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#protector of the plains
iowiymiw · 11 months
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like i’m not saying that they couldn’t have maybe furthered the tom/greg thing but if you really thought that tom’s relationship with greg wasn’t almost entirely projected on his relationship with shiv than idk what to tell you…. tom latching onto greg in the first two episodes because they are both the outsiders to the family with no power or leverage… him throwing water bottles at greg starting when greg says the words “business open relationship”… shiv telling tom to stop talking about going to jail followed by the neo and sporus scene… shiv saying she doesn’t love him followed by the neo-sporus betrayal… him feeling invalidated and by extension emasculated by shiv almost always follows in a scene between him and greg because that’s how he thinks he can get a feeling of power back and fill that shiv void, whether taking his frustration out on greg or serving as a friend or protector greg can count on, it’s always been about shiv first and foremost.
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aleroin · 1 year
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I'm doing my usual thing of spitballing while I work on pages. I'm gonna rule that word reaches Clan Alerion of what happened with Clan Sabrae shortly after 9:37. I have details to decide about Merrill's parents, but I know for certain that baba is immediately heading for Kirkwall to check on his girl.
he is totally her opposite in terms of appearance and presence. on the tall end for an elf, about 5'7". buff as hell. weathered. seen some shit and you can tell it in his eyes. has this imposing aura that makes him seem larger than he is. you feel small under his gaze even if you're heads taller.
first thing he does when he sees his girl is sweep her into a bone-breaking hug. then she's telling him everything that happened. he can tell that she's maybe not telling him everything and maybe not being objective, though, so he goes around getting the story from other people, too. Varric definitely has this absolute unit of a man knock on his door one evening.
Merrill's always gonna struggle with what happened. she's always going to have complicated feelings, misplaced guilt. but, I think baba is good at helping her recognize her accomplishments and fostering her confidence, especially as a leader.
#OOC / HOLLY.#I need a reason for why mamae doesn't come too . . .#there's something in my heart saying she has such a key position in Clan Alerion that she can't easily leave#Halla Keeper would make sense I think esp with that area being so inhospitable#for everyone but halla really are not adapted to it#maybe she oversees the oryx herds too#regardless the halla would need such specialized attention that she can't be spared for long periods#in terms of appearance she's closer to Merrill — who is 5'3" and a wet tunic away from 130#I tell you what tho mamae has stared down a wyvern before#that's how she met baba. their people were meeting and mingling#when one of her halla escaped the herd. he knew that area of the Silent Plains pretty well and is a protector#so he went with her. well they found the halla at the end of a wyvern's fangs#he was able to distract the wyvern to save the halla but uh. he got chomped#mamae stood between him and the wyvern. looked that wyvern right in the eyes. and didn't move until it dropped its head and backed away#she did what she could for his wounds until they got back; made an improv stretcher drawn by the halla; and took him home#he was in LOVE. he was like it's great you're taking me back to your clan because I'm not leaving#oh I'm gonna see your Keeper for healing? fantastic I can ask her about marrying you#say what are your Dalish marriage customs#'usually there's courtship first' 'I think we just did that' 'mmm did we?' 'I feel well courted'#. . . why am I doing this in the tags lmao
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blue-bubonic · 6 months
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hello ?!? hello …?!?!?
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tenderstatue · 7 months
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treated myself to a fancy recipe binder with coordinating recipe pages and dividers so I can't wait to write or print all my favorite tried-and-true recipes to have them all together and pretty
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supercutszns · 3 months
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Hi!! Just had to drop in and say I LOVED your Luke fic and I can’t wait for more. I would love protective Luke with hurt/comfort, if that sounds interesting at all. Thanks for sharing your writing!!! 🌸
fighting chance; luke castellan
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wc + pairing: 4.2k, luke castellan x daughter of ares! reader
synopsis: when an enemy takes advantage of your kindness during capture the flag, luke intervenes with a sword in hand.
warnings: a creepy boy👎, threats/harm to reader, she’s going through it, blood/injuries (nothing major), angry ANGRY luke, violence, lots of fluff/reassurance at the end<3
notes: thank you SO much for your kind words & your request!! hurt/comfort is my bread and butter my favourite fic genre of all time i think. & protective luke is just a bonus bc he’s already crazy so it can go as far as i want🤭 i’m not exactly sure what this turned into but if i fix it any more i'm going to go insane so hope you like it!
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You’re not much of a fighter.
That alone is a normal thing to admit—plenty of people don’t like violence, the frisson of a challenge, the bruises that come with them. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Unless you’re a child of Ares.
People at camp often ridicule your gentle nature when they see you with your half-siblings. They’re all gritted teeth and sharp edges, born warriors that take up all the space they can get. You, on the other hand, are lousy with weapons and even lousier with your fists. You’re quiet, attentive. While your siblings charge into battle without second thought you stay back, flitting around to adjust armour, change out weapons, oversee the terrain. Planning isn’t Ares’ style so you’re pretty much useless but nobody wants to admit it. You’re usually mistaken as a child of Hephaestus or Athena.
Unfortunately, you are a child of Ares, through and through—just in none of the ways that matter.
There are rare times your father’s influence peeks through. Not with bursts of rage or fists flying, but with thoughts. And sometimes those thoughts turn into words. Well, not sometimes. One time. This one.
The evening before the camp’s Capture the Flag game, every cabin gathered around the bonfire past dinner. To burn offerings, to chat, or in Luke Castellan’s case, to admire.
He watches you laugh with Clarisse from a distance. The Ares cabin leader always had a certain fondness for you. When Luke first started dating you he had to ask Clarisse for her blessing beforehand just to be sure she wouldn’t kill him. He’d do it a million times over just for the moment you look back, your face warming when you catch his stare. He rolls his eyes at you to lessen his smile, but he’s not sure it works. You giggle and turn back to your friend.
He’s always loved your softness; your capacity to defend and not attack. Your body rejects any skill you could possibly develop for violence. Believe him, he’s tried to teach you sword fighting, but the last time he gave you a lesson you nearly impaled yourself thirty seconds in. He loves your wit and your tenderness, your proficiency at preventing conflict, your refusal to argue. But a selfish part of him loves the fact that he’s your protector even more.
The night wears on with the flickers of fire and friendly banter. One of the times Luke looks back at you, his brows wrinkle. There’s a guy talking to you. A group of them, actually, but there’s one clearly leading the pack. Some Aphrodite kid. Luke’s jaw twitches.
“Hey, princess,” the voice makes you pull away from your talk with Clarisse, but you’re confused. Luke is the only one that calls you that.
“Um, me?” You ask when you see the boy in front of you. He’s tall, chest puffed out. It’s not an endearing silhouette. “What’s up?”
“You wanna be on my team for Capture the Flag tomorrow?” He asks nonchalantly.
You laugh politely, “Sorry, but I don’t think we’re allied with Aphrodite tomorrow. That’s your cabin, isn’t it?” You feel bad that you can’t remember—his face is so … plain.
He chuckles back, but it’s a lot less nice. “No, doll, that’s not what I mean.” He steps a little too close, and even though you know Clarisse is behind you it feels like she’s a thousand miles away. “Well,” he drawls, a smirk drawn out, “you meet me in the forest after we start, and then we can … you know. Confer.”
“Confer?”
“Yeah. You get what I mean, pretty girl, don’t play dumb.”
A revulsion coats your gut. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that,” you say as firmly as you can.
“What, pretty or dumb? Why not both?”
It’s demeaning, the way he says it, and it stirs a temper in your stomach you know you inherited from your father. You’re not big on confrontation. Or embarrassment. But this weirdo is talking to you out in the open and people are starting to stare. He wouldn’t dish it out if he can’t take it, right?
“I’ll pass on your offer. I have a boyfriend and I’m actually on his team tomorrow, so I’d rather confer with him, sorry.” Your hands wring together but you do your best to quell them, imagining it’s the string of Luke’s camp necklace, threaded between your fingers. You try to look for him out of the corner of your eye.
He snickers, even though it’s common knowledge you and Luke have been together for months now. “So you are dumb, huh?” He tries to smirk and you assume is supposed to be sexy, but it’s just gross. His hand tries to slide around your waist.
“Don’t touch me, please,” you hit his hand away. Your skin is crawling and the knot inside you tightens.“Just leave me alone. People are looking, you know.”
“We could go somewhere where nobody looks,” he sneers, and the grin on his face is so sleazy that you just can’t stand it anymore.
You pray to your father for strength. And to yourself for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, are you stupid or something? I told you, no.” You snap. “Maybe you’re the pretty dumb one, but for a child of Aphrodite it’s shocking how little the first one applies.”
His eyes are wide, and the posse he’d assembled behind him has attracted quite the view. You almost feel like crying, all these eyes on you, but you’re so sick of people thinking they can walk all over you just because you’re not like your siblings.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m just trying to be nice—” He grabs your wrist as you leave but you yank it hard.
“Don’t. Touch me.” People are staring at you now, but the only one you care about is Luke, who looks equally ticked and equally proud, and all you want to do is kiss him. “Hope the only time we confer tomorrow is if somebody’s sword is at your throat.”
It’s the last thing you say to him. He starts to go after you but Luke is already at your heels. “Back off, man.” You can spot how all his muscles are already rearing themselves for a fight. You wrap a hand around his wrist, and he meets your eyes. Not now.
The altercation is lost the second the two of you leave the bonfire. Nothing matters when Luke has you in his arms, kissing you outside of your cabin, telling you how damn beautiful you looked.
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You’re fixing a new Ares boy’s armour when Luke finds you. “Hey, angel,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. He relishes in the way your face heats up. “You ready for battle?”
You smile, “Always.” You pat the kid on the cheek and send him on his way. He gnashes his teeth and roars, joining his siblings at the front. Luke catches the longing in your expression.
“All good?” He asks gently.
It takes you a second for your eyes to meet his. “Mmhm,” you swallow. “Just hope his armour doesn’t fall off.”
Luke sighs for a moment, then wraps his arms around you. “He’ll be fine, sweetheart. Be safe, okay? Stay close.” He kisses your temple, rubbing circles on the nape of your neck.
“Yes sir,” you reply against his chest. His insides flutter.
He pulls your face up to his and kisses you, tender and wanting. “Let’s show these hooligans who’s boss,” he quips.
“You’ll show them. I’ll hide in the woods until some idiot comes along and tries to ambush you.”
Your dulcet tone has him wrapped around your finger, and you don’t even know it. “You’ve always got my back,” he croons, kissing your brow.
“And you’ve always got our flag.”
You kiss him again and he lets you slip out of his arms no matter how badly he wants to keep you there forever. He watches you vanish into the trees, and his heart goes with you.
He gears up with his team and the horn sounds. Game on.
There’s yelling, sweat, adrenaline, and Luke embraces it all like a man starved. This is his chance to be ruthless, to let all his untapped rage cycle through him. This is why he’s unstoppable. This is why he’s the best.
Clarisse is unusually cooperative today, but competent as always, and whenever someone’s weapon breaks or they lose their team she just barks at them to go find you. You, the smartest person in Ares, who can mend a weapon with nothing but blades of grass and determination. Luke is pretty sure your cabin would be lost without you. He wonders if you know.
The groove of the game has fully enthralled him. He’s alert, his wrist nimble, his sword a living, breathing part of him. There’s almost nothing that can take him out of his victory path until he hears one of the younger campers tell Clarisse he can’t find you anymore.
Whatever nincompoop he’s dealing with is left groaning on the floor. “What?” He barks, hand flexing around his sword. “Where is she?”
“Probably just moved,” Clarisse grunts as she kicks back an opposing camper. “She knows where everything is. Maybe she’s—oof—safer.”
“But how am I supposed to fix my spear?” The kid frowns.
Luke runs his tongue along the roof of his mouth, dry and laden with salt. He told you to stay close. Where would you go? “I’ll find her,” he decides, already sheathing his sword to walk towards the trees.
“Luke—”
“I’ll find her!”
He barely pays attention to the calamity going on around him. With a flick of his wrist he knows he can take out any person he wants. The second he gets to the trees, where the air is cooler, it’s startling how much quieter it is. No wonder this is your preferred hiding spot.
He thanks the quiet a thousand times over because if it had been any louder he wouldn’t have heard you scream.
It’s so short it’s almost indiscernible, but he knows it’s you based on how his body movies before his brain does. It snaps something in him, the adrenaline transformed into something acerbic, determined.
“Don’t fucking scream again.” A cluster of boys are stationed around you. You’re leaning back in the dirt. You barely feel the earth sticking to your skin. Just your heart jostling madly, your fingertips shaking in the ground beside you. “Okay, I won’t, just put the sword down—”
The snarling Aphrodite boy from last night takes a swing at you, and you scramble back just enough to avoid it. “No can do, doll.” His face is twisted with rage. The lackeys he had when you told him off are there too, cornering you against a cluster of trees like you’re some caged animal. There’s a dagger clenched in one of your dirt-ridden fists but you know it won’t do you any good. You can’t fight; you don’t have it in you. But these boys do. And they’re angry.
“Tell me where the flag is,” he orders. The tip of his blade comes under your chin, fogging up with the labours of your breath, your head pressed against the trunk of a tree.
You stutter, “You’re not—You’re not supposed to threaten like this—”
“You embarrassed me in front of all those people yesterday,” he cuts you off. “Thinking you’re so fucking smart. I didn’t even say anything that big a deal but you run your mouth to the entire camp and make me look like the idiot. I thought you were nice.”
The words are laced with poison. You know from the wild look in his eyes that this isn’t about the flag at all.
Tears sting your eyes and the sword grazes your throat. Of course this is happening to you. The one time you feel your father’s rage, when you exemplify the thing you’re told to be, you are punished.
You are never going to be the right kind of daughter.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you try to say it evenly, but your breath is so ragged it’s barely audible. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that.” You mean it, but they won’t care.
The boy’s face looks pleased at your tears. It makes you inexorably ashamed. “Some fucking Ares kid,” he snorts. “Can’t even fight, can you? Can’t even pretend to.” His sword leaves your throat and travels up to your quivering jaw. You’re wordless, white-knuckling the dagger at your side, praying that Luke is somewhere nearby.
