like a solid four minutes of running, the vines begin to grow thinner. And the darkness begins to grow lighter. And then it's barely thirty seconds before Diaovlo hears your overjoyed laughter from just a hundred feet away, and the moment he bursts through the treeline which contains the swamp, he, too, begins to understand the reason for your joy.

A sound of disbelief escapes his lips.

You've brought him to another field. But this is entirely unlike the first one: here, the grass is wild but tamed, barely up to Diavolo's ankles as he wanders through it. Undead squirrels and zombie raccoons scurry by at a distance, looking at the demon's tall figure with curious eyes as he passes them. The sky is entirely unobstructed, clear clouds of black rolling against the indigo sky, and not a single building is to be seen no matter how Diavolo squints and looks around.

Stunning, he thinks, trying to remember the last time he found a patch of land so untouched by civilization.

Never, he realizes. Never have I seen something peaceful.

Diavolo halts only when he finally catches up to you, pausing as the two of you stand right in front of the cliffside you were talking about: a sharp ledge that hovers over a steep drop, reaching so low that Diavolo can only make out the vague shape of darkness at the bottom.

Indeed, even that seems more magnificent than anything he has ever seen.

"I have never..." Diavolo begins, stopping when he realizes how soft his voice sounds. "I have never seen anything like this," He confesses.

"Truly?" You ask, glancing up at him with wide eyes. "Never?"

He shakes his head.

"I..." The demon trails off, wondering if he should say this next thing. But then he realizes that he's already so deep in a lie that another one can't hurt—and so he quietly decides to deceive you once more.

Only this time, he lies for your sake, not his.

"I come from the poorer districts. We don't have anything like this there."

"Oh," You mumble. "That's...tragic. It's a shame that anyone might have to live their whole life without seeing something like this."

"Isn't it?" Diavolo laughs lightly. "Why, in the tavern I used to live in, we couldn't even afford a picture of the imperial family."

"Huh?" You ask, sounding somewhat dumb. "Isn't it against the law to have a home without a picture of the rulers?"

Diavolo's eyes narrow at that—quietly wondering if he misjudged your character, if you are as evil and atrocious as he initially thought you were—but the look in your eyes is one of genuine curiosity, not accusation.

"Rules from a distant government are nothing in the face of extreme poverty."

True words. Though they hardly apply to Diavolo the way he's claiming.

"So, you've...never seen the royal family?"

"Never."

"Not even in passing? In paintings from other shops or such?"

"Not even once."

Diavolo sees the way you quiet at that, the way you begin contemplating the seed he placed in your mind with his lie. And while he won't complain if you choose to ignore it, opting to play it safe, there's hardly a single doubt that you'll do what he expects you to.

After all, now that he's directly stated that he has no idea what your face looks like, why would you need to hide it anymore?

Diavolo turns his attention away from you, redirecting it down at the great chasm that opens up in front of him. It's glorious but empty—much like the mask you wear. Both are undeniable works of art, but Diavolo has stared at emotionless clay for far too long.

"Sir?" You call.

Diavolo gives you a look.

"I mean," You laugh sheepishly. "Diavolo?"

"What is it?"

"Why were you at the cage fight?"

"I could ask you the exact same question," He answers, glancing away. The demon folds his arms. "I know why you helped me, but such an uncouth fighting ground is hardly a place for someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"You seem..."

Diavolo pauses, abruptly realizing that he's speaking without a filter. A thousand curses, he thinks, realizing that he's dug himself into a hole.

But your piercing gaze, so bright with curiosity, urges him to give you the truth even though his mind is racing to come up with a lie.

"Kind," He finally admits, forcing the word past his lips with great reluctance. "And usually, savages are the only ones who enjoy watching cage fights."

"I..." You stop yourself, hesitant. Diavolo arches an unimpressed eyebrow.

A small part of him, a part that he would claim to be big but is in reality unbearably small, still hopes that your words will be cruel. That you'll confess that you are a savage, and that it gives you a sick satisfaction to watch opponents beat each other bloody over and over again. He wants you to prove that you are just as awful as the king and queen who raised you, that he should have every right to loathe your existence the way he did so passionately before he met you.

But Diavolo already knows that your answer will be different.

"My parents..." You trail off, hesitating. You sigh, gesturing for Diavolo to sit down as you swing your legs over the cliffside, letting them dangle freely as you stare at your palms. After a moment of watching you, Diavolo does the same.

"My family would rather that I not see the world. They prefer to have me inside at all times. That is the reason why I can only stay with you for a few hours each day." You lean back, releasing a sigh that sounds far too boorish for what one would expect of a princess.

"The poverty districts are so far off that I could never visit them and make it back home in time. And the cage fights are the closest I can get to seeing the dark side of the Devildom, so I try my best to visit as much as possible. Even if it's difficult for me to see so much bloodshed."

"And why do you want to see this 'dark side of the Devildom' so badly?" Diavolo asks.

"Because..." Diavolo can hear you swallow. "My parents never saw it. And a lot of people hate them because of it. So I...I want to be better than them."

Diavolo stops.

His grip tightens around the grass where he has lain his hands, fingernails digging into the dirt.

Lies, he thinks.

You must be lying to him. You have to. This must be nothing more than a sick manipulation tactic to get him to feel bad for you, to get him to regret his affiliation with the Resistance, to make him doubt the validity of Rebellion as it draws near.

It has to be a lie.

But Diavolo makes the mistake of glancing into your eyes—nothing more than a brief glance, one that hardly lasts a second—and even he can't deny the overwhelming sincerity that you reflect so openly.

"And you?" He hears you ask, voice soft, gentle as you regard him. As if your question is something he doesn't need to answer, as if he needs you to treat him so delicately. "I told you why I was at the cage fight, but what was your purpose in fighting there?"

"Because..."

Because if I had won and become the new Victor, all the most powerful demons in the world would willingly bow to me, and I could bring them to the Resistance and Rebellion could begin. Because then, together, we could overthrow your family and put all your heads on stakes.

For the first time, Diavolo feels something unpleasant in the depths of his stomach as he thinks about that—and for a brief second, he almost feels ashamed of his association with the Resistance.

"I needed the money," He blurts. "I wanted...a better life."

Yes, a better life. At least that much is true.

"A better life, hm?" You mumble, fidgeting with the edge of your robe. "I don't know much about you, but you seem to be a very noble person, Diavolo. I...I admire that. A lot."

Your fingers reach upward, and for a moment, Diavolo thinks you're just fiddling with your robe before he realizes that your hands are ghosting over your mask, fingers gripping the pointed bottom and the bindings at the back which keep it pressed against your face.

"Would you...be okay with it if I showed you my face as well?"

Of course I wouldn't mind, Diavolo thinks, momentarily dumbfounded by your request. But when he sees the way you actually pause, as if you're genuinely waiting for his response, he forces himself to say something.

"Yes," He whispers, trying to act nonchalant even as he sees you prepare to take down the final defense you had raised against him, naively opening yourself up completely to this man who, by all rights, will one day end up being your greatest enemy.

But the moment your fingers pull on the bindings, the moment Diavolo sees the beginnings of your forehead peak through, and then your eyebrows, then your eyes, fully unobstructed by the mask, and then the rest of your face, all thoughts of his supposed hatred for you fly out the window.

Diavolo has to remind himself to breathe, he's so enraptured by your face as you pull your mask off completely, shaking your hair loose.

He's seen you in pictures before. Hell, he's drawn your picture before. He's thrown darts at your image and burned newspaper clippings of your face and studied every inch of skin in the royal textbooks, searching for things to make fun of and things to hate.

But he's never truly seen you, not in person. Not your real face.

Diavolo's eyes refuse to blink, he's so utterly entranced by staring at you. He can't pull his gaze away even though he sees the way it makes you bashful as you avert your eyes, shyly raising them up again to peek at his face, his expression.

And all of a sudden, even the Resistance and Rebellion seem like far away topics as the man simply stops and takes in the picture before him: the stunning scenery, the gorgeous chasm, and your seemingly perfect face which brings the whole view together.

Diavolo swallows, his mind only able to echo a single thought as he continues to stare at you.

You're beautiful.

The most beautiful person Diavolo has ever seen.

MASTERLIST

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | ✔

Word count: 6.3k

Notes: hc that a name like "prince diavolo" in the devildom is like "prince/king henry" in the british empire. overused as hell, but it happens anyway :D also i still have no clue how long chapters are going to be in this series so keep checking the tags for the word count before you read ^^

Comment & Like

Next Update: 8/22/20

I do not own the rights to Obey Me! or any of the characters within it.

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cloudywriter · 4 years

Text

i never got to say i love you - 1

~~~

A/N: heyy, so i wrote this like a month ago when i was super into reading some modern university au acotar fanfiction & then i even planned out a whole storyline but then i just kinda sat on it. but i like it so i decided i would just put it out there, i can continue it if people actually like it too.

masterlist & AO3

~~~

Feyre walked along the sidewalk leading to one of the dorm buildings of her new school, Velaris University.

Although she was focused on lugging her single suitcase behind her as one of the wheels was broken, she couldn’t help but admire the tall impressive structures that surrounded her. She could hear the trickle of the Sidra river to her right while observing the courtyard adjoining multiple dorm buildings to her left. The courtyard was large and pristine, made of stone, with an abstract silver metal statue which stood erect in the middle loosely resembling an infinity sign. The housing units were situated around it in a semicircle.

A path winded down from the courtyard and back towards the main section of campus, organized there were the various department buildings, the cafeteria, admissions, and so on. Feyre was making her way up said path after she retrieved her student key card from the main office.

She had just transferred from Courts Community College after she finally saved up enough money to afford tuition to VU.

