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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

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Episode Review: ‘Together Again’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 3)

Airdate: May 20, 2021

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, Christina Catucci, Jesse Moynihan, Adam Muto

Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Maya Petersen, Serena Wu

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Across Adventure Time’s ten season run, the show explored a bevy of “mature” themes and story ideas—topics, like love, sexuality, depression, and grieving. The show also touched upon death, but the emphasis was usually placed on the emotional toll of a loved one dying, not really what happens when you die. We knew there were Dead Worlds and Death. We knew that there was reincarnation. But how does it all fit together? What does it mean? How does it work?

With “Together Again,” we finally have many of the answers.

This special opens with a marvelous fake-out episode simply called “Finn & Jake,” that sees the two steal a magical cartoon of 50-flavor ice cream before rescuing Turtle Princess and LSP from the clutches of the villainous Ice King. This is all deliberately anachronistic and over the top. Ice King is back to his season one ways, Finn has both arms, and he is still wielding his golden sword that he lost in season two’s “The Real You.” There’s lolrandom dialogue and silly monsters; it’s like a parody of seasons 1-2. But then, this adventure starts to get all wonky, and in time Finn realizes that he is in a some sort of trance or illusion: one that ends with Jake being buried in the ground. Suddenly, Finn awakens from his reverie. He’s an old man. And he’s dead. We’re then presented with a new title card that lets us know the episode is actually called “Finn & Jake Are Dead.”

Holy Glob! They actually went there.

Turns out Jake died years before Finn, so naturally Finn is super excited to see his best bud. But something’s wrong—he cannot find Jake!! They planned to spend eternity together. But all that Finn can find is his very own psychopomp, Mr. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich, whose purposefully stilted line readings are the epitome of delightful). Finn rightfully assumes that Jake is in a different Dead World, and so, being the ball of spunk and energy that he is, he demands to meet with Death, only to discover that there’s a New Death in town (voiced by Chris Fleming). The episode eventually explains that New Death was the son of Death and Life, and after New Death killed his father, he became the sovereign of the afterlife. New Death hates his job and decides to just blow up all the Dead Worlds so he doesn’t have to deal with it all. (I won’t get too much into the details here, because there would be a lot of story to parse out.)

Finn soon learns that Jake has reached nirvana in the 50th Dead World, where there is nothing but peace and serenity. Finn nevertheless tracks down Jake, pulls him from paradise, but in doing so, accidentally lets New Death in, who promptly obliterates Elysium, sending all the enlightened souls—including those from different levels of the afterlife—to the 1st Dead World. This gronks up the afterlife, temporarily halting the reincarnation process.

Well, Finn and Jake are rightfully ticked, and so they haunt the material plane looking for Princess Bubblegum. She’s not home (more on that later), but Peppermint Butler is! After Ghost Finn and Ghost Jake explain the situation, Peppermint Butler tells them what to do: They need to find Life and explain the situation. The duo manage just that, and Life is rightfully angry that her kid has stopped the transmigration of souls. After Life gives Finn a McGuffin sword that can hurt Death, Finn and Jake return to his abode. A brawl ensues wherein we learn that New Death has been possessed… by none other than that spirit of the Lich.

That’s right, it’s the Lich! He’s back, and boy is he evil.

The Lich explains that by possessing Death, he can destroy the afterlife, thereby destroying a key aspect of reality. Naturally, Finn and Jake are not cool with this, and they engage in combat. After Mr. Fox grabs the McGuffin sword and uses it to annihilate the Lich and New Death, he is proclaimed the New New Death and sets everything right. Finn is slated to be reincarnated, and Jake is slated to return to the 50th Dead World where he and Finn will one day be reunited. As Finn is pulled into the wheel of souls, Jake suddenly decides to go back with Finn, too, “Just for fun.” The episode ends with a card letting us know that the episode is neither called “Finn & Jake” nor “Finn & Jake Are Dead.” Instead, it is “Finn and Jake Are Together Again.”

As they say, “And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

If you were to tell me several years ago that the last episode to star Finn and Jake would revolve around them dying, I think I would’ve been upset. Not simply sad, but rather frustrated because “they all died” can feel like a cheap ending. But with “Together Again,” it all works. And a large reason that it works is because the show goes all in with their ideas. Finn and Jake don’t magically leap back into their old life (no, no, they very much do bite the dust). Instead, the special emphasizes the cyclical nature of life through the transmigration of souls. The episode ends with a beautiful scene of Finn and Jake, bound together as soul-brothers, being reborn into a new, mysterious (possibly Ooo 1000+?) world. It’s both aesthetically and emotionally pleasing; it doesn’t feel off the way over finales might. This is right. This is the way life works. “Round and round as nature goes,” and all that jazz.

I loved the series explanation of how death works. It seems that souls land in a specific Dead World, where they ‘marinate’ for a bit, presumably being rewarded or punished based on their life in our meat reality. After a time, they are then reborn. This process repeats, with each soul reaching higher and higher levels of enlightenment until they hit nirvana, which is the 50th Dead World. So in a sense, Adventure Time has a roughly Buddhist cosmology with a dash of Greco-Roman mythos thrown in for flavor. (As to what happens after a soul stays in the 50th Dead World for a long period is anyone’s guess, but I’d speculate that when all the souls in the multiverse have been purified and land in the 50th Dead World, they will all collapse into one another and form one perfect Monad. Perhaps this is the sphere of perfection that the beings who merged into Matthew thought they were connecting to? Who knows! It’s anyone’s guess!) I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see who Death, Prismo, Life, etc.’s boss was, but perhaps that’s a mystery better left up to the imagination!

One minor thing that I loved about this special was the number of characters who made cameos as well as all the callbacks that were made to previous episodes. Regarding the former: Finn and Jake’s canine family show up (including the oft-forgotten Jermaine!), as do Tree Trunks and her myriad husbands. Tiffany plays a major role in all these shenanigans as a “death cop” of all things. There is a delightful rogues gallery stuck in the 1st Dead World (including, among others, Maja, Sharon from “The Gut Grinder,” and Wyatt). In the 50th we find Ghost Princess and Clarence happily at peace next to Booshy, the weird spirit mentioned in the Pen Ward classic “High Strangeness.” As far as callbacks go, perhaps my favorite is the clap (from “James Baxter the Horse”) that Jake taught to Finn in case they ever do get separated in the afterlife. And of course, there are myriad references made to “Death in Bloom,” the episode that planted the seed for what this would grow into.

Going into the special suspecting that it would involve Death, I was curious how they were going to handle Miguel Ferrer’s character. (In case a reader is not aware, Ferrer played Death in episodes like “Death in Bloom” and “Betty,” but he sadly passed away a few years ago). The producers’ choice to feature him in a non-speaking cameo—despite playing a relatively significant role in the story—was wise; I’m not sure if I can articulate the exact reasons, but something about his role felt appropriate and not gross, as some post-mortem memorials can be. Speaking of which, the wonderful, lovely Polly Lou Livingston was featured for the last time in this episode as Tree Trunks, happily in heaven with her literal harem of husbands. It was funny, it really was, and I’m sure that Polly Lou would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing it on screen. (Also, this is a pro-Tree Trunks safe space. Any Tree Trunks haters will be chucked into the 1st Dead World with Wyatt.)

The biggest mystery in this whole thing, for me at least, is the question of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Several years ago, I wrote an essay about what could’ve happened to them in the Ooo 1000+ universe. I speculated that they peaced out and left Ooo behind. In this special, neither Bubblegum nor Marceline are to be found in the Candy Kingdom—Peppermint Butler seems to be the one in charge, given that he is now wearing Bubblegum’s crown. Likewise, the duo aren’t anywhere in the Dead Worlds either. Maybe the two of them skipped town and got a duplex in the Nightosphere? Who knows… I just want my favorite gals to be OK!

All things considered, “Together Again” was a marvel: An episode that managed to feel like a series finale even more than “Come Along with Me” already did without taking away from the series itself. An episode that managed to make the idea of dying funny. An episode that brought back the Lich in a way that wasn’t forced. An episode that made Mr. Fox the New New Death. An episode that gave us a beautiful ending to Finn and Jake’s story… as well as the beautiful beginning to a new one. I said it on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here: “Together Again” was the end of a sentence in a book with infinite pages. Truly, the fun will never end.

Mushroom War evidence: Everything takes place in the Dead Worlds, so not really. Perhaps a more eagle-eyed viewer can inform us...

Final Grade: That’s right, I’m gonna do it...

Post-script, I actually messaged Jesse Moynihan to ask about his writing credit. He told me that it was for an unused story idea that he had developed. I’m not certain, but I’ll bet it was a part of the cancelled TV movie they were trying to make during season 5, since that would’ve seen Finn and Orgalorg journey to the various Dead Worlds.

#adventure time #adventuretime #atimers #at #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #finn the human #jake the dog #together again #togetheragain #dead worlds #hanna k. nyström #Hanna K #adam muto #jack pendarvis

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selene-stories · 3 years

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[Tw: Mention of (past) physical harm]

"Are you better?"

The angel sighed in content.

"Good" The other said while pressing a wet cloth on the angel's wounded back. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

The angel calmly shook their head.

"Fine." But then, "you could though."

"No, i'm fine as it is-"

"Are not."

"But thank you" the angel completed kindly, only flinching when the other firmly pressed at a whip scar.

"Fine" the demon said once again. "Just have me treat you each time, bet that's good. So healthy."

Another stupid hum.

The angel's pure white wings were gathered, vulnerable and beautiful. And, as the demon could swear, soft. They had to be, if a single light touch gave their fingers a permanent tingly sensation. It was like fur, or clouds, softer even. The demon should know better than to compare any part of the angel to anything mortal.

The angel looked over their shoulder.

"Ah- I need alloy."

The angel nodded to their right in response, to where a small container sat.

"Sure" grumbled the demon, "do have powers like that, summon whatever you want, and not give attention to any of us-"

"How was your day?" The angel asked, sounding suspiciously amused.

"My-" the demon paused mid-motion, cool lotion on their fingers. They lacked claws that day. "Oh, i'll tell you about my day." They all but threw lotion on the angel's back, who shivered.

The demon stilled.

"...yes?" The angel asked after several moments of silence, causing the demon to stutter and heat to rise on their cheeks.

"Yes--ahm. Those bastards."

They began spreading the lotion to strong shoulder blades, smooth skin, along their spine.

"What did they do?"

The demon flinched, eyes refocusing. Right. "They...were asshats."

"Hmm."

"Yup. Very- very much so. Aha."

The angel's skin looked so pretty, be it not for the scars. Though in a way, they kinda suited them. What kind of scars could the demon leave on them, they wondered.

"A-and!" They forced themselves to be quick and efficient, not feeling the angel's strong muscles, soft skin, along their delicate spine.

"They make me work over time!" Why was their heart beating so fast?

"You don't say" said the angel softly. If it was meant to be sarcastic, it certainly didn't sound like it. It almost sounded..concerned. But that was a very human thing, no way an angel would ever be anything than hateful to a fallen creature.

"Are you okay?" The angel asked, eyes soft and worried and genuine.

Nope. The demon was very much not okay. Anything but that.

"Ah, yeah" they lied. "Mhm. I'm fine- how's your back?" They nearly pushed the angel away but they winced in response.

"Ah- sorry i-"

"No no" they said serenely, "it's okay. You didn't mean it."

Shoo nasty thoughts, begone. The angel invited you over to help, not to thirst over them. Not for hugs and chit chat. You help, then you get back to the pits of hell. You like it there. You do.

"Sure...But it still hurt y-"

"Really, i'm alright."

The angel's warm hand found the demon's on their shoulder. They had to snap the demon out of their trance once again.

"You seem concerned."

"Wh-me? Noo no- turn around."

The angel did, but slowly, hesitating.

"Oh for the love of-" the demon pulled them over their upper arm to face them. Wrong decision cause they forgot how to breath upon meeting their eyes.

New plan:

"Close your eyes."

"Huh?" The angel tilted their head, like a baby bird, "why?"

Cause too cute, too seducing.

"Cause I say so. Now," they gestured.

The angel gave a sigh of disappointment. Shockingly, it was towards themself cause they did, in fact, close their eyes. How much did they trust the demon to give up their sense of sight? That, or they had been tortured so much they lost common sense.

How..how much had they been punished?

"[Demon]?"

"Yeah, yup, here. Present." The demon almost didn't understand what words escaped from their mouth.

A childsh smile played at the angel's lips. Then, they spoke in a way they always seemed to; gentle and soothing.

Angelic.

"Thank you."

It was one thing to be banned from the heavens and fall into hell and another to fall in love with a person. But damn it, did both feel so scary yet so exciting at the same time. Like relief, and like sure damnation.

Since when had love been so similar to falling from grace?

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah" the demon blinked. "Yes. No problem."

And how did one stop it? How did one un-fall?

"Well" the angel said and lifted their shirt. As white fabric slid down their torso the demon had a dreadful thought.

There was no falling out of it.

"You're great but I have to get going."

The demon chocked on their own tongue. They managed some sound of agreement while the angel walked off, chuckling. Then they flapped their wings, launching themselves to the sky while the demon could do nothing but stare.

#demons and angels #Angel x demon #Falling #Angels #Demons #Snippet #Fiction #My writing #Hurt angel #Caretaker demon #writeblr

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maeve-writes · 3 years

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Closer

Pairing: Demon!Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: You brought him closer to God

Rating: 18+; Minors DNI

Warnings: PWP, light bondage, dirty talk,

a/n: This was a submission for another SPN challenge. This is for the prompt: “I’m going to make you scream my name.”

Originally posted on @plaided-ani

Inspired by Closer by Nine Inch Nails.

You were dead.

At least you hoped you were because there would be no other explanation of how you were in absolute, blissful heaven.

“You still with me, sweetheart,” a rough resonant murmur scratched at your ear.

The gag pinched against the corners of your mouth when you moaned and arched towards the sound of Dean’s laughter. Your skin burned against the pull of the rope which held you tight to the metal frame and pulled at your joints, giving you no quarter.

Heavy booted footsteps circled the bed, you did your best to track the sound with a tilt of your head. To your right came a slide of a drawer, a shuffle of contents and the eventual pop of a cap. “Mmm, strawberry,” Dean crooned.

The bed dip between your legs and the slow crawl of his large, broad body spread your legs wider to test the give on the ropes around your ankles. You could imagine what he looked like, tongue pinched between his teeth, lips drawn up in a sensual smirk as his eyes sparkled in sinful delight. You’d give anything to see him, just one brief look at the hungry expression on his face.

Instead you felt a cold drip onto your heated core that drew a full bodied shiver from you. One cool, sticky drop after another slid over your folds mixing with your own sweetened slick. “You don’t need this, do you, baby,” Dean chuckled and sat back to admire his work. “Already soaked and practically dripping onto the mattress. I haven’t even touched you yet.” You whined against the gag and you pulled on your restraints. Dean was a tease at the worst of times, but this was torturous.

He shifted his weight once again and you knew what the brush of soft cotton against your thighs and the puff of hot breath against your aching center meant. Two thick fingers parted your folds and Dean hummed in delight. “Fucking perfect.” A third finger slowly trailed from your entrance to your clit, mixing the flavored lube with your own natural tang before it disappeared, but a groan and a crystal clear pop meant Dean had a sampling taste.

Wet and thick, his tongue followed the same path, deliberate in its agonizingly slow pace that left your body vibrating with need. “Sweetest fucking thing on this planet, darlin’,” he praised. The flat of his tongue once again danced through your folds before his mouth locked around your clit and sucked on it leisurely.

You writhed on the bed, your thighs twisted and clenched around his wide form. Muffled pleas tore from your throat, but Dean paid them no mind. He moaned into your quivering sex before he released your clit only to drag his tongue slowly towards your hole and fucked it open.

The metal creaked as you pulled against the frame, all four limbs flailing uselessly. His nose nuzzled at your clit but was soon was replaced with his mouth as it enclosed around you once more, flicking and swirling that made your thighs trembled against his head.

You were close, so very close with every swipe of the thick, warm muscle and his scruff tickling your most sensitive parts. He knew you were almost there if his breathy laughter huffing against you told you anything and he rewarded you with long, hard pulls of your folds. Without preamble, he shoved two meaty fingers inside of you and sucked hard on your clit.

You lifted off the bed as you came, convulsing around his stilled fingers and weeping around your gag. He continued his assault on your oversensitive bud until you were practically kneeing in the head to get him away from you.

The bed shifted beneath you once again and over the ringing in your ears you could hear the jingling of Dean’s belt and the slow drop of his zipper. Then two warm, calloused hands ran up your thighs, blunt nails dug deep enough to hit bone when they came to rest on your hips. “So goddamn beautiful, baby,” he whispered in his gruff baritone. “So sweet and innocent, too perfect to be in a bullshit world like this.” For the first time since he pushed his way into your house, Dean sounded somber. “But there's gotta be people like you so there can be people like me.”

Like a vice, his fingers pinched your nipples, twisting and tugging until you sobbed against your gag. “People like me gotta corrupt people like you.” He drew in closer to you, voice like velvet on his tongue, “Heaven or hell, doesn’t really matter, don’t really need ‘em. I can tear you apart and put you back together and have you beg me to do it again.”

Your chest heaved as you tried to comprehend his words. “Would you like that, sweetheart?” His hands left your chest and closed around your neck, no pressure was applied, just completely enclosed around you, a silent promise of what he could do. “Want me to show you just how fucked up this world can be and make you feel so good while I do it?”

You panted against the cloth in your mouth, eyes wide, but hidden behind silk. Dean had never been rough with you, not on like this. Passionate, yes; slow, deep thrusts that melted your brain and turned you into jelly, not the bone shattering severity he threatened.

One nod was all it took. An inhuman growl ripped throat his throat and he captured your lips around the gag as he undid the knot at the back of your head. “I’m going to make you scream my name,” he hissed into your open mouth and tore off your blindfold.

“Dean,” you rasped when you regained your sight, eyes wide as you stared up at his darkened leer.

“Not loud enough,” he snorted and shoved your thighs further apart to carefully line himself up at your fluttering entrance. “C’mon, baby, let the whole world know who you belong to.” With a practiced snap of his hips, he shoved into you until his hips hit yours forcing a choked sob from your lips. “I know you can do better than that, Y/N.”

He pulled back to hook an arm under your knee to hold you open before he slammed back in and knocked the wind out of you. You knew what he wanted from you, but the brutal, punishing pace started, every snap of his hips rocked your bound body, the harsh shock waves taking your breath away. “Let me hear you,” he growled and lifted your other leg to drill deeper into you.

“Dean,” you whimpered, head tossed back unimaginable pleasure with your eyes squeezed shut.

“That.” Thrust. “Is.” Thrust. “Not.” Thrust. “A.” Thrust. “Scream.” He dropped your legs and draped over your body to snatch your hair. He pulled until your scalp burned to force your gaze onto him once more, never once stopping his savage pounding. “Do you want me to stop?”

You shook your head with as much leave as he gave you. “Then I suggest you start using that pretty voice of yours and sing for me, baby,” he whispered with his black eyes boring into you. His teeth flashed in a bright smile before they sank into your bottom lip and pulled.

Cooper pooled into both of your mouths to turn your teeth pink. “Dean,” you cried out, your entire body sore from their hold and the ruthless snaps of his hips.

“That’s my girl,” he praised with a deep guffaw. “Always so eager to please, aren’t you?”

You managed to nod once, your eyes fluttering and threatening to close. “Want to make you happy, Dean.”

“Oh, I’m always happy with you, sweetheart,” he rumbled and licked a bloody stripe up your cheek. “Happy to use this tight, perfect little pussy of yours. Does that make you happy, Y/N?” You nodded feebly, your body tired and aching from his onslaught. He grabbed onto your chin, fingers digging deep enough to hit bone and drawled out, “Say it.”

“I’m happy,” you replied weakly. From the snarl you received, that wasn’t the answer he wanted. His fingers twisted your hair until you could feel the strands being plucked from your scalp and you cried, tears ran down your face and you sobbed, “I love it when you use me, Dean. Fuck me, please! Whenever you want.”

He released you from your hold completely and sat back far enough to keep himself buried inside of you. “You better get yours because I’m going to get mine,” he warned you. The force of his hips was enough to rock the bed on its frame, each thrust swayed you in your ropes and every grunt he gave was followed by a mewling pule from you.

That unearthly growl filled the room as he spilled inside of you with one final feral push as deep as you could take him, leaving you unsated.

He wiped the sweat from his brow when he pulled out of you and grabbed the blade that laid next to you on the bed. “Get yourself cleaned up,” he huffed and cut you free from your hold. “Maybe something to eat, too. Gonna need you ready for round two.”

#dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x y/n #originally posted on @plaided-ani #demon dean x reader #demon dean x you #demon dean x y/n

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itsthemoofacewriting · 3 years

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It’s heaven in your arms - Chapter 2

Welcome back!

You guys, I was so nervous posting this and everyone’s been so lovely ;_;

I don’t know if anyone picked up on it, but my title has two meanings. One, because it’s a bed sharing trope and two, because Ace died in Luffy’s arms. I’m a monster, I know.

Summary: It may have been two years since Ace’s death but, for Luffy, sometimes it still felt like just yesterday. Or, sometimes, something beautiful can blossom from a place of hurt. Raining: K+

You can also find this on AO3 and FFN.

Enjoy!

It was supposed to be a one-time thing.

But when he’d shot her those excited puppy eyes and asked if they could have another sleepover, she’d found herself caving. Even more so when the thought cropped into her head that maybe he was asking because he was struggling. She’d rather know where he was if he was going to be upset than worry about him being all alone out on the deck.

She’d raised an eyebrow when Luffy had arrived with Zoro in tow but that had been quickly snuffed out when he’d smugly said, “A one-time thing, huh?”

From there on the second time turned into a third time and then a fourth and now she’d lost count of how many times this had happened. It wasn’t every night, mind you, as they all had watches and if one of them couldn’t be there, then it was an unspoken rule that the others would sleep separately. Although she couldn’t be sure that Luffy and Zoro didn’t in the men’s room, but she’d seen those bunks and they’d never mentioned it.

The point was, it’d turned into a routine that no one blinked an eye at, and she’d even got them bathing regularly because there was no way either of them were getting in without being clean.

She’d also never slept better than she did when she had those two in her bed, piled in whichever way they found themselves throughout the night. Luffy liked to be the big spoon, which was something she felt like she shouldn’t know but did, he almost insisted on it even as he climbed in first and took an end. It was a funny sight when Zoro ended up in the middle, his hulking figure being cuddled up to by Luffy. The person on the other end was hardly left out when he stretched his arm to curl around them. It was like he was trying to keep them all close.

When they weren’t being spooned by Luffy, another favourite was when Zoro would lay on his back, an arm thrown out either side and she’d naturally gravitate towards him until her head was on his chest or tucked into his shoulder. His beefiness made a nice pillow, something Luffy must have agreed with as he normally mirrored her on the other side.

She’d stopped being flustered by all of this long ago, it was easy to get over when they did it all the time and neither said anything about it.

She did, however, question whether it was right that she had a preferred sleeping preference with the both of them and that she was ranking them.

Nami was sunning herself on her lounger, it was a pleasant day with the sun out, the ocean still and the background noise of Luffy, Chopper and Usopp running around in the distance. Footsteps approaching caught her attention only to see Robin making her way over, two drinks in hand that must have come from Sanji and a third arm holding a book. She greeted the other woman silently, turning her head to smile at her before facing the sun again and closing her eyes to enjoy the warmth on her skin.

There truly was no better way to spend the day-

“My invitation to your little sleepovers must have got lost in the mail.”

Nami was ripped from her peace as she gaped, feeling heat flush through her body at this finally being acknowledged. She shot a nervous look at Zoro who was sleeping only a few feet away from her sun lounger against the railing. Just because he looked like he was asleep, didn’t mean he was, but when he didn’t move or twitch or give any indication that he might be awake, she let herself relax slightly.

And focus back on the woman next to her still staring her down for an answer. Even though it was a statement, she felt the need to explain herself.

“No- Robin! It isn’t… like that?” She could almost feel the ghost of Luffy’s breath against her skin and Zoro’s arm wrapped around waist, an unwelcome reminder to contrast her words.

Robin hummed, a look in her eye that told Nami she didn’t buy it. “You three looked adorable all cuddled up this morning.”

Of all the ways she thought she was going to die throughout her life, at the hands of Arlong, dropping from Skypiea or on Whole Cake Island to name a few, she never imagined this would be it. Embarrassed to death.

How was she going to explain that this had started with comforting Luffy and snowballed into whatever the hell they were doing now.

She didn’t have to either as Luffy came barrelling over with a chirp of “Nami!”, unaware of their conversation or her embarrassment only to make it worse by squeezing himself onto her sun lounger, ignoring how close they were or that he was practically laying over her. He chattered excitedly next to her, telling her about what him, Usopp and Chopper had been doing, at one point using her straw to take a long gulp from her drink and all the while she was very aware of Robin’s eyes on her the whole time.

“It’s sweet. I’m happy for you three,” Robin said as soon as Luffy bounded off after telling her his short story.

He was out of sight soon enough, but her eyes naturally trailed over to Zoro, only to find his eye trained on her already. She couldn’t be sure whether he’d heard what Robin had just said, but the smile he gave her before closing his eye again certainly didn’t help.

It was full of warmth.

‘It’s sweet. I’m happy for you three.’

Robin’s words replayed in her head, over and over.

The last couple of weeks washed over her. Robin’s words bringing to the forefront how Luffy and Zoro’s behaviour had changed.

Luffy was the first one up in the mornings, unable to wait for either of them to wake up as he heard Sanji bustling around the kitchen and the lure of food too strong that he’d hastily take off, plastering a hurried kiss on the cheek or forehead of whoever was closest. Sure, it’d stunned her at first, but he’d done it to Zoro too and the other man hadn’t even blinked, so she’d let it go. Even if it did take her by surprise each time.

Then it just left Nami and Zoro by themselves to wake up together. He was so casual as he stretched, murmuring out a “mornin’” as he removed his arm from wherever it was laying against her body and it lingered a second too long, brushing against her skin. It was more subtle than Luffy’s gesture, but this was Zoro. It might as well be the same act.