“No wonder they stash you back here. You’re useless.” His eyes scan every part of you, and the idea of him knowing what you look like forever is so revolting it makes you want to vanish. “Too bad you’re alone, though. Nobody’s gonna know I was here because nobody’s gonna hear you.”
Your eyes get wide, and something in your mind rumbles through you like an engine. An urge buried in your blood.
Your dagger tears into his leg just as his sword dashes your arm. The pain is sharp, stinging, but the boy winces and you know you hurt him too. It gives you just enough time to roll out of the way as he lurches forward. “The fuck is wrong with you?” He swears.
Blood drips onto your shorts, splotched with tears. You know you can’t go anywhere because his friends are here and you’re almost certain you’ll be maimed, but you tried. At least you tried.
The Aphrodite boy picks his sword back up, stalks towards you, and then freezes.
Because Luke has just spotted you. And he’s spotted the boy that has you on the ground.
And he’s the best fucking swordsman Camp Half-Blood has seen in three hundred years.
“If you don’t get away from her right now I’m putting this through your skull.” He emerges from the foliage, his sword raised, sweat dripping down his face. You have never seen anyone look angrier. He has never felt angrier.
The boy blanches, and Luke sees how easily his lapdog friends shrink in his presence. Good.
“Woah, easy,” the boy holds his hands up in mock surrender and tries to flash a smile but it’s just fucking pathetic. His arms are shaking and his throat bobs about a million times. “We’re just playing the game.”
“Like hell you are,” Luke spits. “You gang up on my girlfriend and you expect me to believe this is fair play? Want me to tie you all together and push one of you off a cliff to keep the spirit going?”
“Didn’t know she was yours,” the boy tries to shrug but again, it’s a miserable attempt that only makes Luke feel stronger.
“Not that it matters but yes, you do,” Luke chuckles thickly. “I beat your ass in sword training last week. You know exactly who I am. And I’m sure you know who you are, so it’s obvious you’re playing out of your league here.”
Out of the corner of his eye he sees you still cowering, blood dribbling down your arm. He wants to tear the world apart. “Apologize and maybe I don’t send you to the infirmary.”
“We just want the flag, man,” the boy swallows.
“And I want your head on a stick. Want to see who gets what first?”
It’s too provocative an insult for a moron like this to ignore, so soon Luke has the pleasure of disarming five bitter boys that have clearly never been good at a single thing in their life. He tears through them like sheets of paper, knocking them to the dirt, ripping their clothes. He thinks of you, just you, your honest heart and patient hands, and it’s enough to fuel him for a millennia.
The last boy, the leader, is at Luke’s mercy, and he has none to give. The flat of Luke’s blade is pressed horizontally against the boy’s neck, an angering similarity to the position he had you in earlier. “If you ever do this again, I’m going to kill you.”
“You’re—fucking—crazy—” The boy wheezes, the length of the blade squeezing his throat against a tree trunk. “I’ll—I‘ll tell Chiron.”
Luke has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep him from doing something he regrets. “Oh yeah? You want me to tell Chiron how you harassed and terrorised a girl in the middle of the forest all in the name of play? Want me to tell him what you said to her last night at the campfire? Because I’m sure it won’t take much for him to get rid of your ugly face as it is, and I’m a camp counsellor.”
He knows it’s not the most morally correct use of his title. He knows he might be stepping over the line. But he also knows you’re always being ignored or trampled over and he’s tired of pretending like he doesn’t give a damn. He’s tired of people trying to force you into something you’re not. Of you crying in his bed at night because they’re trying to drag a violence out of you that isn’t there. Always in the name of fucking play.
Luke takes the sword off the boy’s neck and shoves him backwards. His calf is bleeding, not a deep wound, but a wound nonetheless, and Luke is full of pride when he realizes you did that. The boy’s bad leg makes him wobble and fall at the force of the push. Luke enjoys watching the scramble. “I—I was just trying to be nice, it’s not my fault she took it the wrong way!” The boy flails his hands in the air, rising to his feet again, and Luke shoves him down twice as hard. A piece of his shirt tears off in Luke’s hand.
“You’ve gotta stop talking or I really am going to kill you,” he seethes. “Don’t touch her ever again. Go.”
Luke is sure he looks homicidal right now because the guy finally tumbles his way down the hill. His body fades into the distance, swallowed up by shrubbery and sweat.
The second he’s gone Luke tosses his sword and armour and gets back to you. “Shit,” he mutters, kneeling down. You’re still shaking, your head in your arms, and all his hatred morphs into a love so desperate it terrifies him. “Angel, come here. Let me see.” He lifts your face with his hands and scans you rapidly. “Did he hurt you anywhere else? Anywhere?”
“Just my arm,” you whimper. “My arm.”
He knows it’s not the cut that’s hurting you; it’s long, but thin, and it’s not bleeding too thickly. He takes the cloth from the Aphrodite boy’s shirt and wraps it around your arm, knotting it at the end. “All right, that should be better.”
You look at him with watery eyes, and he knows all you need is for him to hold you. He folds you in his arms and leans against a stump. You can’t get close to him fast enough. The tip of your nose buries itself in his neck and he feels the dampness of your cheeks on his skin. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re safe,” he soothes, pressing a kiss to your hair. “I’m so sorry.”
Guilt swaths over him for a brief moment; he wonders if he shouldn’t have done all that, if he should’ve been more sensible. Then your lips form a ‘thank you’ against his skin and all is forgotten.
You feel so small. The shock is still running its course, so all you can do is cry it out. Your hands still shake when you thread your fingers through Luke’s necklace to steady them. He soothes you the best he can, running his hand along your spine, all the sharpness of his voice softened just for you. “You’re all right, angel. I’m not going anywhere.”
You stay like that for a while. The sounds of the forest return to you; leaves in the wind, birds chirping, Luke’s breath tickling your hair. You crane your head up to nuzzle your nose against the faint stubble of his jaw. “My hero,” you murmur, and feel his skin shift as he smiles.
“Couldn’t have done it without you. Saw the cut you gave him on his leg.” He kisses your temple. “I hope it gets infected.”
You giggle weakly no matter how you try smothering it in his chest. “Gods, you’re awful.”
“He deserves it! I probably should have killed him!”
“You came pretty close, didn’t you?” You mumble. Luke’s expression is wary, but you smile to yourself and it dispels everything. “I was hoping you’d come.”
“Good. Serves them right, messing with you like that. Fucking idiots.” He kisses your face again for good measure, “You sure they didn’t get you anywhere else, princess?”
You nod but you know you look wounded. You nudge into the crook of Luke’s neck again. “They … you know, it’s just … the usual stuff.” Every word weighs a pound as it comes out. Your heart feels sore.
Luke tenses again instantly. “What usual stuff?”
“Um, just—” The shame gets caught in your throat. “They all think I’m useless, Luke. Why can’t I do this right?”
You start to cry again, but he just holds you closer. Sometimes it surprises you how much patience he has. He prides himself as the harsher one between the two of you, but you don’t know who he’s fooling with the way he always knows how to comfort people.
“I don’t know what to do,” you continue, blinking back tears, “I’m not—I’m just not good at this, I don’t know why I’m in Ares, I don’t know why I can’t … be that. Why is he my father? I’m no good at being angry. I want to be angry.”
Luke’s quiet for a moment. Nothing changes except his hand rubbing circles on the nape of your neck again. Then he sighs deeply and says, “You don’t owe your father a damn thing. You don’t owe anyone anything.” He’s resolute, firm, a sharp contrast to his gentle kiss on your hairline. “You’re the smartest, most generous person I know. You need those people in battle. You’ll lose if you don’t.”
The warmth of his skin prompts you to look up at him. He looks different so often, the way he can shift between so tough and so gentle. Sometimes, like now, he’s caught in the middle, the remains of a furious sweat hardening his face, but his eyes are nothing but tender. You think it’s how you like him best.
“Besides, we’re not our parents, right? Who cares about Ares anyway?” Luke shrugs.
“Luke! Don’t say that!” your tears turn into a giggle. “The Gods might punish you!”
“I’ll handle it. There’s enough fight in me for the both of us.”
“Okay, tough guy,” you mutter with a weak smile.
You’re still sniffling. He runs his thumbs across your cheeks, and his gaze softens. “You’re an Ares kid because you are a fighter, angel. You just fight a hell of a lot smarter than the rest of us. Best one I know. Well, other than me.”
It makes you smile. “So second-best?”
“Tied for first.”
He kisses you with that stupid roguish smile. It’s salty with tears and sweat, but it mends your heart anyway. There is nowhere in the world you’d feel safer.
“I love you,” he says against your cheek. “Be as sweet as you want. If anyone has anything to say about it I’ll mess ‘em up good.” Your face warms as his voice drops to your ear, “And I know you’re an Ares kid because you’ll encourage it every time. You might not have a violent bone in your body, but you sure don’t have a problem with me using mine.”
“Diplomatically, Luke. Diplomatically.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you want.”
You can’t help but kiss him again. You’re not entirely sure why he loves you so much, why you love him so much, but you never feel quite as secure as when you’re with him.
Cheers boom from the other side of camp. Luke’s head perks up like a dog, and you turn back to search for spots of red or blue. “Did we win?” You ask, craning your head to get a better view.
“Don’t care,” Luke says.
You look back at him. His anxious face says it all. “Yes, you do.”
“Okay yes, I do, and I need to see if those douches found our flag so I can choke them out with it.”
You laugh, standing so Luke can jog off to see the state of your team. But before he goes, he picks you up and smothers you in kisses, holding you like you’re his prize.
You are not a fighter, but your boyfriend sure is. And you’re perfectly okay with that.
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borrowmyshovel · 1 month
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So. A transmasc child is dead. Assaulted by their classmates, left to die by school staff, misgendered and deadnamed by the press. And it's about fucking time we have a serious talk about the way we discuss transmasc victimisation - or rather, the way we don't.
The dynamic is especially evident in the way we talk about terfs, and exemplified by the dichotomy: "terfs recruit trans men, but they want trans women dead". This does three separate things:
It minimises the harm terfs do to the transmascs they recruit. Terfs don't just want transmascs to join them; they want transmascs to live as women. Coerced detransition kills. Suicide rates are extremely high among transmascs, and lack of support raises them further. To want trans men to detransition is to want them dead.
It positions trans men as a threat to trans women. As, essentially, terfs waiting to reveal themselves. What should be seen as a common enemy instead becomes a new vector for division. This fear is such that a common retort against transmascs who are seen as misbehaving is "you're gonna become a terf". Trans men are scrutinised for signs of this inevitable transformation, inundated with prophecies of their induction into the cult that wants to drag them back into the worst period of their lives.
It boosts the narrative terfs want to spread about themselves. Terfs love to say they are a safe space for transmascs. It helps them sound less hateful, and it helps them recruit. In reality, terfs are extremely hateful against transmascs they see as too far gone to be targets for recruitment. They see rape and hate crimes as just desserts, they wish death on transmascs who disagree with them, they talk about trans men on hrt as roided up monsters. And yet all of that has seemingly gone under the radar, because we're just not willing to acknowledge it happens.
More broadly, transmasc victimisation is seen as a joke. There was a hilarious post going around a while back about transmascs in abusive relationships with cis men who won't let them transition - the joke being on the transmasc in that situation. Multiple posts about specifically nonbinary transmascs, characterising their fears of transphobic violence as the oppression fantasies of privileged women, their experiences of dysphoria as laughably immaterial. No negative experience is serious enough once it's stacked up against murder, and trasnmascs who have been murdered aren't exactly in position to use that fact as a gotcha, are they?
There is a broad resistance to understanding transmascs as the victims of any situation. Part of it is a sort of trans-inclusive sexism: we don't think of cis men as victims, so we can't think of trans men as victims either. But they are.
Another is plain transphobia: dismissing trans people's experiences as not that bad, irrelevant to their trans status, or entirely fabricated is old hat at this point.
A third is a kind of... weaponised transfem advocacy? Any discussion of transmasc experience can be derailed by claiming transfems are somehow being harmed by it, and any harm that befalls a transmasc person can be dismissed by conjuring a hypothetical transfem who would have had it worse. And it sure seems like great allyship at the moment, despite the fact that it doesn't actually help transfems at all.
We often urge transmascs to be the protectors of transfems. Trans solidarity is crucial. But unless we are able to also conceptualise transmascs as needing protection, our solidarity will remain incomplete. And transmascs will continue to die, and be buried twice, both outside the trans community and inside it.
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tranceindia123 · 1 year
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Know How to add uniqueness and personality to bedrooms
Bed runners are a fashionable accessory for your bedroom. It was used in hotels but is now popular in home decor. The bed runner is typically laid across the foot of the bed, and is very decorative, uplifting the rest of your decor. Bed runners tend to be elongated and lengthy. These are affordable additions to a bedroom that can change the look entirely giving you a choice of being decorative and classy. Also, they make sure to add a touch of elegant flair to your rooms. At Trance Home Linen these bedroom runners capture the modern trendy transitional style and lend a classy stylish look to any room. Symbolic designs are displayed in warm, decor-smart hues and also create a decorative display. These give a luxurious comfort-soft feel underfoot.
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gutsby · 1 month
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Cabin Fever
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Pairing: Dark!Joel x Dark!Reader
Summary: Joel saves your life, but help comes at a price.
Warnings: 18+. DEAD DOVE: DNE. NONCONSENSUAL. I’m never ever beating the insane bitch allegations, I fear. Protector-turned-pervert-turned-unwilling-captor-kinda. Corruption kink. Daddy kink. Somnophilia. Misogyny. “It’s too big; it won’t fit” + Joel “I’ll make it fit” Miller. Captivity on both ends. Oral (f!receiving). Gunplay. Oversimplified first-time anal. Uno Reverse Drugging. Evil, inexperienced reader meets evil, feral, slutty Joel. Attempted murder x3. Russian Roulette…as foreplay?