In her senior year of high school, Feyre visited the small city in which Velaris was located, Prythian, with her school on a field trip. It was on that small excursion she fell in love with the Prythian and the university it had to offer. In particular, Feyre loved the huge art district that occupied nearly a quarter of the city.

Her family looked down upon her choice of major, art, they told her time and time again that it was impractical and her success rate in the field was microscopic. However, their comments didn’t deter her, she couldn’t imagine studying business or stem as her father suggested, it simply wasn’t for her. She wanted her life’s work to be doing what she loved even if it came with the risk of struggling financially down the road.

Feyre finally reached the tall double glass doors of the middle building. She grabbed her ID from her jacket pocket and held it up to the scanner. The device beeps three times loudly, flashing a dot of red light. Feyre tries again with the same result. She sighs, did she get a faulty card?

“Turn it around,” a feminine voice suggests from behind her.

Feyre whipped around. There stood a young woman, likely Feyre’s same age. She was breathtakingly pretty with long, bright blonde hair that stopped below her chest and eyes that were a shade darker than honey. She was fairly tall as was Feyre and her demeanor demanded respect. She seemed sure of herself and her looks and capitalized on them.

“The black bar on the back is only good for your dorm room door, to get in the main entrance you have to scan the front of your ID. I know, it’s weird, took me five minutes to figure it out yesterday,” the woman explained.

Feyre gave an appreciative smile and nodded, turning her attention back to the scanner which now responded to her with a flash of green.

“Thank you,” Feyre breathed as she opened the door and held it for the student behind her. The girl strolled through and smiled at her. “It’s no problem.”

Feyre directed her attention to the slip of paper in her hand, failing to remember where it said her room was. Room 223, Level 3. A blonde head peered over her shoulder.

“Room 223? You’re right next door to me!”

Feyre offered her a smile. “Does that mean you’ll show me the way?”

The blonde looked delighted and casually looped her arm through Feyre’s as if they’d been friends for years and led her towards the elevator. This slightly alarmed Feyre, she had never had very many friends let alone pretty girl friends, usually, they weren’t all too kind to Feyre. Despite the fact that her sisters, Nesta and Elain, were rather popular. Nesta easily took on the role of the pretty mean girl, though she wasn’t outwardly mean often. She just radiated the energy and didn’t bother with most people.

Elain, however, was friends with everybody and was sweet to all who crossed paths with her. She had almost everyone in the school wrapped around her finger, though she had no idea; from the boys who tripped over each other to open the door for her and the girls that scrambled to sit near her at lunch.

Feyre did have one redeeming quality in high school, well, redeeming person. Her high school sweetheart was Tamlin Spring, the football team’s star quarterback. He was one of the boys in the school that the girls drooled over constantly, but somehow it was Feyre who caught his eye and it was Feyre he asked to accompany him to homecoming. You’d think this high up connection would earn her some credit but no, the girls still teased her, convincing her it had all been a dare.

Feyre remembers, in a fit of rage and embarrassment, she stomped over to Tamlin’s locker after the last bell and confronted him. It was there he promised her that it was no prank, it was there he first kissed her. Feyre felt like they had clicked until her mother suddenly passed away from an undiagnosed illness, the death leaving an ugly, deep scar carved into Feyre’s and her family’s lives. Feyre’s life took a turn for the worse and with it so did the relationship she shared with Tamlin.

The gentle ding of an elevator door alerted Feyre before she found herself spiraling too deep into her thoughts.

Her leader didn’t seem to notice her brooding state as she took Feyre out and to the right, down a decently sized hall. The floor was mostly white tile with dark blue, almost purple tiles making a design down the middle; the walls were painted a light gray and littered with numerous posters. Feyre didn’t have time to read what all the papers said before the woman stopped outside a wooden door, a plate engraved with the numbers 223 to its left.

“This is your room. I’m just next door in 225.”

Feyre nodded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” The girl smiled at her and then her face lit up in realization.

“Oh, my gods! I didn’t even introduce myself!”

Feyre let loose a small smile. “I’m Feyre,” she said at last.

To her surprise, the mysterious girl pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, “I’m Morrigan, but I really just go by Mor.” Mor then pulled back, still holding Feyre at arm’s length.

“My roommate is named Vivane by the way. We dyed her hair silver in the bathrooms last night, you can’t miss her. She’s always hanging out with her boyfriend though, so if you ever need anything don’t hesitate to come find me!” Mor offered politely.

“Thank you.” Feyre breathed out a little sigh of relief having found my dorm without too much trouble.

A girl down the hall called Mor’s name, she muttered a quick see you later and disappeared into the herd of students and luggage.

Luckily, Feyre managed to open the door without issue and hauled her suitcase inside. She felt a little silly walking here with such a small amount of stuff, most students had a cart full of their belongings.

Feyre observed the room, the same white tiled floor and light gray walls as the corridor she just exited. It wasn’t ridiculously small, but it would still be a bit of a squeeze. Nothing Feyre wasn’t used to, having shared a room with her two older sisters growing up. A few boxes and bags were already scattered about on the right side of the room. It was clear her roommate had been here and left. She dropped her black, sticker ridden suitcase on the empty bed, plopping down next to it.

Both sides of the room were identical, two tall beds held up by drawers pressed against opposing walls, two nightstands, two narrow desks situated at the ends of each bed, and one decently sized wardrobe, all made of the same light creamy wood tone. Rather flimsy-looking violet plastic chairs were also tucked into the desks.

Feyre began to unpack her clothes into the drawers holding up her bed in an attempt to distract her growing anxiety. She pulled out her bag of art supplies and dropped it on her desk. The bag held a paint set that was on its last leg, paint brushes that were horribly frayed at the ends, both drawing and colored pencils, sad leftover eraser nubs, and her worn leather bound sketchbook.

The door to her room opened up with a click revealing who could only be her roommate standing on the threshold.

She was on the short side and was relatively curvy. Her skin was a tanned brown and she had dark brunette curly hair that was tied up in a loose bun. They both stood observing each other for a second.

“I see you took advantage of the half-off sale at the uni shop too.” She spoke with a smile, gesturing to the identical, oversized VU sweatshirts they were both wearing over black leggings.

Feyre returned her smile and nodded. “I’m Feyre.”

I held out my hand which she took instantly with a squeeze, “Alis.”

Feyre felt a sense of relief in Alis’s presence. She had a gentle, calming, almost motherly aura about her. Alis invited Feyre to join her for an early dinner to get to know each other.

The girls entered into a huge room adorned with the same marble looking tiles and gray paint mixed with pillars of dark brick filling the walls where windows were absent. Two of the walls were almost completely glass letting a vast amount of natural light fill the space. Above them, three huge circular lights hung from the high ceiling. Wooden tables of various sizes and the same shade of violet accent color plastic chairs neatly filled the room. Stretching along two of the walls were a number of booths to grab food.

Feyre and Alis settled on grabbing salads from one called Sabrina’s Kitchen and snatched a table for two near one of the walls of windows. They talked about the usual, their family, where they were from, what they were studying, etc.

Feyre learned that Alis was from the town adjacent to Feyre’s own, Springlee. She used to live there with her sister, her husband, and their two boys. She only left to pursue a degree in education but missed them terribly.

Feyre gave Alis a quick rundown of her own home life, leaving out many details that came with her dysfunctional family and explained she’d transferred after two years at Courts Community, working on an art degree. Alis loved the idea of having an artist as her roommate and insisted Feyre paint pictures to decorate their dorm.

They’d long since finished their salads but continued chatting as the cafeteria began to fill up nearer to dinner time.

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t look now but the hottest group of guys just strolled in,” Alis gasped.

Feyre giggled a little and rolled her eyes, she wasn’t the type of girl to fawn after hot guys anymore with her track record. She did not trust a pretty face. Alis’s eyes were transfixed behind Feyre.

“Would you like me to grab you a napkin to clean up your drool?” Feyre poked at Alis.

Alis playfully swatted her hand away. “Just look at them!”

Feyre huffed and turned around in her seat; she didn’t even need to ask for clarification from Alis it was clear who she was referring too. In one of the lines stood a group of three guys, she could hear them laughing and talking from her seat.

She could only see two of their faces, but that was all she needed. They all had similar shades of black or very dark brown hair and tanned complexions, not to mention how fit they all were. One’s hair was shoulder length and half was pulled back in a bun, the other two had shorter hair cut in rather nondescript styles. Though, the quietest one who had his arms crossed over his chest and only said a few words or offered a small smile every now and then had some curl in locks. The last one had his back turned to Feyre but if his backside and friends were any indication she could only assume he was equally as beautiful.

Noticing Feyre’s prolonged glance, Alis spoke up, “who needs a napkin now?”

Feyre snapped back around and giggled. “Shut up!”

The sheer number of students piling into the room had it near overflowing as Alis and Feyre tore their eyes from the boys and walked back to their dorm.

They sat on their beds and talked for a while more, mostly making up ridiculous ways to find out who those boys were and how to get their attention. Feyre doodled in her sketchbook while Alis suggested they break into admissions in an attempt to get some information on them, that plan quickly fell apart as she realized they’d need to know more than their faces.