She felt like an elephant in the room needed to be addressed, yet neither of them acted like anything had changed.

Outside the bedroom it changed too.

Where she used to be alone in the library as she drew maps, Zoro would now be napping against her desk or on the sofa, saying how it was quieter in there and because she was so cranky, they wouldn’t be disturbed. Luffy would soon gravitate towards them, asking questions about her maps that he didn’t really listen to the answer to, or he’d go lay his head on Zoro’s lap whilst he slept, a rare moment of calm that would punish them later as he bounded around.

Luffy would find her more often too, clambering over her seat if she was sun lounging or bringing over things that he’d found and deemed ‘cool’. Kind of like how a cat would bring mice to its owner to impress them… not that she was Luffy’s owner.

They still hung out with their other friends, but instead there’d be Zoro’s arm casually thrown over the back of her chair and Luffy at her other side, a hand constantly finding a way to touch her or draw her into his chaos.

Small shifts, so subtle it had taken her this long to piece it together.

It was almost like…

Almost like they were in a relationship. The three of them.

It made her stomach churn, but she didn’t know if it was in a good or bad way, like how it did when she was dreading something or excited.

And then the final puzzle piece slotted into place.

Oh.

She was in a relationship with them. Or at least the early stages but it was all there, for everyone to see and she’d missed it every step of the way. Her thoughts were jumbled. Too many fighting to be at the forefront and how had she not figured this out sooner?

Her mind had been running for hours whilst she was squished between Zoro and Luffy, staring up at the ceiling. It was still dark outside and all she’d done all night was drift in and out of sleep. She had more hours left to sleep, but she couldn’t calm her mind enough for it.

She rolled onto her side to face Zoro, in his sleep Luffy sensed her movement and filled the slither of free space to spoon up behind her, his breath heavy against her neck. She studied Zoro’s profile, from the scar covering his eye, which when he slept like that she couldn’t tell if he was awake, to the strong line of his nose, the normal severe expression softened in his sleeping state. Even when he slept on the deck, he didn’t look that relaxed, this was something privy to her and Luffy.

There was no way around it. She was attracted to him, and she couldn’t deny looking down at his lips a few times recently as he spoke. They looked dry, like he needed a good slather of lip balm over them, but she it didn’t stop her from entertaining the thought of pressing her lips against his. Luffy’s on the other hand, looked softer and she wondered if the texture was the same as his skin, still soft like human skin but there was a hint of resistance, of elasticity there. She was attracted to Luffy too, his carefree grin and contagious enthusiasm. How weir-

What she wasn’t expecting was for Zoro to suddenly stretch and stir, making a noise of contentment before he rolled over to face her and she didn’t have the sense the clamp her eyes shut in time. She stared back into a lone grey eye.

“Y’alrigh’?” Zoro slurred out, still caught in the grasp of sleep as he settled into his new position.

“Yeah.” She sounded too awake for how early it was and too vacant, unsure, that it caught his attention.

“What’s wrong?” More coherent now.

“Zoro… is this not a bit weird?” Luffy’s arm tightened around her, and he snuggled further into her back.

Zoro had already turned to face her, his arm haphazardly thrown over her, but after her question she could feel the shift, how he was looking at her before but now she could tell she had his full attention. He stared at her, all the signs of sleep or tiredness from before gone from his face. His eye was trained on her and it felt like she was being accessed, that he was trying to look through her.

Another second passed until he answered with a shrug.

“I dunno, maybe, but when have we ever done anything by the book?”

He made a good point and when had she ever cared what others thought?

Her silence seemed to make him take a step back, second guessing the intention of her previous question, as he asked, “Do you want to stop doing this?” The arm over her waist lightened, like he was ready to remove it at a moment’s notice and if she thought she was being accessed before, it was nothing compared to now. His gaze scrutinizing, flittering around her face for any sign of discomfort.

She considered it for a second but the thought of going back to an empty bed permanently made her ache. There’d be no whispering as they tried to go off to sleep, no elbows digging her in the night, no snoring in her ears and it wouldn’t be like an oven all the time with their combined body heat. It’d be cold and silent.

It sounded awful.

“No,” she whispered and Zoro’s arm rested back over her body like before, palm splayed across her waist and squeezing slightly, like he was encouraging her to continue. “But what if- what if this…” ‘doesn’t work out’, She wanted to say.

It didn’t matter, he was on the same page. “This is Luffy we’re talking about. And it’s me.”

He was telling her to trust them. Trust that this would all be okay regardless of the outcome because it was them, and they’d been through hell and back with each other since the very beginning.

And she did, the instinct flaring up instantly to calm her down.

“Yeah, okay,” she agreed, body relaxing and mind going blissfully silent with that little piece of reassurance.

“Good, then go to sleep, you’re gunna wake up cranky otherwise.”

He was pushing his luck, but she’d let it slide right now mainly because one, she didn’t want to wake Luffy (he was almost as bad as a baby when woken) and because he’d just been very sweet just then, in his own gruff way. And she was feeling generous.

A moment after closing her eyes there were warm lips pressing against her forehead and she sensed a slight hesitation there before they were gone. She cracked her eye open to look at him, but his eye was clamped shut stubbornly, pretending that he hadn’t done anything. There was no mistaking the blush on his cheeks though.

In the morning, when Luffy performed his routine of frantically jumping out of the bed to chase Sanji to the kitchen, he placed his usual hurried kiss on her cheek but this time around, she leaned into it with a smile on her face.

Since that night, things had changed. Everything seemed easier, casual touches that she no longer overthought and, if anything, she leaned more into them.

All of it felt more natural but then maybe that was because she’d relaxed.

Like déjà vu, Nami was on her sun lounger the next day. The hot weather from the day had simmered down into a mild evening and she was making the most of the quiet before they did it all over again tomorrow. Robin was next to her too, reading with the little light naturally left, she’d be moving indoors soon to carry on.

Nami’s eyes stung a bit, from the lack of sleep the night before and she hadn’t napped, but she felt lighter after last night. So much so that she confessed, “I’m in a relationship with Luffy and Zoro.”

Robin stopped reading and turned to smile at her patiently. “It would appear you are, are you happy about it?”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling her cheeks go rosy. “We can make arrangements though, it’s your room too,” she added as an afterthought.

“As long as it stays pg, it doesn’t bother me at all.”

She spluttered, her previously rosy cheeks turning red as it spread hotly across her face and down her neck. She’d only just wrapped her head around the fact she was in a relationship with them, she couldn’t even think about that yet.

“Besides, I believe I have somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

Robin looked over her shoulder and Nami peered behind her to see Franky walking off to his workshop.

Oh.

Nami’s grin turned teasing, it was only fair with what she’d had to put up with recently, except her fun was interrupted by Luffy calling from the women’s room stopped her in her tracks, Zoro poking his head out of the frame to grunt at her. Honestly, as if it wasn’t her room.

“I believe you’re being called for by your boyfriends,” Robin teased, twinkle in her eye.

“This isn’t over!” Nami pointed her finger at her.

“I didn’t doubt it.”

She crossed the deck, on her way to her room when the thought from last night popped into the forefront of her mind and how she could actually act on it now.

Zoro’s mouth opened when she appeared in the doorway, no doubt something snarky about her being the last one present but she couldn’t hear it over the blood thumping in her ears.

She marched over to them on the bed, a woman on a mission and Luffy looked at her curiously until he yelped as her hands cupped his face and brought him into a kiss. He hesitated for a second until his hands gripped her arms and his lips responded in kind. Whilst it was clear he lacked experience, enthusiasm dripped from the kiss and it more than made up for it as his lips moved eagerly against hers. She angled her head, encouraging him to do that same and trying to keep up with the frantic pace he was setting, all the while batting down a smile. It was him all over, joyful and chaotic and she didn’t know if she’d ever get enough of it.

They pulled apart and there was a split second of relief in his eyes, like maybe he thought this moment was never coming, before it was trampled by his excitement, and he beamed at her.

“You want one too?” She teased, looking over at Zoro, eyebrow raised in challenge.

Zoro’s response was a heavy palm on the back of her neck that had them both leaning in, over Luffy, to meet in the middle for a kiss much different from hers with Luffy. Zoro’s pace was slower, more thorough as he took his time against her lips, yet it was firm. He had a bit more knowledge, he was surer in himself, and it showed as she sunk into the kiss, for once letting herself be led. She enjoyed it just as much and she knew she’d relish taking her time to pull apart the differences between them, savouring the way they both made her feel.

A daring swipe of her tongue across his bottom lip and then they broke apart, Luffy in the background demanding another kiss when Zoro smugly said, “Took you long enough.”

He wouldn’t look so smug when she pushed him off the bed tonight.

Luffy’s pleas weren’t ignored when Zoro said, “Captain,” to capture the other boy’s attention and tugged on his vest to kiss him and it made her feel warm, a flutter in her stomach because whilst she wasn’t a part of the kiss, she was a part of them. The three of them.

Luffy looked dazed and then elated when they broke apart, grin splitting his face and there was a glint in his eye that told her more kisses would be demanded before they went to sleep.

She’d get changed and brush her teeth before getting in bed, maybe check that both of them have done that already because she didn’t remember smelling or tasting mint on their breath, when something caught her eye.

There was a space in the middle for her already.

And she smiled; her boys.

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

It’s been a while since I’ve had a fic practically write itself, I’ve missed that.

Luffy and Zoro may be idiots most of the time, but they’re both emotionally smart, it’s been shown time and time again. Nami, on the other hand, is in some cases but she’s also a bit of a worrywart too. So yeah, they kinda eased Nami into what was developing because they didn’t want to freak her out.

As always, please excuse any errors.

If you got this far, thanks for reading, it means a lot.

#ZoLuNa #ZoNami #LuNami #ZoLu #LuffyxZoroxNami #opwriting #opfanfic #One Piece #Luffy #Zoro #Nami

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moonbeamsung · 3 years

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CRΣΣKS

Love, a second glance, it is not something that we need.

member: jeno

au: guardian angel in disguise!jeno x gn!reader, guardian angel au

word count: 3.4k

genre: angst

warnings: character death/loss, profanity, no happy ending, mentions of religion, questioning/loss of faith

recommended song: 715 - CRΣΣKS by the nor’easters

author’s note: Please be very careful with volume when listening to the song (above) that inspired this story! But even without reading the lyrics/listening, the fic will still make sense, and happy reading :)

network tags: @kpopscape @neo-constellations @starryktown

The wind is whistling, weaving in and out of the tall river reeds like an invisible needle and thread, stitching itself into each and every crevice of the world’s gift called nature.

Another one of its many gifts is the young boy that’s resting beside a rushing brook, toes dipped into the cool water and face illuminated by the sun as it beats down onto the earth with celestial strength.

Well, a gift from the heavens, that is.

Sent from the endless skies above, Jeno is your guardian angel, assigned with posing as a humble peasant boy in the village, all to keep a watchful eye on you from afar. In his human form, he spends his days wandering the cobblestone roads and narrow alleyways between the quaint buildings, with no family to return home to at dusk. A sunny meadow on the outskirts of town becomes his home, and he takes refuge in the shelter that the overgrown grass provides.

Everything is going smoothly, and he’s doing his job just as he should be. It’s routine now, waking up and rising from his earthen mattress, curtains of copious plant leaves letting in the sun’s rays. He finds you, observes at a comfortable distance, and that’s that. At its core, being a guardian is really an easy job. A predictable one.

A monotonous one.

Until one day you approach him, youthful eagerness in your eyes piercing and nearly painful, even to his invulnerable body. He’s never seen you up close before, only on the near horizon as you’ve gone about your daily chores, tending to the housework just like any obedient child should.

“...Who are you?”

Now, Jeno is faced with a decision more challenging than any that us mortal beings have to make in our entire lives. Engaging with one’s assignment is an extremely dangerous path to take. Unimaginable punishments await, should the guardian make a wrong choice. But Jeno was careless, and he had allowed himself to be discovered by the only human on Earth that the divine forces permit him to be seen by.

He makes the fatal error of answering you, ultimately shattering a future he’ll never get to live out, one that he doesn’t even know he would’ve had. Like a sharp rock being thrown at a church’s stained glass window, the meticulously carved pieces of his worldly existence fall to the ground with a deafening crash, broken beyond repair.

“I’m Jeno,” the strikingly majestic cadence of his words is like that of angel trumpets, the sound ringing in your head and making you dizzy with both fascination and infatuation.

And just like that, in three short syllables, you’re both fated to fall before you can even spread your wings.

From the moment you hear his name tumble from those beautiful lips, you’re hooked, and he knows it. He sees it in the way you look at him, in the way you act, the way you talk. A child experiencing a first and a forbidden love all at once.

It breaks his heart, because he knows it can’t, and shouldn’t last. The churning rapids of the creek nearby weep for him, for they know that in a matter of just a few short years, their waters are destined to mix with the salty tears that will steadily cascade from your trembling chin.

Jeno remembers, although vaguely, the brief amount of time he spent living amongst the clouds, being prepared by the heavenly elders for this expedition of a lifetime, quite literally. He remembers the scriptures, the strictures, and all the times he’s been warned of the severe consequences that come with immorality.

But even the purest of young angels aren’t infallible, still susceptible to compulsions that lead them to sin and defy their creator.

Relishing in the fading daylight, you join him by the water’s edge, listening to his soothing tone as he answers your ceaseless inquiries with harmless little lies as white as heavenly robes and cherub wings.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. The first sin.

It’s interesting, he thinks, that despite looking after you in the endeavors of your youth for quite a while now, he knows next to nothing about who you truly are. Actions may speak louder than words, but how can he know that if he’s never heard your voice to begin with?

As the quiet, languid conversation shifts from his purpose there to yours, Jeno learns that you’re very content with your life, taking pride in helping your family with daily tasks as well as assisting your neighbors in the close-knit village with theirs.

Just then, all the smears of dirt and scattered scratches adorning your face catch his attention, gained after hours of hard work. No amount of water is ever enough to scrub them off of your skin at the end of the day, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes, you feel tears prick your eyes as you try to fall asleep at night, frustrated with your lowly appearance and how it never seems to match your relatively optimistic outlook on life.

But Jeno doesn’t care. You’re breathtaking even in his eyes, the eyes that belong to an actual angel. If that fact alone isn’t enough to boost your confidence, he doesn’t know what else possibly could.

Like a fool, he lets himself drown in your sublimity for a moment, marveling at the ethereal glow of the sun on your smooth, ageless face. The faint noise of wisps of air blowing gently through the meadow and rustling the flora makes him drowsy, but the sight of a pure white heron landing gracefully on the opposite side of the riverbank brings him back to full consciousness in an instant.

The bird, an omen of sorts, had been sent down from Heaven, conjured up from a fleeting idea and into a physical reality, by the holy beings looking down upon the earth, indicating that they’re well aware of the threat he poses and just how close he is to making an irreversible mistake in regards to you, his assignment and assignment only.

The heron abruptly unfurls its delicately feathered wings, as if frightened, before taking off and floating away on the breeze, both of your gazes inexplicably drawn to it as it flies until it’s out of sight altogether.

It warns him of just what he’s messing with, exactly.

This is not a part of the creator’s plan for you, for him. Falling in love with the one an angel is supposed to guard is an appalling crime to commit in the eyes of the elders that inhabit the sky, in the eyes of God. Though it doesn’t explicitly go against a commandment or biblical law, it’s just an understood rule. It’s wrong.

Jeno tells himself this, and continues to do so over the many years that he looks after you, never acting on his emotions, only acknowledging them before sending the less-than-acceptable thoughts into the depths of his conscious mind. He only wishes he had a key to lock them up and forget he even felt them in the first place.

Even as an angel, he ages just like anyone else, the both of you going from kids to teenagers and then nearing the young-adult stage of life, with you remaining blissfully unaware of Jeno’s true identity all the while. It’s a miracle he’s managed to keep his secret for this long, honestly, but like grains of sand in an hourglass, your time together is running out, whether you like it or not.

Not even a year before your entire world, your entire reality comes undone before your very eyes, Jeno feels as if his has already done just that. Because you’ve found someone. And that someone isn’t him.

He hates the feeling of jealousy, despises it with every fiber of his heavenly being. But he can’t shake it, can’t bear the way it clings to him like an unwelcome visitor. An unrecognizable emotion, one so foreign that he can’t even put a name to it, is stirred up at the sight of you in their arms, so pure and so unworthy of this person. Boy, if he didn’t know any better, Jeno would swear that you were the angel.

With each day that passes, he begins to feel the final shreds of both his dignity and his self-control slipping away, lost to the familiar breeze that whips through the village, stronger than ever these days. He can no longer contain it within himself. He wants you.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. The second sin.

How ironic that a Sunday, of all days, is when everything falls apart.

The sun is hanging low in the sky, just barely grazing the horizon with its bright beams of warmth as it steadily rises, bathing the world in a soft yellow glow. You can also see the moon leftover from the night that ended not so long ago, fading fast but visible nonetheless. Two complete opposites, so close but prevented by the laws of nature for coexisting in the same space, at the same time.

Maybe, just maybe, if you knew just how much you had in common with the celestial objects above, you would have clutched the hand of Jeno a bit tighter yesterday, intertwined your fingers a little more closely with those of someone who had become the closest thing to a best friend that you had ever known. You admit that you wish he could be something more, but you know better than to push your limits.

You got tired of waiting to see if he felt the same way, choosing to fill the void with someone else that you liked, yes, but who just wasn’t the same as the boy who had always been there, waiting in the meadow every morning without fail. Still, your emotions are ever-alert and always searching for any sign of reciprocation within Jeno.

He’s nowhere to be found when you reach the water’s edge, the edge of the creek where you wasted away endless summer days and frosty winter nights, colorful spring afternoons and brisk autumn evenings.

This morning would seem no different than the rest if not for his absence. The knot in your heart loosens, but not by much, when you spot him at the forest’s edge, looking weary.

Jeno notices you and calls out your name with a smile, but something about it isn’t genuine. It’s pained, desperate, like he wants to hold onto this moment forever, unwilling to carry out the plan he’s already regretting. It’s too late now, he thinks to himself, but he’s wrong.

It’s been too late for years.

“Jeno?”

“This way!” He chokes out. It’s somewhere between a sob and a plea, but there’s no time to figure out which is the more appropriate term. He disappears between the trees and amidst their mossy branches, blending in with the shadows cast by the thick canopy of leaves, and you break into a sprint, afraid of losing him to the merciless wilderness and what lies within.

Thankfully, he’s not too far gone. A small clearing greets you less than a dozen strides in, and in the very center of it stands a glass gazebo, run-down and covered in so many twisting vines to the point where the small structure is almost fully consumed by the nature surrounding it.

The scene is beautiful, so much so that it makes you uneasy. What’s going on? Why did he bring you here? Why does he seem so sad? Jeno is never sad, maybe he could be described as brooding or solemn on the rarest of occasions, but never this melancholy, never so utterly hopeless in his expressions and his aura.

None of these questions are answered, even as he takes your hands in his own and leads you inside of the gazebo, its see-through panels catching the light with elegance and ease.

“I need to tell you something.” Just like it did the first time you heard it, his voice still shocks you like a bolt of electricity, your blood pressure and heart rate skyrocketing. All of this is heightened, though, by grim tone he’s speaking to you with.

“What is it, Jen?” There it is. The nickname you made up for him that, although simple, makes him feel like he’s on top of the world. Actually, scratch that: it makes him feel like he’s floating in the sky, up past the clouds and even further away from this cruel planet than the heavens are from Hell.

You’re only making this harder for him. He might as well just spit it out, because all this waiting is agonizing for the both of you.

“We... we can’t be together.”

The sentence that leaves his lips is two declarations wrapped up in one singular statement, the first being that he wants to be with you in the same way you want to be with him. It’s much too hopeful, misleading your emotions down a path of elation instead of dread. The second is unpleasant, a bitter taste lingering on his tongue once he says the words.

“...Yes, yes we can, Jen, because I don’t really love them and all this time it’s been you—”

“You don’t understand,” he tries to stop the confession spilling out from your heart before it overflows, drowns you. “I’m not who you think I am.”

Stunned to silence, he gives you a moment to drink in the implications of his words. “...I’ve known you for over half of my entire life, and you’re trying to tell me I have no idea who you really are? Not a chance,” you laugh softly, shaking your head and glancing down at the wooden gazebo floor, old white paint peeling under your feet.

“But haven’t you ever wondered why I’m always there by the creek every morning? How I turn up throughout your day at the perfect time? How I’m suddenly right by your side when you need me the most?”

You have wondered. Many times, in fact. But the possibility of him being anything other than human was not at the top of your very rational list.

“...Don’t you see? I’m your guardian angel.”

He sees you blink, realization dawning on your face like the sun and stretching your features. “There are laws—” He begins, but your reaction is not the one he anticipated you would have to that information.

Too overwhelmed, you can’t respond with anything other than physical actions, no matter how unreasonable, and you press your dry lips to his soft ones, sealing your fate. Standing there, with beams of golden light infiltrating the space and illuminating your unsteady figures, Jeno is petrified not by your kiss, but by the fact that he doesn’t push you away, and his hands hold onto yours even tighter than before. Nothing has ever felt so right in his entire life. Not when he was in Heaven, and not in all the years he’s spent on Earth, either.

You’re his Heaven, this moment is his eternity. Jeno has endured enough temptation, the undeniable thrill that a deliberate sin promises has become too much for him. If he pulls away now, everything would still be okay, you could both go back to normal and pretend this never happened. But alas, he was doomed to kiss you back from the beginning, and so he does, and you have no idea what the universe has in store when you feel his lips finally respond to yours in the most unholy way possible. For the first and last time, you indulge in each other’s touch and taste, and it does not please the ones watching from above.

The third and final sin, one sin too many for him to remain in this world without consequence.

Several things happen all at once. A clap of thunder sounds overhead, though there are no clouds in sight. Jeno is painfully ripped from your grasp and thrown out of the gazebo by some invisible force of nature, into the grass and dirt on the forest floor.

And inside of you, a piece of your soul is torn from your being, bile rising up in your throat as you comprehend the excruciating sensation that racks your body with pained whimpers.

Stumbling to his feet, Jeno heaves, hunched over and close to tears. Suppressing the agony you still feel, you hurry over to him only for the boy to charge away, heading back towards the open meadow. With a broken shout of his name, you follow.

You didn’t notice before, but now the blinding light reveals the condition he’s in. He looks almost normal, but the edges of his form are becoming fainter by the minute, blurring with the rest of the world around him. He’s fading away before your eyes, and it’s all your fault.

It’s a torturous experience, watching him slowly meld with the emptiness of the air. Making him disappear into thin air in an instant would have been an act of mercy, a mercy that’s apparently beyond the capabilities of the spectators in the sky.

Struggling to maintain your composure, you force a question out. “What’s happening?” You ask, though you know he doesn’t have an answer himself.

He’s obviously panicked, though he tries not to show it. “I... I don’t know, I knew that it was forbidden for us to fall in love but I didn’t think I’d be robbed of my existence like this...”

“What?! No, Jeno, please don’t go...” You beg the gods and angels above, if any exist. You don’t know anymore.

If there is a God, how can he be good if he’s taking Jeno away from you like this, depriving you of the one constant source of joy and comfort in your life?

It’s far too cruel to bestow such a kind and generous heart upon someone who isn’t allowed to love in the first place.

Even Jeno’s touch is faint, making you feel like he’s not there at all. You just barely detect the pads of his fingers smoothing over your cheeks, trying to stop the water spilling from your eyes. He smiles sadly, “Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth the tears.”

“You’re everything to me, Jeno. You’re worth every drop.”

“Remember me like this, okay? By the creek,” he gestures to the turbulent waters a short distance away. Walking slowly, he begins to take steps in its direction, but as he speeds up you’re no longer able to match his pace. “Jeno, turn around...”

Glancing back at you for the final time, he whispers a goodbye that the breeze carries away with it, the sound something only the two of you would hear, one that could never be replicated.

“Goddamnit, Jeno, don’t you dare leave me!” But you know you can’t hold on, you’re not strong enough. A greater force wants you two apart, unable to be overpowered by one human, a relatively insignificant being in the grand scheme of the universe. He vanishes completely.

You fall to your knees, the pain from the pebbles digging into your legs and feet underneath the surface of the creek numbed by your sorrow. The water drenches your clothes, splashing up onto your skin and becoming one with your relentless tears. You’re left all alone, with only the cattails to keep you company. You wish the waves would just swallow you whole so you don’t have to feel this suffocating isolation.

In an unnecessarily harsh trick of the light combined with the dancing shadows generated by the water, you swear that you see Jeno again for a second, sitting on the riverbank like always. You sob louder.

It takes forever for you to find the strength to stand up again, water running over your soaked shoes and threatening to topple you over. You wouldn’t mind if it succeeds.

Inconsolable even to your closest friends and family, you reluctantly return to the village, unwilling to leave behind what you’ve just been through and unable to explain just why you’re crying so hard. Maybe if you stay there forever, spending each day and night waiting among the reeds and the flowers and the grass, he’ll come back someday, but no. He’ll never return, but you simply can’t bring yourself to accept this fact.

You’re never quite the same after that. Part of the curse that haunts you for the rest of your life is this: no matter how hard you try to retain your memories, you’re destined to forget Jeno eventually, leaving vast gaps in your brain when it comes to the years of your youth.

You’re left with only a feeling of inexplicable nostalgia at the sight of the meadow and the creek running through it, the waters still as violent as they were on the day you lost him.

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fuabloboi · 3 years

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The Treehouse

Day 2 of @petopher-events March 2021 - Kid fic

1982

“Hey! That’s my tree!” Chris peeked down, rubbing his face with the back of his arm as he heard a high-pitched fierce voice.

He groaned, running a hand over his short bristly hair. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. Chris had just been beaten to a pulp by his father, and he was aware that if Gerard saw him cry, he would be battered all over again. He had ended up on a sturdy tree in the preserve after sneaking out the window, silently sobbing to himself. There was nowhere else Chris could have gone. If he tried to run away, Gerard would have still found him and he would have been returned to the Argent household by someone else. Sadly, his father had way too much influence over the county and its people.

“Shut up, it hasn’t got your name on it.” he shouted back.