Notes: Both characters SUCK. I condone nothing they do. Please do not take any of their behavior or language to reflect my own moral predilections. That is all 🚬😵‍💫
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You were hardly shaking at all when he’d found you chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains.
He didn’t see that every day, that was for-fucking-sure.
Joel Miller barely got to see his share of happy, grinning girls on the cold and bitter frontier he inhabited. Ones that were tied to posts and clinging to life were even less common, so the sight of you there had almost frightened him at first. He’d approached you like one might advance upon a sleeping bear: with the utmost caution and a Winchester Model 70 levelled directly at your head.
He’d learned you were unarmed and defenseless in less than a second. He’d come to realize you were largely unconscious—and unclothed—even sooner than that.
He had been industrious in freeing your hands and feet from their restraints but never uttered a word as he did.
Even on the two-and-a-half mile trek back home, he hadn’t spoken once. You’d hung off his left shoulder like a pretty, frosted slab of meat, covered only with the sherpa blanket he’d secured around your neck, and dangled precariously down his back for the entire fifty minutes.
Your toes were two shades shy of onyx with frostbite.
Your limbs were hanging like lead over his chest.
A whisper of, ‘You’ll be fine, darlin’, I promise’ had just seemed ill-suited for the circumstances and his nature. In truth, Joel didn’t know if you’d be fine. You might die. The blood wouldn’t be on his hands one way or the other, but he never had liked burying bodies this time of year. He’d have to wait until April to break ground, at least.
Presently, he dropped your limp form to the floor of his cabin and hoped he wouldn’t be needing to bury anyone.
You sort of looked charming in the firelight.
He stomped off to the kitchen and began rifling for pans, preparing to defrost the icy stranger as best he could.
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You didn’t die.
You didn’t wake for forty full hours, but you didn’t die.
When you stirred on the floor with warm sherpa around your shoulders and a rough calfskin rug under your ass, you thought you had died—maybe taken a pit stop in cowpoke purgatory while you were at it—but then you blinked. Breathed. Realized you were still very much inside your body and most likely still in Wyoming.
You sat up where you were and looked around.
“Da-a-d?”
You knew it was useless, calling for your father.
He had been dead almost eight months; you just wanted to double-check to make sure you were still on earth.
When dead dad didn’t answer, you tried someone else.
“Momma?”
Still no answer.
Figured, since she was among the ones that had left you chained outside in the first place. It’d been worth a shot.
You started to rise from your place, when a sharp pain in your side made you plop back down on the rug. You winced and lifted the blanket, then your old nightie.
A neat little taped-down bandage had your ribs encased in antiseptics and gauze. You frowned down at a stain in the centre, which looked to you an awful lot like blood. That circle of old fluids must’ve been twice the size of your fist and currently oozing tiny, fresh beads of blood from the strain you’d just exerted. You pursed your lips.
Least they could’ve done is kill me, not leave me here.
You’d take it up with your old would-be assassins another day, you were sure. Right now, you were parched, starving, in dire need of a piss, and reeling on the floor to grab hold of something sturdy to lift yourself. But you were as much a child then as you had ever been, swaying in place and clawing at air like someone who’d never kept their balance before. Or might’ve been drunk.
You rolled onto your good side and cast a sweeping look around the cabin. You smelled slow-cooked barbecue.
Thank fuck, you thought.
Now, if I were a juicy rack of ribs, where would I be?
The kitchen was dark and empty; the smell was coming from elsewhere. You craned your neck, tilted your chin, spotted a loft overhead but figured it wasn’t too likely to find someone grilling up there, so where the hell was it?
And who the hell was it, smoking meats and mending up strangers in the cold and lonely dead of winter like this?
You put a pin in that thought as you searched for a place to pee.
By the time you’d hobbled out of the bathroom, the smoky smell had grown even stronger. It was so pungent it bordered on vertiginous, invading every inch of the cabin with a force. Then it was leading you, teasing you by turns to venture outside. All you had on your feet were some oversized socks and two strips of medical tape.
Against your better judgment, you continued to hobble.
Out the door, down the steps, slowly, then following your nose and the first whiff of smoke you smelled to make it to the place you were almost certain you needed to be.
You trudged around a corner of the cabin’s exterior and stopped. Turned around. Cursed your own senses for being so stupid to miss the huge fucking shed spewing smoke out front—or was it the back?—and plodded on.
Your feet might have carried you a third of the way there before your powers of sight and sound eventually failed you again, and you missed another big something.
Big and beige and coated in snow—baring its teeth and snarling at the unfamiliar presence as soon as it saw you.
The next thing you knew, sixty-two pounds of Belgian Malinois had had you knocked to the ground in less than a second. You hardly understood what had hit you until it was barking and chomping away an inch from your face.
You fought hard and frantic to shove the ugly fucker off, but your bandaged hands were no match for its paws. The dog continued to tear at your blanket, nip at your ears, claw at your neck, and all around snuff out any sense of peace you might have acquired in the dozen-odd minutes since you’d first woken up. You screamed.
You yelled as loud as you could and felt yourself cower and sink lower into the snow as you fought.
Just when you tried to raise a knee—to kick the animal in the ribs or else protect your own—a sound broke out above the buzz.
A voice, clear as day:
“CUJO!”
The dog stalled on top of you a moment, just to be yanked off the next, and the closest thing afterward was a face—kinder than Cujo’s but not by very much.
It was a broad, bearded, pock-marked head with more soot to recommend itself than skin. Lips smeared with ash and grime and curved down in the single most decisive frown you’d seen in your life, the man looked to be beside himself seeing you tits up in the snow.
He gripped one arm of yours, then dropped it.
Picked a leg up, paused, then hauled you into a cradle carry as graceless as you’d ever felt it done before.
“Come!” he snapped, and it took you too long to realize that he was talking to the dog. You’d already wrapped your arms around his neck in abrupt complaisance.
He carried you back into the cabin and kicked the door open in front of you. He held you firm for a second, then, just as he had outside, changed course before you knew what to do and was shortly depositing you on the sofa.
You winced when your ass hit the cushion.
You started to sit, grab a pillow for your back or just bring your knees to your chest, when suddenly a palm was pressing flat on your front. Forcing you to lie down.
“Hey, hey!” you cried when the man started lifting the hem of your nightgown.
If he’d heard you at all, he didn’t show it. He just worked his thick, dirty fingers under the fabric and raised the white satin like he might the hood of a car. He frowned.
It was then that you noticed a blooming red splotch on your side, slowly overtaking the terra-cotta color of dried blood on the bandage and spreading out. Then a pain.
Instead of pushing the man’s hands away, you were holding them tight, wrestling that same touch which was trying to keep you from poking around the area now.
“Quit,” the man said, sedate as could be.
“Hurts,” was all you could think to tell him—and you guessed he’d already had that part down by the outpouring of blood. He shoved your hands off.
The brand new crimson hue had already soaked through the bandage. He pulled it off. You caught a glimpse of a wound that seemed to be weeping through its stitches—oozing pus and blood and a gore you could’ve gone your whole life without seeing. You would’ve liked to run a couple gentle, awed fingers over it, but as it was, your coarse and tight-lipped medic wouldn’t let you.
“Hold still,” he commanded.
“Heystopstopstop!” you implored him, feeling a streak of pain up your side as his calloused hands delved deeper.
At your latest flinch and plea, the man seemed to have had enough. Or just needed to angle your body in a different direction for easier access to the site. He gathered you back up in his arms and walked over to the kitchen, where he set you down again on the counter. Hands moved to your hips, briefly, to push you back on the surface and allow him to stand between your legs. Again, the man frowned as he peeled off your pyjamas.
Two warring fears of pain and overexposure fought like wild beasts in your brain for a second—you yelping and trying to cover your breasts in a hurry, then realizing how much it hurt to lift your arms that way when your ribs were dripping blood, then the man making the decision for you both as he pushed your hands behind your back and said a simple ‘Fuck’s sake’ to keep you pinned.
You didn’t like it.
You didn’t like it, and you let him continue, because you knew that you didn’t know shit about doing this yourself.
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Joel must’ve fixed your dressings fourteen times before turning you loose. He’d had you perched atop his counter like goddamned Prisoner-of-War Barbie, all riddled with bumps, bruises, and lesions galore, looked your body up and down just once, and nearly grew sick at the sight.
He’d disgusted himself by feeling as aroused as he was.
Shortly thereafter, he’d toted you off—before the blood could rush down to his dick and start to swell—shrugged your gown over your torso, and stepped away. Simple.
Then you’d had to go and throw a wrench in his plans.
“What if I need to pee?” you’d said as soon as Joel started up the stairs with you in his arms again.
He had meant to drop you off on the bed in the loft, out of sight, but it seemed you were more concerned about the prospect of traversing the steps up and down for potty breaks. Joel had audibly huffed above you.
“I can leave a bucket.”
“Yu-uck.” The latter word had been given two syllables to show the full extent of your disgust, like a child might do.
And that was how you’d ended up here: snug in his bed on the ground floor, curled up in more layers of flannel and wool than you could count and staring blankly up at the man who was standing cold and aloof off to the side.
Your eyelids were growing heavy with sleep.
He figured they would be.
Joel picked up the glass that sat beside your empty one on the nightstand and drank, watching you all the while.
“D’you know my momma?” you asked, voice sounding extra small coming from the depths of your cocoon.
Joel finished his drink in four big gulps.
“Sure hope not,” he said once he’d set it back down.
By the sight of the scars he’d found littering your hands and back alone, Joel was able to surmise you’d come from a pretty rough, ragtag group. Maybe even Raiders. Knowing folks like that simply never struck one’s fancy, so he’d been honest. You might’ve argued, or laughed, if you hadn’t been nabbed so tightly in the grips of those first stages preceding sleep, so instead, you nodded.
“Figured,” you mumbled.
7:11, Joel read on the clock. You’d finished your drink at seven, or somewhere thereabouts. Judging by your size, it wouldn’t take long at all for the medicine to take effect.
‘Medicine,’ Joel thought, sounded a whole hell of a lot better than ‘drugs.’ One was meant to rehabilitate, rejuvenate, bring new life to your worn and weary bones. The other would just knock you cold and keep you there.
On second thought, those were definitely drugs Joel had just slipped in your water before giving it to you to drink.
As your eyes blinked from closed, to open, to closed, then open but slightly less open than the time before, and closed again, he felt a sick sense of accomplishment twist in his gut. If only his former-nurse friend could have seen what he was doing with those morphine sulfate tablets he’d traded for—he likely would’ve slapped Joel across the face. And Joel would’ve smiled all the same.
Yeah, okay, drugging the unsuspecting and defenseless female he’d just saved from death’s doorstep two days ago didn’t look great on paper, he would fully concede.
But this was all in good fun.
Great fun, even.
For him.
“Sick fuck,” Joel muttered as he started to undo his belt. The button and zip were taken apart just as fast, and with two steps, he was standing at your bedside—his bedside—and tugging his trousers down his legs. He took his cock in his hand and glanced over at the clock.
7:15.
He nudged your shoulder.
7:16.
Peeling layers of blanket away from your body.
7:17.
“Hey…honey?”
A lot more nothing from the girl sleeping in front of him. He shrugged his jeans to the floor, kicked them off at his feet, and moved onto the bed. You just looked so sweet.
Joel tried working around the fabric of his boxers but got impatient pretty quick. He hauled those off, too.
Soon, his beefy, bare, and surprisingly tan legs were bracketing your hips as he stroked himself above you. His eyes roamed the lax and tranquil features undeniably characteristic of sleep, and he pumped himself faster. Really, there was no need for theatrics or enhancements now—he was already hard as three tonnes of steel—but Joel would be lying if he said he didn’t like the build-up.
You were no longer in danger of dying, thanks to him. You were slowly but surely on the mend, no thanks to Cujo at all, but many thanks to him, Joel Miller, the man who had pried you off of that post, pulled you out of your chains, ushered warmth back into your limbs, and stitched up your side out of the goodness of his heart.
Any objective onlooker could see that you’d availed yourself of his medical attention and aid without ever asking, so why should he request access to you now? This was the way of the world these days, anyway. Sex was no longer so much a question as it was an answer in most scenarios—a mere transaction, wherein the physically weaker of two parties was forced to capitulate. Not within the four unsullied walls of Jackson and a few other pockets of homestead communities here and there, but on the whole, absolutely. Jackson was down the road a ways away and sufficiently far enough from Joel’s cabin for him to be disentangled from their rules. What mattered now was obtaining what he was owed.
Still, the man hesitated a half-second longer above you. He jerked his cock even faster and felt his stomach start to clench. Was that? No—nerves were fucking juvenile. Getting close to cumming from just the sight of you alone was for chumps. Joel Miller was no chump.
He lifted your nightie and lowered the head of his cock to rest between your folds. Then he shifted his knees so that he could rub himself gently against your warmth.
Joel Miller was a monster, but he was no brute. He also understood female anatomy well enough to know that, well…wetter was better. He started moving his hips.
You exhaled through your nose. Nothing major; you probably hadn’t even felt him long enough to whine.
Joel planted a hand beside your head—a preemptive warning.
“There…” He liked to talk as though you could hear him. Like you might be semi-conscious and dimly aware of what he was doing to you then, “Right there…ah, baby.”
He never did catch your name.
That was no matter. So long as you stayed put and made a nice, wet, pretty little hole for him to fuck, you would be fine. By the feel of your folds alone, he could tell you’d be a fun thing to use. Soft and snug and plied with drugs, you could do, and be, anything he damn well needed.
Or maybe nothing at all, he thought without humor.
Joel brushed your cheek with the knuckles of his free hand and watched you turn away, making a face. He snagged your chin and tilted it back to him, sharply, before gliding those fingers down your chest, then your tummy, then your hips, then dipping between your legs. He found your clit and pressed it with a deliberate touch.
“Hey,” Joel whispered, again, as though you might hear, “You’re gonna stay still and let me do this.”