Eventually, both girls turn in for the night.

~~~

enjoy, let me know if you want more or not!

#feysand au #feysand fanfiction #feysand fanfic #feyre x rhysand #feyre x rhys fanfic #feyre archeron #morrigan #acotar fanfic #acotar #acotar au #acotar fanfiction #a court of thorns and roses #cassian #azriel #i never got to say i love you #modern au #fanfiction #feysand

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hypnoticwinter · 3 years

Text

Down the Rabbit Hole part 25

“Jesus,” Erica breathes, “you weren’t kidding,” and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

I’ve managed to keep my heartrate under control all the way down to the barrows but now that we’re here I’m able to let my breath out and relax a little, ironically. The place is a graveyard, a grisly butcher’s workshop of stinking ichor and dismembered copepods. It is unearthly quiet, even down here in the middle of the Pit’s guts, with the only sound being the dripping of glutinous white phlegm-like vital fluids and occasionally a far-off groan from the Pit’s musculature.

The copepods are everywhere, strewn all over the place like ragdolls, and very few of them are intact. The majority have had their arms ripped off and a ragged hole bored straight through the middle of their armored faceplate that looks like it goes several feet deep at least. Here and there there are dead leeches, the only trace of the leechman, the only thing giving any clue as to what might have happened her. I briefly wish that I still had my camera with me.

Saying goodbye to Elena had made me acutely aware that I may not have been prepared for what I was getting myself into. I had helped her out of the cot and she had stumbled and cried out and then I caught her, prepared for the worst, already starting to panic – had I done a bad job? Had I hurt her somehow while I was tending to her wounds and only now was she able to feel the effects of it, getting up and moving around?

Elena had looked at me, lips already curling into a sheepish grin, and then she must have seen the look on my face and stopped, stood there straight without any assistance from me and then put her hands on my face and cupped me to her and kissed me so long and so hard that I felt a little faint. Erica had coughed behind us, a little uncomfortably, but when we finally broke apart I really had eyes only for Elena, I couldn’t stop staring at her, at the freckles across her cheeks, at the way one of the corners of her lips lifted slightly higher than the other when she smiled, at a dozen little things like that that I wanted to fix in my mind.

I don’t think I really knew, not consciously, at least, why I made such an effort to keep a clear image of her in my head then, to get every detail down in as complete a manner as I could. It only became apparent to me once we had walked out to the Cord and Elena had opened the door and turned around and waved to me before disappearing that I had been so concerned with her safety that I had had no concern at all for mine.

The door clanged shut and Marcus had spun the wheel to seal it tightly and then Elena was gone. Before she left we had hugged again, there in Oyster’s Shame, amid the glistening walls and the sounds of more of the tiny pearly deposits falling here and there like a soft distant rain. “You come back to me,” she had growled, right into my ear, and I could feel her leave a wet spot on my cheek from where she had begun to cry, and I wanted so badly to go with her but I didn’t see any way I could.

“Well,” I had said to Erica, forcing myself to sound brighter than I had felt, “let’s get this over with.”

So we did.

Marcus kicks one of the dead leeches and it rolls a little. It looks like it has some weight to it, some heftiness that isn’t immediately apparent from how slender it is. It’s about the length of my arm. “What the hell is this, E?” he asks, looking up at her, and Erica shakes her head, getting down on her haunches to examine it.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says. “It’s a little bit like a gastric bristleworm but not as…I don’t know, bristly.”

I’m standing there in the back with my arms folded, waiting. Next to me is the stinking corpse of a copepod; this one has been crushed, its insides, ropy and white, flooding out in a great mass from its burst sides. Even with the helmet up I can smell it; Erica and Marcus must have cast-iron stomachs. Erica does, anyway; when we first made it down to the barrows we’d had to stop for a moment to let Marcus vomit.

The tracking PDA had lead us almost exactly the way we’d gone the day before, back before everything had gone to hell. I still don’t know exactly what had kicked it off to begin with; my best guess was that the Leechman had showed up and gone on a rampage just after we’d left with the crystal, and the copepods, they must have assumed that it was our fault, that we’d drawn it here or were somehow working with it. Did they know what it was? Did they recognize it? I wish the Big Guy were still around to ask but we had passed his desiccated, punctured corpse, recognizable only by the stump of one of its wrists, as we had made our way through the central chamber. Marcus is carrying the Sergeant’s slug rifle but he does so nervously, as though he’s afraid of it. He clearly isn’t familiar with the thing. I wonder what’ll happen if he does have to fire it, if it’ll just put him on his ass or if it’ll actually break a bone.

The two of them have been decent to me so far. Erica seems genuinely regretful about hitting me earlier; she doesn’t look at me most of the time, and if she does need me for something, mainly to use the suit computer to look at a map, she asks for me politely and in a soft voice. I thought that Marcus might curse at me or harbor some kind of ill-feeling; after all, Elena – after all, my girlfriend attacked him, and I have no doubt that if she had been able to get away with it she likely would have shot the both of them and washed her hands of it.

The thought makes me shudder very slightly, but not of fear or anger but just vague baseless exhilaration, of minor and muted joy that things are finally happening, for better or for worse, for good or ill, that great capital-letter THINGS WILL CHANGE finally rolling over and putting muscle behind its epitaph.

I had been terrified on the way down that the copepods would have torn us apart, would have eaten us. I had no confidence in Erica and Marcus’ ability to protect this little illicit expedition. They have no plan, no notion of what might be waiting for them. And I don’t know what they intend to do if they do actually manage somehow to get their hands on the crystal. Break it? But that’d be counterproductive, wouldn’t it, as if what Erica’s saying is right, that’d just give us that psychic illness.

If I don’t have it already. Was that dream a dream or the start of it? Is it –

No, stop. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s the perfectly normal sort of dream to have when you’re under this much stress, in these conditions. Once you’re out of here, once you’ve – Christ, I don’t know, gotten Elena some vacation time or sick leave or whatever the hell and spent the rest of your savings taking her to fucking Tahiti or somewhere, if you’re still having the dreams then, you can worry about it.

I could tell them, I could tell Erica and Marcus. It’d be easy. I could just say something like, ‘hey, uh, so there’s this giant fucking ogre made out of leeches wandering around down here and it’s got the crystal you’re after, and it killed all these copepods. Oh, and the crystal weighs about a ton and we had to get a robot to carry it, which I notice you guys didn’t bring with you. No, you can’t use our robot, it’s probably smashed to bits somewhere.’

They wouldn’t believe me. There’s no way in hell they’d believe me. Even if I did want to save their asses, which at the moment is not very high up on my priority list. I’m still maintaining the faint hope that they might actually find the damn Leechman and try to get into a fight with it, which would be my cue to run like hell.

“Roan,” Erica asks me, again using that mildly infuriating soft and considerate voice, “have you seen one of these before?” She’s holding the body of the leech out to me, grasping it like one might hold a snake, right behind the head. Its mouth gapes insanely wide and round and the body hangs limp. I can’t stop myself from taking a step backwards.

Goddam it, Erica.

“Leechman,” I say, and then I cough. Our eyes meet for the first time in a half hour. “The leechman’s here.”

Erica’s eyes seem to grow instantly deeper. Her mouth is open slightly, and she stares at me in silence until Marcus nudges her, his eyes flicking between her and me. “What’s the leechman?” he asks, and Erica, broken out of her reverie, licks her lips and glances over at him.

“Nothing,” she tells him, getting to her feet quickly. “A fairy tale. Like the boogeyman.”

Marcus doesn’t believe this; I can tell from the way he looks at her, but he doesn’t question it, just gets to his feet as well and follows her as she pulls out the tracking PDA, taps at the screen a few times, and then points down at one of the darkened vents. “That way,” she says, and where she points we follow.

We make our winding way through the ass-end of the barrows, the part we hadn’t gone through yesterday, and then the trail takes a corkscrewing, winding path downwards. We are very clearly in a section of the Pit that people have not been in very often. Even in the sections leading up to the barrows, where the flesh of the vents is left bare and uncovered, there are still lights strung here and there, little radio repeaters and every now and then a tiny, cramped-looking ranger station, mostly mothballed and closed-off, but still evidence that someone had come before us. In the barrows, though, this stopped entirely. There were little trails of cleat-marks here and there, but I think the majority of them were from us stomping through earlier, they looked too fresh, too new.

We only saw a couple of copepods, and these from far off, across vast chasms of flesh, scarred here and there like cliff-faces. I couldn’t divine their purpose, just – anomalies of anatomy, no meaning, no clear analogue I can draw. Just places where the flesh falls away and vague misty nothing takes its place. As I stand on the precipice looking over and down into darkness, watching the way my flashlight beam peters out depressingly soon, I swear that for a moment I can see something moving around, something large, fluttering and flapping and swooping like some kind of giant bat, but if anything was there, it vanished so quickly as to not leave an impression on me other than a brief glimpse of size and frantic motion.

I turned back to see if Marcus or Erica had seen any of it but they were huddled together, deep in conversation, hunched over the PDA. After a moment I traipsed over to join them. With each step on the way down I had felt my weariness building, both in my body and in my heart – I had shoved so much out of the way down somewhere inside of me where I didn’t have to feel it, and it was only now that it was beginning to creep back out at me.

We’d passed some things I’d recognized from the rest of the squad – there was a torn piece of a suit there, in a small knurled corner, dirty and speckled with red matter that might have been blood or bits of flesh. I didn’t look closely enough to check. A boot, cleated firmly into the ground. Nothing as definite as a body; the closest I saw was a great foaming gout of blood splashed across the floor and up part of the wall of the vent, but no indication as to whether it came from a person, from a member of the team, from Klaus or Euler or – or Peter, or whether it was just natural, some artery in the floor being clipped during the fighting and spraying everywhere until capillary action cut it off.