“As a matter of fact, yes it does.” the voice cried out in reply.

Chris turned his head and caught sight of the initials ‘P. H.’ engraved onto the bark. He almost fell off when he faced forwards and saw a little dark-haired boy with big blue eyes perched opposite him.

“See.” he tilted his head.

“Well, now it’s got mine.” Chris muttered, fishing the pocket knife he carried everywhere and carving his own initials leaving a gap next to the other.

The boy rolled his eyes but outstretched his arm, “I’m Peter. Are you- are you okay?”

“Chris,” he said, shaking the boy’s hand, “And yeah I’m fine.”

“Don’t look like it.”

There wasn’t a single day he didn’t have a black eye, a bruise, or a cut. Gerard always found some reason to punish him and not even his own mother could do anything about it. He wasn’t even sure of how he was alive at that point.

“It doesn’t matter.” he replied hastily and asked, “How old are you?”

“Six.” Peter told him and continued, “What about you?”

“I’m twelve. And how’d you get up here so fast?” Chris inquired since he was confused as to how a six-year-old could race up such a tall tree.

Peter’s deep blue eyes briefly flashed in a golden yellow, and Chris realized that this kid was what Gerard wanted him to hunt down; a werewolf. However, unlike the vivid picture of bloodthirsty savage werewolves and their young that Gerard had painted in his head, the boy didn’t seem like a threat at all. Chris saw him as a human, not a monster.

Peter gasped suddenly, “You’re one of them aren’t you?”

“One of who?” he raised an eyebrow.

“The Argents.” the boy stated calmly.

Chris flinched and nodded at him. He had expected Peter to be afraid of him, and even run away, but he hadn’t. He sat completely unfazed and Chris was surprised.

“What are you doing here?” Peter questioned again.

“Nothing really. It’s peaceful up here and I like it.” he lied. Peter didn’t need to know why he actually came there. Chris wasn’t even sure whether the wolf would have understood if he had been honest.

“Cool!” the boy stared at him before exclaiming with a grin, revealing the absence of a few teeth, making Chris smile as well.

“Hey!” Peter greeted, hurtling up the tree and settling in front of him.

“Hey, Peter. What’s this?” Chris smiled at the boy and asked when he held out an energy bar packed in a blue wrapper.

“What it looks like, obviously.” he regarded, waving it, “Take it. I got it for you.”

“Me? Why?” he said, taking it from the wolf’s hands and tearing it open.

“You ask too many questions. I brought it thinking you might be here when I came.” Peter answered, digging into another energy bar that he had kept in his pocket.

“Well, thanks.” Chris replied, taking a bite.

He knew his father would have him whipped for accepting food from a werewolf without a second thought, but he was too famished to care. Gerard didn’t only beat him, he also starved Chris as punishment. The bar tasted like heaven and he wolfed it down. He was more than glad that Peter had brought it for him and yet he was also puzzled.

“You were hungry, I sensed it yesterday.” Peter revealed, licking his fingers.

“Really?” Chris said and stuffed the wrapper in his jacket pocket, “Why did you bring it, though? Why did you trust me? You know I’m… one of them.”

Chris didn’t even want to mention his own last name. He detested being an Argent and being referred to by that name.

“You smell nice.” Peter responded matter-of-factly, but Chris was confused.

He had loathed his own scent, however, with time he had grown accustomed to it. Chris knew he smelled of dried blood combined with sweat and he was pretty sure that didn’t smell nice. Horrible and disgusting seemed more likely.

“Excuse me, what?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, Ta said that people who smell nice are good people and I can trust them.” Peter explained.

“Ta?”

“Talia, my sister. She started taking care of me after Ma and Pa- after they went to a better place.”

Everyone had heard the term ‘a better place’ at some point in their lives and that was when Chris pieced it together. Peter wasn’t just any ordinary werewolf who lived in Beacon Hills.

“You- you’re a Hale.” Chris stated wide-eyed.

“Yup.” Peter said bobbing his head.

It had taken place about a year ago when he was eleven and Chris could remember it clearly. Gerard had gloated to his fellow hunters about his achievement of being able to capture and kill both Richard and Emilia Hale, the two oldest members of the family, who were also widely known in the supernatural world. He had seen them briefly and to him, they seemed like genuinely pleasant people. His father had told him that Chris wasn’t old enough to understand, but he was sure that Gerard wasn’t doing something right if he could so heartlessly torture him. He had come to acknowledge that Gerard had the best interest to no one and only for himself.

1986

Chris yawned, his legs dangling from the tree and Peter was munching on an apple, murdering it with his fangs. The wolf was taller now and his hair had grown, the fringe covering his forehead and just above his eyes. It had been a gloomy day and Chris had made it to the tree right after training. He had been beaten again and his body had ached so much that he struggled to get on the tree, but Peter had helped him up and offered an apple.

They had been meeting every day for four years now and Gerard, thankfully, hadn’t suspected a thing. It was most probably since his younger sister Katherine had been born three years ago. The young wolf would arrive with food and they’d sit there together, sometimes talking and sometimes silent.

As a result of their conversations, Chris had discovered that Talia, Peter’s older sister was the alpha of the Hale pack and was the mother to a little wolf girl named Laura. He also found out that Peter was prone to have fits of rage, destroying his own toys. However, Peter had mentioned that he felt comfortable with him and Chris had never witnessed such behavior from the wolf.

“Christopher?” the boy called out.

Peter had begun to call him ‘Christopher’ instead of what everyone else called him in his life and Chris found that amusing. He liked the boy and he didn’t mind meeting him each day for the rest of his life. Chris wondered whether things would change by then, whether he’d escape Gerard and there would be no more hunting, a world where he and Peter could meet freely, no violence, no death, just peace, and happiness.

“Yeah?” he replied lazily, yawning again. Chris was still tired and he needed to nap. He couldn’t do that at home, and as uncomfortable as it would be, Chris felt like sleeping up on the tree.

“What do you think about a treehouse?” Peter suggested with a grin, chucking away the remainder of the apple.

“I like that.” Chris smiled, “But… only if you help me build one.”

Peter rolled his eyes and groaned, “Of course you’d say that. Fine, I’ll help.”

“Great. We start tomorrow. I’m gonna nap.” he muttered to the wolf before closing his eyes, cozying himself on the not-so-comfy branch.

“Well, I’ll be here protecting you.” Peter said and Chris laughed a little.

“And what are you going to do if someone tries to kill us?” He opened an eye to look at the Hale.

In an instant, Peter drew his claws and tried to growl menacingly. Chris thought that it was adorable.

1988

“Christopher!!!” Peter exclaimed, jumping off the tree and launching himself onto Chris, wrapping him in a tight hug. The wolf was twelve and several inches shorter than him but was obviously stronger than most kids his age.

“Peter, woah geez I’m human.” he laughed, stuck inside the rib-crushing hug.

“Happy 18th Birthday! Well, late birthday.” the boy shouted, hugging him tighter.

“Thank you, kiddo.” Chris groaned and Peter let go of him, grinning.

It had been Chris’ birthday the week before and he had been in Japan, doing his first gun deal with the goddamn Yakuza. Gerard’s idea of a birthday present was putting him in a near-death situation and Chris wasn’t even surprised. The experience had been extremely unsettling and so terrible, that he wanted to forget his 18th birthday. He had informed Peter about it a few days before but not many details as even Chris had been unaware of what he was going into until he had made it to the venue.

“What happened? You look pretty shaken up.” Peter eyed him, suspiciously.

“Yeah, it wasn’t that great. It was a gun deal with the Yakuza and it didn’t go that well, but I’m alive, right? So that’s what matters.” Chris managed a weak smile. He knew he couldn’t lie and Peter was always worried about him so he kept the details of figures materializing out of the shadows with swords similar to ninjatos to himself.

“The ya- what?” the wolf blinked at him.

“It’s like Japanese mafia, Pete.” he answered, ruffling Peter’s hair.

“Woah geez. Are you hurt?” Peter raised an eyebrow at him.

“Nah, nah I’m good.” Chris smiled. He was telling the truth in a way. Though he was injured then, he was better now and he was used to the pain regardless.

“Well enough of that. We’re going to have a proper celebration.” the boy smirked and Chris wanted to facepalm himself. He was sure that Peter would have planned something. It was just the way he was. Chris had never wanted anything for his birthday but the wolf would get him small trinkets and he appreciated it very much.

Chris had genuinely been surprised when Peter had introduced him as his best friend to the rest of the Hales. Peter’s sister Talia had dinner prepared and even baked a cake with ‘Happy 18th Birthday Chris!’ on it. Peter had made him what seemed like a bracelet with a little piece of wood shaped like a tree, which Chris assumed was to signify how they met. He had almost cried at the Hale House. He had never been so happy and no one had ever done anything so amazing for him. The Hales had treated Chris like he was one of their own and given him a birthday that he would never forget. The next morning Chris had sneaked back into the house, and Gerard hadn’t noticed his disappearance as always.

1992

“Christopher!” Peter yelled, and he could detect the excitement in his voice, “I did it!”

Chris sniggered as he slipped the wolf figurine that he had been carving for the past hour into his left jacket pocket. He sheathed the knife in his boot, stepped out, and settled on a branch before hanging upside down to greet the wolf.

“I did my first evolved shift!” he panted as he came to a halt.

It took a while for Peter to come into view and Chris shut his eyes when he did, almost plummeting onto the ground below.

“Why are you naked?” Chris groaned.

“What do you- have you seen wolves wearing clothes?” Peter whined back.

“Go get yourself some clothes or I’m leaving.” he said, with his eyes still closed.

There was another whine from the younger boy and it made him snicker. He loved how Peter could always lighten up his mood somehow. It was good and he felt lucky to have the wolf in his life. It had been ten years since they had met and Chris’ life had changed for the better though his father still made his life a living hell. Peter made him forget all of it when they spent time together.

“Ughhh will you come with me? Please, please, pretty please Christopher?”

“Fine.”

Chris landed onto his feet with a flip without opening his eyes and Peter snorted, before snarling. When he glanced in the direction of the sound, Chris saw a wolf with dark black sleek fur. He lowered himself onto one knee so he could run his hand through Peter’s coat. He let out something like a satisfied purr and Chris got back onto his feet. Then they were off, sprinting through the preserve back to the Hale house. Peter was quick, but Chris managed to keep up with him.

Once they had arrived at the residence, Peter shot up the stairs to his room. He came back down in his usual V-neck and jeans with a pout. His hair was shorter now and in a mess as always, yet Chris considered it to look good on him. The two of them went back to their tree, this time walking slowly.

They spent the day chasing each other around through the trees. Chris felt like an idiot for playing, but he was having fun and soon he became comfortable. It was pretty late when Chris was feeling exhausted, so Peter decided that they should take a swim in the lake. They fooled around for a couple of minutes and it was when they dried off to get dressed that Chris remembered about the wolf he had carved. When they got back to the treehouse, Chris had gifted the figurine to an astonished Peter. The wolf had adored it from first sight and thanked him endlessly. Since it was dark, they silently lied down next to each other on the wooden floor. Chris was an adult so he knew that Gerard didn’t give a damn about him as long as he was at the house in the morning.

“Christopher, can I say something?” Peter suddenly spoke up.

“Yeah?” he responded, turning to the side and propping himself up on his elbow.

“I- I- it’s hard to say.” he chuckled lightly, “Never mind.”

“Just go on Pete.” Chris hummed at the boy.

“I- I like you. A lot. You know- more- more than just a friend. I- I just didn’t understand it before.” he mumbled, stuttering a little.

Chris sighed, closing his eyes and lying on his back once more.

“Peter, you’re sixteen. What you feel- it’s not love. It’s just something you feel at this age as you grow.” he explained, “You will know what it’s like to be in love when you’re older, but this as much as you think it is, it isn’t.”

“Okay.” said Peter, softly and Chris flinched as he detected the hurt in the Hale’s voice.

‘I smiled sadly for a love I could not obey’ from David Bowie’s Lady Stardust started ringing in his head, because that’s exactly what he was doing now.

He had acknowledged that there was more than just a brotherly affection he felt towards Peter. He wanted to wrap the wolf in his arms, love him and protect him, but it just wasn’t right. Peter was a sixteen-year-old. He was still a boy in high school while Chris - he was twenty-two; an adult. Chris was disgusted by his own self for the attraction he had to the teenager. It may just be a six year age gap, but Peter was a kid and he wasn’t. It was wrong and Chris detested that he couldn’t view Peter as just his best friend anymore.

Even if their ages weren’t a problem, anything else between them would only give Gerard more reason to harm Peter if he found out. Chris didn’t give a damn about what happened to him. He needed the wolf to be safe no matter what and it would break him if Peter was hurt. It was a sacrifice that he had to make, so they wouldn’t lose what they already had. To Gerard, it wouldn’t be just about loving a werewolf, but also about loving a man.

1993

Peter was already at the treehouse when Chris got there. They were still the best of friends even after the confession from Peter almost a year ago. Things remained just the same and the younger boy didn’t make any advances. This day Chris had news. News that was going to change his life and possibly affect their friendship as well.

“Hey, Pete.” Chris greeted as he settled himself opposite Peter on the wooden floor.

“Christopher.” Peter smiled at him. He had grown into a beautiful man now and Chris still could recall the six-year-old with the missing teeth. Chris had literally watched him grow through the years.

“I’ve- I’ve got news. I’m getting-” he started to say, but was soon interrupted.

“Married next week,” Peter finished his sentence and Chris frowned, “What? All of the supernatural world knows. A hunter family visiting Beacon Hills? It’s obvious. Besides, news spreads around here fast.”

He stared at Peter with his jaw dropped and then nodded. The wolf was right about all of it and Gerard had planned it to be a grand wedding. The funny thing about that was the fact that Chris had never seen the girl he was going to marry or even heard her name. Obviously, Gerard was doing it for his own benefit. He pondered over the question of what it would be like to live with a stranger for the rest of his life.

“Yes.” he said, confirming what Peter had said.

“Well, I’ve got some news too, Christopher.” Peter spoke again, his tone slightly somber.

“What’s that?” Chris inquired.

“I’m leaving. For college that is.” his voice was soft, and Chris couldn’t believe that he had forgotten. Of course, Peter was going to leave. He had mentioned that he was contemplating that decision some time ago. Maybe Chris had been thinking that it wouldn’t come to that.

“Where to?” he asked the boy.

“Oh, that- no idea yet. I’ve got a little more time.” Peter grinned and Chris cracked up.

They spent that entire day together as there was a possibility that it would be the last one they could meet each other freely. It was as much as he could have. Though Chris loved him too, they would be star-crossed lovers and he just wanted to save Peter from that pain.

1998

“Daddy, where thish?” the little dark-haired fair girl in Chris’ arms chirped.

“We’re going to see my good friend, Ally sweetheart.” he said, kissing the top of her head. She was four but insisted on being carried and Chris just couldn’t say no.

“Okay, Daddy.” she hummed, resting her head against his collarbone.

It had been a long while since he had gone back to the treehouse. Chris had become busier with the business and had the responsibility of sustaining a family. Besides, Peter was away as well and he missed the wolf dearly. It was tough at first, not being able to meet his best friend, talk to him or hear of how he was doing. Even if it got easier with time, the Hale was on Chris’ mind every single day and the feelings were still there though he was a husband, a father.

Talia had secretly informed Chris that Peter would be returning to Beacon Hills because she had figured that he’d want to see the wolf again. She didn’t know of his feelings but knew how close they had been.

“Peter!” Chris called out when he arrived at the tree.

“Christopher!” there was a roar and Peter landed, leaping off the tree. Allison stared in amusement.

Chris caught his breath when he got a proper look at Peter. His hair had grown slightly, but it was still the gorgeous mess it used to be. He hadn’t changed much, but Chris could see that Peter had matured, despite the goofy grin on his face. Peter wasn’t a boy. He was a man. It hurt Chris. Seeing the one he always wanted. The one he couldn’t have.

“And who is this angel, then?” Peter spoke first, beaming at his daughter.

“Allison, my daughter.” Chris smiled at the Hale, “Allison, this is Peter, my best friend.”

The words sounded almost bitter in his mouth. Best friends. That was all they could be, but at least they had that.

“Hello, Allison.” the wolf said, waving at her and Chris removed her from his chest, holding her towards Peter.

“Hi, Peter.” she chuckled at him.

Peter raised an eyebrow and Chris insisted with a nod. The wolf gently took Allison into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck instantly. He gazed at him, thrilled. Chris was glad that Allison was comfortable with him since every time Gerard was nearby, she’d break down crying. He didn’t blame her and kept her away from the man as much as he could. It was also amazing to see Peter so happy after years of not meeting each other.

They chatted as Peter gave Allison a piggyback and played with her, fooling around. Chris got the idea that Peter was great with kids and then realized that he was already an uncle to a sixteen-year-old girl, a ten-year-old boy as well as a four-year-old girl. He tried to picture what it would be like to raise a child with Peter, but soon let that thought go because it hurt too much.

As they talked, the wolf revealed that he didn’t want to go to law school, since he didn’t want to stay away from the pack for much longer and didn’t need a job for himself. He also wanted to be where Chris was. That piece of information made Chris feel better and even if they couldn’t hang out in their treehouse, there was a chance they could run into each other frequently.

When evening arrived, Chris decided that it was high time to leave. His wife Victoria would be paranoid and there was no cell signal in that area. Allison also seemed to be exhausted after playing. They had stayed there for a good amount of time. Before they said their goodbyes, Chris wrapped his arms around Peter and pulled him into a tight hug. He gently ruffled his hair like he did when they were younger, earning a snicker from the Hale in return. It had been forever since they last hugged and Chris missed it more than he could fathom.

“Hey, sweetie. I need you to help me.” Chris told Allison as they got to the edge of the preserve.

“Yes, Daddy?” she asked, looking at him with wide eyes.

“Can you promise me that you won’t tell anyone about Peter? And if someone asks where we were, will you tell them we were at the park? Can you do that for me?” he requested. Chris had wanted Peter to meet Allison and he knew what could take place if anyone else found out about that.

“I promise. I will do that.” she grinned at him and then frowned, “But why?”

“You’ll understand when you get older, sweetie.” Chris pressed his lips to the side of her head.

“Okay, Daddy. Park.” she yawned, falling asleep on Chris.

2003

Chris crept down the stairs with his flashlight, trying to make the least sound possible. It didn’t take him long to make out Peter and Derek hiding in the dark.

“Pete, Der?” he whispered to them.

He had managed to shake off Gerard and the other hunters before making it to the Nemeton. Peter had brought him there a couple of times and he figured that it would be where Peter and Derek ran off to. Though it would take the others a while to find the Nemeton, Gerard wouldn’t stop at tracking the wolves down, so Chris had to make sure they got away safely. He didn’t want to see what would happen to them otherwise. Peter was usually up to no good and Chris made sure to keep an eye on him as much as he could. It also didn't help that there were three other werewolf packs in Beacon Hills at the time. It could be a jackpot for Gerard.

“Yeah?” Chris heard Peter’s voice answer him, but his tone was more of a question.

“You have to get out now. Gerard- he’s coming.” he informed them and, both Peter and Derek slowly made their way towards Chris.

“Hey.” Derek said, his expression showing slight fear. The boy was about fifteen.

“Hey, Der.” Chris replied with a smile and glanced at Peter. He swore that the older wolf only got more attractive each time he saw him, which really wasn’t much. They met, but not as frequently as they used to and it almost tore Chris into pieces. He missed Peter terribly and when he lay in bed at night, Chris knew that he wanted Peter next to him instead of Victoria, and she was aware of that as well. She didn't know about Peter, but she did know that Chris wasn't exactly in love with her since it was the same with her for Chris.

Peter moved forward to hug him but Chris deflected it by grabbing his arm. He pouted and groaned.

"Peter, seriously, you need to be more careful. Gerard is so much more on alert these days and I- Peter- I don't…" Chris tried to say and faltered because the lump that formed in his throat didn't allow him to speak further.

Peter put his arms around Chris, wrapping him into a tight hug, "Don't worry, Christopher. I'll be fine."

"Don't you 'I'll be fine' me, Peter. I always worry about you. Promise to me that you'll take care." Chris told the younger man, ruffling his hair.

"Yes, I promise." he mumbled, resting his chin on Chris' shoulder.

Chris wished that the hug could go on for longer. However, they had to get moving now and hugs were for a later time. He pulled away from Peter begrudgingly before it got to the point that he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the wolf. It felt like torture.

He led them out from what looked like a root cellar as quickly as he could. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around just yet. Chris glanced at Peter.

“Yeah, I don’t hear anyone. I think we can get back home safely.” Peter said, reading Chris’ mind, “Der, go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

The teenager nodded and hurried off, disappearing among the trees.

Peter gazed at him, “I’ll see you around I guess.”

“Remember your promise?” Chris asked the Hale.

“Yes, Christopher. I promise I’ll take care.” Peter answered with a smirk and then he was gone, leaving Chris all on his own by the Nemeton.

2004

Chris’ heart was heavy in his chest. He had contacted Peter a few days ago and asked to meet him at the treehouse. He and Victoria had decided to leave Beacon Hills and stay away from Gerard. Victoria didn’t want Allison to be exposed to the supernatural and Chris didn’t either. Chris was sure that Gerard would try to snake his way into the little girl’s mind and twist her views like he did with his younger sister Kate. Even if Gerard didn’t take that route, Chris didn’t want Allison to live through a childhood similar to his. He didn’t want his daughter to grow up to hunt those similar to Peter. Those two were the people in Chris’ life that he loved the most and it would kill him if something happened to either one of them.

He climbed the tree and got himself onto the treehouse to see that Peter was sitting there waiting for him.

“Christopher, what’s going on? You asked to meet me.” Peter said, studying him intently.

“Yeah, Peter, I have news.” Chris told him with a sigh.

Peter raised an eyebrow, rising to his feet, “News? Last time you said that you were going to get married. You’re not getting married again are you?”

Chris chuckled softly, shaking head at the wolf, “No, Peter, I’m not getting married again. I’m- we- we’re leaving Beacon Hills.

“Leaving? You’re going? For how long?” Peter inquired, astounded.

Chris shrugged. They weren’t sure whether they’d ever move back and that was what hurt the most. He would likely never see Peter ever again. Though, Chris was ready if that was what it took to not have to watch his daughter hunt down Peter and his family.

The wolf launched onto Chris, taking him into a tight hug. Chris stumbled backward, but regained his footing and wrapped his arms around Peter. His heart shattered when he heard a sniffling sound.

“Hey, Pete…” Chris choked out the words, stroking Peter’s head with one hand and rubbing his back with the other.

“I- I know we haven’t seen each other much lately, but- but you’re my best friend. You- you were always there for me for most of my life.” he mumbled, “I’ll- I’ll miss you, Christopher. What will I do without you?”

“I’ll miss you too, Pete, but that’s how things are. I’m sorry. I just want you to be safe. You’ll do great without me, I’m sure.” Chris said to Peter, ruffling the younger man’s hair.

Peter silently clung to him a little longer and then finally spoke, “Promise me you’d at least let me know you’re alive from time to time?”

“Promise.”

They spent the rest of the day walking through the preserve that had been a home to them. Chris tried to take it all in before he left. The preserve had been his sanctuary and had given him his best friend.

2011

In just one night, Chris’ entire world crashed down upon him as he watched helplessly. It started off when Stiles had implied that Kate had set the Hale House on fire and unfortunately, it all made sense to him. The idea that someone of his blood was the reason for the demise of a family that actually cared about him, made his blood boil. His younger sister was the reason that Peter was so badly injured and in a vegetative comatose state. The sole reason Chris had left Beacon Hills was to make sure that Peter would be safe and if he had remained there, the wolf would be happy and full of life, while the other Hales would still be alive.

It had gotten even worse subsequently when it was revealed that it was in fact Peter who was the alpha. The bloodthirsty alpha committing all the murders in Beacon Hills. The alpha that Chris had returned to Beacon Hills to hunt. His best friend was the alpha. His beloved Peter was the monster that Chris was attempting to kill.

That wasn’t all. Peter had murdered Kate, ripping her throat out with his claws, that too in front of Allison. Then Peter had been set on fire before having his own throat ripped out by Derek, right in front of Chris’ eyes and he just stood there, unable to do anything. Everything he was used to and everyone he had known was different and he assumed that was what pain did to people.

Chris wished he could have done more. He could have intervened. He could have tried to help Peter this time. But he didn’t and so now here he was at an unholy hour, back at the treehouse, sobbing to himself exactly like he did twenty nine years ago, except then there was no treehouse then. Chris could remember how he had cried when he heard about the fire and that was nothing compared to the pain he felt this night. Chris thought about how could have saved Peter from his fate, but this time he had lost Peter completely and his mind wouldn’t stop recalling the six-year-old with the missing teeth, the crazy mischievous teenager that would joke around with him, the man Chris had deeply fallen in love with. It was like a hole in his heart, one that could never be filled.

Peter was gone and Chris didn’t want to believe that. It was Peter. He didn’t just die. He just couldn’t. Chris hated everything, he hated everyone including himself. He didn’t give a fuck anymore. Nothing mattered any longer.

This was exactly what Chris had tried to avoid and all he had done was fuel it. Even if it wasn’t directly, Chris was still to blame. He had failed everyone and he wondered what Peter had been thinking when he saw Chris standing there, doing nothing for him. His best friend, not lending a hand when he was dying. Had Peter given up on Chris as he died? It broke him into pieces.

Chris looked over at where he had carved his name next to Peter’s and he raised an eyebrow. Maybe his vision was blurry from the crying but he could make out a plus sign between their names. He rubbed his eyes and looked again to see just that. Had some kid found their treehouse and done that?

Or had it been Peter?

Had the wolf still had those feelings for him from almost two decades ago? Had Peter still loved Chris despite the rejection, despite Chris getting married to a woman? Had Peter yearned for him when he was away from Beacon Hills? Had Peter carved the sign between their names because it was his little secret since no one would know what it meant and since he thought Chris wouldn’t see it as he wouldn’t come back? Did Peter love Chris as he lay on the preserve floor, seconds away from his death? Chris would never have those answers because he was too late, too idiotic, and foolish.