Your nose scrunched in response, thighs clamping together. Joel pried them apart with one push and continued sliding his cock back and forth. He grunted.
“Gonna let me take what’s mine, hear?”
You didn’t hear much of anything, he suspected, but he asked the question all the same. At least now your legs were staying open and he could rut himself gently into that space without having to keep them spread. A first, gentle ‘mmph’ sounded from your lips, and he was glad. He kept thumbing that spot he knew you would like and rubbing along the seam of your cunt with his erection.
Then Joel felt a weight on his shoulders. Remorse? No. Anxiety? Perhaps. This felt more like a fog, though, seizing his muscles and seeping gently between the grooves of his brain. He gave his head a fierce shake.
“Hold still,” he said, more to himself; you hadn’t moved.
Joel fisted the base of his cock and angled the tip toward your entrance, caring much less whether you were ready or not now that his desires had grown stronger.
He was met with resistance on trying to push in. He dug his fingers in the pillow beneath your head and scowled.
“Quit…clenchin’…like that. Ain’t…fair to me,” he huffed.
He was one to talk.
Now, he’d been with a staggering number of women, experiences ranging all across the spectrum, but even the tightest, most untouched pieces of ass he’d ever tapped had given way more than this. Your walls were unyielding, refusing to give him entry. Joel cursed and rutted his hips in a rough, entirely unsuccessful, thrust.
You hummed in response, eyes still closed, one hand fumbling mindlessly for something to hold. Joel seized it.
“Not lettin’ you off that easy, darlin’, I—”
“Fuck,” you breathed, followed by a low whimper.
Joel froze. Had you heard him? Felt him just now?
Something about the uncertainty laden in those questions sent his mind into overdrive, heart beating a wild cadence in his chest. He realized then that his mouth had gone dry, his vision was skewed just slightly on the outskirts. And his cock was throbbing.
“Ya like that?” Joel seethed, not thinking, still rubbing, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”
“Uh-huh.” Softly.
You little slut. He knew it all along.
Whatever it was that kept your body from being coupled with his was almost immaterial to him now. Joel’s mind was swimming with desire, cock dragging in desperate, fitful bursts between your legs, never penetrating but still wringing massive jolts of pleasure from that place.
With the way he was feeling now, Joel could cum from just fucking your thighs. And that was alright.
You were moaning underneath him. Even…smiling?
“Fuck, baby, you look so pretty.”
Joel had never called a girl pretty before and meant it. But he hardly knew how else to describe you now with how good and sweet and fine you were making him feel. A strange warmth sank into his chest, making it harder to breathe, and then he was panting above you, as if he were really inside that dripping wet spot. He was close.
“Such a pretty…sweet…fuckin’ thing for me.”
That red, raging, leaky cock of his was almost a blur between your legs, he was thrusting against you so fast. Joel thought for one frightening second that it might be his skull that would explode instead, so high was that pressure between his ears, but his fears were promptly put to rest as the first rope of cum came stuttering out. Then another. Then another. Then another.
By the time he finished, he could’ve sworn he’d left a hundred spurts on your tummy. When Joel glanced down and saw a sea of opaque, sticky white, he groaned.
Then he fell. Fully collapsed at your side with his brain in a tizzy of wild, heady feelings and sank into himself.
He hadn’t even fucked you, and he felt like he had.
He lifted a hand to wipe away his spend, but he couldn’t.
He would get to it in the morning, before you stirred, he thought. He thought. He didn’t have the chance to think much longer at all, as darkness started hedging him in.
He slept.
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It was 7:57 when he woke.
The man had no real way of knowing that, though, seeing as he was greeted with a nickel-plated revolver between his teeth the second he opened his eyes.
You were straddling his torso, gun pinched between two calm, bandaged hands. You frowned when he jumped.
“WH—” he started.
“Shut up.”
“ST—”
“I said shut,” you cocked the gun, holding it tighter, then shoving it even further inside his mouth, “the fuck. up.”
The man obeyed.
‘Joel M.’—you’d read the name etched on the butt of his pistol before picking it up some twenty minutes ago.
“Pretty fuckin’ thing,” you mocked the man’s Texan drawl as you wiggled the barrel even deeper along his tongue, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”
The man’s eyes widened.
How dumb did he think you were?
Offering a semi-clear liquid that should’ve been water; he hadn’t even waited for the morphine tablet to fully dissolve before handing it over to you. Fucking idiot.
You were more disturbed by the fact he’d thought you stupid enough not to notice than him actually trying to drug you. The latter was almost to be expected from predatory, execrable men like him, but the insult to your intelligence? Unacceptable. You’d remedied that affront fairly quickly, though, swapping his glass with yours the second he hadn’t been looking, then nestling into his bed and playing pretend for what had felt like an eternity.
You’d been awake the whole time the man touched you, not knowing what the hell was going on but feeling like you had to stay still. Let him finish. Out of fear, at first, then curiosity, then some strange and unfamiliar sensation that you couldn’t quite describe as anything but a pleasurable itch between your legs. You let the man continue, hearing him grunt and groan and swear up a storm before he shot something hot all over your tummy. By the end of it all, you knew it was wrong, and you knew it was dirty—though you weren’t sure exactly what it was that he had done—but you wanted to learn more.
Which was probably why you hadn’t just shot the old pervert right between his eyes the second he’d stirred.
You shifted atop this ‘Joel M.’ and frowned once more.
“Why’d you stop?”
Gun still wedged in his mouth, Joel’s voice sounded garbled as he spoke, “Wha-agh-at?”
You retracted the metal just long enough to pose the question again. When you had, he still looked stunned.
“Answer me,” you barked, and feeling your patience lapse, got straight to pistol-whipping the motherfucker upside his half-grey head, “You DUMB, or somethin’?”
The man sputtered again.
“No, no— I don’t— dunno what you mean.”
He sounded dumb. You would need to spell this out.
“Why did you stop rubbing me like that?”
If anything, the clarification only seemed to baffle him further. He opened his taut, bearded mouth, then closed it, then eyed you up and down with a look that said he was considering something. Then he stared at one spot.
You glanced down at it too.
“And what is this, anyway?” you asked, swiping one finger at the mostly dried moisture on your stomach, “Why’d you spit this stuff up all over me, huh?!”
“I ain’t—”
You raised the gun as if to hit him again. He jolted back.
“I didn’t mean— shit. Shit, I just…came on you, ‘s’all.”
“Came?”
The word hung in the air like a grenade, waiting. Mr. M was already bracing himself for the impact, it seemed.
“Came?!”
That bracing served him well, because in the next second you were lifting the weapon even higher and eyeing him with the most pointed, putrid look of disdain. You’d never been one for letting grenades go untouched.
“Ejaculated!” Joel hissed, lifting a hand to shield himself, “Felt— felt so good I just couldn’t stop and I-I-I came.”
You paused.
Came. Felt good. Couldn’t stop.
You had felt good when he’d rubbed you. You had not wanted him to stop. But then he had. And you were mad. You’d never been touched that way in your life, and now you were feeling fifteen hundred emotions at once.
Were you supposed to ‘come,’ too? Why did he stop?
“Why didn’t you let me…ejaculate, too?” The words felt foreign and strange on your tongue.
For the first time, you saw one side of Joel’s lips twitch. Evidently fighting the urge to turn them into a smile.
“Girls don’t really…do that,” he said. Then, after a beat, “Why? Ain’t ever had your pussy rubbed on by a man?”
You shortly landed the blow you’d been holding over his head, splitting the skin along his brow with one hit from the butt of his gun. Joel jumped again, then moaned.
“Crazy bitch!”
“Creepy fuck.”
Your eyes narrowed with loathing, unable to comprehend how a man so vile had just made you feel so good. Your stomach was twisting in knots while Joel rubbed his forehead, pawing helplessly at the gash you’d just left.
“I saved your life,” he grumbled, low, “You owed me.”
“Did I?”
Abruptly, and without really thinking, you were sinking the muzzle of the gun into the spot you’d just cut, mouth kicking up in a smile at the sounds of pain it elicited.
“Did I, Joel?” you cooed.
“How the— the fuck do you know my name?”
Momentarily, you yanked the revolver from his face and tilted it to show him his name carved into the bottom.
“What’s the ‘M’ stand for? ‘Molester’?”
“Means ‘mind’ your fucking business,” he spat.
You probably would’ve hit him again had it not seemed as though he were trying to sit up just then. You slid swiftly from his frame—just to take a step off the bed, gun still pointed at his head. Then you backed away.
One by one, rapidly, you unloaded the bullets from the cylinder, maintaining a safe distance from the man all the while. You watched him blink and try to get some thing from his eyes, but he didn’t seem keen to move.
You left just one live round inside. You made a point to spin the cylinder and, again, aim it straight at his head.
The man was blinking even harder. Rubbing now, too.
“I feel…” Joel murmured.
“Drugged?” you returned, “Yeah, that must suck.”
A set of wide, irate, and horrified eyes met yours. His mouth hung open in a stupid look of shock. Trying to piece the last bits of this fucked up jigsaw puzzle together and growing angrier by the second.
“You fuckin’—”
Joel’s words were cut short by the weight of your body barreling back over his. Graceless, you imagined, but still nothing close to something you cared about now. You planted your knees on either side of his ribs and grazed the tip of the six-shooter down the length of his nose.
“Tell me,” you said, “How’d you make it feel so good?”
Your hips twisted for effect, jostling the man’s own parts beneath yours and clearly causing some effect in him. The muscles in his jaw jumped up as he gritted his teeth.
“You know damn well, slut,” Joel griped.
Without another thought, you squeezed the trigger.
Click.
The man’s whole body lurched underneath you. Trembling with the realization that you’d left just one lone bullet for him—and he didn’t know which chamber.
As far as foreplay went, Russian Roulette was probably a first, even for a man as wanton and depraved as Joel. You smiled sweetly and made another gyration with your lower half, which prompted him to grip you. Tight.
“What? Ya want me to fuck you, is that it?” he growled.
“I thought it wouldn’t fit.”
“I’ll make it fit.”
“How?”
Try as you might to conceal it, your gaze likely betrayed a hint of sincerity as you made that last inquiry. Joel’s eyes flickered between yours, searching for something there, and just when those glossy brown irises had found it, they stopped. Blinked. He shook his head, incredulous.
“My mind ain’t…right,” he said, slowly, “But I— I know you know what I mean by that, sweet pea.”
Something in your tummy fluttered at the sound. You gripped the pistol tighter to get rid of the feeling.
“I don’t,” you answered.
Again, Joel was stumped. For the first time, though, there appeared to be some sympathy behind his eyes. Or stupidity. Or just a shit ton of morphine coursing through his veins as he tried to make sense of this situation.
As if to confirm an idea in his drug-addled brain, he lowered a hand between your legs and hovered there a second. He watched you; you watched back but didn’t move.
Then slowly, almost clinically, Joel slipped two fingers underneath you and found a soft, pulsing warmth—far wetter than the last time he’d touched down there. When he pulled his hand away, both fingers and half of his palm were glistening with a fluid. You let out a startled cry at the sight of it and nearly dropped your gun.
“What is that?!”
Joel looked to you, equally awed—for different reasons.
“What do you mean?”
“Why’s it all…sticky?”
You couldn’t even try to hide your horror at the thought of that weird, syrupy stuff leaking out of you. It was strange enough feeling it come out of a freak like Joel, but from your own body? He had to be fucking joking.
“It’s normal.”
“Like hell it is— you— STOP!” The last fragment of your sentence was swallowed by a scream, leaping back when Joel moved his fingers toward your face.
“What? You’ve never seen this?” He sounded like he was teasing. You could shoot him for how smug he sounded.
In very small amounts, you’d seen stuff. Blood every month. Bits and pieces of bodily secretions that, to you, had always seemed gross. But never this. Never big, sticky globs of…whatever the fuck this was. You continued to back away on the bed, gun still tipped toward Joel but now trying to put some distance between your bodies. You didn’t know how else to act.
You did know you wanted to scream when Joel stuck his fingers in his mouth. Bile might’ve jumped in your throat.
He sucked the dew clean off the digits, then wriggled them to show what he’d done. You felt the urge to vomit.
“That came from— from— why are you eating it?!”
Joel grinned. Big.
You weren’t sure why, but he looked psyched to be alive in that moment, and not just because of the narcotics.
Before you knew what was happening, he’d pushed you flat on your back, hips pinned underneath his hands as he moved over your body. He didn’t even try for the gun.
“And here I was thinkin’ you were just fuckin’ with me,” he chuckled, palms sliding under your nightdress. When you felt the residuum of wetness from his spit and your slick stuck together on his fingers, you wanted to squeal.
But you didn’t. You tried propping yourself up on elbows until Joel was sliding your one and only article of clothing over your head, then beckoning you down on the bed in front of him. You watched his gaze flit down to your side.
“Still hurt?” he murmured, tracing over the bandage.
You shook your head no, though it did, a little. At the moment, it seemed the pain was the furthest thing from your mind as you saw Joel slide down your body and try to take up residence between your thighs—with his face planted right there. You kicked his shoulder in protest.
“Quit!” you cried, pulling your legs up to your chest.
“You quit,” Joel returned, yanking them back.
Then you felt you had no choice but to brandish the gun, taking the thing between two palms while you pointed it again—as if he needed the reminder.
“Fine. Why don’t you keep that thing aimed at my head while I give you some?” he muttered. The subsequent ‘See if I give a shit’ was silent.
“Give me some what?”
“Head.”
Head. You’d never heard something phrased that way. Joel’s head was down there, sure, practically grinning from ear to ear as he hooked your legs over his shoulders, but certainly he didn’t mean to do a thing as drastic and dirty as—
“JOEL!”
“Hm?” His voice was muffled by your thighs.
You tried to shy away, but he held you down.
“Joel, I— I pee out of there,” you hissed, “Why the fuck would you wanna put your mouth on that?”