If I think about it I won’t be able to go on. I can’t bear to –

Alright, Roan. Easy girl. Deal with it later. Right now just focus on staying alive. Get back to Elena and then you can cry about things. God, poor Peter, though; and poor Makado, waiting for him. How would I feel if it had been me up there and Elena down here?

I think of her, alone, making her way up the Cord, no weapon, still hurting, probably, as the painkiller starts to wear off, and I bite my lip, hard. Goddam it, I’m not going to cry. Not down here. She’s fine, she’s going to be perfectly fine. She knows how to handle herself.

I focus instead on the ache in my knees, in my back, in my arms. We’ve been going for so long, it feels like; hours upon hours. I’d check the time on the wrist computer but these damn gloves - !

Erica and Marcus look tired as well, at least. Maybe they’ll want to rest soon. We’ll be able to eat, sleep perhaps…they have to have some kind of tent, or sleeping bags, or something, even if it’s not one of the fancy hexagonal ones the squad used. I think about pointing out that we’re all dog tired, we might as well take a break before we go further, but I nix that idea quickly – I don’t want to seem weak. Erica’s given the impression that she won’t push me but Marcus is still a wild card, I don’t know him, how he handles stress, how he’ll act in a couple of hours when he’s even more tired and hungry.

They gesture and lead on, and I follow, dead on my feet but still forcing myself to continue.

And then, after fifteen minutes of walking, down treacherous polyped inclines, past outcroppings of redundant, keratinous spines, we find, laying in a slump with his neck at an awkward unnatural angle, his eyes terribly bright and aware, Euler.

I cry out when I see him; my stomach makes a horrible lurch as I take in the gnawed markings dotting his once-bright ranger suit, round and puckered and blood-crusted. The leeches have been at him but left him alive for some inscrutable reason. He coughs as we shine our lights on him and shifts feebly but he is unable to move more than an inch or two – his spine is clearly broken.

I hadn’t expected to find any bodies; somehow I had guessed that one way or another, anyone lost down here would be utterly irretrievable. But there is Euler, the one person I would never have expected to survive – I guess I underestimated him.

Or perhaps his current condition isn’t really surviving in the main sense. Once I’ve gathered my senses I rush to him and kneel there beside him. I have nothing to offer him, no painkillers, no first aid, nothing besides companionship, but it’s better than standing and gawking as Erica and Marcus seem to be satisfied with. I wipe his forehead with my gloved palm lightly, the sweat shining on the rubber in the wake of my flashlight, and Euler’s eyes shift up to meet mine and he croaks out my name in a hoarse voice. He says it wrong, like it were one syllable, but hearing someone I care about even infinitesimally say it is like breathing after being underwater.

“Euler,” I tell him, and my voice breaks just a tiny bit right at the end. I lick my lips and try again. “Euler, what the hell happened to you?”

“I’m – it’s bad, Roan,” he says. Rone. Should have changed my name in that rebellious phase, added that accent mark I always longed for. There’d be less ambiguity. I smile to myself in spite of everything and he grins at me, just a little bit, but his eyes stay wide and frightened. They flick over to Erica and Marcus, and I look back at them as well, and then give an exasperated sigh.

“Don’t you two have any damn medical things? A first aid kit?” They glance at each other. “Anything?”

“I thought you might…” Euler coughs. “Might have come to rescue us.”

I frown. Us?

“Euler, are there…more people from the squad down here? Hurt somewhere?”

He shakes his head minutely, then winces. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to touch him without hurting him. I tear my glove off with my teeth, just lay my hand against his cheek. It feels like an awkwardly intimate gesture but I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know how else to help. If it were me I think I’d – I think I’d want human contact, something skin to skin. I think it might be a comfort.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“The Leechman,” he says, “it – it grabbed me and then it –“

He cries out, gently, and I move my hand downward and grab his. He clutches at me desperately. The last time I had seen him the leeches had been streaming into his open mouth, writhing against him, wrapping him like a hundred pythons at once. I bite my lip and glare back at Erica again. “Will you two fucking do something?”

“He’s clearly past any help we could give him,” Erica says, and Marcus nods.

For a very brief moment I am so intensely angry I feel as though I might burst into flame. Euler cries out softly again and I realize I have squeezed his hand too hard, and I jerk my hand back from his, muttering a stammered apology. He shakes his head.

“They’re right, I’m done for,” he tells me. “You should – you’re going down further?” he asks, frowning, and I nod.

“Those two want the crystal,” I tell him, lowering my voice a little.

“It went…that way,” he says, glancing to the right, further down the vent and into the Pit’s depths. We sit there in silence for a moment longer and then finally work up enough nerve to ask him the question I wanted to.

“Are you in pain?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “It feels like I should be but it’s just dull.” He breathes heavily. “I’m afraid.”

“Euler, don’t –“

“I’m going to die down here,” he says, and there is a terrible layer of finality in his voice that makes my heart fall.

“No, Euler, you’re not –“ I start, but then cut myself off. Because he’s right, isn’t he? I can’t argue with him, there’s no way in hell that we’re going to be able to get him out of here. If he has a broken neck there’s no fucking way we could stabilize him well enough to carry him out of here, and even if we could, I’d need Erica and Marcus’ help, which they don’t seem incredibly inclined to give me. I look back at them and start to get up, but Euler catches the cuff of my suit and I stop, hunkered over awkwardly.

“Roan, I saw – “

He coughs; I can see his chest heaving. I wonder about those leeches; I know I saw them flooding into his mouth, forcing their way down his throat…what would have –

“I saw inside it,” he tells me. I frown.

“Inside what?”

“The Leechman,” he says. His eyes are boring into mine with a horrible intensity, practically bulging outwards. “I saw inside it and – and it was so bright –“

“Euler, I don’t know what you –“

“Don’t leave me down here,” he says quietly, and then lets go. There is a pleading in his eyes that stops me dead. I’ve let my mouth fall open slightly, but there is no mistaking what he means, there is no ambiguity in the quiet desperation in his tone. He wants me to –

I get up quickly. My hands are shaking and my arms and legs feel like I’ve been whipped with a coil of lightning. I walk over to Erica and Marcus, and Erica nods at me. “You ready to go?” she asks, and I shake my head. I open my mouth and try to talk but I choke a little, then cough and try it again.

“Erica, Euler, he –“

“What is it?”

I shut my eyes. “Kill him,” I tell her. “He asked me to but I can’t – I can’t do that. He’s scared and he doesn’t want to have to lay down here unable to move for a couple more days before something fucking eats him or he dies of exposure. Please.”

Erica’s eyes are very dark. She glances at Marcus, then back at me, before she reaches down to her belt and unsnaps the holster there, then hands me the revolver. I nearly drop it; it’s heavier than I had expected. “Do it yourself,” she tells me. Her voice is like glass. “We’ve wasted enough time here already.”

“You – “ I start, but I choke it back. She’s trusting me giving me the revolver; this means something to her. This is a test. But what am I supposed to do? Can I –

But you already did once before, some part of me whispers at the back of my head. Remember Rey? He’s dead because of you. And before that -

Marcus is covering me with his own slim little pistol. I swallow hard and try not to feel the imprint of its muzzle, covering me from five, seven, ten feet away from me, my back itching as I half-expect to hear a report and feel a sharp shock –

But nothing happens. I make it to Euler; he’s watching me, his eyes rolled upwards in a manner that somehow distinctly reminds me of a dog, somehow, and I hate myself for thinking so, but he’s looking at me in the same way a dog will look up at you, not moving its head, its eyes wide and hopeful.

I thought the gun might feel better in my hand after I’d had it there for a while, but it’s still awkward and heavy and purposeful. It’s much heavier than the pistol they’d given me to practice with during qualifications back on the range a few days ago; that one hadn’t even felt like a gun, it hadn’t felt real. This one most certainly does.

Euler nods at me infinitesimally. “It’s…alright,” he says. He seems to be laboring a bit more now; maybe he hadn’t been expending very much energy until we came across him. I certainly didn’t hear any cries for help on the walk up. If he’d been there the whole time, for hours, listening to the Leechman and the copepods duke it out…

“Euler,” I say, “what did you mean when you said you saw inside the Leechman?”

“Roan,” he says. His eyes are fixed on the revolver. I’m stalling, I realize; I’m putting it off so that maybe somehow this responsibility will be removed from me. The inside of my mouth is very dry and I swallow hard, willing some moisture to return to it.

“Okay,” I say quietly. Okay, I think to myself. I take the revolver, hold it in two hands, one on the handle, the barrel resting in the palm of my other hand. I look at the cylinder, fumble for a moment before that trip all those years ago with my dad comes back to me and I find the catch and swing it outwards. Erica hasn’t reloaded since she shot Elena, I note, some dull part of my mind logging the information without any further comment. I can see the tiny mark of the struck primer on one of the cartridges. But I won’t find any salvation here, there are still five more shots that are perfectly serviceable.

I click it shut, remembering, as my dad told me, not to flick it closed, not to spin it. You aren’t a cowboy, he’d said to me gravely, pressing the gun into my chest. It had smelled like oil and metal, like something functional, like when you open the hood of your car. And I had trembled then as I am now, and I had looked out across the flat open expanse of grass –

Even then I couldn’t bear to think of it after I’d done it.

I’m stalling.

Goddam it, Roan, goddam you and your willingness to stick your neck out.

Euler makes a small noise beneath me and I look down at him. “Are you sure?” I ask, willing him to say no, to rethink it, to give me a reprieve. He nods.

“Just do it,” he says. “They won’t come get me, they won’t care. Just do it.”

“Okay,” I breathe, and then I hold the gun in two hands – why does it come back to me so easily? – and put it up very close to his forehead, and Euler shuts his eyes, and I shut mine as well. I inhale and then exhale.