His heart ached even more. If Peter did love him, he would have died thinking that Chris never felt the same way about him, though in reality, Chris did. He wished he would have just told the wolf the truth and then explained why they couldn’t be together.

Chris glanced at his watch, realizing that it was almost 3 in the morning. Here he was mourning a werewolf while his family mourned his younger sister. He had to get back home. Although his heart was in pain for someone else, Chris had his duties. He ran his hand over the carvings of the tree and drew back his sleeve, exposing the wrist he wore Peter’s gift and kissed it. Chris had worn it every single day of his life after receiving it and that was all he had of the wolf now.

Chris wasn’t sure whether his life was getting worse or better. First Kate, then Peter and now Victoria. However, Peter was back and it drove Chris mad. He had mourned for the wolf, cried his eyes out wishing he could have saved the wolf and hating himself for doing nothing. Then Peter had emerged out of nowhere at the warehouse and Chris couldn’t believe his eyes. He felt stupid for crying and he had been right when he thought that Peter didn’t just die. The fact that Peter had returned to the world of the living the exact night Victoria died baffled him. It was as if the universe willed it.

He found himself in the treehouse once again after Allison had fallen asleep. Chris was happy, and yet so furious. Couldn’t have Peter said something? Couldn’t he have left Chris a sign showing that he was alive? Chris wasn’t crying this time. Instead, he had settled on the floor with his head against the wall, eyes closed, rubbing his forehead trying to make sense of all the different emotions churning inside his system.

There were a few creaks accompanied by a shuffling sound and then a voice said, “Christopher, it’s me.”

There was no way Chris didn’t recognize that voice. It made him feel like his heart was about to melt. He opened his eyes to stare right into Peter’s, drowning in the beautiful blue ones that Chris had always had adored. The wolf was sitting in front of him, cross-legged. There was stubble on Peter’s face now and he was as gorgeous as always. Chris wanted to kiss the heck out of the man.

“I fucking hate you.” he mumbled, before springing towards Peter and into his arms, taking him into a bone-crushing hug. The familiar scent felt like home and Chris was warm inside. He melted into Peter as the wolf hugged him, gently rubbing Chris’ back, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Chris had already forgiven the man before the apology and pulled away to look at him again. He couldn’t begin to describe how much he had missed Peter. To Chris, it had been like an eternity until he had seen Peter again. Peter smiled at him and Chris was smiling back naturally, a few tears streaming down his cheeks. He peeked at the carving and Peter cleared his throat.

“About that… It’s probably not the right time to tell you this, but I’m not sixteen anymore, so I’m sure it’s real.” he said, and produced the wolf figurine Chris had given him.

“You loved me?” Chris asked the wolf.

“No, Christopher I love you. Always have and still do.” Peter replied, taking Chris’ face in his hands.

He wasn’t sure if he was hearing wrong. Peter had loved him all along.

“But- but you didn’t…” Chris tried to say.

“I knew you must have a good reason to hide it and just stay friends with me, so I didn’t say anything again. I could still smell it on you though. Talia was the one who told it to me because she could smell it too. Heck at first, I didn’t know and I couldn’t stand myself for falling for my best friend. I was confused why you didn’t want something more between us, but I understood eventually. And now we’re here, Christopher. What have we got to lose?” Peter spoke softly, looking into his eyes and stroking his cheek.

Chris was kissing Peter before he knew it, letting loose of all the emotions that he had been bottling up for years. He had never thought this day would come, and he tightened the hug, not wanting to let go of the wolf. He couldn’t let that happen again. Peter was kissing him back passionately, and Chris got lost in all his feelings. It felt good. The taste of Peter’s lips on his, the wolf’s touch against his skin, the warmth. He pulled back, resting his head against Peter’s neck.

He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this but was glad that there was a chance for Peter and him. Chris could be with the one he had truly loved when he was a boy. It was possible now, though it had seemed impossible back then. They could still have a future. Peter held Chris in his arms as they stayed in the treehouse in silence. They didn’t need to say anything.

When Chris had run off to the preserve twenty nine years ago and sobbed to himself on this very tree, he had never imagined that it would lead him to happiness.

#petopher events #petopher edit #peter hale x chris argent #petopher fics #my fanfiction #teen wolf

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pseudofaux · 4 years

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so..... under Comte's MC worship piece you mentioned having some darker ideas for him....... i think it's only natural to ask if you'd ever expand on that at least a little?... 👀

I would and I will 😤😍, thank you so much for asking!

This is ALL GOING UNDER A CUT. If you, gentle reader, don’t like the idea of the ask for/featuring Comte, this post isn’t for you— so please don’t read it. Totally fine if this is not your cup of tea! It is mine. And under the cut is tea time. 😌

He wants her sparkling with life, and happy, and choosing to be with him, of course. But he would love to have stretches of time where she’s both pliant and reliant— he’ll want her submissive to his wishes... to do everything for her. Feed her, bathe her, cosset her, fuck her. Hard. So, so lovingly, but hard, hard enough that she’ll need rest and care afterward, and that is part of the thrill: he creates her pleasure and any resultant soreness or exhaustion, she trusts him to do that even though she knows she doesn’t know how big a trust that is, and then he’s further in charge of all the massaging and hydrating and sheet-changing and moon watching and everything else AFTER.

He’s not a creature that sweats much and he loves to sweat from the physical ways he fucks her whenever they get the chance: holding her bent atop dressers and desks, pinning her against a wall, holding her over the rail of a theater box all done in velvet and gold, standing up to his shoulders in a river or the great baths of the mansion and cupping his hands underneath her thighs while he keeps her naked body in the air like a dryad and licks into her, anywhere. Anywhere! He’s strong and never gets to showwwwww ittttttt. He’s got this thin, devestating edge of keenness inside himself to reveal his strength to her. His aim here is 500% caveman “I am no threat to you but I am Big Damn Threat to anyone who would ever even think about hurting you” display. Sometimes he sweats just from holding himself rigid for her to touch, and her cool, miraculous fingertips tracing his body with obvious wonder and appreciation make him so, so deliciously tense. But sweet gentleman Comte, he loves that pre-snap as much as the snap itself. 🥰 And he loves! loves! HER sweat. It’s not as though it smells sweet, it smells like sweat. And he loves it and it turns him on. Dirty from the garden = charming, him loves him wife, dirty and a bit sweaty from the garden = he’ll be escorting her to the bath. Now. Good DAY, Sebas. You’ve done well.

He wants her blissed out, fucked out, so lucid she loses all her manners and only has him in her eyes. That’s the intimacy he craves, that’s what he’s dying to see under the Christmas tree.

Speaking of Christmas!

He’s really dying to take her to a little country church, something homespun and humble and holy, and make love to her on a dark wood pew. He wants his hand over her mouth and her hand over mouth and he wants them to be so close to getting caught. He wants them stumbling out and giggling like young lovers and he wants her to fall asleep next to him in the carriage home.

Also speaking of Christmas: loves to see her in rich ribbons. Dark blue velveteen with gold edging is his favorite. If she’s game to present herself as a gift to him, he’ll unwrap her with an open glee he very rarely displays. He’s gotten her several ostrich-feather fans and will get her dozens more if he so much as catches her eyes on their boxes. The slow delight of her revealing herself with them is an unparalleled joy in his life.

He doesn’t like her tied up beyond the ribbons. He likes to be tied up himself. 😏 Lives for her circling a chair he sits in, there in their bedroom, and winding ropes or whathaveyou through the arms and legs and around the back to keep his body in place, all the while teasing him with loving touches and sensual offers. If he makes it through that heavenly torture, he sits tied to the chair while she spreads her legs and lets him watch her get off. If he slips out of the bonds or snaps them before she’s finished... she wins that way, too. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Has considered asking Sebastian or Leonardo to tie him to a chair for her to find, so it’s all set up and a nice surprise. Hasn’t done it but knows he won’t be able to resist the idea forever.

All of his cravings for her dependency, even the dark ones, come from the root of his desire to be worthy of her trust. He’s not too angsty about it once they make it official, but none of it is a desire to hurt or endanger her, only to care for her if she is ever imperiled. The closest he comes to that is edging and biting her, but he doesn’t enjoy edging for edging’s sake and would be Very Content to help her orgasm as frequently, blissfully, and quickly as possible. Draw out the lovemaking session, not the denial.

Oooooh, and he’s a talker, during! Of course! So smooth and polite about it, always so mannerly, which makes the crudeness really leap out. Calls her a naughty girl like he does in that hand-licking card (R.I.P. pseu), tells her that the squelch between her legs is magnificent and musical, very free with praise for how rapturously beautiful she is. Asks if she wants sachertorte or fraises avec crême pâtissière as dinner wraps up, and anyone else still at the table rolls their eyes or flees because that the offer is a coded proposition is so obvious, my god, these two, again?

The entire house ships it, it’s fine, also it is Comte’s house

Her moans thrill him, so he often echoes her. If she should call out something like “Oh, god, yes,” it will be hard for him not to do the exact same. The sounds she makes during sex make his dick throb. He’s really enjoyed sitting her on the edge of a high table and stepping between her thighs, feeding from the top curve of one of her breasts, and toying with her with both hands to get her making noise. One broad finger pressing a line down the small of her back, through the lady’s sweat beading there, and following her body between the cheeks of her ass, flirting with her rim for a long time (she clenches, it’s delightful, you can’t fault a man for pleasing his lover) before he makes true contact and she gasps. His favorite. One of many favorites.

He’s a handful man, not a pincher. He wants to have her full breast against his palm much more than he wants to tweak her nipples, and he loves to cup her cunt with his hand and stroke her slit with more than one finger. He’s all about wide, diffuse, overpowering sensations. He’ll grab (he loves to watch her skin pillow his fingers anywhere he can get it), he’ll hold, he’ll use his hold hand to grip. But he thinks of pinching as both too direct and punishing. He’s not a fan.

I could see (AND ENJOY) a Comte/MC/Leonardo triad, but personally I prefer to ship them with her individually. If it’s Comte/MC I’m convinced Comte would arrange for them to be fucking in places where Leonardo will know, at the time (by sound) or after the fact (stuff moved, a scent in the air). There’s no one else in the mansion on his level like Leonardo is, so a little bit of my dick is wetter showing off... is... gonna happen.

He would share her with Leonardo if they all wanted that, as a one-time or short term (what’s a few years of blissful threesomes between friends?) thing. I don’t think the Comte that loves MC pines for Leonardo romantically, but Leo’s understanding is the best non-malevolent way Comte is known, and there’s trust there. I also! think!!! that Comte respects Leonardo’s abilities and inclinations as a lover, so. 😏

He would drink from her until she was weak, 100%. Not every time! But would he do it? YES. Like so weak she needs to rest for a day or two. So weak she needs to rely on him and he can not only keep her in bed but satisfy all her needs, gently and attentively. It’s not about the ego of holding her life in his hands, it’s the opportunity to be the one who serves her so fully. He probably gets in some dumb, angsty tangles about not wanting to be the one to hurt her, but being deeply moved by the idea of caring for her if she were to be hurt, and not being willing to trust anyone else, ever, to hurt her for them. Ah, this goose, I fucking love himmmmmm

Comte has had a few torturous dreams of leaning her against the wall of a ruin, biting her somewhere high on her naked body, and then waiting for the blood to run down her form so he can lick it from her ankles. Her skin is so fragrant and her blood is so sweet... The way bites and blood flows work doesn’t even make the scenario possible, but the dream is deeply arousing. He is not, at all, into torturing her, but the dream is recurring and he doesn’t mind it as a fantasy. He’s got all sorts of ritualized ways to love her in mind.

He’s so in love with making love to her before they go out to plays and insisting she needs no blush or powder. He’s right, she can see it in the mirrors of their room. Keeps her color high with his hands up her skirts on the way to the theater. And at the theater, if she allows. If they see a tragedy performed he’ll be extra watchful for signs of any lingering distress on her part.

Cock warming’s not a bad idea, she is heaven incarnate, but what he really likes is to undo her with his fingers inside her body and then not take them out. If he’s wearing gloves the next morning before etiquette demands them, it’s because they’re still a bit wrinkled. 😌

Has her pose for as many classical portraits as she’s willing to endure. Touches her bare breast while the painter watches to tease all three of them. Sometimes he asks to be added to the painting. Usually not!

Happiness: a nice, wet, w i d e bite over her shoulder.

He doesn’t actually like biting her neck because he loves to kiss and nuzzle it so much, the fucking fool! 😂 He likes fleshier parts of her: the aforementioned shoulders, her instep, the curve of both her hips where they flare from the small of her waist. He’s also REAL fond of biting her on her mons and the sacred place where her bottom meets her legs. Goddddddddd. He thinks he’s a derrière man but it’s really THAT part, that hidden curve that is sometimes a crease. He’d live there if he could, and he spends many happy nights laying her out on their bed on her front, fingering her and nosing up the beloved heft of her ass so he can get his fangs into that special place on her body.

The fleshiness is partially for her comfort and partially a mouthfeel thing for him— it’s the best vampiric sensation for Comte when her blood wells over her skin in his mouth, when he can suck a mouthful of skin between the wounds he’s made.

WHEW okay that’s what I’ve got for now. Thank you so much for this ask. 😭😭😭🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

* Sachertorte is him eating her ass while she grinds into a pillow, the strawberries would be making a slowwwwwww sash of exquisite bite marks across her back and licking each one... while she grinds into a pillow. Alfajores are her giving him a handjob while he propped over her on their bed, arms shaking because he’s not allowed to move until she says. Chouquettes are him giving himself a handjob and coming all over her breasts. Welfenspeise is ruining all the flowers in a particular part of the garden. Ciardunas...

#ikevamp comte #ikevam comte #ikevamp hc #ikevam hc #a++ aaviav #seriously thank you so much for this #pseu please... pick a direction #direction is... self-indulgence!#DADDY I LOVE HIM!!!!!! 😤

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skylights2000 · 3 years

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Blush (Kazuichi x Fem! Reader) Part 1

This is my first story with a Female Reader, but if you guys don’t like it that way, I can rework it to make the reader Genderneutral. Let me know what you think 💜

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Kazuichi had only agreed to this stupid ritual because Sonia asked him, and Miu said she’d drag him here herself if he didn’t show up.

He’d gone through the motions, trying his best not to panic, but that all went out the window when the lights above their heads burst, showering, Miu, Sonia, Gundham, and him with sparks.

He stood there, frozen in horror, as smoke swirled from the center of the salt circle they’d made. A figure slowly appeared as the mist began to vanish. The lights flickered back on, and standing in the middle of the circle was what appeared to be a woman.

She was wearing a dark purple t-shirt and black jeans. She would look like a regular person if it weren’t for the dark spirals that curled up her arms, and the pair of curled, dark purple horns that protruded from her head.

She looked around the room before her eyes settled on him. She moved silently and at a speed his eyes couldn’t keep up with. In a heartbeat, she was standing at the edge of the salt circle, her dark purple eyes boring into his.

He jumped, stumbling backwards. She held out her hand, frowning when her hand met the barrier created by the salt circle.

“Mm, that’s unfortunate.” Her voice was soft, slightly deeper than most women he’d met.

She hooked her thumbs through her belt loops and turned to face Sonia and Gundham. “You called?”Gundham nodded calmly. “We wish for you to imbue this mechanical being with a living soul.”

She moved back to the center of the circle where Kiibo laid. She crouched down beside him, inspecting it quietly.

“No.”

“What?!” Miu screeched. “You have to! Please!”

She turned to Miu with an exasperated frown. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t.”

“How is that possible? Your power is quite immense from what I can tell.” Gundham asked curiously.

“Even with my power, giving this robot a living spirit would take too much of my energy. I’d be completely immobilized. If I went back to my world in that condition” She scowled darkly. “I’d be ripped to shreds.”

“Then stay here until you’re strong enough to go back!” Miu countered fiercely.

The demon ran a hand through her hair, frustration written across her face. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not?!”

“I’m a demon. My energy doesn’t replenish on its own. I gain energy from others through physical touch.” She explained.

“Then touch one of us!”

“No!” She snapped, finally losing her cool. “Taking that much energy from a human at one time would kill them!”

Miu finally went silent as she processed the words. “Then can’t you take someone’s energy a little at a time?”

“I can in theory, but it’s hard to find a human that’s willing to agree to something like that.”

“Take Kazuichi!” Miu offered, ignoring Kazuichi’s sputtered protests.

The demon glanced at him, a ghost of a smile dancing at the corners of her lips. “As tempting as that is, I don’t think you should be volunteering your friend without asking him.”

Every head turned to Kazuichi, and he instantly stiffened under their gazes.

“I..” He looked at Kiibo, the metal robot that he and Miu had painstakingly made by hand. They’d spent months building and improving the robot until it nearly looked like a real person. He glanced to Miu, who was watching him with a painfully hopeful expression.

He swallowed thickly, squared his shoulders, and locked eyes with the demon woman. “I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded stiffly, trying to hide how nervous he actually was. She shot him one last doubtful look before shrugging and turning away from him. He watched in shock as her fingers grew into long, black claws. Just as she was about to dig them into the ground, Sonia spoke up quickly. “Wait!”

The demon paused, head raising to look at Sonia from where she stood. “Yeah?”

“You can’t carve anything on the ground. We don’t own this building.” Sonia explained.

The demon glanced around the room before nodding. “Take me somewhere where I can.”

She leaned forward and picked Kiibo up as if he weighed nothing. It had taken both Kazuichi and Gundham to move Kiibo the few feet to get him in the circle, but she carried him with ease. She stood at the edge of the salt circle, and Sonia kicked some away to make a path for her.

The demon woman nodded gratefully and moved to stand beside Sonia. “Lead the way.”

Gundham led them outside the building and into a grassy area outside. “Put it here.”

She laid Kiibo in the spot Gundham was pointing to and told them to back up. She used her claws to draw a large circle around Kiibo, carving several strange symbols inside as she went.

When she was done, she crouched down next to Kiibo and took one of his smooth, metal hands. The symbols she carved began to glow, softly at first but rising until the light lit up the area around them. He could hear her talking, her voice carried by the wind that swirled around them, whipping his hair into his face. The words were different, spoken confidently in a language he didn’t understand. Her body began to shift, the spirals on her arms began to curl all the way up her neck, framing her face and branching across her cheeks. A pair of large, dark wings protruded from her back, shielding their eyes from the blinding explosion of purple light that followed. The light slowly began to fade until all that was left was a soft glow coming from Kiibo’s chest. Once it faded, Miu rushed forward, cradling Kiibo’s head in her lap.

The demon girl shifted to sit on the ground, using one arm to hold herself up while the other was clenched in the center of her chest. “..He’ll wake up..tomorrow..” She choked out, each word strained and laced with pain.

“Are you okay?” Sonia asked worriedly as she crouched down beside the horned woman.

She nodded stiffly. “Just..took more than..I thought it would..” She glanced back at Miu. “You need..to take him..inside..” At the curious looks she received, she clarified. “A storm..is coming..”

“You can sense the shifting of the weather patterns.” Gundham spoke up, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“Whatever, just help me with this, man.” Kazuichi said.

He and Gundham worked together to carry Kiibo back into the garage while Miu and Sonia worked together to cover the markings in the dirt before returning to her side.

The demon had clambered to her feet, swaying dangerously when she moved. Sonia and Miu rushed forward to catch her, supporting as much of her weight as they could. She was taller than both of them, so it was a bit difficult, but they managed to help her into the building.

By the time they got inside, her wings had vanished and the spirals on her skin had receded back to their original place. They helped her over to a bench nearby, and she sat down, leaning her head against the wall.

Miu glanced over at Kiibo and smiled softly. “Thank you.”

She laughed breathily. “You better enjoy that damn robot. Nearly killed myself for it.”

Miu grinned at her excitedly. “Hell yeah, I’ll enjoy it!” As if to prove her point, she ran over to the robot man and began excitedly tinkering with several things to get him plugged in. She assumed it was so that he could charge.

“Oh my, how rude of me!” The demon glanced at Sonia when she spoke. “My name is Sonia Nevermind.” Sonia held out her hand happily, and when the demon woman hesitated, Sonia took her hand instead. “What’s your name?”

“...Call me (Y/n). That was my human name.”

“You have another name?”

The demon, (Y/n), nodded but didn’t specify what that name actually was.

Sonia squeezed her hand gently. “You can have a bit of my energy.”

(Y/n) turned to her sharply, eyes narrowing skeptically. “You’re sure about that?”

Sonia nodded seriously, and after a second, she felt a spark at her fingertips. When (Y/n) removed her hand from Sonia’s she still didn’t look great, but she no longer looked like she was in pain. “Thank you.”

Sonia smiled sweetly and headed off towards her friends. (Y/n) watched as she tapped the pink haired man on the shoulder. What had they called him, Kazuichi?

(Y/n) watched Sonia’s mouth move, tempted to use her stronger hearing to hear the conversation, but she decided against it. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping.

She really wished she had though when Kazuichi started walking towards her.

He approached her hesitantly, like she would suddenly rip out his heart. She was honestly a bit offended by his reaction, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him.

The portrayal of demons amongst humans, both in writing and in word of mouth, was quite horrendous. Most of the things said about demons were actually wrong.

Many people claimed demons were monstrous beings that were created by and served Lucifer, but that wasn’t entirely true. Every demon was once human, but only the vilest, most horrible demons served under Lucifer.

She was not one of them. She had been born a human, though her father was, indeed, a demon. Her father was a truly wretched demon. Being his daughter had plagued her from the beginning, filling her head with horrible thoughts and desires for destruction.

In the end, it started to become too much to control. The only way to fix it was to perform a ritual that would denounce him as her father. The only problem was that the ritual would kill her.

She’d done it knowing that, and for that, she was to be locked out of heaven for one thousand years as her punishment. She was currently 999 years old. One more year and this hell she’d suffered would be over. She would be allowed into heaven and have any remnants of her father cleansed from her soul forever.

That thought had been enough to keep her going, to keep her hoping.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize Pinky had reached her until he was standing right in front of her.

He pointed at the spirals on her arm that had begun to shift, almost like they were flickering. “What’s goin’ on with those marks?”

“Since I’m only half-demon, it takes a certain amount of energy to keep up my demon form. Soon, I’m gonna have to switch back to my human form.”

“You’re half-human?”

“Yeah. My mom was a human.”

He shuffled awkwardly. “So what now?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Aren’t you like” He waved his hand as if that would answer her question. “feeding off me?”

Her eyebrows drew together. “You say that like I forced you to agree to that.”

“You did!”

She glared at him, not even caring when he flinched. “I didn’t tell you to do shit. In case you’re forgetting, I even asked you a second time if you were sure about it. The second you said ‘yes’, it became your problem. I don’t know about here, but in the demon world, a promise is a binding contract.” She scowled at him, irritation written across her face. “You think I wanted to be here? The only reason I showed up is because I owed the on-call demon a favor. If I knew I’d be knocking on death’s doorstep for the second time, I woulda said no.” She snapped angrily.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, telling herself to calm down. Her father’s spirit came through much worse when she was angry, and that was the last thing she wanted. “Listen, I’m not here to start a fight. Figure out what you wanna do. Until then, leave me alone.” With that, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

She wished she was still human. If she was, maybe no one would look at her with such disgust. She was tired of the fear in people’s eyes when they saw her.

‘Just one more year, kid’ She told herself.

Just one more year.

#danganronpa goodbye despair #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa #multi chapter #kazuichi imagine #kazuichi x reader #kazuichi souda #miu iruma #kiibo #gundham tanaka #sonia nevermind

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pip25 · 3 years

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Slayers Secret Santa 2020 fanfic: Sisters

Hi, @sugar-stories! I was your @slayersweek secret santa this year, sorry for the lateness. I hope you’ll enjoy this little fic - community service did not quite make it, but I’ve tried to incorporate the other prompts to the best of my ability.

Sisters

“Gracia, wait!”

The tall girl in her mid-teens turned back, her long raven hair and priestess garb swaying around her.

The clothing and features of the child trying to catch up to her on the narrow forest path were undeniably similar to hers, but with her round blue eyes and startled expression she still had an air of innocence about her, suggesting an age barely over ten years at most.

“You’re so slow, Amelia!” the older girl spoke impatiently.

“But we shouldn’t stray this far from the camp!” The answer came in a pleading tone. “When they find out, everyone will be really angry!”

“Hahaha! They won’t find out if we’re quick enough – so hurry up! Breeze Town should be really close now.”

Despite her eagerness to rush ahead, Gracia did slow her pace down slightly. Amelia tried her best to catch up, but still looked quite a bit worried.

“Why are we going to Breeze Town?” she asked once she was close enough to tug at the other girl’s robes.

“Hihihi! Because, dear sister, while you were wasting time reading fairy tales in the Eternal Queen’s castle, I found out a huge secret!” Gracia replied, looking very proud of herself. “The Knight of Ceiphied, the strongest person in Zephilia, works at an inn there!”

That certainly piqued the younger girl’s interest a little. “A knight? Do you want to ask him to teach us how to fight evil?”

Her older sister sent a look of disgust her way. “What? No, of course not. I want to beat him up.”

“Eeeeh?! Why??” Amelia’s eyes grew larger than dinner plates. “Is he a villain…? I thought knights were allies of justice…”

Gracia turned her head away. “Who cares what he is. If I can defeat him, Father will have to accept that I’m strong enough to set out on my own.”

The little girl tugged at her sister’s robe once more with a pout. “Are you trying to run away again? In those weird clothes?”

No answer came. Gracia still refused to look her in the eye.

“They’ll drag you back again, you know. And Father will be really sad.”

The older girl raised her head high in defiance… then let out a yelp as she tripped over a thick wooden branch lying across the path. Unfortunately for her, they were going downhill on a moderately steep slope at this point, so not only did her face get closely acquainted with the muddy earth, but her momentum made her roll a good ten yards down the path, until she stopped at a spot where the autumn forest gave way to a large, lush meadow.

Once she caught up again, Amelia crouched down and touched her sister’s arm, lying in the dirt in an odd angle. Her expression was now more resigned than worried, like she was seeing such a scene for the umpteenth time.

“RECOVERY.” The healing spell flooded their surroundings with white light. “…Let’s just go back to the camp now, okay?”