As if your groans of disgust and vehement attempts to get away weren’t enough to deter him, you watched Joel’s tongue dart between his lips and down to yours. The sick fuck was actually licking your folds, tracing the tip across that warm, sticky place and moaning into your skin. Holding you tighter when you pleaded for him to stop. Then, with the hand that wasn’t prying your legs apart, he reached down and started stroking his cock.
Again, it felt dirty and wrong. Beyond the fact that this man was a perfect stranger and easily decades your senior, you were repulsed by the sight of his lips and his tongue and his spit mixing up in that messy, wet place you still didn’t quite understand yourself. You didn’t know much about your body, but it had never once occurred to you to be kissed down there. Joel was roaming every contour and crevice with his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he liked it.
“I hate it,” you whined, feebly.
You knew you could’ve easily blown the man’s brains out, but some small part of you was still plagued by curiosity. ‘Hate’ was just the first word that came to mind when you were faced with something that made you scared.
“It’s weird,” you tried again. This time pressing the gun to the top of his bobbing head while you grit your teeth, “And wrong.”
At that, Joel stopped.
His eyes flickered to yours, all glass-like and hooded.
“Why? Practically lickin’ ya clean here,” he said, starting to grin to himself as his words came slightly slurred, “There’s nothin’ wrong about this, sweet pea.”
You felt something flutter between you. He felt it, too.
“Like when I call ya that? ‘Sweet pea’?” he said, pausing to flick his tongue over the spot that had just stirred at his words. He watched you fight back a whimper.
“No,” you choked. You pinched your eyes shut, unsure whether it was pleasure or pure revulsion overtaking you—or both.
Suddenly, you felt Joel’s hand smooth over your thigh, still warm from when he’d been stroking himself below. He placed an affectionate kiss to your belly and grinned.
“Is that what this is? Feel guilty about feelin’ this good?” he murmured, “Think it’s…dirty, what we’re doin’?”
At length, and just barely visible to him, you nodded.
“It is dirty,” you corrected him quietly.
Then you saw that stupid pseudo-sympathetic smirk tug at the corners of his lips, and just when you thought he might nudge his way back up your body—to do what, you weren’t sure—he sank between your legs. This time, he made sure to hold your gaze as he re-assumed the position. His palm continued to rub at your thigh, as if to distract you from the rough brush of his stubble or the fact that his mouth was hovering so dangerously close.
“Sweet pea,” he rasped, “Ain’t nothin’ dirty about this.”
As if to punctuate his words, Joel dragged his lips down your slit to press a kiss to your centre, eyes never leaving yours.
“Not here…”
He pointed with his tongue, moving it deftly between your folds. You gripped the sheets, trying to ignore the pleasure that the simple act wrought through your body.
“Not here.”
He kissed your clit. You squeezed even tighter.
“Not on my tongue, on my fingers, anywhere, y’hear?”
You were about to answer—maybe tell him he was supremely full of shit, then flash the gun in his face—when Joel shifted onto his knees on the bed. He moved slowly and as calm as he ever had, motions languid while his mind was likely steeped in the morphine by now. He snagged one of your ankles. He slid his hand up the back of your calf and tugged you down to the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, right between your legs. The warmth radiating from his bare lower half was immediate, almost suffocating from where you lay. You didn’t like it at all.
You refused to meet his gaze, grip tightening on the gun.
“Joel…”
When that warmth at your front shifted inward, though, you hardly had a say in what your reflexes did or didn’t do. You jumped when you felt the head of his dick slip past your pulsing core, closer to the other hole below it.
“Not here, either,” Joel continued, grin still evident from his tone.
Before you could even think to ask what he meant to do ‘here,’ Joel moved one of your legs up, tilting your hips, and pushed ahead with just the tip of his cock. Not breaching it fully, but nudging—prodding at that hole.
For the first time, you let out a moan.
You hastily clamped a hand over your mouth to stifle it.
“Aw, honey,” Joel murmured, “Did that feel good?”
His words reeked of condescension. You scowled at the ceiling.
“No.”
You felt him push a little further—this time making the head of his dick notch into that tight ring of muscles.
No, the word rang through your skull once more. Your curiosity was shortly supplanted by disgust—how the fuck could you let this creepy old man, this stranger, press into you like that? Talk to you like you were dumb? You seized hold of Joel’s pistol with both hands and aimed directly for his chest.
“Stop doing that,” you growled. When the man’s grip on your leg only tightened and you couldn’t writhe away, you lifted the other and tried kicking him in the gut. Of course, Joel caught your foot midair, and it never landed.
“Just givin’ ya options, darlin’,” he said, easy-going. Not seeming to care about the firearm pointed his way.
Fuck it.
You squeezed the trigger again.
Empty chamber.
If Joel flinched, you didn’t see it. He did, however, knock the gun right out of your hand the next second, sending it tumbling with an unceremonious thump on the bed behind you. You tried to leap back for it, but your arm was quickly pinned. Joel cocked one silver-flecked brow.
“You done?” he asked, almost bored.
Your last—and only—leverage taken away from you, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger. And desperation.
“I don’t wanna do this,” you cried, trying to squirm away.
Joel didn’t move his cock, but he did hold you still. Blinking with indifference and a fair bit of drug-induced dissociation, it seemed, from the far-away look in his eyes. He pushed both of your legs so they were folded up to your chest, and ignored your whimpers when he did. At length, he pulled out just enough to smear some of your wetness down to the hole he was trying to fuck.
“You want this,” he countered gently.
“I DON’T!”
Joel continued as though he hadn’t heard you, and moments later, you sensed another slick something pooling against you. From your position beneath him, you could see a bead of spit slip from Joel’s mouth and stretch into a thin, glistening string all the way down to the space between your thighs. You watched him rub the saliva in with his fingers, almost meticulous as he did it.
Then he eased his hips forward an inch, wedging himself back in your ass. He groaned when he felt resistance—and a sharp clench of your muscles.
“I can teach ya…show ya everything…there is to know.”
His words somehow made it out through ragged breaths. That broad, tan chest was heaving with every labored pull of his lungs, and you could tell he was feeling good.
You might’ve been able to say the same for yourself, were your mind not singly occupied by the desire to escape. Still at war with yourself, wondering how it would feel or what you might see that first time, all the while despising the man who seemed hell-bent on forcing it.
He might’ve saved your life, but there was no fucking way he’d get to use you like that and stay breathing.
You were raised better than that.
You could do better than anything this man had to offer.
You resolved to kill him as soon as the drugs knocked him out—just like you’d had planned from the second you woke up on the floor of his cabin that afternoon.
Of course being chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains for some well-meaning stranger to find you had always been part of your mother’s—and the rest of the Raiders’—grand plan. Having this stupid, horny sap take you into his home with the hope of claiming you as his own was just the icing on top.
Now you had a reason to kill Joel and steal all his shit.
At present, he fed another inch of himself inside you and grinned when you let out a startled cry.
“Atta girl,” he said, smirking, “Feelin’ okay?”
“Fuck you.”
“Will do.”
Then, as if to prove a point, he bottomed out, sheathing his cock to the hilt in spite of your cries. Your hands fisted the sheets, and you tried to pull off. It didn’t work.
In fact, all it accomplished was giving Joel more room to thrust back into you. And pull out. And shove back in. The snap of his hips was like cruel and excruciating clockwork, completely unhindered by your words or your gestures or your pleas to stop fucking doing that Joel, it fucking hurts! If anything, the sounds of your censure only got him harder, and with it, made it that much easier to fuck you rougher. His eyes shone with pride.
“What’s’at, sweet pea?” he hummed, strokes coming into a steady pace.
“It’s too…big…doesn’t fit,” you whimpered.
In response, Joel glanced down to see the spot where your bodies were joined. He pushed even deeper.
“Yeah?” he said when you yelped, “I think it fits just fine.”
Motherfucker, you wanted to wail, but then your neck craned sideways—your mouth trying to find purchase in anything you might grit between your teeth—and the only thing that escaped your throat was a sob. You tried burying your face in the comforter, only for Joel to yank it back.
Cupping your chin and pinching both your cheeks in a single, punishing squeeze as he continued to fuck you, “What’s the matter, darlin’? Too much?”
You groaned and clenched your jaw, head jerking away.
Per usual, Joel was undeterred. Even smiled.
“My pretty girl need somethin’a bite, huh?” he hummed.
He probably knew you wouldn’t nod, so he went ahead and decided to oblige that one need he saw anyway. Snagging your nightie, Joel raised a hand to your face and proceeded to push the fabric inside your mouth.
Just as he started to lift his hips to deliver another thrust, he had to stop. A sudden, sharp ‘FUCK!’ left his mouth, then a groan, and his hand retreated fast.
You’d bitten him.
You were grinning just a little, and you’d bitten him.
Joel promptly slapped you across the face. If you weren’t so fucking amused by the sight of his bright red fingers, you just might’ve winced. Instead, the smile stayed on your lips, the slap barely registered, and, to your utmost disbelief, something else had just then started to form.
Pleasure, in the pit of your stomach.
“Fuckin’—” Joel snarled.
“Shit,” you finished, eyes rolling back.
You couldn’t help it. Joel was rutting into you relentlessly. That brief hand bite detour had only stoked the flames of his hatred—and arousal—and now he was practically splitting you in half with the force of his thrusts. He slapped you once more for good measure.
“Oh, that you fuckin’ like?” he seethed, cheeks flushed, “Can’t get off with my…tongue on your cunt, but a slap— and my cock buried deep in your ass gets the job done?”
“Uh-huh,” you answered softly. Mindlessly.
Really, there were no two people more fucked up than you in this moment, you thought. Joel growing harder with each desperate objection of yours, you going all soft and hot and bothered the second he slapped your face and fucked you rougher, and together, the two of you letting out grunts and moans of pleasure while the bed shook like an earthquake just shy of a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Were you not already planning to slit the man’s throat after all of this was over, you just might’ve wanted to marry this Joel M for how wonderfully he fucked you.
You let him know as much when you seized his forearms.
Bouncing into his thrusts, you bit your lip and finally met his gaze. Joel’s eyes were trained in somewhat of a daze, pupils all but swallowing his irises as he fucked you.
“Like being daddy’s little cocksleeve, huh?”
Only the sentence was slurred so bad you could scarcely make out half the words. You nodded just the same.
“Like it when he fucks you in the ass?” Joel panted.
You nodded again.
That pleasure in your belly had worked its way up to a full swell—and whatever it was, you couldn’t bear the thought of losing it now. You gripped Joel’s arms even harder as his chest swayed into you, then sank further and further until your fronts were pressed flush to each other and your ankles were hooked tight around his back.
It almost felt intimate. That coarse, weathered, sweat-coated face spattered with patches of grey seemed to you nearly handsome as his lips hung limply in an ‘o.’
Joel’s cock dragged back and forth between your walls at this new, snug angle, and moans fell out of you both.
“Baby.” His voice was hoarse. Strained.
You couldn’t quite make sense of the expression above you, but there was an unmistakable, muted desperation lurking somewhere beneath it. Joel rutted into you quicker, balls leaving rapid smacks against your ass with every thrust. His hair was disheveled, and his hands were making fists in the sheets on either side of your head.
“Joel—”
“Jus’ lemme use you.”
Words so low they were barely audible as he panted.
“But—”
“Daddy’s…almost done, sweet pea. Just take it.”
You were surprised he’d had it within himself to be so soft. A peculiar sort of haze hung over his face, the pace of his hips picked up even more, and suddenly those plush pink lips were hovering a mere hair’s breadth away from yours. Mumbling. Rambling on and on about how wet you were, how perfect you fit him, how nice and sweet and tight your body felt as he fucked you stupid.
That sensation in your own stomach grew even stronger.
Unsure of what to do, you pressed a palm to his chest.
“Joel, I…I feel funny,” you whispered.
Joel hummed. Didn’t slow.
“I know.”
He knew?
“What’s it—ah, fuck.” Your words broke off in a whimper.
Instead of proffering a verbal response, Joel just slipped a touch between your bodies—thumbing sloppily between your folds to earn a couple more high-pitched moans. Your legs tightened around his middle.
“Joel, s-stop!”
It felt so good it almost hurt. He didn’t stop.
“S’just an orgasm, baby,” Joel panted, “You’re okay.”
And, in spite of his own impending climax and the effect of the drugs likely reaching a fever pitch inside him, Joel managed to slide his other hand beneath the back of your head. Cradled you to him while he fucked you into the bed and made you come unraveled with his touch. You tried to writhe away, but he was used to the drill by now—he just fucked you harder and rubbed you faster.
Whatever he wanted would come soon. You doubted there was anything you could do to stop it, but you tried.
Without thinking, you grabbed hold of the damp locks of hair at the nape of his neck and yanked on them hard.
“Joel, I can’t— I can’t,” you keened.
The hand at the back of your head held you firm.
“You can,” Joel returned, tough but surprisingly calm, “Give it to daddy, ‘s’all ya gotta do.”
What exactly ‘it’ was was still unclear. You just knew you felt good and warm and full—about ready to burst. When you felt tempted to give his hair another tug, Joel’s eyes met yours, and they were soft. Insistent, still, but soft.
Dilated as all hell and probably swimming in clouds of a delirious, bleary haze, but always soft. Almost tender.
“Be a good girl and give it to daddy,” Joel slurred, slow, “C’mon, sweet pea…cum for daddy, please.”
For the first time in that short, rough, utterly deranged time you had known this man, he was begging you. Pleading with you, now, as his body grew overwrought with pleasure and just needed release. You needed it, too, not even knowing how you would get it, but the force of his thrusts, the warmth of his body, the look in those warm, bare, powerless eyes—you fucking loved whatever it was that could make a man like that so weak.
You had to strike while the iron was hot. You slid back.
Joel didn’t notice, too focused on your face and the feel of your body to see when you’d reached for the gun.
Just as you took hold of it, a jolt of pleasure tore through you. Your heels dug into his back, and you nearly lost control of the pistol. Joel groaned in your mouth, begged you once again to cum all over this cock, make a fuckin’ mess of it, baby, please, and you could only whine, grip the metal tighter, and raise it slowly to the side of his head while he buried his face in the crook of your neck.