Five minutes later I hear feet squelching up behind me and then Marcus is crouching next to me and prying the gun from my nerveless hands. “It’s okay,” he says, not unkindly, and then he is gently pushing me out of the way. I get to my feet, not knowing what else to do. I meet Euler’s eyes and I start to say something, then I stop. There is no blame in them, or maybe I don’t want to see blame. So instead I turn around and hunch myself against the wall, and when the gunshot finally sounds I flinch, and then I finally let myself cry.

When I turn back around I can’t bring myself to look at him. I instead watch Marcus hand the revolver back to Erica, watch Erica slip it back into the holster, watch Marcus shove his pistol into the waistband of his heavy-duty jeans. I blurt out the only thing that comes to my mind and tell him that he shouldn’t carry one in the chamber like that, it’s dangerous, and Marcus gives me a pitying look and says nothing. When I meet Erica’s eyes they are lighter than before and I realize, with a shudder as another wave of tears rolls soundlessly down my cheeks, that whatever test there was, whatever reason made her give me the revolver, I passed.

And then we stomp off into the darkness and leave poor Euler behind.

* * *

The next day I feel better. I slept better than I thought I might have, sandwiched between Erica and Marcus in their tent, cramped and with not enough air mattresses or sleeping bags, but I managed. They shared some of their food with me, MREs scavenged from some surplus store somewhere, which I found faintly comforting, and then the next day, when someone’s alarm blared and woke us, I was disconcertingly and surprisingly fresh-feeling. All the pain and sorrow I thought might have come boiling out of me when I let my guard down never did, and instead it was replaced with a calm, warm, faintly comforting deadness. I was, I realize now, preparing on some level to die. I had arrived at a zenlike state that had me convinced I was either dead or dreaming, a fragile state of mind that I had tried so hard to reach at that dojo in Oklahoma but which constantly eluded me.

Since Friday I am complicit now in two murders, one arguably and one less so. When I think of myself the person I am is thorny and sharp-edged and armored and I do not recognize her when I hold her in my arms. I blow out a breath and pop my eyes open as Marcus nudges me and hands me a cup of bootleg espresso made from two freeze-dried pouches, and I take it gratefully and even manage to smile at him. I feel…clean.

We’ll see how long that lasts.

More walking, more bypasses across stinking rivers of digested slurry, more crawling across meter-wide cords of banded muscle. The anatomy gets stranger and stranger, more open, more wild. Nerves like waving cilia, waggling at us like anemones, retract at lightspeed at our approach. Everything is luminescent down here, everything glows, but what glows brightest of all is the rectangular blocky backlight of Erica’s PDA, guiding us forward like a north star. She seems less certain of it, less sure; she stops and consults with Marcus every now and then and I feel fairly frequently like I have simply been forgotten, like I am an insurance policy for the return trip, a hostage kept in waiting to be revealed and used as leverage later on.

Will Makado care, I wonder, when she knows that they’ve taken me? I hope she will. I think we got close enough that she would. I think she likes me.

Does she like me enough to send a team after me? I’m sure there’s some kind of tracking device in this suit but will it even function this deep down? I don’t know.

I stub my toe on a bloated adipose swelling and it belches a gout of rank, sticky fluid on me. We pause again for Marcus to vomit.

Eventually we make it to a curled, winding passageway, a tight intestinal-feeling loop that circles in on itself over and over again, the tissue struggling against us at every turn, that we have to claw and scrape and crawl through but that the PDA swears is the right way to go, the simplified arrow logo spinning back around and directing us back in every time we think of turning around and trying someplace else. We push through and through until finally it vomits us out, breathing hard and covered in blood and strands of pale-white membrane, and then we stop, eyes wide, staring up and up and up at the space we’ve found ourselves in.

It’s enormous, the size of a stadium and at least twice or maybe three times as deep, great gnarled coils of sparking nerves weaving in and out of the fleshy, irregular walls casting macabre light in regular snaking patterns across the broad flat plate of bone that divides the space nearly in half, knotty and bulging and thick, honeycombed and dripping with thick resinous marrow.

There are things moving, I realize, on the far-off floor of the chasm, great writhing worms or – no, no, they have legs. Squat lizard-like figures, then, moving in fits and starts, their flesh a glistening pale sickly color, like milk that’s gone off. They must be simply enormous for us to be able to see them from this distance. I glance back at Erica and Marcus; their mouths are open, dumbstruck as well – they must not have known this was here. Could we be the first to find this place?

I watch a shadow, a patchy midnight cutout, detach itself from the bone plate and fall swooping to the floor of the chasm, and then it wings its way back up, one of the lizards caught in its claws, dangling beneath like a rabbit caught by a hawk. I watch, overwhelmed, as the – the thing, whatever it is, I want to call it a bird but it can’t be, it simply can’t be – flutters ungainly and graceless back to the bone and vanishes with its prey into a whorled hole in the side, ragged and uneven.

“What is this place?” I mutter to Erica, after I’ve regained enough of my senses to think to speak, and she shakes her head faintly.

“I have no idea,” she tells me, but before I can say anything else I hear a noise from above us; a subtle noise, like a whistling, drawn-out swoosh, and when I look upwards I can only see a diving, dark-furred silhouette with outstretched, foot-long claws and a hungry, slavering mouth.

I don’t have time to scream.

Continue with Part 26

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#mystery flesh pit #writing #writeblr #alt lit #Novel #original writing #mystery #thriller #disaster #caving

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general-fanfiction · 4 years

Text

I Hate Christmas, But You Don’t.(Sweet Pea x Reader)

Summary: Nobody can understand why Y/N won’t get into the festive spirit.

Word Count: 3,172

Gif Not Mine. Requests Are Open!

Warnings: Swearing?

December 3rd. No matter where I look I can't escape the festive season. Jovial Christmas songs ring out over the school speakers, tinsel hangs from ceilings and there is a rather large tree decorated with blue and white baubles in the corner of the student lounge. Everybody seems happier, cheerier now that Christmas is near. Students eagerly handing out cards and giving hints as to what their gifts are. I'm surrounded by the Christmas spirit and I hate it. Placing my books in my locker, I try not to watch as everybody shares giddy smiles with one another. Each discussing how excited they are now that December 25th is near. As I close my locker and press my back against it, I spot two of my best friends approaching me from across the hall. Veronica and Betty both look extremely jolly and as much as I am glad that they're happy, I can't help but wish the entire Christmas period could just end. As they stand in front of me with beaming smiles on their faces, I notice that they're both sporting Christmas jumpers. Both of which are hideous and presumably incredibly itchy. Why anybody would embarrass themselves like that is beyond me. "Y/N, we need a favour from you." Raising my eyebrows at the girls in front of me, I watch as Betty holds out a small bag for me to take. Upon opening it, I find myself pulling out a jumper just like theirs. An elf is printed on the front, complimented by a series of bells around the collar. It's potentially worse that Veronica's and Betty's combined. So bad in fact that I actually start to believe this may be a joke. Some sort of prank in which they wanted to capture my reaction on camera. "What the fuck is this?" I ask, shaking it slightly so that the bells ring together in chorus. Several students glance our way as I hold up the monstrosity that is the Christmas jumper. No doubt they're thinking the same thing as me and I genuinely begin to feel embarrassed even holding the thing. "It's a Christmas jumper. We want you to wear it and help out with the Christmas market. All of the River Vixens are doing it so you have to take part." Veronica states, the wide grin never leaving her face. "Even Cheryl is wearing one." Betty comments, pointing down the hallway. Turning my head, I spot Cheryl Blossom wearing a red jumper decorated with a snowman. She's paired it with a black mini skirt and somehow manages to rock the look, despite the complete ugliness of the jumper. "You see. You have to help now." Betty hesitates slightly as she notices the scowl on my face, her eyes pleading with me to say yes. Looking down at the jumper, I scream internally. I hate Christmas. I hate Christmas. I hate Christmas. As much as I want to help Veronica and Betty and the Vixens, I would much rather stay out of their festive antics. It's just not for me. "No." "What? What do you mean no?" Veronica asks, the smile on her face now replaced with a slight frown. "I said no. I'm not wearing this stupid jumper and I'm not helping out with your Christmas market." I tell them, shoving the jumper towards Betty before I stomp down the hallway trying to calm the anger rising within me. December 4th. Flipping through the channels on the tv I find myself groaning after realising there is nothing to watch. That's a lie. The only thing playing on the tv is the same five Christmas movies on every single channel. Throwing the remote at the wall, I lean back into the sofa with an exaggerated huff. "What did the tv do to you?" Sweet Pea asks with a chuckle, placing two steaming mugs of coffee on the table. Shrugging aggressively, I decide not to make eye contact with him as he joins me on the couch. We sit in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being the traffic outside of my house. Sweet Pea's hand cautiously moves over to rest on my thigh, his fingers delicately stroking my jean clad leg. "I saw you get mad at your Northside friends yesterday. Anything you want to talk about?" I roll my eyes as I push his hand away from me. Not wanting this conversation right now, I choose to take a sip of coffee hoping that he will get the hint that I don't want to talk. Alas, this is Sweet Pea I'm talking about and he never knows how to take a hint. Instead he waits patiently with his gaze locked on me, determined that I answer his question. "Why would I want to talk about it? Everything's fine." A soft laugh escapes his lips as I speak. Glaring at him slightly, I cross my arms over my chest and push myself deeper into the couch. The red tint on my face is most likely noticeable as I continue to listen to the sweet sound of Pea's giggles. No matter how discreet he tries to be, I still manage to hear him. "Babe, you threw a jumper at them. That isn't really normal behaviour." His hand moves again, yet this time it rests on my arm. He tries to tug me up ever so slightly. Simply so he can get a better view of my face, though I make this as hard as possible for him as I sink all of my bodyweight into the couch. "I'm not talking about this with you Pea." I admit, finally allowing him to pull me up so that I can face him. His eyes drink in my expression, as though he's making sure that he's reading me correctly. When a small smile appears on his face, I can't help but smile too. Even if I really don't want to. Pea presses a soft kiss to my nose, before taking my hands in his. "Aright. So when are you putting your decorations up?" He asks, trying to change the subject. "I don't want to talk about Christmas." December 11th. Sweet Pea, Toni, Cheryl and Fangs stand at one side of the park. Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Archie stand at the other end. The scene is peaceful, tranquil even. That is until the Great Snowball War of Riverdale commences. You would never guess that the eight of them were teenagers as they ran through the snow, huring it at one another with tremendous force. Wrapped up in my large winter coat, I stay perched on the bench. Fortunately I was able to stay out of the action due to their being an odd number. Hence why I'm sat on the bench with a warm drink in my glove covered hands. As I watch the gang in front of me, I laugh quietly as I see Sweet Pea tackle Fangs to the ground, pushing snow into his face. Even when they're on the same team they can't seem to play nice. I smile as I watch Sweet Pea dance around victoriously, thinking he won simply for his attack on Fangs. Though when Fangs, Jughead and Toni all dive at the taller Serpent it's evident that he is not in fact the winner. "You should join us. It's pretty fun, no matter how stupid we look." Cheryl says, taking a seat next to me on the wooden bench. Her cheeks are tinted red and her normally flawless hair is damp from the snow. Diverting my gaze back to the group I see that they all have Pea pinned to the ground, each of them taking turns to hold him down and shovelling snow on top of him. "I'd rather stay mildly warm, I don't particularly want to end up like my poor boyfriend over there." I admit, clutching the latte in my hands closer to my chest. Cheryl laughs slightly at my words, evidently watching the group in front of us. When I look back at her, I see that she's looking at me. A look of curiosity in her eyes, as though she's trying to figure me out. Figure out why I'm sat on a bench rather than enjoying the winter with my friends. "No. I'm sick of you being miserable. You are going to get in the festive spirit whether you like it or not." She tells me, determination written across her face. "Cheryl, that's not going to happen." Though as soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel her plant a ball of snow on top of my head. Cold drips of water fall down my face and I shake my head in hopes of ridding myself of the snow. Cheryl has a smirk on her face as she stands up, eyebrows raised as though waiting for me. I place my cup on the floor, shaking my head as I begin to follow her. "Cheryl Blossom get back here right now!" I yell, chasing after her as she sprints over to our group of friends. Grabbing a handful of snow I throw it in the general direction of the redhead, praying that I will at least hit her even slightly. When I look however, I see that the snowball landed directly on Sweet Pea's chest. Unlike when Jughead or Fangs threw a snowball at him, he doesn't look angry, rather he looks insanely happy. A huge smile spread across his face as he races towards me. Pea sweeps me off my feet in a bone crushing hug, spinning my round in circles. Ultimately leaving us both dizzy, meaning we have to stand still for several minutes before we regain our composure. Resting his somewhat cold forehead against mine, he hugs me tighter. "You have no idea how happy I am right now." He whispers, making sure that none of the others can hear him. A small giggle leaves my mouth and I lean up slowly, kissing Sweet Pea as delicately as possible. Despite the immense cold around us, the kiss is warm and gentle. It's perfect. Or it is until a snowball hits me on the side of the head, interrupting our moment. "Oh now it's on!" December 17th. "You are going to love your Christmas present!" Sweet Pea tells me, distracting me from my calculus homework. What does he mean Christmas present? I made him promise that we wouldn't get each other Christmas presents. December 25th is just a regular day, there's nothing special about it. At least not to me. Not to sound selfish, but I don't want a gift off Pea. "We said we weren't going to do presents." I say, staring at him from across the table. His eyebrows furrow slightly, confused as to why I'm so against the idea of receiving a present. I guess to him, and every single other person on the planet, people love presents. Just not me. It's not the presents I have a problem with. It's the whole ideology of Christmas. "You weren't serious about that? It's Christmas, I had to get you a present." Although I try my hardest not to, I can't help but scoff. Looking away from the boy at the other side of the table. Why could he not just listen to me when I said no presents? It's a fairly simple request and yet he can't even follow through with that. "I don't like Christmas Pea. I fucking hate it. So no, I don't want a present." I snap, sounding a lot angrier than intended. When I finally look back at my boyfriend, he has a sadness in his eyes. I hurt him. Unintentionally of course. Though I still hurt him. Grabbing my books from the kitchen table, I begin to throw them into my backpack. I'm at the door of his trailer when he speaks again. "Why don't you like it? I mean, even I like it." His voice is quiet, hesitant. Worried I'll snap again. How do I even answer that question? It's a long story and not one I want to relive. Yet I want to be honest with him. Sweet Pea moves to sit on the couch, motioning for me to join him though I stay completely still. Stood in front of the door in case I need to bolt quickly. "My parents used to argue a lot. Like a lot. It always got worse on Christmas. When I was twelve, the argument on Christmas was worse than any before. It ended with my dad throwing a vase against the wall before walking out of the door. He never came back. We haven't celebrated Christmas since, now do you understand why I don't like Christmas?" I ask, looking over to him where he sits with his head in his hands. "I'm sorry." "It's just a lot of shitty memories. Christmas is no big deal to me because I've never really had a proper Christmas." When Sweet Pea stays silent I approach him slowly, taking a seat next to him on the couch. He glances up at me with an expression of guilt on his face causing me to wrap my arms around his torso in an awkward side hug. "You've done nothing wrong Pea, I promise. I'm sorry that I ruined your Christmas." I whisper, nuzzling my face into his neck. Pressing a kiss against his Serpent tattoo, I inhale his scent. Cigarettes and cinnamon. Such a perfect combination. He holds on to my arm as I lean into him further. The tension in his body slowly releasing. December 22nd. Sitting in a booth at Pop's, I slowly take a drink of my strawberry milkshake as I listen to Betty tells us about her romantic Christmas night with Jughead. It's cheesy and slightly gross but I still find myself listening intently. "What about you and Sweet Pea? How are you two spending your Christmas?" Ronnie asks, three pairs of eyes suddenly turning to me in unison. I didn't know me and Pea were supposed to spend the day together. Personally, I was just going to spend the day in bed. Possibly catching up on any coursework. The thought never crossed my mind that perhaps Sweet Pea wanted to spend the day with me. Sure, I may not like Christmas but that doesn't mean he doesn't. "We're not doing anything." I admit, stirring my milkshake with the straw so that I don't have to look at the three girls. "You and Pea aren't doing anything? You know how much that boy loves Christmas? There's no way you guys aren't spending the day together!" Toni chuckles, her words hitting me hard although she doesn't know it. Sweet Pea likes Christmas. A lot by the sounds of it. The award for shittiest girlfriend goes to Y/N Y/L/N. All of this time I've been so focused on myself and how much I hate Christmas that I never even thought to ask about what Sweet Pea wants. "Speaking of you and Sweet Pea, if he loves Christmas that much then maybe now is the perfect time to ya know.." Betty trails off, causing me to look at her, evidently confused. "Have sex Y/N. You and Sweet Pea could finally have sex." Veronica states, a little too loudly in my opinion as the people in the booth next to us look over in our direction. Could Pea and I have sex? The topic has never really been brought up in conversation but thinking about it now would be the perfect time. Not only to make up for being a bad girlfriend but also as a sort of Christmas gift. Maybe this Christmas won't be so bad. December 25th. Knocking on the door of the trailer, I hear Pea shuffling about before eventually opening the door. He's wearing an oversized hoodie with a pair of sweatpants and although the look in only meant for comfort, it makes him look extremely hot. "Merry Christmas!" He's shocked at the sight of me stood on his doorstep at little past eleven in the morning. At first I begin to doubt whether he actually wants me here, but then the biggest smile appears on his face and I know I've made the right choice to come over. "What are you doing? I thought you hated Christmas?" He asks, stepping aside to let me into his heavily decorated trailer. "Yeah, but you don't. So I brought chocolate cake, a bottle of whiskey and also your present." Placing the cake and alcohol on his kitchen table, I hand him the box that I was carrying under my arm. Pea throws himself on the couch placing the box on the coffee table. He looks like a child, eagerly pulling away the tissue paper from the inside. He holds up the leather jacket, mouth open in shock as he sees the newly embroidered serpent patch on the back. "Your old one has seen better days so I spoke to FP." I admit, smiling contently as he pulls the jacket on over the top of his hoodie. Before I can process what is happening, his arms are wrapped around me. Engulfing me in a hug, the fresh smell of leather hitting me the moment he is near. I settle into the embrace, allowing myself to feel relaxed. Happy. "Does this mean you'll accept my present?" He asks hopefully, gazing down at me with nothing but adoration in his eyes. Nodding my head, he kisses my temple before running off into his bedroom. Taking a seat at the kitchen table, I only wait for a minute before he comes bounding back in with a small black box. Handing it to me, he watches me carefully. Making sure he can clearly see my reaction. Inside the box is the most stunning silver snake ring that I have ever seen. I never knew I could smile as much as I am right now and everything suddenly feels perfect. Pea takes the ring out of the box and slips it on to my finger, smiling down at me when it's on. "I love you Sweet Pea." It's the first time those words have left my mouth but it feels like the right time to say them. My heart is swelling with love and I know that I really do mean what I say. Pea looks as though he is about to burst from happiness and hungrily captures my lips in a kiss. "I love you too sweetheart." Wrapping my arms around his neck, I kiss him with more aggression than ever before. Gripping his hair, I pull at it until he groans in my ear. Giggling at the sound, I see his cheeks turning a dark crimson. "Don't start something you can't finish Y/N." He whispers, trailing kisses down my neck. "Who says I can't finish it?" I've always hated Christmas. Yet with you, I don't hate it nearly as much as I thought I did.

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starman-john-tracy · 4 years

Text

Radiation Poisoning | Chapter Ten

by @starman-john-tracy and @asteria-star

In which John Tracy gets exposed to uranium and nearly dies, The Hood is evil, and Star generally freaks out a lot.