“Huhu… ha… ha… Y-You think this was enough to hurt me? Haha, this… this is nothing,” Gracia muttered, wincing as she got off the ground.

“…Why are you doing that?” Amelia asked innocently.

“Hihihi, doing what?”

“That! That strange laugh! It sounds like… like someone is tickling you.”

Gracia seemed greatly offended by her remark. “No one is tickling me! It’s just… Mom always said that a confident laugh can strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, so…” She trailed off, then added in barely a whisper, “I’m still practicing, okay?”

Looking too embarrassed to continue, she instead took a few careful steps forward, let her gaze sweep through the scenery – and her face immediately lit up.

“There it is! The town!” She pointed towards the opposite edge of the meadow and broke into a run, injuries all but forgotten.

A road cut into the middle of the grassland, much wider and visibly more well-travelled than the path they had followed until now. One end disappeared among the forest trees, but the other indeed led to a couple of wooden cottages, with more buildings coming into view in the distance. In front of them, the words “Breeze Town” were carved into a short limestone obelisk.

“This looks like a pretty big place,” Amelia commented as they made their way into the settlement. “How will you find that knight person?”

Her sister grinned. “Haha! Everyone in Zephilia knows about the Knight of Ceiphied! We’ll just ask someone for directions… like that weird-looking commoner over there.”

About fifty yards ahead stood a larger two-storey building with a sign depicting a heavily stylized bovine udder. A young girl with chestnut brown hair paced back and forth in front of it restlessly; she was the same age as, or perhaps slightly older than Amelia, but it was very hard to tell for sure considering she was dressed in a cow costume from the neck down, complete with black hooves and a huge, pink-colored cotton udder hanging from her stomach.

Once she noticed the two sisters’ approach, the girl gave an exasperated sigh, and to their astonishment began a small sing-and-dance routine, making several pirouettes in front of the wooden structure, her udder flailing wildly about in the air.

I’m Cindy the cow, yes, that’s my name, They serve my milk here to great acclaim, You looking for wine? Hey, that’s no shame, Maggie’s Inn welcomes you all the same!

After going through the lyrics twice in a rather lifeless voice, the girl graciously whirled around on one leg – and started banging her head against the inn’s wall.

“I.. can’t… take… it… anymore!” she screeched.

The sisters simply stood there, rooted to the spot.

“Um…” Gracia began, but before she could say anything else, the cotton udder once again took a 180-degree turn in the air, its owner glaring daggers at her.

“Don’t. Ask,” she hissed threateningly.

“…Why are you dressed like that?”

“Aaargh! I told you not to ask!” The puffy forelegs of the costume tore into her shoulder-length hair. “It’s my punishment, alright?! Luna works as a waitress here and I thought people wouldn’t mind if her adorable little sis would snatch a cookie or two for free… But they’re a bunch of penny-pinching pricks, and now I have to work in this… ridiculous getup to pay for them! Does that placate your curiosity, dear customer?!”

Amelia blinked in confusion. “But… why tell us if you don’t want people to know?”

“Because it’s part of my punishment, you numskull!” the girl roared, then reached into a small pocket on her costume and took out a piece of paper, irritably scanning its contents. “Now what else do I need to tell you? Ah, right: chocolate milkshakes are now fifty percent off, though it’s still daylight robbery if you ask me, there’s a special ‘buy one get one free’ offer on cookies, but don’t bother, I tried them and they’re horrible… oh, and the guards want people to stick to the forest when heading out of town, because the man-eating plasma dragon was spotted not far from here recently.”

“M-M-Man-eating plasma dragon??” Amelia blanched.

Her sister on the other hand merely gave a curious nod. “Hmm, now that you mention it, I remember Father and the Eternal Queen talking about something like that. The beast is hiding in the mountains near the capital and comes down here from time to time to eat people.”

“Eeeeeh?! We left our escort and came all the way here when you knew that evil dragon was around?!”

“Now don’t be scared,” Gracia lightly patted Amelia’s head, though she did not seem to appreciate the gesture. “If the beast turns up on our way back, it’ll serve as a nice cool-down exercise after my triumph over the Knight of Ceiphied. Muhuhuhu!”

The brown-haired girl in the cow costume, until now busy poking her ear in a display of utter boredom, suddenly perked up. “Wait, what? You want to beat up the Knight of Ceiphied…?”

“Yes, hahaha, that is exactly why we’re here,” the older girl nodded again with confidence.

“Uh-huh… Gotta ask: are you planning to do that before or after hell freezes over?”

Her good mood evaporating, Gracia folded her arms. “Hmph! I do not need to hear such insults from a common cookie thief who presently serves her well-deserved punishment. Good day!”

She was about to turn away, when the inn’s door opened a crack and a young waitress peeked out, gazing curiously at the sisters. She was around halfway between Gracia and Amelia in age, though her mannerisms and outfit made her look slightly more mature. Her dark bangs were long, both in the back and in front, to the extent that they nearly covered her eyes.

“Are these people leaving?” she asked with some disappointment, before turning her head to the side. “Hey ‘Cindy’, are you doing your job properly? You should be getting us customers, but it’s already half past ten and the inn’s almost empty.”

“C-Cut it out! I’m not Cindy!!” the girl in the cow costume wailed. She pointed at the pair in front of her in desperation. “How about you bully them for a change? Hey, you two loons, she’s the one you were looking for, the ever-so-famous Knight of Ceiphied!”

Gracia and Amelia gawked at the waitress.

“She’s… Whaaat??” That was all the former managed to say.

“Are you… are you really the famous knight?” the younger girl asked with wonder.

The answer came in a wary voice. “…First of all, I’m Luna. Second, I don’t actually have an official title, but yes, people around here call me the Knight of Ceiphied. What business do you have with—?”

“The outrage!” Gracia cried out before she could finish, extending both hands in a theatrical gesture towards the girl in the cow costume. “How could a person as powerful as you put a lovely, innocent child like her through such undeserved hardship?!”

Amelia took a step back, perplexed. “Uh, but you just said—”

“Unforgivable!” Her protests were likewise ignored. “The heavens cry out for retribution, and I will see to it that justice is served! Now, heehihihee, prepare yourself, Knight of Ceiphied!” Gracia waved a hand in front of her. “FREEZE ARROW!”

An icicle the size of her outstretched arm appeared in the air and sped towards Luna.

“She’s totally nuts!” The chestnut-haired girl dove out of the way in a frenzy.

The waitress, on the other hand, did not try to evade – in fact, she looked almost relieved.

“Oh, so you’re one of those people.” She lazily held out her hand, and the moment it made contact, the icy projectile burst to pieces. “I was worried you’d try to recruit me for some world-saving quest or something.”

Amelia’s frantic gaze jumped from Luna to her sister and back. “Wait-wait-wait! You say she’s a villain, but… almost blowing up the inn out of the blue is also something a villain would do, you know…! What’s going on??”

“She’s got a point,” the waitress said, suddenly standing next to Gracia, with a hand on the other’s shoulder. “Let’s take this fight somewhere else.”

The tall girl huffed. “You think you can tell me what to do? I’m… uh…”

She looked around, disoriented. The two of them were no longer within Breeze Town, but stood alone amidst the vast meadow she had crossed earlier.

“Here’s how this is gonna be,” Luna stated matter-of-factly. “I’ll spare a minute to pummel you into the dirt, and in return you’re going to buy yourself a full-course meal at Maggie’s. Got it?”

Gracia tried to give the angry huff another go. “Like I said, you think you can tell me… what to… No way…”

The waitress now held a sack full of coins in her hand, and amused herself by repeatedly tossing it into the air. “I’ll hold onto this for you until then. Come on, give it your best shot!”

The older girl sent a scowl her way, then leapt back. “I’ll make you eat those words! DEMONA CRYSTAL!”

Dense, chilling fog hit the ground in front of her, creating a thick sheet of ice upon contact. The freezing cold spread out in a fan shape and quickly reached the spot where Luna stood – except she was no longer there.

“Aaaand you missed,” the waitress’ voice sounded from behind her.

Gracia turned around just enough to see Luna giving her a light push with her free hand – a light push which sent her a good twenty yards through the air, screaming all the way. Even after the unnerving sound of impact, the momentum made her roll another ten yards in the grass until she came to a stop.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself; this is how it always ends,” Luna commented as she walked closer. “One tap, one KO – end of story.”

The tall grass ahead of her stirred.

“I’m… not… done yet.” With great effort, Gracia managed to stand up. She was covered in bruises and her priestess outfit had gotten torn in a few places, but her injuries still looked unexpectedly minor considering her previous trip through the air.

For the first time, genuine surprise spread across the waitress’ features. “Wow… You’re a tough one, I’ll give you that.”

Her opponent managed a shaky grin. “Mwuhaha! I told you I’ll make you eat your words! And now…” She put a hand on the ground. “VU VRAIMER!”

The earth began to shake, then split apart and a twelve-foot-tall, roughly humanoid mass of soil and grass climbed out of the fissure.

“Golem! Attack!” Gracia commanded.

“Baa!” the magical construct responded in a deep voice, swung its mighty fist… and nearly flattened its creator.

“Wait! Not me! Not me!” said girl screamed, running as fast as she could towards Luna with the golem in dogged pursuit.

The waitress simply stood there, looking unsure what to do about the situation; thus she was caught entirely off guard when, the moment she passed by, her opponent held out a hand to her face.

“LIGHTING!” With its duration set to zero, the spell immediately extinguished itself in a brief, blinding flash. In the same instant, Gracia changed directions and cocked her fist. “I have you now! Pacifist Crush!”

Her blow was caught within the Knight of Ceiphied’s open palm.

“Do you know how many times my sister tried that tactic against me?” Luna flung her flailing opponent out of the way, then readied a strike of her own against the incoming golem. “Why do you think I let my bangs fall into my face?”

A second later, the animated mass of earth burst apart, pieces of soil raining down on the meadow everywhere.

Having flown only a couple of steps this time, Gracia quickly scrambled to her feet. With a stubborn smirk, she raised both hands into the air. “Is that so? Then it’s time for my most powerful spell! Prepare yourself!”

A sphere of blue light began to gather between her palms.

“Alright, bring it!” Luna answered with a smug smile of her own. “I’ll admit I’m starting to enjoy… this…”

Her words died away as her gaze rose upwards, drawn to the massive shadow that fell upon the two of them.

Thump.

“Mwahahaha! You’re scared now, aren’t you?” Gracia laughed, seemingly unaware of how the ground once again shook below her feet, much more violently this time – and not because of the spell she was trying to cast, either.

The waitress did in fact seem shaken, but for entirely different reasons. “No, forget about the fight! Look behind you and run!” she shouted.

“What a transparent ruse! I know you are only trying to distract me to— Kyaaa!!” Gracia let out a scream as what seemed to be a bolt of lightning sped by above her head, scattering her spell effortlessly. It hit the ground halfway between her and her opponent, resulting in a crater wide enough to easily swallow a cart.

A feral snarl came from behind her back. With shaky legs, the tall girl slowly turned around.

Towering over her was a dragon with scales of silver, claws of steel and eyes of liquid gold. Its head alone was twice her own size; electricity crackled within its mouth, ready to unleash another bolt of magical destruction.

Her entire body paralyzed by fear, Gracia could only watch helplessly as the beast’s claws swiped through the air in her direction.

The boulder-sized talon came to a halt less than a yard from her, held in place with a single hand by Luna, who appeared between them in the blink of an eye.

“Sorry pal, in our town there is no such thing as a free lunch,” the waitress sneered.

She then swatted the claws away like they were leaves in the wind, jumped forward and drove her first into the dragon’s stomach.

The beast roared, though more in anger than pain, it seemed: the punch shoved it back a good distance on the ground, but its shiny scales looked none worse for wear at the point of impact.

Seeing the ineffectiveness of her attack, Luna appeared annoyed herself – but her ire soon turned into bewilderment as the dragon’s growling voice began to form coherent words.

“You strong, human! But me still eat you soon!”

Gracia, who stood in the exact same position as before, seemingly petrified, finally forced out a gasp. “It… haha… it can talk…”

“Me talk!” the dragon replied in a lower, but still rumbling voice laced with pride. “Me siblings all dumb, but me strong and smart! Siblings stay on mountain, but me come down and find many tasty human! Me the best!”

“Oh, shut up,” Luna spat while jumping high into the air.

For a moment she was seemingly floating way above the huge beast, then she came down with a mighty punch to its skull, one she could put all her momentum behind.

As she touched down on the ground, the dragon’s head reeled to the side – but then righted itself once more, still no injury to be seen.

“You no hurt me!” With that cry, it sent another volley of lightning at the waitress.

Still unable to move, Gracia watched the magic beam tear into the grassy landscape – and the next thing she knew, she was at the edge of the meadow near the town entrance, with Luna standing next to her.

“Damn lizard’s right, I can’t bring it down like this. I need something I can use as a focus for my powers,” the waitress explained in a hurried tone. “Do you have a dagger, a sword or anything similar?”

“No,” Gracia responded immediately, looking inexplicably upset, as if the Knight of Ceiphied had just insulted her parents.

“Figures.” Luna glanced back at the dragon; the beast was already closing in on them, trampling through the tall grass, each step like the beating of a gigantic drum. “Okay, here’s the plan: run towards the town, keep that dumbass occupied for just a minute – I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

If the tall girl wanted to protest, she never got the chance: the waitress was gone from her sight in the next instant. She looked down at her trembling legs, as if hoping she could glare them into submission and get them to move.

Then her heart skipped a beat. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a crucial detail both her and the Knight of Ceiphied have missed until then.

Their fight had an audience.

“The evil monster is going to destroy the town! We must help!” Amelia jumped forth from behind the limestone obelisk, trying to strike a heroic pose while visibly fighting her own battle against fear.

“And help how?!” The girl in the cow costume appeared next to her, tearing at her chestnut hair. “Do you know a spell big enough? Because for me only one comes to mind, and I don’t think I can pull that off right now! Where the heck did Luna run off to??” She looked around, but the waitress was still nowhere to be seen. “Ugh… Fine, but don’t blame me if everything goes sideways! VAL FLARE!”

“No, w-wait…!” Gracia’s words of warning were drowned out by the roar of flames as a crimson projectile smashed against the fore legs of the approaching dragon.

Despite the huge explosion that followed, the spell did not even slow the beast down – but it was enough to make it change directions.

“Ha, human me tickle,” the plasma dragon growled with amusement as it trotted by the still-stupefied Gracia and stared the young spellcaster down. “Tickle give me appetite…”

In the same moment, Luna nearly tore the inn door off its hinges.

“The guards! Have any of you seen where they are??” she questioned the patrons within; the place was a lot more crowded now, many having fled inside when they saw the approaching beast. Most only stared at the waitress confused, while a few people shook their heads. “Great…Then do you have a sword, a dagger, or… anything with a pointy end? Come on!”

A wave of murmurs ran through the crowd.

“Maybe… you could ask the boss lady?” one of them pointed towards the counter; the innkeeper herself was currently missing from the room.

Luna sighed irritably. “No, Maggie doesn’t keep any weapons here. The place’s full of that fancy kitchenware collection of hers…” Her eyes bulged. “That’s it!!”

“Stay back, you vile monster!” Amelia’s mid-air kick collided with the wall of silver scales, but she bounced right off like she was trying to beat up a mountain. “Oooow!”

“Come any closer, and I’m lobbing a Fireball down your throat!” Drops of sweat rolled down the face of the girl in the cow costume, as the dragon slowly lowered its head towards her.

“Yes, human use more flashy light,” the rumbling voice almost purred like a cat. “Me like tickle when me eat… so… um…”

The beast pulled its head back slightly, suddenly looking uncertain.

“…What?” she blurted out.

A weird, disgusted frown appeared on the draconic visage. “No-no, me wrong. Tickle or no tickle, me no eat you. Look thin, short… nasty. Me get heartburn.”

“…Huh?! Why you little…!”

“Other human look more tasty.” A ball of fire crashed into the beast’s face, but it did not even notice as it turned its attention to Amelia, who lay in the grass clutching her sprained leg. It opened its gaping mouth, sparks of electricity dancing within. “Me have lunch now—”

“AQUA CREATE!”

“Graoaaaargh!!” A tormented roar could be heard as a heavy stream of water poured into the plasma dragon’s mouth and reacted with the energies of its primed breath weapon inside, sending waves of lightning through its entire body.

“Atrocious! Not only do you ignore me, but dare raise a hand against my sister?! I hope you’re prepared for what comes next!” Gracia yelled while sprinting closer. Her voice, now without an ounce of fear, was instead rife with anger.

The beast whirled around; stray arcs of electricity still occasionally ran through its eyes and nostrils, making its face twitch.

“You! Awful human!” it boomed. “You make me pretty tongue all hurt and numb! Me eat you first!”

Gracia merely put her hands on her hips. “Really, is that the best threat you can muster? If you wish to scare me, you still have some ways to go! Ha… Hahaha… Hahahaha…!”

The dragon looked outraged. “What…? No, me no joke! Me no funny! Me really eat you!”

“…Hehehehe… Hihihihihahaha…!”

“H-Hey…! Hey! Why you laugh?! Me scary! Me strong, scary dragon…! No laugh, human! You hurt me feeling!”

But Gracia kept on laughing and laughing, barely taking a second to breathe, as if her life depended on it – and perhaps it did.

“Hahahaha… Huhuhuhuhu….! Hahahahahohoho!”

She did not let up, and with every passing second, her voice became louder, sharper and stronger.

“Hohoho…! OhOHohoHohO! OOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!”

That was the moment when the dragon started to back away.

“S-Stop! Me have good ear! Guh… You crazy! Me no eat crazy! Stooooop!!” It opened its mouth again to release another bolt of lightning, but only produced a shower of harmless sparks.

With no other option left, the beast turned around again in panic, trying to flee in the direction of the town – and immediately came face to face with the Knight of Ceiphied. She held something in her right hand: the largest kitchen knife she could find in the innkeeper’s collection.

“Hi.” Luna smiled. “Missed me?”

As she lunged forward, the blade of her weapon began to shine with brilliant white light; the knife pierced the silver scales like butter, all the way up to the handle.

“Me... no smart… after all…” the dragon groaned – and the surge of holy power burned it to ashes from the inside.

All could now breathe a sigh of relief… Well, if it were not for the insufferable laugh that still pierced the air.

“Oohohohoho! OOOOHOHOHOHOHO!”

Gracia stood there with her head held high, a reversed palm put in front of her mouth, oblivious to the world around her.

Wincing, Luna put her knife away and tried stopping her ears, but it seemed to make no difference whatsoever. “Ugh… What in the gods’ name is that horrible sound?”

“Someone… I’ll promise to be a good girl from now on… just make it stop!” the brown-haired girl writhed in agony on the ground next to her.

“No choice then, I’ll… have to knock her out,” the waitress spoke through gritted teeth. She took one shaky step forward, then immediately fell to her knees. “Crap! It’s somehow… making all my limbs go numb—!”

“SLEEPING!”

Finally, silence descended on the meadow. Gracia’s form slumped and she fell over – right into her sister’s arms.

“Please don’t be too angry when you wake up… You were so cool just now,” Amelia whispered in a tender voice while holding her in the princess carry pose, not looking the least bit overwhelmed. She then turned sheepishly towards the others. “Um, I’m sorry for… well, everything. But at least the evil dragon has been defeated, and we got to see that you really are no villain, Luna-san!”

The waitress gave her a weird look. “Uh… thanks?”

Amelia lowered her head in a polite bow. “It’s late, so we really need to go back now. But I hope the four of us can meet up later on and fight for justice together!” With an odd, exaggerated pirouette likely meant to look heroic, she whirled around, almost fell on her face, but righted herself at the last moment. “Take care until then, brave knight and… um, Cindy!”

The petite girl headed for the forest path with quick steps, Gracia still resting in her arms.

Only when she disappeared behind the trees did Luna speak up once more, as if she suddenly realized something. “Hey Lina, who were these people again? Did you catch their names? I actually never gave them their purse back.”

“Nope.” Her sister shrugged. “But I say if we never see them again, it’ll be too soon.” She put a finger to her chin, and added in a mischievous voice, “Still, what a lucky break for you, huh?”

Luna’s brows furrowed slightly. “Come again?”

“I mean, if that lunatic could still fight, she would have mopped the floor with you. Heheh, imagine everyone talking about how the great Knight of Ceiphied got her butt kicked by some crazy girl who laughed her into oblivion—” While looking like she was just getting started, Lina immediately shrunk back as she noticed her sister’s unamused stare. “Err… uh… I’ll be g-going back to dancing now, okay?”

She then quickly ran off towards the inn, her cotton udders swaying left and right.

To Gracia’s disappointment, that day did not go down in history as the moment when the Knight of Ceiphied suffered an ignominious defeat, but as the day when said knight slew a plasma dragon with nothing but a kitchen knife, making her fame soar to even greater heights.

Still, Gracia was sure, more than ever before, that things would not stay the way they were. She had grown and changed. They could not keep her at home for much longer: she would soon set out on a journey to see the world, practice magic and make a name for herself. Not by her ancestry, but by her own power.

Her own legend, that of Naga the Serpent, was only beginning…

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moe-lazyeye · 3 years

Text

I know what you did, because I’m smart (botgd 2 oneshot)

Dixie glanced around the safe house as Blunt stood across from him with folded arms. “How very...like Scruffy to have a place such as this. It’ll make an excellent place to hide and house half breed refugees. Protective and camouflage wards by the Weaver himself...Your man is such a dear.”

Blunt didn’t say a word, and just starred his cousin down.

Dixie squinted a little, and then tsked once. “A horrible turn of events. But I have relief supplies heading to the rebellion in troves. As much as I can afford for free, and a discount for the rest. I intend to only make enough of a profit to replenish the depleted charity stock, and pay for my...task forces. Anyone they catch complying with that ridiculous ‘kill on sight’ order will have their head’s pasted and remains sent home in a box before they have time to reconsider the error of their ways...” He paused as the uncomfortable silence returned. “Oh good heavens Blunt what is it? Why are we here?”

“So you can talk freely.” Blunt told him, and motioned at the walls. “This place is nearly invisible, impervious to sounds escaping to the outside...I want you to, at least once, admit what you did...”

Dixie lowered his casually raised hand. “Oh? A confession? Pray tell cousin, what on earth do you mean?”

“You know what Dixie, others treating me as a fool is fine, that’s what I present, and that’s what I like. But you’re different. You call me an oaf and dimwitted, but I’m as smart as you are and you know it.”

Dixie barked a laugh. “Oh my, this is rich. What a claim. And what makes you think that?”

Blunt’s fingers tightened on his arms. “Because I’ve been thinking about Opie’s arrest...and something else that Sweetbutt had talked to me about a while ago that I didn’t consider connected to anything...until now.” He began to pace a bit. “I kept asking myself, what would I do, if I were you...”

“If you were me doing what?” Dixie asked in a brazen challenge, only there was a small element of vulnerability behind the words.

“Taking revenge against Darien.” Blunt answered, and Dixie’s expression soured. The larger man held up a finger. “Sweetbutt, Akkey, and I...we all changed a lot. We all went from bad people, to better people. Seeing Darien do the same made us see him differently than how you see him. It’s no mystery you wanted retribution for the genocide he caused. You don’t relate-”

“Yes, pardon me for not relating to the likes of Darien.” Dixie interrupted. “By the way, lovely perpetuated mess that we’re dealing with to this day on account of him.”

“You exploited Opie.” Blunt accused flatly, and didn’t let his cousin’s interruption take him off track. “You left your gun, and he stole it, just as you instructed him. He used it to attack Darien, and went on the run to maintain the element that this all wasn’t just a set up. You ‘discovered your weapon missing’ at a moment where you could have been killed by not having it, and reported it missing immediately, to deliberately link yourself to the crime. You’d be confronted, but there wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict, and in a twisted way, you’d seem more innocent by appearing as the initial suspect, only to be dismissed later...you used the rebellion’s mercy against them. There’s no way they will, or even could, give Opie a punishment even close to the severity Darien, or Indigo got. Especially since no one died.” He gave him a s tern look. “Am I wrong?”

Dixie leaned forward menacingly. “Why would Opie agree to something insane like that? I took exception of his and his father’s situation sure, but it wasn’t personal. So why would I even seek him out?”

“Because you had the one thing he wanted. A chance for revenge. You found Rhenco...his tormentor, and traded his location to Opie in exchange for the job. Opie is smart too, he knew he’d get away with it. What makes it worse in some ways, is that because of your, often valid I’ll admit, criticisms, you and Grey managed to create something that fully utilized the rebellions lenient approach to matters, while still ensuring victim safety and justice. You literally exploited the last loophole before it was permanently patched up...You deny it?”

Dixie didn’t say anything.

Blunt gave an annoyed hiss. “Come on Dixie. The Brotherhood can’t hear you in here. Yeah, I know about them, Stonegit told me, and I’m figuring they threw a wrench in your gears in a way that forced you to take this convoluted approach.” His shoulders lessoned their tension a bit. “There’s only one reason you’d be willing to be so quiet over something, even if you erased all the evidence...and that’s if you were hurting...”

Dixie strode forward with a flare in his eyes. “Hurting? Try practicality. Let me tell you a little something about whether or not something is worth confessing to Blunt Elmiss.” He pushed a finger into his chest as he tilted his chin up at him. “You think I’d risk admitting to this insane conspiracy theory of yours for even a second? Based on everything I’ve seen? I make a bounty against a man who murdered hundreds of thousands, and the next day an innocent secretary almost gets his throat slit over people who ‘support the rebellion.’ I see the charred bodies of people, and children, I knew, people and children I was supposed to take care of. I spoke softly and I was scorned. I spoke louder and I was shut down. I became angry in my approach, and I was seen as a greater enemy than the man who killed all those people! Why?! I know why! Donz...Donz! Donz! DONZ! That name, thrown in my face time and time again, as if I were somehow Orskaf!”

He paced away as he threw his hands over his head. “Oh but then there was you. You, you perfect angel. You loveable trickster. You, who was, and is, and will always be just like me. But your cheery, stupid, wide eyed face has disassociated you with your grandfather long ago. And yet I, was linked to man who wasn’t even in my nuclear family! Yes! I’ll admit it Blunt, I was harsh, I was unkind in those very specific moments. But I was also silenced, in all but formality I was driven off the island, and the only thing I ever wanted to do for them was help. FUCK! I’m still helping them, and I always will! No matter how angry they made me, I saw the good past it, there was never any doubt...so why couldn’t the same be done for me!? You want me to confess? Well then first look me in the eye and tell me they’d accept me one day...”