The peak of your pleasure had come into view. You felt it.
You nudged the muzzle through those soft, slick, salt-and-pepper shaded tufts of hair near the edge of his temple right when the first throes of euphoria seized you.
“FUCK!”
You squeezed the trigger.
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sleepymarimo · 8 months
Text
𝕨𝕖𝕕𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕓𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕤
summary: after becoming the greatest swordsman and learning of his bloodline, the next logical step for zoro would be to return to wano and marry into the kozuki family, right? if only you didn't look so good as a bridesmaid... pairing: zoro x afab!reader cw: mdni, vaginal sex, drunk sex, infidelity, cursing, mutual pining an: this idea has been in my head for a while, so... enjoy!
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It's the day of the wedding.
Well, his wedding.
After being the world's greatest swordsman for a few years, Zoro had decided that he had wanted to return to Wano. He never explained why, barking at whoever asked him that it was none of their damn business. The crumpled up paper you'd found in the corner of the training room, which contained details about his lineage, gave you an idea of why he was adamant on returning.
The swordsman was someone you admired very much, from his sometimes frustrating temper to his unshakable will. After sailing together for so long, it was difficult to not develop feelings for him. You liked to think that the two of you were relatively close or at the very least that he tolerated your presence more than others. He never strayed too far from you and even shared his sake with you on occasion, his annoyed grumbles doing little to hide how much he enjoyed providing for you- even if it was just a sip from his bottle.
Your outlooks on life might have been different, but there was a lot to learn from one another. This learning was often done on warm nights aboard the Sunny after a few bottles of sake and a playful spar. Even when there were no conversations happening, you'd enjoy the comfortable silence and the sense of security he brought to you.
Yet, ever since he had achieved his goal of becoming the greatest swordsman, you had to admit that he seemed… different. He of course was as brash as ever, always ready to stand by the crew and act as a protector when necessary, but he seemed to be itching for something. He was lost, plain and simple.
Your mind, ever tumbling with thoughts, wonders what the green haired samurai's goal was in returning to Wano. To reconnect with his roots? To stay? You doubted he would, but the thought still made your stomach drop.
Now, a few weeks later, here you are at the wedding celebration of Zoro and soon-to-be-wife, Hiyori.
Celebration is an understatement, as the whole thing could be confused for a festival. An entire courtyard full of seats, all open to the people of Wano. Its extravagant and lavish, with vendors and performers ensuring that the party would last well into the night. The tables are piled high with a plethora of food and sake. Hiyori had wanted a grand ceremony and it was definitely something, though the large crowd and the unavoidable spotlight didn't seem like something Zoro would enjoy. After the bachelor party, which involved the guys drinking until they couldn't stand, Brook spilled to you and the girls that Zoro hadn't even been the one to propose. Allegedly, he was just going with whatever his teal-haired partner wanted, and she was happy to take over as long as she had the samurai by her side.
The whole thing didn't quite sit right with you, something gnawing at your chest. Jealousy? Worry? You weren't exactly comfortable bringing it up with anyone else, but judging by the knowing looks that Robin sent your way or how Luffy would gaze off to the side and pucker his lips at the mention of the wedding, you could tell that you weren't alone in your thoughts. While you would ask Zoro yourself, the way he responded to Luffy's meddling a couple of days ago has you hesitant to do so.
"But Zoro!" Luffy had whined, wrapping his limbs around the swordsman with a pout. "What about-" Zoro's words were spoken through clenched teeth, one of his calloused hands tightening into the fabric of Luffy's red kimono. "I dare you to keep talking."
Currently, you're chatting it up with Nami and Robin in the bride's quarters. The three of you are in the bridal party, getting ready for the celebration that is soon to be underway. As per Hiyori's request, the bridesmaids are fitted into navy blue kimonos that are woven from the softest material you've ever felt. Your hair is neatly styled and your makeup light as you help the other girls get ready for the wedding. Your chest tightens every time your eyes glance over at Hiyori, her radiant beauty and cheerful demeanor causing your confidence to waver.
The whole thing has you craving some alone time before you go out there and watch your vice captain be wed, so you stand from your mat and give Nami and Robin a small, slightly forced smile. "Hey, I'm gonna take a quick walk. D'you guys remember where that nice koi pond was at?"
Something flashes in Robin's eyes and she sits up a little straighter, giving you one of those smiles that you've come associate with trouble. She gives you directions, but they're a little all over the place and have you questioning every turn. You'd been wandering around the halls for a while now, sure that you were lost as you murmured some curses to yourself.
You're about to turn back altogether when you pick up on a familiar energy. It's Zoro's, of course it is, but there's something different about it. The closer you get to the groom's quarters, the more you pick up on the underlying currents of unease than emanate from his aura. Worry grows in your chest, as such levels of doubt and anxiety weren't usually present in the swordsman. The fact that he isn't even bothering to conceal these emotions is even more concerning, since you knew he had a very good grip on his haki.
One of your hands comes up to lightly knock on the sliding wooden door. You give a small greeting, telling him that it's you.
Zoro, who had been staring blankly at the wall with a bottle of sake in his hand, snapped out of his daze when he heard your voice. He quickly straightened up, his usual irritation returning to his face as he roped in the tendrils of unease that he had unintentionally let slip loose.
"What the hell do you want?" He grumbled, his voice a bit hoarse from the tension. He didn't bother to open the door, expecting you to understand that he wanted to be alone.
“Zoro…” You sigh, your tone laced with caution as you stand behind the door and make it clear that you won't budge until he confirms that he is alright.
"Seriously, I'm fine.” He replied, his voice strained. "Just leave me alone. I'll be out in a minute." His tone was defensive. Though he tried to hide it, he couldn't deny that the weight of the wedding and everything that came with it was overwhelming him. The anxiety and doubts were gnawing at him more than he cared to admit.
Before he could ask you to go away again, he felt a knot forming in his chest. He sighed, realizing that shutting you out wouldn't solve anything. You of all people could ground him, could be there for him when he was feeling things he had no idea how to process. It was a trait of yours he envied, your ability to show people warmth and empathy without a second thought. He needed that, needed you, needed every bit of you.
He finally slid open the door and revealed himself, looking disheveled and restless. His bandana on his arm was slightly askew, and the collar of his ceremonial kimono was tugged open, the belt loose. His green hair seemed even messier than usual, disheveled.
"What the fu-" Your eyes widen and you quickly enter the room, sliding the door closed behind you. The sight of him makes you raise your hands up to help, but they remain suspended in the air as you ponder where to even begin with him. The smell of sake is strong, his posture tense and his eyes slightly blown from the copious amounts of alcohol that's in his system.
“I don’t- Zoro, what’s going on?” You ask, your head tilting.
A light sigh tumbles past your lips as you tug his kimono closed, scrambling to soothe out any wrinkles and make him slightly more presentable. Where were the rest of the groomsmen? Grumbles are all you hear from him and it doesn’t make the process any easier. After you attempt to smoothen out his hair, he scowls and ruffles it up again.
“This whole damn ceremony.” He growls, shaking off your hands and turning on his heel as he walks to the table to open up another bottle. “It’s not-“
A long sigh is heard from him, the sound rumbling in his chest. He takes a long swig from the bottle, wiping away the excess sake from his lips using the back of his hand. He shakes his head and turns back to meet your gaze, taking a few steps forward until he’s in front of you. When he speaks, his tone is stern but forced, like he’s putting in effort to remain calm. “I’m not sure this is what I want.”
His admission leaves you momentarily stunned as you try to make sense of his words. Your hands fidget at your sides, your voice laced with concern. “The wedding? Hiyori?” His state ignites something within you, an overwhelming urge to comfort him in any way you can. "I thought you wanted to come back to Wano."
“Both.” He confesses, spitting out the word like it was made of poison. “And I did. I’m just, damn it, I don’t know! I'm already the greatest swordsman, so I should be out here and doing all this domestic shit, right? Coming back to Wano like my ancestors would've wanted? Marrying into the damn Kozuki family?"
The pieces slowly come together. A swordsman who has accomplished his dream and is unsure of what goal to chase next. On paper, it sounded ideal, like a fantasy that only one in a million could achieve. Yet, Zoro is restless and unable to feel at ease. He's taken to following expectations in a bid to fill the small gap of emptiness that came with establishing himself as the strongest swordsman, a title he fought for almost his whole life. Now that he had completed it, he struggled to find purpose, to find a use for himself other than being a fighter.
His frustration is clear, from the way his jaw tenses to the rigidity of his stance. He’s itching to release his emotional tension, his body twitching in anticipation. It's like watching a caged animal. You’re silent for a moment and sense that he has more to say. He huffs and stares down at you with an almost unreadable expression, the distant sounds of the celebration barely audible through the wooden door.
His mouth opens, before he quickly closes it and clenches his teeth together, looking away. Red tinges his cheeks, from the alcohol or something else, you cannot tell.
“Can I try something?” He asks with only a slight slur, stepping closer. His voice is low and gravelly, his eye shining with a drunken determination that hides something you can't pinpoint just yet. “To see if I’m doing the right thing? With the right person?”
You release a breath that you don’t even know you’re holding, nodding slightly. You’re unsure of what to expect, but there was nothing you wouldn’t do for your crew, especially Zoro.
“Yeah.” You affirm, your voice a bit more timid than you would’ve wanted as you feel the heat radiating from his body into yours.
He grunts in acknowledgment, his eye assessing each and every one of your movements. For a few seconds, he doesn’t do anything. As you’re about to open your mouth, he brings a hand up and places it at the nape of your neck.
You don’t even have time to ask him what he is doing before he brings his lips to yours. Your eyes flutter closed, nails digging into your palms as they tighten in response to the sensation.
It was wrong, wasn’t it? Here he was in his groom’s attire, his own wedding ceremony about to be underway. You should be pulling away, stopping him from betraying the woman he was set to marry within the hour.
Yet, when his tongue swipes across your lower lip, you part them without question. He groans. His other hand finds purchase on your hip, rubbing circles on the sensitive flesh there using his thumb. The sake from his tongue fills your tastebuds as he eagerly explores your mouth, drinking in the taste of you as if it were his own brand of liquor.
You couldn't resist him even if you tried, your hands sliding under the collar of his kimono and gliding along the skin of his shoulders and chest. He melts under your touch and takes this as a sign to bring you closer to him, eliciting a gasp from your lips when you feel his already half-hard cock rutting against your tummy.
A string of saliva tethers you two together when you finally pull away, your face hot as he stares down at you with a possessive affection. His gaze shifts from your eyes to the rest of your form, your figure accentuated by the kimono that hugs you.
The effort he puts in is minimal as he wraps his arms around you and raises you off the ground, your hands tightening on his shoulders, though he wouldn't dare drop you. He lays you on one of the soft mats which adorn the groom's quarters, kneeling between your legs and lazily grinding his hips against yours. The sensation has your back arching and your panties dampening.
"Least Hiyori can do one thing right." He drunkenly groans as he continues to grind his dick against your clothed slit, his hands firmly gripping your thighs as he looks down at you. His words are slightly slurred, the lust in them more than apparent. "Gettin' you all nice n' pretty for me, wrapped up like a fuckin' gift."
You hiss and buck your hips to meet his thrusts against your core, your hands tugging at the collars of your kimono in a bid to find some reprieve from the heat that's coursing through your veins. He gets the idea and doesn't waste another second before sliding the fabric off of your shoulders.
His steel colored eye drinks in every inch of you, his hips jolting forward when his calloused hands cup your breasts and knead the soft flesh. Your whines only increase when his thumbs tease your hardened nipples, sending waves of pleasure right to your core. You catch sight of his tongue swiping across his lip before he leans forward and captures one of the pebbled buds into his mouth.
Your hands tangle into his green hair as you hold him there, his fingers lightly tugging and rolling at one nipple while his tongue swirls greedily around the other. The groan he lets out against your breast is desperate and hungry, his hips continuing to grind against yours. He's completely hard by now, and what you feel against your clothes has you thinking about how full you're going to be.
Its already too much and you swear that you're seeing stars.
Through pants, you manage to grab his free hand in one of yours and guide it towards your aching cunt. As soon as his hand slips past the waistband of your underwear, his fingers become coated in your arousal. They swirl just outside your entrance before coming up and messily rubbing at your clit, making you gasp and clench around nothing. When he finally slides a finger inside, your walls pulse around the sudden intrusion. He shudders, wondering just how good it'll feel around his cock.
He adds another finger, then another, every thrust and curl bringing you closer and closer to the edge. When he hits a particularly sensitive spot, you choke out a low moan. "There, there, there!" You cry, feeling your thighs starting to tense.
A low, guttural noise erupts from his throat at the way your pussy is starting to tighten around his fingers. He tugs on your nipple a little harder, his teeth grazing along the other. The sound of wet slaps echo throughout the room and its downright dirty, only increasing your desire for him. Your pupils are blown when you look down at him, his ceremonial kimono making him look unbearably handsome. He makes for one hell of a groom.
When you gasp, he gives your nipple one last lick before gazing up at your face, eager to see you come undone. "C'mon dollface, give it to me." He gruffly orders, curling his fingers just a little more.
You only babble his name before everything gets hazy. Your walls clamp around him and your hips buck desperately into his fingers. The waves of pleasure cascade down your whole body and in the midst of it all, Zoro leans forward and captures your mouth in his. He eagerly swallows all of your moans and cries, continuing to thrust his fingers into you until he deemed it necessary to stop.
Satisfied by the blissed out look on your face, he tugs off his hakama and frees his cock from its confines. He gives it a stroke or two to relieve some of the tension, before he aids you in shedding the rest of your kimono.
He settles once more between your thighs. His eye is fixed on the wetness pooling in your core, his hand lazily guiding the head of his cock up and down your slit.
“Been thinkin’ about this pussy for way too long.” He growls, positioning himself in front of your entrance.