Chapters: [One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Eleven]

Virgil shoves his fingers into his hair, burying his head in his hands.

“He must take after Mom, dammit.” He wants to swear a lot worse than that, but even as tired as he is, it feels inappropriate when John himself is dozing lightly just the other side of the room. “He’s got her blood type after all,” Virgil rambles on, “and the rest of us inherited Dad’s but I thought at least one of us would be a match for...” His fingers scrub hard through his locks, mussing his hair about, incredibly frustrated. “I can't believe how unlucky this is.” Virgil blows out a hard frustrated breath, “He’s gonna have to go to Melbourne, but the risk of infection out there is so much greater and….”

Virgil’s sore and tired and his spine feels like there’s still a massive needle in it, and there the oppressive, crushing guilt resting on his shoulders that he’s the most medically competent member of International Rescue and yet he still can’t help his own brother. Virgil’s fingers are shaking and he sounds just so genuinely distraught over the whole thing that no one would blame him if he wanted to cry.

“I feel like I’m sending him to his grave, Star.” Virgil manages, soft and strained, “I... I don’t know what to do...”

“Test mine,” Virgil looks up at her like she might have gone mad, and Star just shrugs as nonchalantly as possible in their situation, “See if I’m a match for John.”

Virgil just shakes his head, reluctant.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He tries to let her down gently, “I’m worried about how the test might disrupt your venous system, particularly as it winds all around your heart. After that little fainting spell of yours yesterday . Plus if your heart rate speeds up because you’re in pain and you still haven’t recovered from gravity...”

"But if I'm a match it could save John, right?" She points out, and it's hard to argue with that really.

"It could,” He says, though he shakes his head with it, “but without any genetic relationship the chances of you being a match are, like, one in three hundred, even if you are the same blood type and I don’t want to put you through the whole process for such a slim chance. It could be dangerous...“

"Virgil,” Star interrupts, “I know. This is me giving you my informed consent. Just do it."

Virgil watches her for a long, long moment. Then sighs.

“One in three hundred.” He reminds her, then makes his way wearily across the room to set up another test. He glances over a John on the way past, his expression skipping between scared and miserable. His brother needs someone’s healthy, matching marrow or he’s probably going to die. Star’s might be that match. It’s worth a shot. “Can you hop up here for me…? Same process, lay on your side and try and make yourself comfy with your knees as close to your chest as you can get them.”

“Well,” Star gives him a tight smile as she climbs up onto the bed and lies on her side. “This can’t be that much worse than being stabbed, right?”

Privately, Virgil thinks she has a very different pain scale to anyone else. Which explains a lot, really.

What she doesn’t mention is bullet wounds and torture, days in the forefront of a gang war, having a tongue so tightly sealed behind her lips grown men resorted to trying to cut answers out of her, and always coming out on top. She survived that, she could last a simple test. But… that was a lifetime ago, and she hadn’t exactly enjoyed it at the time. At least this time, the cause was worth it.

She pulls her knees up to her chest, and John’s sweatshirt is so big that she has to hike it up into a clump at the front for Virgil to have any chance of finding her bare back. Virgil, a frown on his face, reaches over to where her hands are tucked under her face and clips a monitor to her finger.

“It’ll be okay, Virgil,” she tells him, and looks away. The breath she draws between her teeth shudders, and the monitor spikes unhappily. “It’s all going to be fine.”

The only answer Virgil gives her is the rip of sterile packages opening, the snap of fresh gloves on his hands. In that moment, Star is both glad and disappointed that she can’t see his face. A cold hand rucked her shirt up the rest of the way and came to rest on her hip.

“You ready?”

Star just nods.

He numbs the area first, like he’d done with the others, but it still takes her breath away a little, and Star chokes back her gasp by putting the base of her thumb in her mouth and biting it. Virgil is murmuring his tried and true litany of comforting words, but Star can’t make out a single one, reducing his voice to a background hum. She holds completely and utterly still, breathing through the burn, not realising her eyes have squeezed until it’s over and Virgil is holding something over the point of entry. Virgil’s fingers press to her carotid artery, watching her pulse racing across the monitor like they might somehow tell him different stories.

When Star opens her eyes, breathing slightly uneven and sweat gathering under her eyes, she can see John looking at her from his bed, a frown tugging at his face.

“Alright?” Virgil is asking, he’s still facing her, so he doesn’t immediately notice that his other patient is awake. “You did really well. Gonna be alright while I go test this?” He’s reluctant to leave her while her heart is still tachycardic.

“What’s going on?” The soft voice from behind him nearly makes Virgil jump. It’s just as well he’s set all pointy objects and the little vial of precious marrow aside in a metal tray so that he can’t drop them. Virgil turns, finding John propping himself up on his elbows, weak and a bit shaky, but doing a lot better than he had been the last Virgil had seen those blue-green eyes of his open.

“Good Morning Sunshine.” Virgil grins at him, relieved, “Nice to see you up.”

John blinks slowly at him, processing the shape of Star curled on her side on the opposite bed. She shoots him a thumbs up to reassure him. Awkward skinny fingers make a fist with his own thumb poking up out the top, to return the gesture. It’s a little ridiculous.

“We’re just checking everyone’s bone marrow for matches for you,” Virgil seems to decide there’s no point in telling his brother anything but the bleak truth, though he leaves out just how many mismatches they’ve already had. “Star volunteered hers just now for testing, think you can keep an eye on her for fifteen minutes while I have a look at the sample? She’s got to keep herself still and, here,” He folds a heat pack into her hand, “Apply this to where the ache is the worst, ok?”

John nods agreeably, watching Virgil limp (why is he limping?) across the room as he shuffles himself slowly into a sitting position.

The astronaut has rapidly lost weight while he’s been bed bound and ill and his arms are rapidly beginning to resemble toothpicks covered with a thin layer of wasted muscle, making the movement a bit of a struggle, but not impossible. He looks much better sitting up. His hair needs a good wash though, and he could definitely use a clean set of clothes.

There’s a glass of water staring at him from the bedside table. He reaches out and grips the slippery glass with both hands, taking small, cautious sips to try and clear his dry throat. When he doesn’t immediately throw it back up, John counts that as a victory.

“You need to eat something,” Star tells him, and it's so stupidly familiar that it manages to bring shaky smiles to both their faces. Star wants to sit up, and Virgil is otherwise occupied with his back to her, but the trembling in her arms and John’s pointed look team up to keep her in place.

John’s eyes dart to the monitor Star is still attached to. He has enough experience with gravity to know when something isn’t entirely right.

“You didn’t have to do this.” He sounds ever so sad about that. Star brings up the smile again.

“I know, but you can’t exactly tell me you’re surprised.”

Something that might have been a laugh shakes John’s frail shoulders, his thin fingers gripping the bed weakly.

“Are you- how are you feeling?” Star tries to ask.

John looks ready to try lying to her in response, or he might shock them and be honest, but he doesn’t get very far into either option before something by Virgil clatters, and the darker Tracy starts muttering.

It doesn’t sound all bad.

“Star you’re- she’s a match!”

“What does that mean?” John, having slept through the morning, has missed out on a lot. He blinks up at Virgil celebrating, confused. “Her bone marrow is the same as mine, somehow?”

“Her stem cells are very similar to yours,” Virgil tries to make it clear, even as he’s collapsing deeply relieved into the chair by John’s bed. “She’s a match!” He barks out a slightly delirious, very relieved laugh. “Ah, sorry.” He notices John is still looking confused over his brother’s seemingly excessive joy. “So, stem cells are, like, special cells that get produced by bone marrow, that’s, uh the spongy tissue found in the centre of some bones, the stuff we took a sample from last night, if, um, you remember that.” From the flicker of a wince that comes across John’s face, it’s clear that he does, at least in part.

“Stem cells turn into three different types of blood cells when they’re in your bloodstream.” He goes on, wanting to make sure everything is very clear to his ill brother, “The red kind carry oxygen around the body, the white ones help fight infection and there are also these things called platelets, which help stop bleeding. All three of which in your body have been badly irradiated by the uranium exposure.” John nods, quiet and serious like he’s taking it all in. It’s perhaps a bit simple of an explanation for him, who already has a good knowledge of the types of blood cells, but it’s important to Virgil that he understands completely. There’s a squeak of the feet of Virgil’s chair as he scooches it in closer to his brother

“So, we need to do an allogeneic transplant of these stem cells, to replace your damaged ones with healthy ones, got that? To do this we need to get hold of some of these healthy cells, but they also have to carry a special genetic marker, something called a human leukocyte antigen, or HLA, that's identical or very similar to that of the person receiving the transplant, or else there’s a very high chance of the transplant failing. Usually these stem cells come from family members but, uh, I don’t quite know how to tell you this but…”

“None of you are a match.” The realization dawns on John, fearful, combined with the fact Virgil had just admitted all his brothers had had the horrible test. “So you had to look elsewhere and…?” His eyes flick over to Star, where she’s just starting to sit up on the bed, a heat pack clamped to her back. “Star… is?”

Star grins at John once she’s upright, all teeth. Her hair isn’t contained by the plait any more, giving her the slightly deranged look of having been dragged through a bush backwards. She’s breathing slightly heavier than she should be from sitting up, propping herself upright on her arms, but she doesn’t seem the least bit sorry about any of it.

“Yeah.” Virgil sounds so deeply relieved by this, it’s not hard to think he might cry. “Her tissue type happens to be a match for your tricky one, so, lucky for you, she can donate some of hers to you. Uh… If she chooses to, that is.” He looks up at her as well, his brown eyes liquid. “You do have a choice in this.” Virgil points out, though, if the alternative is John dying, they both it’s not really much of a choice at all.