Silence fell between them. Dixie blinked, and then slowly brought a hand up to grab at the front of his shirt. He seemed...shocked. Shocked at how much he had, and was, feeling in that moment. It was...hurt...just as Blunt had said. The man folded his arms and turned away.

Blunt crossed his arms as well after a pause. “If I had known they were throwing your name back in your face...I’ve knocked their heads. I’m sorry...”

“Think nothing of it.” Dixie said in an attempted dismissal. “I understand, I act the part.”

“I might be mad at you for what I know you did...whether you’ll ever admit it or not...but in grand total...you haven’t done anything worse than half the people on that island...You’re a hard pill to swallow, and I think I hate you most days. And I think this is a valuable lesson for you to learn, that good deeds, and being good at what you don’t, don’t mean a lot when you’re an asshole to people.”

Dixie sniffed once as if in mockery, but there was a bitter edge to it.

“But.” Blunt held up a hand, and sighed. “I think you also showed us where some weaknesses lie. And I’m not even talking about the criminal justice. The rebellion...it used to have a unity about it, even if someone was a total dick. Akkey and Tree, Grey and Seasick, Greg and Haddock, Stonegit and Skye...there were so many people that had huge blow outs, and moments where they couldn’t agree on anything. But we were all in the mess together, and we were intent on seeing it through...I think we lost some of that. Dixie...I wanted you off Haligan because I wanted you here, where you could have help, where you...”

Dixie glanced at him.

Blunt searched for the right word. “Well where you had people that really loved you.”

Dixie blinked, and then glanced around as if he hadn’t quite understood what he meant.

“You were ostracized by the one group of people you actually wanted to be friends with. A lot of it was your fault, and lot of it was theirs. There’s no some in this one. Everyone fucked up. And it hurt you. Because you never meant for that to happen. Even when you tried to make it right, you probably never lost a certain tight feeling in your chest...you’re not alone. Stones in particular knows what that’s like...”

With his back still turned to him, Dixie swallowed thickly. “Please Blunt.” He droned. “Just because you always called me by my right name, said you liked my dress when we were kids in front of all your cool friends who had seen it fit to throw dirt at me, doesn’t mean any of this monologue means anything coming from you...”

Blunt shook his head a little. “Your walls don’t have to come down right away, or even all at once Dixie. But its high time you knew that I saw them just as clearly as you saw mine.” He dared to step a little closer to him. “You saved my relationship Dixie, with both Stones, and Akkey...I can’t even begin to think about how I could repay you for that alone. At the same time, you’re an angry, violent person who maims people who stole something as lifeless as money. You can’t be both of those things...eventually you’ll have to choose one...”

“Not a fan of duplicity hm?” Dixie asked coyly, but there was still that strange, uncharacteristic strain in his voice.

Blunt held out a hand, and when his cousin glanced at him, he saw it in his eyes. It was the same look he saw in Stonegit’s eyes, Akkey’s eyes. The trauma, the hurt, the baseless compulsive reaction to hide it all and bear it alone. “Come home with me...stay in the loft for a while.” Blunt invited him. “With Stones working so much and Akkey back out in the field...I could use the company...and so could you...”

Dixie regarded him, and then took his hand in-between two fingers. “Well...very well I suppose...”

And so Blunt walked out from the safehouse with his cousin. It was not the first time in recent history, nor would it be the last, that he raked the coals over this man for his poor choices. But there was also a sudden resurgence of familial protectiveness he hadn’t felt in a very long time, and he knew he would have choice words with others as well, and maybe even a demon, which was certainty saying something.

#dixie blogs #blunt blogs #botgd 2

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scullymakesmefeelautopsyturvy · 4 years

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Several Times Scully Got Locked Out Of Her Motel Room In Her Scanties (First Time Smut Ensues) Chapter One

Space (Season One)

They sat on the city steps in the midday sunshine awaiting another of Mulder’s mysterious informants. She, eating a sad little excuse for a sandwich: cucumber-dampened white bread encompassing roast chicken lovingly Saran-wrapped and pressed into her hand after Sunday lunch at her parents’ house. An awkward lunch, during which her father had accomplished the stellar feat of not asking her about her work once. I should have cheered everyone up by asking if anyone had heard from Charles lately, Melissa had joked, darkly, over the phone afterwards.

The sandwich stuck in her throat a little as she swallowed, and out of nowhere, everything felt so… insufficient.

Was this really her life now? Crackpots and conservative suits and no sex since Jack? Reading journals alone on Friday nights and eating her mother’s leftovers?

She was still stashing a fastidiously initialed brown bag in the Bureau staff kitchen fridge each morning, as she had been in the habit of doing at Quantico.

Dana Katherine Scully, you’re hardly a schoolgirl anymore, she told herself.

Perhaps it was time to graduate to lunch in the cafeteria, like one of the big kids.

Mulder nibbled on his inescapable sunflower seeds. Rental car cup holders. The top drawer of the basement desk. The bottom drawer, and the middle. Even loose, once, inexplicably, in her suitcase when she arrived home from a three-night case in Iowa. They were everywhere, pervading her entire life with their woody scent and their easy charm just like the man who unceasingly consumed them.

He was close, now, his knees spread wide and swinging with casual rich-kid confidence as he began to lose patience with his anonymous NASA tipster. Scully kept her stockinged legs primly pressed together, her well-lined heavy linen skirt draping over her kneecaps, preserving her modesty. His fingertips brushed her own as he handed her the informant’s note, and she was glad of the excuse to break his gaze, to look down and away from his face; the inevitable thrill she was coming to know so well shooting through her body from tip to toes.

When the Space Program whistleblower did arrive, it was a she; a development Scully could well have done without. Especially one as… developed as this.

Long and lean, blonde, finessed; Michelle Generoo looked exactly like the full-sized version of the girls Scully imagined Mulder growing up with on Martha’s Vineyard, summering in Rhode Island, picnicking on lush lawns by sparkling waters while she herself played hopscotch with scavenged pebbles on Navy base blacktop, or avoided cracks in uneven paving slabs as she skipped along in hand-me-down pleated skirts and fraying hand-knitted sweaters. This was probably exactly the WASP-y horsewoman type Mulder’s parents had always envisaged him marrying, with her tweed jacket and her long silky locks and her mirror-lensed aviators.

Not a squat, pale, Irish Catholic Navy brat with full cheeks, wiry russet hair and stubborn freckles that were probably popping exponentially with every second spent sitting in this sunshine. Who still brought homemade sandwiches to work.

Michelle Generoo: Mission Control Communications Commander for the Space Program in Houston. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me now, for I must have sinned, and am being punished with the early-afternoon arrival of Fox Mulder’s ideal woman, sent from heaven to enact my own personal hell.

Scully hated this feeling: this creeping sense of little sister inferiority. It was the mid-semester first day at a new school all over again, having been transplanted with her father’s latest deployment; Bill laughing and joking with the jocks or the prettiest clique of girls he could find, she hiding with a book in the library. It was enviously watching Melissa tame her curls into elaborate braids when all she could manage was a stubby ponytail with lumps at her crown, aged seven, twelve, twenty-nine.

What was it about prepubescent inadequacies that made them so infuriatingly unassailable? Successfully reinterpreting Einstein and near-perfect pistol qualification scores had only ever compensated for so much.

At the mention of a fiancé - a Shuttle Commanding astronaut fiancé, no less - Scully relaxed somewhat. For once, she was glad that Mulder’s particular obsession with certain matters of the universe was a little less than impressive to the casual observer.

Mulder disappeared off into the city on some unspecified errand, and sent her back to the Hoover Building to arrange flights and accommodation, agreeing to meet her at the airport.

On the plane, he seemed disappointed when she didn’t want to read his brand new copy of NASA: A History of American Space Travel, and peppered her with trivia instead.

“Did you know, all twelve men who walked on the moon agree, the surface smells like spent gunpowder?”

“Oh really,” Scully said. “And what did the women say?”

Mulder looked a little uncomfortable. Having made her point about why she might, perhaps, feel a little excluded from his spaceboy enthusiasm, Scully pondered this fact.

“They can’t remove their helmet on the moon; there’s no atmosphere.” She countered. “How do they know what it smells like?”

“From the dust left over on their spacesuits,” Mulder was clearly happy to be able to inform her.

Scully frowned at him.

“You think they’re so cool, don’t you Mulder?”

He looked personally injured. “Scully, how can you be the one person in the universe - a physicist, no less - who doesn’t think space travel is cool?”

She turned her torso in her narrow seat to face him.

“Mulder, when I was five years old, for Apollo 11, I was just as excited as you are now. My older brother and sister and I followed the news of the mission; we watched the moon landing just like everybody else. Bill and Melissa dressed up as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for Halloween that year; they made me be the Stars and Stripes so we could all pose for photos together. I had to stick my arm out and wobble the flag. We were just as space crazed as anyone. And over the years, as the missions continued, I read everything, I mean everything-” Mulder nodded, he could surely believe that of Scully at any age - “and I found out some trivia of my own.”

Mulder titled his head, curious.

“You know, a spacesuit is a sealed environment. It has to be airtight, right?”

Mulder nodded.

“And spacewalks last between five and eight hours on average.”

Mulder was listening intently.

“Well, there’s… nowhere to… go. When you have to go,” she gestured euphemistically. “And in a zero-gravity environment - or any environment, in fact - you don’t want to just relieve yourself inside the suit.”

Mulder frowned.

“So they wear these… things. It’s called a MAG: A Maximum Absorbency Garment,” she enunciated carefully. “You just… let it go, and it… absorbs it.”

Mulder looked perturbed.

“So basically, underneath that cool, space-exploring exterior,” Scully continued, “you’ve got a bunch of highly trained, hero-worshipped men - and now, women - floating around wearing adult diapers.”

Mulder swallowed hard.

“You know, I have a little brother. Charles. When he was still wearing Pampers I would watch my mom changing him, and I’d smell those foul odors and witness the frankly terrifying contents in some detail, and I just - I could never look at astronauts in the same way again after I found out about the MAG. I don’t know, it just ruined it for me.”

Her partner sat back quietly in his chair, more than a little disturbed.

Scully smiled at him weakly, and decided to take a nap.

On the tarmac in Houston, the cabin lights, dimmed for landing, switched back to full brightness as the seatbelt indicator dinged off. Mulder sprang out of his seat, already reaching up for the overhead bins to retrieve their luggage.

Scully sat calmly with her forest-green briefcase on her lap, not willing to pointlessly stand for ten minutes while the passengers in rows A-R filed interminably slowly up the aisle, huffing and checking her watch as though that would change the physics of the aircraft and hurry anything along.

No, patience had always been her friend; she would await her turn peacefully, could wait for anything forever, so long as she knew for certain it was coming to her.

Alighted, they bypassed the checked baggage carousels, Mulder carrying the suitcases and Scully toting only her leather satchel. The pair walked to the Lariat desk, where Scully hung back, and Mulder flirted with the smiling clerk working the night shift.

In the car, Mulder questioned her again about the arrangements.

“Intercontinental, Scully? It’s probably the furthest possible airport from the Space Center.”

“...and all requisitions would let me book at such late notice. The flights into Hobby were almost double the cost. It would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.” She signalled right, checking both directions.

“Are we heading further North, Scully?” Mulder asked, checking the constellations through the windshield.

She tsked and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “It’s late. If you want to make all future travel bookings, be my guest, Mulder. But as it stands we’ll stay up here tonight, drive down for our eight-thirty a.m., and stay down there from tomorrow.”

At the mention of the morning meeting with Lt. Belt, Mulder brightened, and stuck his head back in his book for the remainder of the journey to their motel.

When they arrived at the Spring Creek Mercury Motorlodge, she threw him a look. A warning shot.

Don’t say a word, Mulder.

The motel took shabby to a whole new level: the paintwork was more chips than oil-based matte; the blown bulbs outnumbered the working ones, the woodwork of the bare-bones portico looked like it should have been condemned alongside the Rosenbergs.

The sign on the office door declared, ‘Desk open 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. ONLY ring bell outside of opening hours for ABSOLUTE EMERGENCIES.’

Scully checked her watch. It was approaching midnight. A handwritten Post-It stuck at an angle underneath read, ‘Scully booking, rooms # 8 & 12. Doors open. Keycards inside.’

“Always nice to experience that famous Southern hospitality,” Mulder deadpanned, peeling the note from the glass. They moved along the walkway, counting up as they went.

The door to number eight was propped barely ajar with a rotting two-by-four. Scully could see the square of exposed woodwork where an old lock mechanism had been removed: replaced by a newfangled electronic keycard system. She ran her eyes over the crumbling porch roof and thought, Really? This is where they chose to invest their refurb budget?

Mulder pushed the door open for Scully and held her gaze as she stared at him momentarily. He looked like he was about to follow her into the room.

“Thanks,” she gulped, taking her suitcase from his hand.

But he stayed put outside, grabbing the handle to pull the door shut, double checking their plans for the morning. “See you at seven-fifteen then? All checks complete and ready to strap ourselves into the command module?” He grinned.

Scully dropped her case onto the bed and sighed. He was going to be insufferable tomorrow.

***

After showering, hanging up her burgundy pantsuit for the next day, then losing a fight with the room’s overactive heater, Scully unravelled the tightly rolled pink satin pajamas from her suitcase. You get fewer wrinkles if you roll rather than fold, her mother had taught her.

Stepping into them, she could already feel herself perspiring lightly, and wondered if it would be better to do without the pajamas or the comforter. Her mind flashed to the various possible emergencies that might see her fleeing her room in the middle of the night: a fire, a tornado, an intruder.

Keep the pajamas, lose the comforter, she decided.

But she suspected she’d need more to keep herself cool. She remembered passing an ice machine a few doors down, and grabbed a metal bucket left on the dresser for just such purposes, tucking her keycard into the breast pocket of her nightwear as she went.

She was so warm and the ice machine was so close, she didn’t even bother with shoes as she tiptoed the few feet along the walkway. The machine hummed and clanked as she lifted the front and noisily plunged the bucket into the crisp, dry cubes.

Ice.

The Arctic Ice Core Project. Alaska. A sparsely appointed supply closet. Mulder crouching down to her level and hissing his balmy, furious breath directly into her face.

I don’t trust them. I WANT to trust you.

He’d been angry and sweaty and ripe, and it had been the two of them against the others. They’d made what felt like a binding pact, whispering conspiratorially; sealing it with their laying on of hands.

If she’d been asked prior to that about the most intimate part of a person’s body, she might have given the same answers as anyone else. Reproductive organs her studies had given her medical names for. Mammary glands meant for feeding young but warped by western culture into symbols of sex and shame. Perhaps the cushiony swell of the gluteus maximus, so favored by jocks, and creeps in bars.

But she’d finished that case on the Icy Cape with the discovery of more than a new species of worm; she’d learned for the first time about the deep, heady, overwhelming intimacy of touching another person at the back of the neck.

Jesus, she’d already been so wet when he’d grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back to inspect her spine. She feared her unguarded gasp had given her away. And when he’d brushed aside her hair and lain his whole palm against the nape of her neck, awaiting the telltale wriggle of the homicide-inducing parasite, it was she who had squirmed beneath the hot, unrelenting pressure.

Oh god, what he’d be able to do to her with those big, strong, capable hands.

Alaska at that latitude had average winter temperatures of less than zero degrees Fahrenheit. November on the North Slope saw little more than three hours of sunshine a day. They regularly experienced impenetrable blizzards that could freeze a person to death in under an hour.

But when Dana Scully thought of the Icy Cape, all she could feel was searing, blazing, pulsing heat.

She filled the ice bucket, slammed the machine shut, and carried her personal cooling system back to her room, balancing it on her hip like an infant as she swiped the keycard for entry.

She got a red light.

Furrowing her brow, she swiped again.

Red.

Again.

Red.

Sighing her frustration, she ran the card through the slot several more times, resting the bucket on the floor and jiggling the handle as she tried over and over for green, listening for the buzz of the latch electronically pulling back.

Nothing.

She threw her hands up in the air and tried twice more to no avail.

She looked about her for assistance, finding none. No one was about. She started off towards the office and slowed as she reached the door. She re-read the sign.

ABSOLUTE EMERGENCIES.

Well, she couldn’t get into her room. Surely that was an emergency. She pressed the bell and waited, but no one came. She pressed again, and again, nothing. This was ridiculous. She tried once more with the bell, and after two minutes, sighing furiously, strode back along the walkway, her bare toes starting to go numb. She’d successfully cooled off, at least.

She continued past room eight, doubling back to try the lock three more times then kicking the door with great vexation before jogging up towards number twelve, wrapping her arms around her breasts to warm herself. The ice bucket stood sentry, dripping condensation.

She lifted her knuckle to knock on Mulder’s door, then hesitated slightly. She stole a glance down at her pajamas. They were not thick, and clung to her curves, puckering at her bare nipples. Mulder had seen her wearing far less - had checked her for mosquito bites clad only in what her maternal Grandmother would have called her smalls on their very first case - and remained professional, but that had been a rare exception, borne of her neophyte panic. She worked so hard to be taken seriously, to be seen as a colleague and an expert and a peer, and not as a sexual object. It was hard to project an air of authority in pastel pink satin with your breasts announcing themselves to anyone within five hundred yards. But Jesus, it was freezing out, and she had to be up and dressed in less than seven hours. She wasn’t about to spend a frostbitten night out in the cold and give herself hypothermia for the sake of avoiding a little embarrassment. She was a fully grown woman; Mulder, a fully grown man. They were both adults here. They could be mature about this.

She knocked, hugging her chest again afterwards.

Mulder opened the door still in his shirt and tie, although his jacket was hung over the desk chair in the corner. The NASA book lay face down, open on the bed. He chewed on one of his infernal seeds.

“You okay, Scully?” he asked, frowning. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Couldn’t get back into my room,” Scully explained, huffing. “I went out for ice and my… the keycard doesn’t work.”

“You should ring the bell for the owners,” Mulder suggested, unhelpfully.

“I did,” Scully said, pointedly. “No answer.” She looked up at him and pressed her lips together apologetically. “Can I come in?”

“Of course, of course,” Mulder said, standing back to let her enter. He stood with his back to the door after it was closed. “You can sleep in here; it’s no bother. I’ll crash on the floor.”

“Thank you,” Scully said, perching on the desk. Mulder sat himself on the end of the bed and gazed over at her.

“You cold?” he asked.

Actually, Mulder’s room was as toasty as hers had been, and her toes were already thawing out.

“Warming up,” she said, thankfully.

“Just that you’re… hugging yourself,” he explained, gesturing at her arms, still clamped across her unsecured bosom.

“Oh,” she said, self-consciously, but let her arms drop slowly to her sides, gripping the edge of the desk with both hands for security. “I’m not… wearing very much, is all.”

“Oh,” he echoed softly, his eyes scanning the length of her nightwear all the way to the floor and back up again. Yes, she was certainly feeling some heat once again.

“What you are wearing is… very nice though.” His eyes settled on her own for a few seconds, then flicked down to her breasts, and she inhaled sharply, silently, she hoped in retrospect. When he looked back at her face, her mouth was hanging slightly open, and she caught herself, licking her lips for discipline, her chest heaving. He looked down again.

She felt her cheeks burning, and averted her eyes to the book on the bed, a change of focus for her mind, which was racing with thoughts of candlelight and shower-wet hair, of thermal shirts and platonic supply closet fumblings: Mulder and his fingertips the common denominator in these scenarios.

She forced herself to look back at him. He was comfortably staring now, his face giving nothing away, but she knew he was quite aware she’d seen him appreciating her exposed form. He was leaving this up to her.

She wrestled with her conscience.

She shouldn’t do this. They were partners. It was against Bureau policy. It was unprofessional. It could ruin her career if it ended badly. Worse, it could come between her and Mulder, drive a wedge between them and prise apart their newly cemented friendship.

But…

She thought of Oregon and hands and Alaska and ice, and she knew what she wanted.

You’re hardly a schoolgirl anymore...

She stood up slowly, wordlessly taking a few steps towards Mulder on the bed. Yes, they were both fully grown, and she had some very adult ideas about what they could do together.

She paused one or two paces from his knees, and held his gaze for a moment. She let her lips fall open once more, her breathing labored, and she saw his breath was keeping pace with her own.

She thought of Michelle Generoo, and of her own jealousies and insecurities, and second guessed herself momentarily. She’d always suspected she wasn’t Mulder’s type. Yes, he had moments ago brazenly taken in the sight of her nipples brushing against the silky confines of her pajama top, but he was a red-blooded straight male, and they had been right there, still standing at attention from her time out in the cold. And yes, he was looking at her intently now as she crossed the room, the propulsion of months and months of unverbalized, unresolved sexual tension at her back, but his expression was blank, and he might be nervously wondering how the hell he was going to abort this mission.

There was one way to be sure. He had done his fair share of looking; it was her turn to be brazen.

She dropped her gaze to his lap, seeking a different kind of green light.

In the dim glow coming from the slightly open bathroom door, she found exactly what she was seeking. The bulge that tented Mulder’s pants cast a promising shadow. She was go for launch.

She took another step, and found his eyeline once more.

His pupils were dilated, his lips pillow-soft and pouting, the ridge growing noticeably larger even in her peripheral vision.

She reached down for his left hand and brought it to her breast, pressing it against herself over the pajamas.

“Make me see stars, Mulder,” she whispered, breaking into a lazy smile.

His momentary expression of disbelief gave way to a grin, and he looked up at her with reverence. She let go of his fingers, dropping her arm to her side once again, and his palm moved with feathery softness over her breast, centering her nipple in the smoothest spot, where you’d clutch a baby’s fist, or a prized possession. The heat of his hand radiated through the satin, the friction of skin on fabric even more erotic than direct contact. Their gazes were locked. His mouth fell open a fraction, mirroring hers, and he raised his other hand to work both breasts, his fingers held up and away from her body as he traced circles with her hardened peaks against his deep volar arches. She closed her eyes and moaned, low and soft, letting her head fall backwards. Her knees went limp, and Mulder steadied her with one hand, docking her at the hip.

His grip sent shockwaves to her core, her pulse now strongest between her legs. She knew she was already leaving a damp mark on her pajama bottoms.

She lifted her head back up and looked down at Mulder, still seated on the edge of the comforter. They panted together in the quiet, each awestruck by the other, and Scully reached up to her top button, deftly pushing it through the opening with her delicately manicured fingertips. She did not avert her eyes from Mulder’s as she worked her way down to her waist, finally letting the shirt hang open at the front.

She took his left hand once more and tucked it inside the front panel, his massive palm easily encompassing the entire fleshy mound there. He squeezed her hip gently, cupping her and pulling her towards him at once, guiding her between his knees. Checking her eyes for continued consent, he brushed the center of her shirt to one side and revealed half of her chest to his vision for the first time.

“Oh, Scully,” he said in a hushed voice, and - permission silently granted by Scully’s hungry gaze - lifted his mouth to her nipple and latched on, sucking, circling his tongue around her hot, pink bud. She moaned again and grabbed the back of his head, twisting her fingers into his hair, her nails scratching at his scalp.

His mouth broke contact with her delicately pale skin, and he pushed the satin from her shoulders, letting it whoosh to the floor.

He was gazing up at her again, and she leaned down to kiss him now, finally allowing herself to experience in the flesh that which she had longed for, imagined, fantasized about for some time. Their lips met; wet, fervent, ravenous. Their shared craving drew them together, suctioning them to one another at the mouth as though they could consume one another entirely, and meant to. His salted breath mingled with her own, and their tongues tangled and danced. He ran his hand up her naked back, and her breasts pressed against his collarbone.

He pulled away, and she held the side of his face tightly to her bare chest, breathless, eyes closed.

“Scully,” he ventured, “are you sure about this?” He looked up at her with his soft, beautiful, hazel eyes. She didn’t know what had possessed her for so long, being able to resist those eyes all these months.

She straightened up, and took his hand once again, reaching behind herself to slide it down the back of her waistband, over her rounded ass, and into the molten cleft of her body. She spread her thighs as his fingers found her desire, parting and probing her on their voyage of discovery. He dipped a single digit inside her body, and she exhaled on a low moan.

“I’m sure, Mulder,” she murmured, smiling again. “Take me to the moon and back.”

He relaxed a little, his shoulders dropping, “Oh is that the game?” he teased, “Space puns?”

She shrugged playfully.

He smiled wide at her, or she thought he did; it was hard to see with her eyelashes fluttering closed. Her head dropped back once more as he pumped into her, his thumb resting fortuitously against the base of her perineum, that dark, forbidden, blissful spot. She felt alive, animal, raw. She let her breath come out ragged, allowed her rasps and moans to escape unbridled. Mulder paused his efforts for a second or two, leaving two fingers curled inside her, using his free hand to yank down her pajama pants. She helped, kicking them loose from her ankles as he grabbed a handful of her ass with his spare hand and pulled her toward the bed, reclining face up on the mattress and encouraging her to crawl on her knees up to his shoulders and sit back. Only then did he remove his fingers from inside of her, and her body sucked at them as he did, protesting their departure.

Scully was giddy with want, and Mulder looked up at her just then with such veneration that her heart burst with renewed affection for him. She’d never been made to feel more worthy in her life. This was so Mulder. She had not specifically realized it before, but this was how he often made her feel, in his best moments.

At the insistence of his hand pressing gently on her lower back, his fingers sticky with her own yearning, she lowered her sex to his mouth.

As soon as his velvet tongue met her clit, she cried out, almost lifting herself up on her knees at the shock of it. He held her steady, lapping at her hardened bundle of nerves with the flat of his tongue, softly at first, then applying more and more pressure as she sunk further down onto him, his chin pressing up into her heat, her slick juices gliding her inner walls against his light stubble. Oh Jesus, it was divine, and she called out his last name as she rode his face, her breath hitching in her throat as her trajectory was set to climax.

Scully chanced a glance downwards and saw that he was watching her in her ecstasy.