His tone has you whining, your hips gyrating in a way that has his tip slipping into your cunt. The action has him groaning, his patience finally snapping as he buries himself inside of you to the hilt.
The stretch is mind blowing, your hands coming up to his biceps and squeezing the taut muscles in an attempt to ground yourself. Your body reacts to the sudden fullness by clenching tightly around him, the spasms only serving to heighten his pleasure. The grip he has on your hips strengthens and you’re sure it’ll bruise.
In his drunken state he wastes no time, his hips hammering into yours with utter desire. His breaths are heavy as he stares down at you, enamored by how your mouth hangs open and how you cling to him so desperately.
Your back arches, hips angling in a way that has jolts of pleasure running up your spine.
“H-hah! Zoro!” You babble, your whole body hot with delight. His biceps feel like steel under your palms, the sensation making your head feel even lighter.
Your pleas spur him further and he tugs your body closer until your thighs rest snugly atop of his. He releases his grip on your hips, placing his forearms on either side of your head as his thrusts become short and forceful. The muscles in your legs tense at the new angle and you mewl.
The tip of his cock pounds into your cervix, making you let out a choked moan as the pain and pleasure mingle into one glorious sensation. Your arms wrap around his shoulders and you bury your head into his neck. With a light head, you plant sloppy, open mouthed kisses onto the sensitive flesh there in an attempt to return a fraction of the pleasure he’s giving you.
“Fuck!” A groan tears out of his throat and you can feel the vibration from his chest. “Takin’ me so well.”
A particularly sharp thrust has your breath hitching and your eyelids fluttering, your head falling back slightly. His cheek is pressed against yours, his skin cool and clammy from the thin layer of sweat that has formed on his body.
Your eyes lose focus and you pant helplessly. His earrings dangle in front of your face, the metal pieces clinking together in a rhythmic melody that rings louder than the wedding bells banging in the distance. “S-S’good!” You stammer, your grip on him tightening.
Another curse or two spills from his lips, his words grunted through clenched teeth. “Yeah? That right?” He smirks, absolutely reveling in your pleasured state, his core tightening as your body clamps around him in the most delicious way. You have him close, too close, and he doesn’t want this to be over just yet.
His cheeks are colored red when he sits up and pulls out of you. A whine falls from your mouth, pleading with him as you buck your hips for any sort of touch. Your thighs hang over his, while his frame towers over you. “M’not done with you, yet.” He roughly reassures while he brings a hand up to your thigh and rubs gentle circles.
He starts to run his other hand up and down his length, positioning the head of his cock right up against your puffy clit as he jerks himself off to the sight of you. Every stroke of his hand has your hips bucking in pleasure as his tip hits and swirls against you, the clitoral stimulation sending you spiraling. There’s not much to do other than writhe and babble praises at him as you feel your climax inching closer, his tip leaking precum right onto your wet clit. You feel another orgasm creeping up on you, the coil in your tummy ready to burst.
"C'mon!" You whine, your hips bucking as you look up at him with desire-glazed eyes. "Zoro, please! Wanna cum!"
He doesn't deny you, he never would, so he makes sure to keep hitting that spot until you're arching and mewling for him. The way your eyes screw shut and your mouth falls open has his chest swirling with pride. Just as you get pushed over the edge, he makes his move.
Without much warning other than a low growl, he folds you in half until your thighs hug your chest and your ankles rest on his shoulders. His hands are secured under your knees, ensuring that you won't wriggle out of his hold. In this position, your pussy is presented to him beautifully and he sinks into you as you cum.
Your walls are still spasming, clenching when he pries you open with his cock. The gasp that leaves your mouth is akin to a sob as he brutally hammers into you, chasing his own high. The overstimulation is too much and you try desperately to wriggle from his hold, but its useless.
Yet, when your eyes catch a glimpse at his expression, his lustful gaze and reddened cheeks, you can't help but let him crack your knees open a little wider.
"Atta girl." He praises with a half smirk, his thrusts becoming short and erratic.
His grip on your knees tightens and he throws his head back, utterly consumed by how your plush walls are squeezing him. When his breath hitches and he grunts out you name, its not long after that you feel a hotness in your core. His cum coats your insides in bursts, the thick, white ropes pooling all around. Everything sounds more wet, more raw, as he continues to shallowly thrust into you, riding out his orgasm.
He finally lets your legs go and they tremble as they settle back down around his hips. When he collapses onto you, his skin is hot against yours. He rasps out some breaths, his back slowly falling and rising. You can feel his heart beating strongly against your chest, the sensation grounding you.
His body atop of yours serves as a sort of anchor, your thighs twitching as his hips continue to gently rock against yours. He takes a few deep breaths, his head turning to the side to catch a glimpse at you. Lazily, his nose nuzzles your temple.
“Fuckin’ marry me, woman.” He grumbles, his tone stern as his eyelids flutter closed. "You're the one I want.”
Of course, you can't say no.
In your post-coital haze, you can't help but wonder what mess is going to come from this, but Zoro has always had a way of calming your ever-racing mind. So instead, you sigh, running a hand through his slightly dampened hair as a corner of your lips quirk up into a half smile. "Can we still have cake?"
He snorts in an attempt to hide his laugh, saying nothing as he flips you onto him and gives your ass a slap.
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soft-girl-musings · 1 month
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Stranger Danger
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Steven Grant x Fem!Reader
cross-posted to ao3
MK Spring Bingo entry #5
tags: reader is being stalked & responds in a way the author (a woman) has been taught to, emotional protector steven grant to the rescue, no use of y/n
wc: 1,138
fic summary: There's safety in numbers, do you want mine? (too soon?)
_____________________
“Oops, careful!”
Steven drops the last of his veggie wrap as a pair of kids rush past the bench he’d been hunched over. As he picks up the debris, he sees where one of them dropped their hat. He picks it up and half-jogs after them to return it.
“Gotta stay aware of our surroundings, yeah? Don’t want to lose our valuables.” The kid rolls their eyes but thanks him before running off to catch up with their friend.
“Oh my gosh, hi!”
Steven turns around to find you walking swiftly toward him, your smile too wide and tone too familiar.
He’s never seen you before.
“... hello,” he answers cautiously, taking one step back but failing to put much distance between the two of you. You practically cling to his side when you approach, takeaway cup and phone in hand.
“Sorry I’m late, but you are terrible at giving directions, mister.” Taking his arm, you begin to walk away from where you’d appeared.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’s forgotten conversations or plans. But as he racks his brain for something, anything tied to you in his memory, Steven notices the panic in your eyes and the slight waver in your voice.
Your hands shake a bit as you unlock your phone, passing your cup to him. He takes it, still bewildered but obedient. “I swear, the cafe never spells your name right. Let me make a note for next time.” You type swiftly, showing him the screen.
being followed, please pretend you're my boyfriend
Steven doesn’t know you.
But he nods, grasping your arm closer with his free hand and gives his most convincing grin. “Steven with a ‘V’, love.”
Relief instantly washes over your features and you relax a little. “Right. I’ll remember that… Steven.”
His smile grows before he remembers why you're holding onto him. “Do you want to sit down? Or go somewhere else, maybe I could call someone–”
“N-no, it’s fine. Let’s just sit. In plain sight,” you half-whisper. Steven nods, ushering you back to the bench in the middle of the busy square. When you sit, you don't let go of his arm.
Instead, you type into your phone as you speak. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Steven glaces at your notes app again.
do you see a man in a black jacket?
Steven scans the area, careful not to look too suspicious. Unlike the person he’s sure you’re referring to: a man in dark clothes, hands shoved into his pockets and rigid as he looks around with increasing urgency. His prominent frown grows when he sees Steven next to you.
“Yeah,” Steven says to both your questions. He looks away from the menacing figure, but sets your drink down and wraps his arm around you. He's glad to feel you settle into his side, still shaking but catching your breath.
“I take it you don’t know Mr. Black Jacket?”
“No, I do. Sort of. He’s a regular customer of mine,” you sigh. “One who doesn’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Ah.” Steven keeps the guy in his periphery, splitting his focus between him and you. “Stalker, then?”
You freeze up at the term. “Yeah… he’s been pretty relentless.” 
You meet his eyes, which are swiftly filling with concern. “Thanks again for… this. I usually find a mom or another woman to walk with me until he leaves, but I saw you with those kids and just… panicked, I guess.”
“S’not a problem, love.” Steven knocks your foot with his, drawing a small smile from you. “Glad to help you feel safe.”
You laugh a little. You let your gaze drift over to the man in black, an uneasy pit growing in your stomach when you briefly make eye contact.
“He usually goes away after a while. I've told the police, but they can't do anything unless he… you know.” Your brow furrows as your grip loosens. “I don't mean to take over your afternoon, but would you mind waiting with me?”
In that moment, you could have asked Steven for the moon and he'd find a way to lasso it down for you. 
He squeezes your hand. “‘Course I can. Lovely day with lovely company, quite the ideal afternoon in my books.” 
Steven dives right into talking about anything and everything that comes to mind– which, as you learn, is a lot. Normally he'd hit a wall after a few minutes, either because he'd realized he had talked himself in circles, or his less-than-captive audience was visibly zoned out. But you hang on his every word, grateful to be arm in arm with a stranger describing the supposed viscosity of ancient Egyptian embalming oil. It's a welcome distraction. 
So distracting, in fact, that after an hour you realize the crowd has thinned around you. With Mr. Black Jacket nowhere in sight.
“I think he's gone,” you sigh with relief. Steven stands when you do, handing your things back.
“Patience won out in the end,” he beams. You see a brief look of panic cross his features.
“He doesn't know where you live, does he? Do you need an escort?” Steven's already taken a ludicrously long lunch break, but the inevitable lecture from Donna would be worth it if it meant ensuring your safety.
You shake your head. “I've been careful.” Extending your hand, you smile. “It was nice to meet you, Steven with a ‘V’.”
“Likewise, love.” He shakes your hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Another look crosses his face before he continues.
“Do you want my mobile number?” His words come out too fast; if you hadn't spent the past hour listening to him, you might have missed what he said. “Just in case you need someone to wait with you again, or keep an eye out. Would that be alright?” He shakes his head, stepping back. “'Matter of fact, forget I said anything, don't want you to think you've traded one creep for another–”
“Sure.”
Your simple answer stops him in his tracks. “Oh, you don’t have to–”
“No, it’s fine. Really. When you offered, it felt nice to know someone could be in my corner on this side of town.”
You take out a scrap of paper and a pen from your bag. “How about this: you write it down, and I’ll add your contact if I ever need my knight in shining armor again.”
Steven concedes, pen and paper in hand as he scribbles his number down (then asks for a new paper in case the first was too illegible).
When you leave, he watches until you turn the corner. He goes the opposite direction, back to the museum. Part of him hopes you’ll never have to reach out, for your own sake. The rest of him hopes you do anyway.
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A/N: oh steven, the man that you are. a couple more bingo prompts will be focused on this dude, which is excellent practice for some exciting projects down the line...
as always, ty for reading <3
event tags: @moonknight-events @spacecowboyhotch @juneknight
addtl tags: @mrs-lockley @lunar-ghoulie @shadystarlightgentlemen @casa-boiardi @nerdieforpedro (lmk if you'd like to be added to/removed from this wee tag list)
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panicpixieplaygirl · 10 months
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I’D HAVE YOU ANY TIME (anakin skywalker)
notes: i hope this is good. i like it but idk writing for star wars seems very intimidating. also hope y’all don’t mind the mini font, i like it so. anyway pls enjoy don’t yell at me <3
synopsis: still a beatles girl at heart…, ‘let me in here, i know i’ve been here, let me into your heart’. anakin being sore & whiny & persistent as always. loosely based on attack of the clones which will be obvious
warnings: smut!!! 😙✌🏼oral (fem receiving). pnv, creampieeeee. ridiculous overuse of many many words (so sorry).
18+! MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!
word count: 5.1k
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You were sick of Anakin’s prying. Barging into your mind when he thought you least expected it, irritating you with his desperation and earnesty. He was like a puppy scratching at the door, and no matter how much you shooed him away, he persisted. Nonstop, every moment of every day, for weeks.
He followed you around like a puppy, too. That was his assignment, unfortunately; to protect you from threats on your life while you were in hiding, but he was excessive. From the moment you met him once again back on Coruscant, he was never more than a few feet away, eyes never off you for more than a few seconds, constantly trying to break into your mind.
He was one of few who knew you were knowledgeable and strong in a small few of the Force’s ways. You weren’t exactly fit to be a Jedi, but you had incredible control over your mind and others’, and Anakin was determined to best you.
Between his undivided attention and that of countless people among your home planet and the rest of the Republic, you were amazed you had yet to go completely mad.
You were used to holding your composure well, inside & out, but that didn’t mean you were unaffected by it all, despite how hard you tried to be. All you wanted was to try to use this time as a few moments of solitary peace among the chaos. But your assigned protector was just too diligent.
It didn’t help that your guard had fallen weak when the two of you were re-introduced for this assignment. Anakin got into your head once, & he held on tightly to what he witnessed.
He was awaiting your arrival when you saw him, for the first time in 10 years, standing at the entrance of the ship where he & Obi-Wan would accompany you to Naboo to stow away. You nearly lost awareness of your surroundings as you approached him.
He was extraordinarily stunning. It was entirely unexpected- a dramatic contrast of the boy you once knew. A brand new man. A Jedi, at that. You wanted to stop looking at him, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away, everything else blurred into nothing.
Anakin could just faintly sense your shock & interest. It normally came of no surprise to him that he was visually admired, but you… intimidated him, some way, some how- weakened him. He dreamt of your face every night for the last decade, saw you just as real and beautiful as you stood before him now, but this was no dream. He was thrilled he’d earned your eye.
“Hello, your Highness. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Anakin spoke, his voice gracing your ears and sending a warm glow shining and spreading in your chest and your cheeks. You nodded with a smile to greet him back.
You shared a gaze that felt deep and intense, falling into each other’s eyes and gently mingling with each other’s spirits. Seconds began to feel like hours.