“Ah!” He holds up a hand to prevent her from insisting that yes! Of course, she’ll do it! Star is halfway through what would have been a somewhat elated agreement in her mind when Virgil cuts her off, and she very patiently shuts her mouth and lets him finish. “I want you to understand the risks before you agree. You and John. It might be… I… you don’t have to go through this either John. If you don’t want to, if you think it’s too dangerous and your quality of life...” His voice is thick, a little shaky as he trails off. The idea his brother might not want to do the risky transplant, even if it could save his life, fills him with a kind of helplessness that he’s never had to face before. There’s always some way to rescue people, but John might think it’s too much to even try. Virgil’s fingers clasp tightly in his lap, trying to stop his hands from trembling.

“Star’s poor health-” Star snorts in disagreement, but shuts up when Virgil glares, “-your recent surgery, and the fact you live in space so much of the time.” Virgil sounds a little bitter about that, “They all complicate things.” He takes a breath. “I’ve got to give you options, John, before you decide, ok?”

“Option one,” He starts with what he thinks is the best, “We run regular tests on Star, until she’s healthy enough to donate some of her bone marrow’s stem cells to you. Sounds simple, really isn’t.” He shakes his head again. Someone really needs to get that man a coffee. “Option two, we can put you on the list at the Royal Melbourne and find you another donor, already in full health, but that could take weeks, and we risk exposing you to a great deal more germs than exist on our little Island. Either of the first two are going to be long, drawn out fights for your life.” He can’t lie to him, “It could be up to years of being unwell. Option three,” he takes a ragged breath here, steeling himself, “You can choose not to pursue treatment.”

“And what would that mean?” John asks tentatively.

“It means there’d likely be a marked decline in your health, over a period of months or, perhaps weeks, and…” Virgil shakes his head, “You could get better or…”

“Or I might die.” John finishes off for him, his voice light like that’s perfectly reasonable. “Thanks for letting me know Virgil, but I’m not just going to sit around and wait to get well or not.” Virgil looks absolutely miserable about the idea that John might not follow his advice. It feels selfish to worry them any more than he already is. It might be his body and his choice, but John Tracy’s not a man who gives it up so easily. “Even if it’s going to be a lot longer and harder, I think… I think I should take the treatment.”

Virgil looks like he might topple out of his chair from relief, and, with the way he sways, heady, he nearly does.

“I… you’re taking this very calmly.” Not that he should have expected much different from the most composed and patient of his brothers. “I’m really grateful you’ve got such a positive outlook on it.” Virgil’s got this fear that, once it’s all sunk in, John might break down later though. “You can change your mind at any point, none of us will judge you for it. You probably have a lot of questions.” John nods like his head is heavy, but he still seems alert enough that Virgil, selfishly, kind of wants to get all this over with.

“What does Star donating cells mean for her?” He asks, because of course he’s thinking of her over the massive, terrifying threat over his own head. Virgil shuffles around in his chair to face Star, the explanation is more for her benefit than John’s at least.

“John,” Star tries to scold, but submits at the look Virgil shoots her.

“Well,” He begins, “The whole thing is a long and complicated process. Harvesting stem cells will involve a slightly longer procedure than the one we did to collect a small sample. We would have to remove around a litre of bone marrow from your hip bone using a similar needle and syringe to the one we used before. The needle may have to be inserted into several parts of your hip to ensure we get enough bone marrow. We, Brains and I that is, would do this under a general anaesthetic, so you'll be asleep and won't feel any pain while it's carried out, but the area where the needle is inserted will probably be painful afterwards and you'll have marks on your skin where the needles were inserted on either side.” Virgil is careful and clinical at explaining but the sympathy is bright in his expression. Star doesn’t care for it. She might be able to save John, she doesn’t need Virgil’s sympathy. “To boost the number of stem cells in your blood, we’ll give you a medication that stimulates their production about four days before we schedule in the transplant. On the fifth day, a blood test will be carried out to check there are enough circulating stem cells, and if there are, we’ll do the extraction.”

“Sounds like fun,” Star says dryly, giving the two boys a clumsy shrug. “I’m in.” Virgil just nods, like, despite his worries, he hadn’t really expected any different.

“Before we can do a transplant for you, John, we’ll need to check a few things on your end as well. Transplants tend to be more successful in people who are in good general health, despite their underlying condition, but the radiation poisoning isn’t exactly being gentle on you. I need a blood test to check how well your liver and kidneys are working, another electrocardiogram for your heart, and a CT scan to check the condition of organs like the lungs and liver.”

“Then,” And this is going to be the real bombshell for him, “We’ll have to do a round of what’s called conditioning treatment. It’s a course of chemotherapy, in a high dose, to prepare your body for transplant.” He says it ever so quickly, as if to get it over with. “The chemo will destroy your existing irradiated bone marrow cells, to make room for the transplanted tissue, and it’ll stop your immune system working almost completely,” Which sounds ludicrous when the astronaut’s weak immune system is endangering him so to begin with, “which will reduce the risk of the transplant being rejected.”

John takes a long moment to process that, his fingers wandering up to the fine ginger strands on the top of his head. Star watches the trail of his hand, stomach bottoming out on his behalf.

“It might not fall out.” Virgil offers, optimistically, knowing that while his brother is hardly vain, losing all your hair is still a distressing experience. “Some patients undergoing chemo do keep all their hair.”

“But it’s not likely.”

Virgil shakes his head.

“It’s not likely.” He doesn’t want to go into the whole slew of side effects the chemo could have right now, he doesn’t think he’s got the strength to tell his brother how he’s going to feel tired and sick and weak all the time, even worse than he does now.

“And after the chemo?” John asks, looking like his energy levels are fading fast. It’s almost a shame Virgil’s going to have to ban him from caffeine for the foreseeable. “What then?”

“The transplant will be carried out a day or two after conditioning has finished.” Virgil reaches out to flick a distracting monitor off on his left, “The stem cells will be passed slowly into your body through a central line.” He gestures to the PICC implant in the crook of John’s elbow, protected by a tube-like section of sleeve that has been slipped over it at some point he’s been asleep, to keep everything safe and sterile. “The process will probably take a couple of hours. The transplant itself won't be at all painful and you'll be awake throughout.”

“And recovery, after that?” John tucks an elbow beneath him, trying to keep himself propped up for this important conversation, “What should I be expecting?”

“Maybe we should talk about that later.” Virgil’s keyed onto the fact his brother is rapidly drooping, like a plant that needs watering. “If you get a few more hours sleep for me I might even let you back up to your bedroom.” John’s going to be seeing far too much of these four walls soon enough, while he’s still got some strength in him to have his own independence, Virgil wants to give him it.

“I want to know, Virg.” John protests, even as his brother gets his hands under his back and helps him lie back down, ginger head sinking into the pillow. There’s a poorly disguised yawn from the spaceman that doesn’t help his case. “I need to know what might happen, what about the side effects?”

“Are you really going to remember it all if we have this conversation now?” Virgil hovers over him, concerned. It’s a bit of a redundant question though, and John Tracy just raises an eyebrow at him. Even like this his memory is impeccable. Sometimes, Virgil thinks, his brother is more computer than man. He wishes, ever so briefly, that he was fully computerised, protected from the fragility of the human body. “Ok, ok.” He concedes, “Once the transplant is finished, you'll have to stay down here, as germ-free as possible, for a week or so while we wait for the stem cells to settle into your bone marrow and start producing new blood cells.” Virgil is always careful to say we when talking about John’s treatment plan, and the astronaut can’t help but be grateful for it. It makes him feel just that little less alone in all this. Star can see that sick relief at his brother’s words and wishes she could hold his hand, not entirely sure she won't end up on her ass if she tries getting up.

“You’ve got to understand, bone marrow transplants are complex treatments that carry a significant risk of serious complications.” Virgil knots and unknots his fingers in a rapid, ever shifting pattern of anxiety. “You’re young and Star is a strong match, so that improves your chances. You’ll probably feel weak, and be frequently sick, and you won’t want to eat much.” That doesn’t sound too different to now, but John imagines if Virgil’s talking about it so grimly, it’s only going to get worse. “We’ll try and get you to drink lots of fluids, or, if you can’t keep them down, give you them through a tube running from your nose to your stomach, to prevent malnutrition. You’ll have to have regular blood and platelet transfusions, as you'll have a low number of these, and you’ll be at risk from infection for maybe even a couple of years after this.” John’s eyes flutter closed, that’s a lot.

“Side effects wise, with the transplant, we’re looking at a chance of something called graft versus host disease, or GvHD.” He really does want John to have all the facts, “This sometimes happens in allogeneic transplants, transplants from another person, when the transplanted cells start to attack the other cells in your body. We can give you immunosuppressants for that but…” Reduced immune system. John’s seeing a pattern here. “Other than that, the main danger is from having a further reduced number of blood cells. We’re talking anaemia, excessive bleeding or bruising, and yet more increased risk of infections.” He gives John the first, wry smile of the past thirty minutes, “We’re going to have to wrap you in bubble wrap at this rate Johnny.”

“Scott’s gonna be unbearable.” He groans, in sudden realization, “You guys are gonna get microscoped before you can get within five feet of me.”

Virgil laughs, short and startled, because that’s probably true.

“I’ll try and keep him at bay.” He promises, warmly, “But I do think it’s lucky you’re by far the most patient of us.”

“Mmm.” John doesn’t sound convinced, or perhaps he’s just well on his way back to sleep. “Remind me of that when he’s getting on my nerves.”

“Will do.” Virgil ever so gently tucks the covers back up over his sibling’s chest, his voice dropping much softer and lower as he senses him slipping away to sleep. “Night John.”

“Mmm… S’night Virg…”

#Thunderbirds #Thunderbirds Are Go #Thunderbirds 2015 #John Tracy #Radiation Poisoning RP

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