She was wanted. She was valued. She was enough.

She smiled down at him, not halting her movements, and reached up to pinch her own nipples with her dainty, expert hands. Mulder groaned his pleasure into her body, sucking and licking and holding her down so she could not get away.

“Fuck,” she gasped, and was lost; her face lifted to the heavens, her body and mind spinning and soaring in concupiscent formation, her voice clamorously invoking two thirds of the Trinity with various, stertorous monikers as she rocketed into her own private orbit.

Mulder massaged her hips and kept his chin tilted up into her as she twitched and panted and called out for God, and she felt her inner muscles contracting around his way-past-five-o-clock shadow. The humid air of his heavy breath rushed from his nose, tickling her pubic mound as his lips remained clamped over the hood of her clitoris. She exhaled the last of her shudders and sat back on her haunches, resting on his solid pectorals, running her tongue over her lips, wetting them with exhausted delight. Mulder’s chin glistened in the dim room, drenched, and she laughed, reaching down to wipe him off.

He let her, but then caught her by the wrist and held her soaked palm against his mouth, kissing it, hard, and smearing the residue of her arousal all over his lips once again. He licked them clean, unblinking.

She buried her face in her other hand and laughed shyly.

Mulder chuckled along with her, resting his hands on her still-spread thighs, his thumbs dipping close to her parted labia. She bit her lower lip and looked him in the eye once again, unable to hide her happiness.

“Luckily, out here, no one can hear you scream,” he joked, a question in his eyes suggesting he was worried he might not get away with this, and she pushed him away teasingly but giggled as she climbed off the bed. She picked up her pajama pants from the floor.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Mulder asked her as she stood up.

“I’ll be right back,” Scully responded, flinging the bottoms over her shoulder and sauntering off to the bathroom, looking back at him to make sure he was getting a good look at her receding form. “Don’t move.”

She glanced down at the enormous bulge in his pants once again, and knew she needn’t worry. He wouldn’t be going anywhere with that thing.

She returned a few minutes later, now wearing the satin pants, and sporting a dark gleam in her eye as she crept across the carpet towards him. When she reached the bed, he leaned up on his elbows and reached for her to pull her onto the bed, but she shook her head. Instead, she reached for his belt buckle and deliberately undid it, sliding the leather through the metal loop before reaching for his fly. As she unzipped his pants, Mulder lifted his hips, and his erection bounced up, pushing the flaps of the zipper to either side, straining against his boxer briefs. This was one shuttle she wouldn’t mind watching blast off, and she was ready to fire up the booster rockets.

She helped him remove his pants, then tugged at the waistband of his underwear. He removed it and lay himself back down on the bed, looking almost anxious.

“Mulder,” she reassured him. “Relax; I want this. I want you.” She whispered the last part, lowering herself to kneel at the foot of the bed.

His manhood loomed large, worryingly large for such a petite person, but Scully had never met a challenge she didn’t want to face. And face it she did; this hard, quivering invitation to wantonness inches from her mouth. He smelled like the Mulder she had come to know, only stronger here; that musky, spicy pheromone blend that brought her to her knees - now, finally, literally - and she breathed him in with abandon.

She gripped him in her hand, taking his tip into her mouth, sweeping her tongue around the head of his cock as he exhaled forcefully. She slid her closed palm up and down the base of his shaft, letting her saliva drip down to lubricate her ministrations, then working him further into her jaws so that the top of his penis rubbed just against her soft palate. She bobbed her head against him. He filled her mouth easily, and she thought of all the times she’d surreptitiously stolen a glance at his lap. Her curiosity had been satisfied, and then some. He was every bit as big as she’d always suspected, and her small oral cavity made for a snug fit as she worked him into a frenzy on the bed.

He clutched at the covers and murmured her name, encouraging her efforts all the while. He slowed her at one point, just managing to explain through his moans that he wanted to enjoy it a little longer, but his thighs were soon flexing again and she accelerated her pumping with her fist, sucking a little harder, working the tip of her tongue against his popping veins.

Mulder reached out and grabbed at her shoulder, clumsily pushing her back. “T-minus... T-minus five seconds and… and counting…” he sputtered, and she risked another tongue swirl, another deep thrust towards her throat.

“Scully!” Mulder choked out, and she pulled her mouth away. She kept her hand in place and he wrapped his own around it, working his erection skillfully as he delivered his impressive payload over their ten conjoined fingers and down onto his stomach. A coy smirk plastered itself across Scully’s face as he collapsed back onto the bed.

She raised herself from the floor, rolling her neck from side to side, and grabbed the box of tissues that was sitting on the nightstand. She held them out and sat on the mattress, one foot tucked under the opposite thigh, her breasts sitting proudly on her chest with the pert insouciance of youth.

Mulder cleaned himself up and aimed the balled up tissues at the wastebasket, missing. He sighed, but didn’t get up, so Scully laughingly dragged herself over and retrieved the errant missiles, dropping them into their intended target. She returned to the bed and lay herself down in the crook of Mulder’s arm.

He kissed her temple, a peck, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead, then lifted her chin with one finger so that he could plant a full kiss on her mouth. She breathed in the scent of herself on his lips, their musky scents intermingling on both their tongues.

“Wow Scully,” he smiled. “That was fun.”

She nodded, grinning herself.

“Although, it was a bit of a close encounter, if you know what I mean,” he said, and she buried her face in his shoulder and laughed, any residual worries she’d had about this changing the fundamental nature of their relationship flying away on her huffing breath and disappearing into the vacuum of the mattress.

Mulder lifted his head. “Oh god, it’s past two,” he announced. He must have been checking the display on the alarm clock. “You should get some sleep Scully; you gotta drive us down to the Space Center in the morning.”

“Hey, it’s your turn,” she whined, sitting up and pulling the covers back to climb beneath. Her pajama shirt lay forgotten on the floor. Tornadoes and fires be damned, she’d already had her ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY for the night. It was too hot for more clothes, especially with Mulder’s intense body heat so close. And she did intend to hold him close tonight. And other nights, if he wanted her.

“Talk about a waste of taxpayer’s money, Scully,” Mulder droned, sitting up and shaking himself alert. “The two of us sharing a motel room while another sits empty.”

“Oh,” Scully replied sleepily. “Believe me, I’m demanding a refund on my room.”

“Demanding a refund, Scully?” Mulder queried, now folding his pants and setting them on the chair by his suit jacket. “You weren’t happy with the level of service you just received?”

She squinted one eye open to look at him. “Mmm, you? You did good, Mulder. I’ll be sure to leave a generous tip for you at check out.” She patted the mattress next to her.

“I’ll be right there,” he assured her, disappearing off into the bathroom.

She was asleep before he even turned out the light.

***

Scully had witnessed Mulder ejaculating for the first time at the Spring Creek Mercury Motorlodge, but she genuinely worried she might see an impromptu repeat performance when they arrived at the Space Center the following morning. Walking to their meeting, they bantered for the benefit of their NASA escort, Mulder practically bouncing off the walls and once again bombarding her with facts and figures.

“You remember all that stuff?” she asked, wearily, suppressing a yawn.

“You never wanted to be an astronaut when you were a kid, Scully?”

“Guess I missed that phase,” she sighed, mouthing ‘adult diapers’ at him behind their guide’s back.

She couldn’t help but make fun of him for his adulation of Lt. Belt, either. “Didn’t you want to get his autograph?” she teased as they left the Space Shuttle Program Director’s office, and when Mulder caught up with her he tapped her lightly on the ass in retaliation.

At some point in the afternoon, Mulder slunk off and made some phone calls, and when they drove to their accommodation after the successful launch that evening, it wasn’t the motel Scully had booked but a ritzy hotel with bellhops and room service. They finally made it back there in the middle of the night, following the complications with the mission and Lt. Belt’s questionable press conference.

At the reception desk, Mulder retrieved two keys, but when he held one out to Scully and she grasped her forefinger and thumb around it, he didn’t let go. She looked up to meet his smoldering gaze.

“What’s the matter Houston; do we… have a problem?” She managed to keep a straight face, just about.

“What do you say we waste some more taxpayer’s money tonight, Scully?” he grinned, his voice hushed, seductive. “Maybe we can cross... the final frontier?”

She halfheartedly rolled her eyes at his pun, but her insides were already aflame. She drew her mouth into a tight, shy smile, and nodded her agreement.

nb. I want everyone to know that I watched the Falcon 9 launch and I managed to refrain myself from using the phrase ‘good orbital insertion’ in this fic. And that was a struggle.

AO3 link here.

#xfsmut2020 #mulder and scully #mulder #scully #the x files #x files #x files fanfic

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safestsephiroth · 3 years

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Nioh 2: A Preliminary, Incomplete Weapon Analysis

I’ve been playing Nioh 2 since its release on PC Friday (48 hours logged), and while I haven’t beaten the base game yet, I’ve finally done 3 of the 4 weapon skill tier unlocking missions. (The 4th tier is unique per-weapon, the first 3 are generalized.)

I’ve been going a bit of an underpowered generalist build to get a feel for every weapon type, with a focus on the newer ones. However, I have not completed this objective by and large. There’s too many weapons, and my stats are split too wide, so the weapons that HEAVILY focus on one stat (Axe, Dual Swords) are suffering for it.

That said, I’ve got a decent feel for multiple weapons.

I’m halfway through Chapter 4 at the time of this writing.

The list of weapons, my thoughts on each, and what I’ve discovered of note so far below:

SPECIAL NOTE: Blessed/Yokai weapons are categories that are in every single weapon tree, and it seems there’s several of each per weapon.

Blessed weapons are a fucking phenomenal answer to every Yokai threat, they’re incredible. A++. They’re a free fast-stacking status effect that makes getting Chaos damage buff extremely easy as long as you have a spell of an element the target is weak to, and they make shattering Yokai ki gauges super, super easy. I very highly value them, but they’re somewhat hard to actually get ahold of in my experience.

Yokai weapons are extremely good against human targets, and have a gauge that fills a little bit every time you land an attack. When it’s full, the weapon “awakens”, has a cool voice line, and then you can go to town and do a big burst of damage. Personally, while this is good, I find you can’t really rely on it and about half-and-half it pops when I don’t need it anymore (last attack in a fight, etc.) That said, it’s a very good tool for when you get your ass beat by a boss and want to redo the fight a few times - you can make the others practice runs and have the fight where the weapon pops off be the “real” attempt. It makes learning strategies a lot easier to pull off.

General points to keep in mind: Weapon types that are ki-dependent feel much improved in Nioh 2, because ki regeneration on the whole is easier.

Also, I’ve invested significantly (24-ish points, which, for a generalist save is pretty significant) into both ninjitsu and onmyo, so that’s being factored in to some of these.

Also also, I cannot recommend enough getting the skills which let you restore ki with a dodge ASAP. They’re all vital.

One final note: I plan to do multiple save files where I specialize on two weapons per save file, and at most two hyper-specific builds, along with my primary (respecced to focus on my “favorite” weapons) save. I’ll be doing this for multiple clears of the base game’s base difficulty so I can decide which to push into NG+ and beyond with. And I’ll be looking guides up after I beat the game.

Now, the proper weapon categories:

Sword: I find Sword boring. However, I’ve learned that iai builds are much easier to put together in Nioh 2, so I’ll be trying to do that. Maybe that’ll change my mind. Sword has everything you need, and none of the stances are trash, but I have little to say about it besides this. Seems equally good against everything.

Dual Swords: they feel good, it feels like the animations were cleaned a little bit to feel even better in Nioh 2. I haven’t done much because they require lots of Skill and that’s my second-lowest stat. (Har har.) Seems fine against everything, but better at shredding larger targets with elemental damage.

Spears: I like Spears WAY MORE in Nioh 2 than I did in the first Nioh. Fatal Thrust (the spear’s charge) feels WAY better than in Nioh 1, and way more worth it. Piercing Rain (high stance multi-hit) is a great status applicator, and the root of Spear’s theme seems to be zone control. Your ability to knock people around and to hit both far and close is really good, but I find myself whiffing basic high stance combos more often than not. Mid stance is really the place to be with Spear. Plus, there’s a TON of mobility built into the kit, and the ability to knock back enemies when doing a ki pulse is really solid for the super aggro fist weapon revenants.

Seems best against large targets, though it absolutely destroys humanoid targets with lower ki, much moreso than most weapons.

Axe: I’ve barely touched Axe. My impression is that it’s for tanky builds that don’t care about dodging and want to smash things. That’s about all I’ve got. It’s good if you want to specialize hard into it, I think.

Kusarigama: The first weapon on this list I LOVE. It’s got some insane mobility with Serpent Strike (blade hook-yourself-or-them-in). If you need to duel an AI and can only win through cheese, this is the weapon and combo of choice. You can chain stuns if the initial attack hits for as long as your ki holds out, and you can safely dodge away once it does.

You have great options for breaking horns in every single high stance guard ability, you have excellent control with the mid-stance AOE light attack ability “whirlwind”, you have excellent mobility using your hook skills and phenomenal range from it as well. Biggest weaknesses are how exposed you’re left if you whiff a hook and, sometimes, stamina costs. Well worth it.

Kusarigama is great against everything, but it shines as a killer of ranged bosses (dodge AOEs with gap closers!) and single human-types.

Odachi: Odachi feels like it’s got a significant upgrade. Its greatest weakness once was its speed, and Twin Moons (high stance ability that allows for a quick triple-hit) fixes that RIGHT up. Mid stance heavy attacks continue to be excellent ranged tools for dealing with short-range matchups, but I haven’t used it a ton so that’s about all I have for insights. Odachi’s pretty good against everything, though anything with breakable horns will really suffer against it.

Tonfa: Every single goddamned Tonfa move feels incredible. There are no bad moves in the kit, and nothing breaks ki as well as Tonfa. A blessed one makes it possible to smash ki on yokai even more effective, and it needs no help doing so to human targets that can’t spontaneously decide to break out of a stun chain. Demon Dance: Heaven (rapid attack spam out of a ki pulse) is so absurdly strong for breaking guards it makes a joke out of all revenants within seconds. You cannot lose a duel if you properly use this tool, excepting special NPC bosses, and even then you’re incredible effective against them. The ability to just dodge through them with ki pulses that then chain into a counterattack is so obscene!

Tonfa are amazing against everything, and make Revenants a joke. Anything where ki breakage is a priority, the Tonfa are a go-to.

Hatchets: First of the new weapons, and, in my eyes, least. I’ve barely used them for being too reliant on Skill to do meaningful damage. I’ll have a more comprehensive view later. As-is, with trash stats and basic skills, they’re awful. But I’m confident that changes later on.

Switchglaive: What if you had the ki-shattering power of Tonfa, with the longest range of any weapon that isn’t slow, and the combo-chain potential of Fists, all in the most edgelord package of the game? Switchglaive is possibly my favorite weapon. It’s not great early, but unlocking the ability to chain between stances makes clear the core identity of this weapon. You can mix things up however you need. Start in mid stance and chain low so you can get off a heavy attack before dodging out after a short exchange. Go low to high for a low-commitment start on a heavy damage chain you can easily break ki with. For high stance, light light heavy to use Mortal Retribution is an incredible combo for taking out ki on human targets, and I find it almost always can break guard on anything I use it on. It’s less perfect for larger yokai, given it leaves you vulnerable during the last part of it, but you can just use three mid lights into the stance-swap high heavy for Yokai and do absurd damage with fantastic ki damage potential, ESPECIALLY with a blessed Switchglaive.

Switchglaive is great against everything. It has everything you want. Range, mobility, chain attacks, and it doesn’t cost an obscene amount of Ki to use either.

Splitstaff: Poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke. But seriously, Splitstaff has a lot of potential, I just don’t use it that much. The ability to take short fights is really powerful, and its range is not to be underestimated. The ability to extend ANY attack by holding is really strong, and Fill the Void is a great space-making high attack that does meaningful damage on top of that. Against bosses, you can dodge damned near anything you need with that while still getting hits in, and nothing smaller than a miniboss-type at least can handle it.

Splitstaff is really good, but I don’t use it much because I find it too costly on ki and I also find its amazing AOE potential still doesn’t actually hurt that much and leaves you too immobile to do things unpunished.

Fists: The be-all end-all. The reason, more than any other, that I wanted this game. Fists are amazing at all points in the game. Fists of Reckoning is a great high stance combo chain early for punishing stunned yokai. High stance in general is fantastic. When leveling Fists, focus on abilities which are “at end of combo” skills. Every single first attack is a good engage, and every follow-up is even better. You have the ability to knock human-types into the sky, you have the ability to do insane parries, you can do running moonsaults (and dodge SO MUCH in the process), you can falling attack enemies with moonsaults.

You can chain counter-spam if that’s your thing. You can do an absolutely insane combo in the form of Beyond Infinity once you unlock it. You can use a mobile backdash-charge to dodge a ton of attacks that feels better than functionally the same move in Devil May Cry 5. You have everything you could ever want. Fists are the best. Fists are great against everything*.

And that’s it. That’s my incomplete impressions of every weapon so far.

*Note: Fists struggle against matchups where range is non-negotiable. Don’t fight enemies that take to the sky with your bare fists. They’re insane against revenants, almost as good as Tonfa at that. I highly recommend them, if nothing else, as a secondary weapon to followup on stunned Yokai. You won’t be disappointed with the results if you do it right.

#nioh 2 #weapon impressions #I love this fucking game so much

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mostfacinorous · 3 years

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GO Whumptober Day 31: Today’s Special- Torture [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]

“You know,” Crowley heard, as he slowly woke. “Every hunter worth their salt has a tracking device they keep on their person. And his led me straight to you. So tell me the truth: where is Mathias?”

Crowley opened his eyes to find himself in a mostly dark room, tied to a chair, plastic spread out on the floor around him, and floodlights hitting him right in the eyes.

There was a woman standing in front of him, arms crossed and looking both unimpressed and threatening.

“I mean-- I ate him.” Crowley answered, feeling a mite groggy, like he may have been drugged. The pounding in his skull backed up that theory.

“Oh, a jokester. Funny. Mathias is my brother, so I hope for your sake he’s around here somewhere.”

Crowley groaned.

“Mathias sent a child after me by lying to her about the source of her ma’s illness, and then he attacked when I turned up to help them, so I turned into a snake and ate him.” Crowley told her. “I’m not joking, and I’m awful sorry for your loss, though he was a bit of a prick.”

The woman looked less than pleased with that answer, and paced back and forth a bit.

“You wanna talk me through what you’re thinking, or would you rather wear a hole in that tarp?” He finally asked.

“Well, your eyes say demon, so that makes your story a little more plausible. I don’t want to believe my brother’s dead, because if I come home without him, my father will be furious.”

Crowley listened, nodding.

“So I suppose,” she continued, “My options are to take you back to my father and let you tell him your story, and hope I get let off the hook while he kills you slowly, a little bit at a time, or, I do it myself, here and now, save myself the trouble of the roadtrip with you, and know I’ll probably kill you off faster than he would, so it’s really sort of a favor, on account of how you’re right, and my brother was a prick.”

“Sounds like either way is pretty shit, as far as options go on my end.” Crowley quipped, and she huffed a little laugh.

“Shame about you eating him,” she responded. “I feel like we really coulda grown to like one another.”

---

Crowley swam in and out of consciousness for the next several hours, as this incredibly disturbed human woman made a game of removing bits of him and putting them in labelled mason jars.

It really was like some kind of parody of a decor show, the way she tied little ribbons around each one, and labelled them with what they were and the time when she removed them from him.

He had no idea where they were or how they’d got there, but she’d done a damn good job of making sure she wouldn’t be interrupted.

He’d yelled and cried and screamed as loud as he could, but it seemed like there were no neighbors around to hear, or care, or help.

And he had no idea where Aziraphale was. He wished he could call to him, though, reach him, ask for some kind of way out of here.

“So it occurs to me,” Amber said, for that was her name, and Crowley hated that she’d bothered telling him about her, because he sympathized now, a little.

“I haven’t had much opportunity to learn about demons, and how they react to things. For example:” She held up a bottle of salt. “I can make a circle with this, and you can’t leave it, yeah? But what happens if I just…”

She upended the bottle over his chest, slashed open and bleeding sluggishly as it was.

He screamed again as the salt began to dissolve in his blood and sting at the open skin.

She watched, dispassionately, and when he voice broke and his screams turned to little whimpers, she hummed to herself.

“I’d say that was about on par with a human, actually.” She noted. “Which is a real pity, I expected more… fireworks, or the like.”

Crowley twisted his wrist back and forth, trying again to work his hand free, but she laughed.

His fingers were broken; she’d done that first thing, so even if he could get free, the act of summoning a miracle would be even more painful.

“How about the old folklore fixes, eh? Silver? Iron? Garlic?”

“Werewolves, fairies, and vampires. Not me.” He answered her, voice rough from screaming and ruining his attempt at sounding cool.

“And how about holy water? Does that do anything?”

He croaked out a little laugh.

“Tingles a bit. Demons use it as hot sauce.”

He had loosened the duck tape around his wrist enough to be able to move his hand a bit, and he smashed it against the chair, forcing his broken bones back into some semblance of being hand shaped.

“Hm. Hot sauce, you say?” She asked, and he didn’t like that at all. He wiggled his fingers, braced himself, and summoned a miracle.

“Maybe I should go get you some, then. After all, you are being punished for having eaten my brother-- maybe keeping your mouth on a constant holy water drip will make the punishment fit the crime a little better.”

Crowley sucked in air, in too much pain to try and figure out how to talk his way out of that one.

“Did I hear,” A new voice said in the darkness, and Crowley felt his eyes filling with tears of relief, “That you are in the market for some holy water?”

Aziraphale stepped forward, looking prim and proper as ever, and he’d even pulled out his halo and wings for the occasion.

Amber looked up at him in awe.

“You’re an angel aren’t you?” She asked, and Aziraphale smiled.

“I am. And it seems you’ve captured my own personal adversary.” He flicked his eyes towards Crowley, and Crowley whined at the cold expression in them.

Oh, Aziraphale was pissed. And worse, he was righteous.

“Oh, did you want to get in on this? It turns out he ate my brother, so…”

“Were you aware,” Aziraphale asked, voice still light and sweet and casual, “That your brother had made a deal with devils? That your brother kidnapped me, and sold me to hell?”

Amber took a step back as Aziraphale turned to look at her again.

“What? No, I mean, Mathias was an arse, but…”

“Your brother.” Aziraphale said, advancing on her, “Was a monster. And so are you.”

Crowley could not actually see what happened, but he did see that Aziraphale did not so much as lift a finger.

Amber screamed and fell to her knees, her eyes bleeding, her mouth wide open and her tongue suddenly missing.

“Crowley, darling, I think you had better close your eyes.” Aziraphale warned him, and, when he’d obeyed, he could see the bright holy light that suddenly shone throughout the room even through his closed eyelids. It stabbed into him and set his head off again, and he whimpered.

Just as fast as it began, it ended, and then Aziraphale was there.

“Alright, here we are, I am so sorry. Come on, let’s get you out of here, get you healed up.”

“What-- what did you do with her?” Crowley asked. “She was just-- her and Mathias both, their dad…”

“Oh, I know.” Aziraphale told him. “I sent her body back to her father, covered in writing that tells the entire story of their awful line. No further children will be born to them. The old man will see his daughter, read my letter, and then never see again. And whatever monster he is running from will finally be able to catch up.”

Aziraphale’s voice echoed with a sort of certainty, a knowledge beyond what they knew, and Crowley realized he was tapping into the weapons available to angels in the most extreme of circumstances. The sorts of weapons he’d have been given back in the beginning, back when it was a very real war, and he’d been set out to kill demons like Crowley.

Instead, now, he was using those powers in defense of a demon.

“I don’t think heaven’s gonna like this too much.” Crowley told him, head lolling as they moved, and suddenly Crowley realized he was being carried.

“I don’t give two fucks what heaven does and doesn’t like!” Aziraphale said hotly, but sounding more like himself. “I won’t let anyone take you from me again!”

Crowley smiled at that, even though, as they crossed out of the darkness and into the sunlight, his headache flared up, and all the moving was jostling the salt in his chest wounds.

He was woozy and in and out of it, and Aziraphale got him laid out on the grass by a roadside, the day crisp and bright and lovely, and Crowley felt cold and vague.

“That crazy bint killed me, didn’t she?” He asked, and Aziraphale’s eyes flashed, brighter even than the noonday sun.

“Not if I’ve anything to say about it.” He answered. “I am so very sorry,” He added, softer and sweet.

Crowley sighed, trying not to tense even though he knew what was coming next.

Or, he thought he knew. Aziraphale had done some laying of hands on him before, once or twice, and it was terrible for them both each time. They both suffered when they went about helping one another that intimately. So he tried to prepare for more pain.

What he felt instead, though, was Aziraphale’s hand on the side of his face, and then his lips on his, and he was kissing him back to life.

And somehow, it didn’t hurt.

It was like being dunked suddenly into a cold pool, a shock to the system, unpleasant, but bracing. He felt alert again, like he’d just woken, and he felt the pain in his chest going away, the throbbing in his fingers ceasing as everything straightened out and reknitted itself, pieces regrowing and reattaching and healing.

And Aziraphale was kissing him.

When he was done, Crowley chased after his retreating lips, panting and confused.

“That didn’t-- it didn’t hurt me at all. Did it-- are you alright?” He demanded, sitting up and reaching for Aziraphale to catch him in case he fainted from the efforts.

But Aziraphale just smiled.

“When God said she wanted us to be closer,” He said, sounding, finally like himself, “I suspect this is more what she had in mind.”

“You mean I could have been kissing you since winter?”

Aziraphale laughed and helped Crowley to his feet.

“If we weren’t so scared, I would say we could have been kissing for much longer than that. But, yes. I don’t think we’ll have any problems with healing one another any longer.”

Crowley felt tears coming to his eyes again, and he grabbed hold of Aziraphale and held onto him tightly.

“Let’s go find somewhere that’s quiet.” He requested. “Somewhere out of the city. You bring your books, I’ll bring my plants… and with any luck neither of us will have to heal the other ever again.”

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale said on a sigh, “That sounds delightful. How do you feel about the south downs?”

“If you’re there?” Crowley told him, as he reached to pull him into another kiss. “Better than heaven could ever be.”

#GO Whumptober2020 #Good omens fic #aziraphale #crowley #bamf!aziraphale #happy halloween!#whumptober #the end #that writing thing I do

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lady-divine-writes · 4 years

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12 Days of Blasphemy: Day 2 - Eastern Star (Rated NC17)

Summary:

Crowley and Aziraphale both have scars - battle scars, punishment scars, scars of ownership. But now that they're free of Heaven and Hell, they only want to belong to themselves and each other. So Aziraphale comes up with a way to cover those scars, and brand them as lovers.

Notes: NSFW. Written for the '12 Days of Blasphemy' prompt 'Eastern Star'. To my knowledge, the Order of the Eastern Star are free masons. I didn't want to go that route, so I chose the interpretation 'Star of Bethlehem' from the Gospel of Matthew. And in the grand tradition of stories that ran away from me, this one is longer than expected. But meh. XD

Warning: This fic is about scars and covering them with branding. That means heat and metal, but also a quill. There's mention of self-harm but nothing in this story is gory, graphic, or explicit. But bear that in mind. Also, sexual content.

Read on AO3.

“There,” Aziraphale sighs, slowing his hips, unraveling his rhythm, settling his weight on the back of Crowley’s thighs. “All finished, my dear.”

“It’s finished? Or you’re finished?” Crowley moans into his crossed arms.

“Take a look,” his angel invites, lifting up carefully and rolling onto the bed beside him. Aziraphale looks well and thoroughly fucked out – eyelids barely staying open, limbs limp, in no hurry to cover himself, so not a care in the world. In his hand, he holds a metal plate, engraved with pictures and symbols. It’s pitch black, so cool to the touch. If that’s the case, then Crowley is right.

They’re both finished.

Crowley peeks over his shoulder and grins contentedly at the mark seared into his skin. It doesn’t burn anymore, not now that the oppressive metal plate has done its job. It never really hurt. Crowley just complained in an attempt to get sympathy from his angel in the form of praise and kisses and a longer fuck.

To be honest, the intense heat turned him on.

“How does it look?” Crowley asks. He didn’t go into this sight unseen. He saw the iron stamp when Aziraphale created it, approved of the image before they tossed it into the fireplace to heat. But Crowley craves praise. He came making love and is thoroughly satisfied.

But he’s a selfish beast. If he can finagle a little more, he’s going to take it.

“Glorious!” Aziraphale says breathlessly. “Absolutely stunning!”

“Now, are you remarking on your artistic skills, or …?”

“Possibly …” Aziraphale smirks “… but an artist is really only as good as his subject. And his tools.”

“You’re lying! No artist in the world has ever said that!”

“I’m an artist and I’m saying it,” Aziraphale pouts. “Besides, my dear, you make an exceptional canvas.”

And there it is. The praise he was longing for. Crowley bites his lower lip, rests his chin on his arms.

“I love you, you know,” he admits, looking not at Aziraphale, but at their reflection in the mirror – the two of them together, lying side by side.

“I know.” Aziraphale rolls closer, cuddles into Crowley’s side, making a silent demand for an arm around him. “Now everybody knows.”

“It wasn’t much of a secret, angel,” Crowley says, shifting on his side and obliging.

“True. But for the longest time, it was something others saw more clearly than I did.” Aziraphale takes his lover’s hands and threads their fingers together, runs a thumb down the long fingers that helped sear him as well. He winds their arms together, Crowley’s pale skin wrapped over fresh marks on Aziraphale’s arms that make up the intricately carved scales of a black serpent. “Now, that’s changed. And change is good.”

***

They come up with the idea naked in bed after making love, which is when the best ideas come. When passions cool but the need for touch remains, they start comparing scars.

So many scars.

Aziraphale has more than Crowley. Battle scars, yes, but also punishment scars - some Heaven inflicted, others self-inflicted. Crowley can’t tell the difference unless he touches them, uses his power to divine their sources.

They look so much the same.

Aziraphale could have healed them, but he left them as reminders of whom to trust, whom to love.

Whom to obey.

Crowley has similar scars, but the majority of his, he’s miracled away. He likes his human façade too much to leave it damaged and besides, he doesn’t need reminders.

He doesn’t want reminders.

Hell had their ways of reminding him daily who he is and what he’s worth. No need to wear it on his skin.

Now that he and Aziraphale are free of Heaven and Hell, he has better reminders.

Some of his scars, he’s unable to get rid of, or even cover. The power that created them was too strong - several on his back in particular, where his wings were ripped from his body when he Fell.

Those will never go away.

Aziraphale traces them with his fingertips, dancing lightly along the outlines of the ragged bruises flush against the spot where his demon wings emerge, fascinated by them the way children often explore the taboo. Or perhaps he’s imagining that this is how his own back will look soon if he continues like this.

An angel falling in love with a demon is unheard of. He’ll surely be cast down eventually … right?

Crowley chooses not to dwell on it. Instead, he shuts his eyes and absorbs his angel’s touch, surrenders to how good it feels to have him caress a part of himself that he exposes to no one. He doesn’t notice when Aziraphale’s fingers skate over his shoulders and down his arms, exploring smaller scars, lighter scars.

Scars a bit more perplexing in their origins.

“Did you … do these to yourself?” he asks so innocently that Crowley can’t conceive of lying to him.

“Yeah, well … you know … maybe,” he stammers, pushing up onto his elbows and reaching for a shirt to throw on.

To hide them.

“Why?”

Crowley’s eyes snap to Aziraphale’s arms, to the fading silver whip marks there. “I think you know why.”

“You don’t like them,” he states plainly.

“Why would I?” Crowley says, his question rhetorical, biting with shame.

“Would you object to covering them?” Aziraphale steps forward, reaches out but leaves a gap between them, offering Crowley comfort but giving him space to turn him down. “To me covering them? You could … cover mine as well.”

Crowley tilts his head, intrigued but unwilling to admit it. “And how would I do that?”

“A tattoo?”

“Tattoo on you?” Crowley shrugs. “Might fade.”

“I don’t want it to fade. That’s not the point.” Aziraphale glances around, searching for a solution amongst the items in the room. They’re in a demon’s bedroom, after all. There has to be something in here that will leave a mark.

Aside from Crowley’s bed, a small table, a large dresser, and a fireplace, there’s little else.

Aziraphale stares into the fire, watches the flames hop and swirl, listens to the popping wood, eyes the metal tools in their stand on the hearth.

For the life of him, he doesn’t know why he thinks of it, but once he does, it fills his head, strikes him as a logical solution. A wonderful idea.

Insane, but wonderful.

“You can give me a brand! A-and I’ll brand you!”

Crowley’s face pinches. “Like cattle?”

Aziraphale frowns. “No, not like cattle! Humans do it.”

“To slaves.”

Aziraphale makes a face. He’d somehow overlooked that. “Yes, but, that’s not the sort of brand I’m thinking of. Believe it or not, it was quite the trend back in the day.”

Crowley laughs, to stall more than out of amusement. “Now which day was that, angel? Because we’ve lived thousands of them.”

“I used to see young men and women come into my shop with brands all the time,” Aziraphale continues, refusing to be deterred. “Some of them were quite extraordinary.”

Crowley sighs. Aziraphale isn’t going to let this go. “Are you sure that’s something you want to do?” he asks softly, taking Aziraphale’s offered hand in his and reaching for his other. “I don’t think Heaven is going to look too kindly on you wearing a brand from a demon.” He pauses to let that sink in. Aziraphale has a tendency to act on a whim, not consider the consequences. If Crowley had a pound for every time he’s pulled Aziraphale’s neck from the gallows, he’d be a rich demon – far and away richer than he is now. If Heaven hasn’t cast Aziraphale down yet, this might be the tipping point. “You know what a brand will mean, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Aziraphale says, staring purposefully into Crowley’s face as he does, “or I wouldn’t have suggested it. Oh …” Aziraphale’s eyes go wide and Crowley thinks it’s finally hit him. Saying it out loud must have done it, caused him to reconsider the severity of what he’s asking for. Now he’ll change his mind, thank Someone. And Crowley will agree because they will have dodged a bullet. A big one.

So big, he won’t even tease him over it.

Much.

“Are you afraid that other demons will think that you belong to me? In the servant sense?”

Nope. No such luck.

But oddly, Crowley discovers, he’d have been disappointed if Aziraphale had changed his mind.

“I do belong to you, angel. In all senses. And I don’t care who knows it. Mark me up all you want. But, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me.”

“Yes, I can.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Why does Crowley have to make everything so difficult? “No you can’t. I’ll prove it to you. Do me first.”

Disappointed or not, Crowley finds himself backing away. “I … I don’t know. That seems … wrong.”

“Wrong? How can it be wrong, my dear, if it’s what I want?”

“I don’t … I still … I mean …”

“Do this for me?” Aziraphale’s soft beg silences Crowley cold. “Please? I’ve belonged to Heaven for so long now. Don’t leave their mark on me. Replace it with one of your own.”

Aziraphale’s eyes meet Crowley’s and hold them. Crowley isn’t wearing his glasses. They’re both still naked. There are no barriers between them. Together like this, flaws exposed, scars unveiled, could be the most vulnerable they’ve been around one another.

It’s the most vulnerable they’ve been around anyone, even the sides that owned them.

And they were owned.

There’s no love lost for Crowley. He had no illusions that Hell and its demons were some sort of family to him.

But for Aziraphale …

He was kept prisoner by the hands of God Almighty Herself. She’d tasked Aziraphale to spread love to her favored creations, but how much love did She show him in return? She all but forgot about him on Earth, left Her goons to terrorize him, and yet he still fought for the greater good.

Her greater good.

Her ineffable plan.

But he’s free now.

They’re finally both free, and yet Aziraphale still wants to belong.

To him.

Crowley feels the same except in his mind, he’s always belonged to Aziraphale.

Here’s one of many chances he has to show it. By giving Aziraphale something he wants. Something no one else can give him.

Crowley nods. “Okay, angel. Okay.”

***

Marking up an angel is a tricky business.

Heaven has their methods.

So does Hell.

In both cases, they’re meant to inflict as much pain – or humiliation – as possible.

Crowley doesn’t want to hurt Aziraphale, and he definitely doesn’t want to humiliate him. He wants this to be a positive experience. A bonding experience. Sharing their scars with one another has brought them closer together.

This has the potential to bring them closer still.

Crowley doesn’t want to use a knife on Aziraphale. Or a needle. Those seem like crude instruments. Impersonal. Plus, they wouldn’t be able to handle the fire he’ll need to leave the marks he’s planning on making. He could use his fingernails, but as personal as that would be, it also seems violent. He wants a device, like a tattoo gun, or a paint brush.

Or a pen.

How about a quill?

He unfurls his wings and plucks out a single feather. His feathers are strong, and coming from a demon, a perfect vessel for fire.

Crowley lays Aziraphale out on his bed and starts with his back, covers the scars there with constellations – ones he’s created, that sparkle in the deep indigo of the night sky; and ones that were merely thoughts in his head when he was tossed away.

While he works on those, perfecting his technique, Aziraphale busies himself manipulating the iron – Crowley’s fireplace poker, may it rest in peace – that will become Crowley’s brand. He molds it with his fingers, bends it using strength and holy fire. When it’s finished, he tosses it into the fireplace to heat while Crowley moves on to his arms, etching into them scales that cross over the angel’s shoulders so it appears he’s carrying a serpent with him always, draped protectively over his arms, its tail ending on the back of his right hand and its head on his left with an apple in its mouth.

Aziraphale sees it covering his flesh without a single scar visible and he glows, overjoyed.

“How do you handle heat, my dear?” Aziraphale asks when the two switch places.

“I am a demon,” Crowley quips, stretching out on his bed like a jungle cat, beyond satisfied that he could bring his angel so much happiness, “so pretty well, I’d assume.”

Aziraphale reaches a hand into the flames and fishes out the metal plate. He barely needs to shield himself from the heat. The magic embedded in the marks Crowley gave him protect him from the fire. He grabs the plate about the edges and lifts it out. The black metal glows a fantastic red as he displays the relief to his demon. Aziraphale grins at Crowley’s resulting surprise. “We’re about to find out.”

Aziraphale zeroes in on the spot he wants to cover, but he doesn’t just set the plate on it and let that be that. He turns the process into a ritual. He takes ownership of his demon’s body while he brands him, pressing the hot metal to his shoulder while he indulges, making love to him slowly, with the longest strokes he can manage – a feat which requires every ounce of his self-control. When Crowley comes and Aziraphale is spent, what’s left on Crowley’s shoulder is a pair of angel wings surrounding a flaming sword, and above that, a star divided into nine rays of holy light - the same star that led the Magi to the manger of the infant savior. It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference, but one which, after Crowley explained it, Aziraphale adored. The Magi left their homes, their kingdoms, and followed that star in the hopes of finding Jesus Christ so that they could worship him.

Crowley would travel any distance, do whatever it took, to find and worship Aziraphale.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #12 days of blasphemy #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #frankie writes

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katsens-writing · 5 years

Text

Play It Again

Summary: Aziraphale is a little under the weather and very stubborn, much to Crowley’s frustration.

A/N: Speaking of again, I did it again! This was supposed to be just a short little simple fic but now I’ve got two made-up characters with a backstory rooted in true history. Go figure. Anyway, I saw a headcanon awhile ago that inspired me to write this story. You can check it out here! If you are interested in joining any of my taglists, let me know, its no bother at all! Shout out to @goodamens for letting me use their headcanon for my inspiration! (Check out the other note after the story!)

Word Count: About 2.5k

Content: Mild illness, implied bittersweet memories, soft Crowley, stubborn Aziraphale, an implied scared plant. Let me know if I need to add anything!

---

The phone rang at the front of the bookshop and at Aziraphale’s desk but no one answered it. It rang and rang and rang, to no avail. Less than a minute later, Crowley burst through the front door.

“Aziraphale? Aziraphale?!” he shouted, panic creeping into his voice and his heart racing. He searched row after row of books, but he couldn’t find the angel anywhere. No. Not again. Please, not again! He thought.

“Crowley?” A weak voice called from the back of the shop, coming from a room marked ‘employees only’. The demon’s heart sank at the sound.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley called, rushing to the back and through the door to Aziraphale’s little flat. “Where are you?”

A small cough came from Aziraphale’s bedroom. “In here, dear boy.” Under any other circumstances, Crowley would have hesitated but something didn’t sound right with Aziraphale’s voice. He dreaded what he might find on the other side of the door.

It happened, he thought, his heart beating faster and faster while everything else slowed down. It finally happened. Hell’s found out. Or Heaven. Or both. They- they’ve caught up with us! He braced himself and opened the door without a second thought.

“Aziraphale!” He cried, tensed up and ready for a fight. His eyes darted wildly around the room. When he saw the angel was alone, he straightened, his muscles relaxing a little before he furrowed his brow. Before his heartrate could even begin to slow, his relief was quickly replaced with irritation as his gaze fell on the angel, lying unharmed in his bed underneath several blankets.

“You picked a hell of a time to sleep in, angel! You didn’t call, didn’t answer the phone! Next time maybe give me a--” he took one look at the angel as he stomped in and frowned, his frustration fading and an undertone of concern taking its place. “What’s wrong?”

Aziraphale’s face was a little flushed and he had tiny beads of sweat all across his forehead. He struggled to sit up and face Crowley properly. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, dear boy. I heard the phone ringing, but I just couldn’t get myself out of bed to answer it. I’m afraid I’m feeling a little under the weather.” Aziraphale sneezed into a white, cloth handkerchief with a pair of wings embroidered into the top corner.

“I can see that,” Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Just miracle yourself better already so we can get on with our weekend.”

“Nonsense, Crowley. It’s just a cold, I’ll be fine.” Aziraphale sniffed as he dismissed the angel’s words. “All I need is a little rest.”

“Nonsense? Who’s the one talking nonsense? I’m the one making sense here!” Crowley argued. “Did you forget we were planning on visiting Pompeii this weekend?”

“No! Of course, I didn’t forget!” Aziraphale’s eyes widened as if he were hurt Crowley would even dare suggest the thought. “I did hope though, that maybe we could reschedule?” Aziraphale looked up at Crowley hopefully with those big, pitiful, blue eyes that Crowley hated.

“Why reschedule when you could just make yourself better and we could go now?!” Crowley asked, getting frustrated again.

“Because it’s just a cold, Crowley! Humans have been dealing with colds for centuries. I’ll be perfectly fine without wasting a miracle,” Aziraphale replied before sneezing again.

“Wasting a miracle? Are you really still concerned about what Heaven will think of you using your miracles on stupid things?” Crowley arched his eyebrows in surprise behind his sunglasses. “Aziraphale, I thought we agreed that it’s a little too late to care about what our sides think,” he turned to the angel and lowered his glasses to look over them at him. “Not that using a miracle to take care of yourself is stupid, by the way. I thought we talked about that after the Bastille.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer but Crowley interrupted him. “No, you know what? Fine. It’s fine!” Crowley shrugged in mild exasperation as he pushed his sunglasses back up into place. “If you don’t want to use a miracle, that’s ok, I’ll use one.” Before he could even lift a hand, Aziraphale stopped him.

“No!” He cried, before going into a coughing fit. Crowley blinked, pulling back a little in surprise. He was no doctor, but that cough did not sound good. “I forbid you from using a miracle to make me better, Crowley,” Aziraphale forced out, furrowing his brow once he stopped coughing, his voice a little strained. “It’s just a cold. I’m going to let it run its course, and with a little rest, I’ll be better in no time.”

Crowley scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I see what this is. You’re trying to punish yourself, aren’t you? You think you deserve this because we messed up Armageddon or something? Or because you’ve been ‘fraternizing with a demon’? Well fine. You want to be sick, angel? Go ahead and be sick then, but I’m not going to take care of you!” He turned on his heel and stormed out in a huff, muttering something about that darned angel. Aziraphale just shook his head tiredly at Crowley’s tantrum before sliding back down under his covers. He knew the demon would calm down eventually. He always did.

Crowley came by every day to check on Aziraphale and ask him to use a miracle, but he kept his word and refused to help the angel... or at least he tried to. Aziraphale only seemed to be getting worse and Crowley was beginning to think it wasn’t just a cold. Within two weeks, he was practically on his knees begging the angel to use a miracle.

“Please, please angel, just use a miracle already!” Crowley pled with Aziraphale. He hated seeing his angel sick like this and he really was starting to worry. “Or at least let me use one!”

“No, Crowley. I told you, it’s just a cold. I’ll be fine.” Aziraphale sniffed before sneezing so hard he nearly doubled over in bed.

“Please?!” Crowley almost whined. “Your bookshop needs you!”

Aziraphale’s brow pinched faintly. “Bookshop?” his watery eyes flicked to the demon with a small frown. “What’s wrong with the bookshop?” Aziraphale was aware that Crowley had been opening the bookshop when he thought the angel was asleep, in spite of the demon’s vow to not help him. He supposed the demon reasoned that taking care of the bookshop a little wasn’t taking care of Aziraphale, so he was still keeping his word. Aziraphale was quietly amused when he found out.

“Wrong?” Crowley’s eyes widened and his brow began to bead with sweat but he tried to play it cool. “Ah, nothing’s wrong at the- at the... what bookshop?”

Aziraphale shut his eyes with a little groan. “Crowley...”

Crowley shrugged his shoulders with nervous nonchalance. “I may have scared away a customer or two... or three...” his voice trailed off as he looked away from the angel awkwardly.

Aziraphale shut his eyes with a sigh. “Were you yelling at the fern again?”

Crowley scowled and narrowed his eyes. “It knows it had it coming.”

Aziraphale coughed into his handkerchief before falling back against his headboard. “I’m sorry dear boy, I just don’t think I have the energy.”

Crowley’s heart nearly broke seeing his angel like that. He hated it. “Well,” he asked Aziraphale with a deep, reluctant sigh, his brows pinched in concern. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley and smiled tiredly, but his eyes shone faintly in the dim light. “You know, I always loved to hear you play. I miss it. Could you play your violin for me?”

Crowley’s face stiffened immediately. “No, you know I don’t play that thing anymore.”

Aziraphale lowered his eyes and sighed with a hint of sadness, and this time, Crowley’s heart did break. “Yeah. I know.”

“Besides, I don’t have my violin anymore, you know that.” Crowley quickly added, trying to cheer up the angel. “Remember, I lost it in Georgia? You thought it was hilarious.”

Aziraphale chuckled weakly at that. “How I could forget?” Crowley opened his mouth to retort, but Aziraphale was wracked by a violent coughing fit. Crowley quickly walked to Aziraphale’s side and handed him the glass of water from his nightstand. He felt his eyes beginning to mist but he fought it back for Aziraphale’s sake. He rested his hand on the angel’s shoulder, his other hand ready to take the glass back if needed.

Aziraphale accepted the glass gratefully and took a drink. Once he finished, Crowley took the glass from him and returned it to the nightstand. Aziraphale let out a sigh and leaned back against his pillow. Crowley quickly looked at him with concern.

“Over there,” the angel lifted a hand and indicated a corner of the room weakly. His voice was scratchy and strained. Crowley walked over there without any question. He moved aside a few worn books and boxes and found an old, dusty case. He carefully picked it up and laid it down at the foot of the angel’s bed. He flipped the latches on the case and slowly opened it to reveal an equally old, dusty violin.

Crowley’s eyes widened as he gingerly picked up the instrument. With a gentle puff of breath, he sent up a cloud of dust into the air. Once it cleared, his eyes widened even further in awe.

“No- no, this isn’t,” Crowley shook his head dismissively. “It isn’t...” he looked up uncertainly at the angel and tilted his head. “Is it?” He didn’t dare think it could be. Aziraphale’s eyes glinted a little at the demon’s reaction. He just smiled in response.

Crowley’s eyes returned to the instrument in his hands. He softly ran his fingers across the violin’s smooth, red-hued wood. “The Red Violin,” he whispered, awestruck. He looked back up at the angel. “How- how did you ever--?”

Aziraphale coughed harshly into his handkerchief again. “Remember how you swore they were taking bets at the contest?” his voice cracked.

Crowley frowned. “Yeah, I couldn’t prove it but I knew they were--” he stopped mid-sentence and he turned to the angel, his eyes narrowing. “You didn’t.”

Aziraphale smiled sheepishly at the demon. “I was the only one who put money on Johnny.” Crowley’s mouth opened again but Aziraphale cut him off and continued. “I invested the money in some bonds. When I heard it was going up for auction, I just had to get it. I know it can’t replace your gold violin but--” the angel wheezed as he went into another even more violent coughing fit, hunching over. Crowley winced at the sound of his angel in pain, his heart breaking even more. He briefly closed his eyes against the moisture that was gathering along his lower eyelids. Once Aziraphale caught his breath, he looked up at the stoic demon. “I hope you like it.”

Crowley’s eyes watered as he lowered his gaze to the instrument and ran his fingers over the violin’s strings. “You held on to it for all these years,” he whispered softly, hoping the crack in his voice went unnoticed.

“I always hoped you’d play again.” Aziraphale looked up at the demon. His voice was softer as he got closer and closer to sleep.

Crowley swallowed the lump forming in his throat and he lifted his watery eyes to meet the angel’s blue ones. They weren’t as bright as they usually were, but they were still enough to make his heart skip a beat. He looked back down at the violin case and he carefully picked up the bow. He didn’t even need to ask the angel; he knew just what song to play. Crowley lifted the violin to his chin and the bow to the violin, gliding it smoothly back and forth across the strings like a tide coming and going with the waves, the soft, slow music filling the small back room of the shop. Aziraphale closed his eyes with a smile and listened as the beautiful music surrounded him, singing the words in his head.

“By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes, where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond. Where me and my true love will never meet again, on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.”

When Crowley finished all the verses he knew to the song, he closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped as he let out a sigh he didn’t even know he was holding. A tear slid down each cheek but they weren’t sorrowful. It felt so good to play the violin again, like he was rediscovering a piece of his life that he hadn’t realized he was missing. But he was missing it, quite terribly, or he had been at least, and it made him wonder how he had gone for so long without it. He chuckled softly to himself as he looked up at the angel. Aziraphale was resting deeply in his pillows, a small, peaceful and content smile on his face. Crowley thought the angel had fallen asleep so he was a little surprised when the angel spoke up as he quietly returned the violin to its case.

“Oh how I do miss Elorah,” the angel sighed softly. The red of his cheeks had lessened and he wasn’t sweating as much. Crowley’s shoulders eased a little when he noticed the improvements.

The demon smiled wistfully with a little hum. “Me too. She was something, wasn’t she? A regular spitfire.”

The angel huffed feebly in amusement. “She certainly kept Jonathan on his toes.”

Crowley’s eyebrows came together in a pang of sorrow. He scoffed in mild, annoyed affection. “Jonathan, that fool. Elorah never was able to cure him of his bull-head, try as she might.”

Aziraphale smiled sadly. “Yes, but he had a good heart.”

Crowley hummed in agreement. “Yeah. They must’ve been very proud of Andrew. He had his grandfather’s heart.”

“And his grandmother’s gift for music,” the angel added in agreement.

Crowley frowned in thought. “Do you know if... if they ever heard it?”

Aziraphale smiled, his eyelids half-closed. “Mmhmm,” he mumbled. “They loved it so much, although Elorah said it was missing some details.”

Crowley huffed in amusement. “Well, that’s probably for the best, considering. I still don’t even know how we--” he stopped as a gentle snore came from the bed. He looked over and saw the exhausted angel fast asleep, his cheeks only a tad bit rosier than usual. Crowley shook his head fondly at the sight. With a wave of his hand, he refilled the cup on the nightstand. He walked over and pulled the blanket up, tenderly tucking it around Aziraphale. He headed toward the door but stopped at the end of the angel’s bed. He stood over the violin case and looked down at it with a small smile before picking it up. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at the angel with a soft whisper. “Goodnight, angel.”

--- A/N: Do you want to what Crowley and Aziraphale were talking about at the end? Curious about who Elorah and Johnny are? Let me know!

Tags: (If you want to join any of my taglists, let me know, it’s no trouble at all!) @parkerspicedlatte @xmarveled @mischievous--misfit @myworstdays @khiroptera

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