Your stomach fluttered and your heart skipped as you stood before the young man. You kept a plain face, mouth gently pursed in a polite smile, but your eyes were glued to him. The words he and Obi-Wan exchanged in the short moments before boarding fell on deaf ears.
He took your hand to help you onto the ship, his much larger fingers delicately closing over yours, placing his other on the small of your back as he supported you. The sweet and intimate contact electrified you, sent your body sparking and ablaze. You were too overcome from it all to block him out of your mind, and he forced his way in.
His dreamy eyes, his plump lips, the sound of his voice, the way he looked at you, like his very existence was for the sake of swooning you, swirling & flashing & unrelenting in your head. You imagined what his lips felt like on yours and over your skin, his hands touching you tenderly and manhandling you, the weight of his body over yours.
Anakin saw your mind swimming and glittering with him, and it took all the strength he had to stop himself from pulling you in his arms and catching your lips right then. He couldn’t stop the sly smile that came across his mouth and deepened at your subsequent focus on it.
“If you need me to help clear your mind,” Anakin started in a teasing tone, “Just ask.” Suddenly it wasn’t so hard to tear your eyes from him. You blushed for the rest of night.
Since then, in the weeks that followed, he spent nearly every waking moment trying to break his way back into your head. He needed to know why you wouldn’t give in to him, if you still thought of him, if you wanted him as badly as he wanted you. It gave him just enough hope to be relentless.
And it gave you just enough embarrassment to never let it happen again. He was a Jedi, after all, and an important one. The entire galaxy would suffer if he were to be expelled. It wasn’t worth risking.
You didn’t know how any person could be so persistent for so long. Surely it must have been as tiring for him to be blocked countless times as it was for you to block him. It was like a pressure in your head, a twitch in your ear, urging you to crack. And you had to snap it back in place a hundred times a day.
That was just fighting Anakin’s use of the Force. You had to grapple with yourself as well, pushing away your ache to have him close. It helped that he was truly getting under your skin with his constant probing.
To make matters worse, just days after you reached Naboo, Obi-Wan was called back to Coruscant for a separate mission, rarely returning, leaving you alone with Anakin for days at a time. All there was for you to do was face how beautiful he was, how badly he wanted to get inside your head, and how much it all bothered you. Every day.
You needed a break, as much distance between you and Anakin as you could safely manage. Desperately.
By the fourth week you knew the planet much better. Your body was accustomed to the weather and the rise and fall of the Sun. You learned that Anakin liked to sleep in when Obi-Wan wasn’t around, but he wasn’t always a heavy sleeper. You devised something of a plan.
You woke up at dawn the next morning, moving quietly about the hut. You were careful to grab a weapon in case you should need it, and a small snack. By the grace of the Maker, you managed to make it out without waking Anakin. You would head down to the river at the bottom of the valley, only a 15 minute walk.
You listened carefully for footsteps around you as you went, watched carefully for any unfamiliar movement. You had been feeling safe, Obi-Wan assuring there’d been no talk of where you might be, but it was your first time out alone.
Somewhere along the way you realized you were just as nervous that Anakin would be following you, constantly looking back behind you, expecting to see him more than anything come to assassinate you.
But there was never anything, at least that you could sense. Sometimes a peculiar little animal, a fluttering insect, a tweeting bird, but no person. You began to relax quickly. Naboo served you a feast of fine alone time in minutes.
The sun was rising as the terrain under your feet transitioned from grass to sand. You took one last long look toward the field and forest behind you before deciding that if you didn’t feel him, he must not have been there.
You turned back toward the river. The sound of the waves, the smell of the silt and the water, the pink orange sky delighted your senses and you felt excitement flood your veins.
You slipped off your shoes and dug your feet into the sand, dragging them out into the water. You splashed & giggled in celebration of finally getting a wonderful moment alone.
You resisted the urge to get the rest of the way in and sat in the sand. Already the time alone you had from the moment you woke up and got along your journey was a breath of fresh air. You tried to enjoy it while it lasted. You’d have to go back before Anakin would wake if you wanted to continue doing this.
The trouble was, after you had enough time to absorb and sink into the scenery, your thoughts naturally drifted to him.
You laid against the sand and closed your eyes. You saw the first time you visited the river, watching him splash his face with water, fitting into the beauty of the valley perfectly.
You did wish things could be different, that you could give in to Anakin and stay here on Naboo, but you each had commitments to people in the galaxy.
Just like a puppy, it wasn’t long before you heard his footsteps following your path and his paws scratching at the door to your mind once again. Thankfully you’d become even quicker on your feet. You smiled to yourself, it was nearly getting funny to deny him.
“Aren’t you tired of that? It’s been nearly a month.” You called out to him as he came closer to you.
“Aren’t you?” Anakin teased, standing above you where you lay.
He was breathtaking from this angle, towering over you. Your eyes locked, and it felt like that first moment by the ship all over again. Everything else faded but him. The planet stopped turning, a warmth spread throughout your body, and you couldn’t look away. After all this time and pestering, you did still, truly want him.
His own breath actually faltered at the sight of you below him. He wanted more than anything just to have you, pull you close enough to feel your breath, your pulse, your lips, your smooth hands on his skin.
You were so beautiful. Hair against the sand, face sweet, radiating with a soft joy. Your arms stretched above your head, elongating your figure, your hands tangled in the grass. He imagined them tangled in his hair, and you smiled as his cheeks turned pink.
You were more than a Queen to him. A goddess. Always perfectly poised, even when you weren’t. Everything you did pleased him. He wanted more.
You were becoming aware of just how deeply you affected him.
“Well, you caught me. You can drag me back now, ruin all my fun.” You joked, holding your hands up and together as though you were waiting for cuffs.
He smiled and shook his head at your antics. If only he could catch you already. You were getter better at blocking him out of your head each day.
He laid on his side next to you in the sand. A little too close for your liking, his arm brushing against your hair.
“I don’t ruin all your fun. I’m just keeping you safe.” He spoke. “It is my job, after all. You really should be with me at all times.” His eyes were always sickeningly sincere, always wearing that stupid slick grin.
“After all this time, you don’t crave a moment alone?” You laughed, looking at him in amazement.
“Why would I? Your company is too sweet. And I believe in fulfilling my duties thoroughly.” He teased, relishing in your laughter.
“Oh, is that so?” You rolled your eyes as you giggled, sitting up and beginning to dust and shake the sand off of you. “And how long did it take you to realize I was gone, oh great protector?”
“I felt you leave.” He admitted in that smooth voice of his, and you turned to look back at him as his tone turned more serious. “I gave you as much time as I could stand.”
You wished you could say the needy look on his face didn’t make your heart ache. But you wouldn’t let him notice. You stood up, slipped your shoes back on and began collecting your things.
“When is Obi-Wan due back? Have you heard from him?”
“No message.” He said, still watching you with that needy look in his eye. Why couldn’t he have you already?
“Aren’t you coming?” You asked when you noticed he never stood up.
“Give me a hand?” He asked, reaching out toward you.
You reached out to grab his hand and help him up. You should’ve known better.
“Anakin!” you gasped as you were pulled down, his arms trapping you against his chest. You held back your laughter, but you couldn’t keep down your smile.
He turned you both over so he was above you, gently pinning your arms down, not enough to hurt, just enough so that you couldn’t move. He would never hurt you. He just wanted to look at you for a bit longer.
Seconds became hours once again as you got lost in each other.
You tried to steady your breathing after all the sudden movement, but it was no use. Not when he was holding you down and looking at you like he worshipped you. His face so close to yours, you could feel his breath fanning over you, his lips dangerously close, they called to you.
You imagined caressing his face with your fingertips, brushing your thumb on his lip, how smooth and plump he’d feel under your gentle hand. You could feel your fingers pulsing at the thought. His eyes closed like he could feel your touch.
You wanted to feel his lips and his breath all over, trailing down and over every inch of your body and drowning you. To see those eyes looking up at you while his tongue pleasured you between your thighs…
Anakin could feel the intensity dripping off you. He was so close to breaking you, he knew it. He just had to get inside you.
You were starting to get too hot. Touching you, pressing up close to you, it was all too much. You had to get him off of you.
“Anakin,” you mumbled, turning your head away from him, resuming time. His eyes opened and he almost looked pained in your peripheral.
He lifted away from you and helped you to your feet.
“I know you want me.” He said boldly, and you nearly reacted.
“Enough.” You said calmly, shaking your head.
“You won’t let me see.”
“You won’t let me be.” You mumbled, beginning the journey back.
“I know you want me.” He repeated. “I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. It isn’t fair.” He followed behind you, his tone characteristically sour and whiny.
You normally only heard him speak in such a way about the Jedi Council. You wouldn’t entertain it pertaining to you. Maybe he didn’t understand why the Council ruled the way it did, but he knew very well why you couldn’t indulge him.
When he realized you wouldn’t respond, he began again. “There’s no use in fighting it any longer. I’ll get to you eventually.”
You sighed, and laughed lightly. He was nothing if not determined. “In your dreams, Skywalker.”
He stopped in his tracks. How had he not thought of that before?
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The rest of the day went by remarkably easily, and quietly. Anakin didn’t bother you at all. For a good portion of the morning you didn’t notice, but after you flashed through your knitting without a single word or a push of the Force toward you, you were almost worried that something had happened to him.
You went to refresh your tea and check on him, and found him on the main room, surfing his datapad, not busy at all.
You took your time preparing your drink, waiting for him to come up beside you, give a slick comment, jiggle the knob of the door to your mind, but he did nothing. He ignored you.
You returned to your room even more confused than before. Was he really that angry that you’d gone off earlier without him? Maybe he’d finally grown tired of pining after you so hopelessly. Or maybe something had gone wrong back on Coruscant, or your home planet. Maybe something was wrong here. It pained you not knowing.
And you’d be damned if you’d be vulnerable enough to ask him why he wasn’t talking to you.
You went to sleep that night still wondering about it. He hardly said a word to you all day long. It couldn’t have been to urgent if he didn’t tell you anything, but that almost seemed worse- that would mean it was personal.
You thought it would be a relief not to be bothered by him, but it was much worse without him. You hated to admit it, but you missed him, a profound yearning, deep in your chest and abdomen.
Your bed felt colder & lonelier tonight.
You closed your eyes and you saw him at the river that morning, holding you close below him, his eyes watching you with the need you felt now. It seared through you, straight to your core. Maker, wanted to feel him next to you.
As you fell into your sleep you could feel yourself there, feel him leaning down, peppering gentle kisses into your neck. His hips pressing and rocking against you in time with the waves on the rocks. You dreamed of wrapping your legs around him, feeling him hardening against your core.
Your legs clenched together and you let out a sigh in your sleep. Your hands gripped the sheets as you dreamt of balling your hands up under his hold on you, you breathed out his name as you dreamt of pleading to touch him. Your longing after a day without Anakin made you weak, needy, desperate.
He had expected it. He had executed it, actually. Anakin wanted to make you feel how he felt, every night for the past 10 years. It nearly killed him in the process, abstaining from you for the day, but he knew it would be worth it in the end.
You were weak now, and he could finally feel how badly you wanted him.
Anakin heard is name fall past your lips as though it were amplified in his ear, echoing and rippling through his body.
He could feel the heat pooling between your thighs, pulling at him, making his heart thump. He could feel the waves of thirst coursing through you, he knew you must have been dripping, and his mouth dried up without you on his tongue. He felt so dangerously dehydrated.
He wanted you to come to him, to wake from your sleep throbbing with need as he had so many nights before, but he couldn’t stand to wait any longer. His cock was painfully hard already, his sheets were torture compared to the certain relief of your warm pillowy insides.
He didn’t care about the Jedi Code, he needed you. And now he knew for certain that you needed him, he had an unrelenting compulsion to fulfill you.
You didn’t hear Anakin enter your room, but you felt his eyes on you, felt the arousal dripping off him and filling the air. Your eyes opened slowly to see him standing beside your bed, looking down at you with dark eyes.
You felt chills as you looked at him. His chest was bare and heaving, his cock prominent in his pants, grown even more stiff at the sight of you.
“Anakin-” you started timidly, but the feeling of his hand grazing up your arm and resting on the back of your neck cut you off.
“Do you want me?” He asked lowly, his thumb brushing you gently. His voice made you quiver. He knew very well that you did. You had a lot of will power, but not enough to resist him before you like this. He just wanted to hear you say it.
“Yes,” you whispered. You hated to be so yielding, but you couldn’t fight it any longer. You knew he must’ve seen your dream. “Please, Anakin.” You reached out with staggered breathing, resting your hand on the tight, hot skin above his pants.
He didn’t say a word, just looked at you. You were exhausted of his depriving you, especially when it was clear that he wanted you badly.
Your hand dipped below his waistline, grasping him over his pants and shuddering at the feel of his hardness. You wanted a reaction out of him, but it seemed to have affected you more. You outright whimpered as you gripped him. Your mouth watered, your cunt felt offensively empty, something overcame you.
You sat upright eagerly, eyes drunk with lust and slickness sticking to your thighs, delighted to finally touch him.
His breath went from heavy to shaky, fighting to keep his composure. He grew thirstier by the millisecond, eager to see what you’d do, so desperate to be pleasured by you, to see you in your entirety.
You pushed his pants off his hips and moaned as he sprung free, thick & throbbing & leaking. His dick was just as stunning as the rest of him.
Already he was under your thumb again, your clothed body making him feel extra bare. The trance you were in as you looked at him sent shocks through his body.
His hand tangled in your hair, squeezing gently to get your attention. Your eyes met his and you could see he was just as weak & desperate as you were.
He nearly came on the spot when you looked up at him, legs clenched together, surely preserving a dripping nirvana under your nightgown.
He’d had enough.
Anakin brought your lips to his and kissed you passionately. It just spurred you on more. You whined into his mouth. His plump lips against yours made your head spin and your cunt call out for him.
Your hand that wasn’t in his hair finally drifted toward his cock, wrapping a tender hand around it and spreading the precum over his tip. He felt so hard, it lit you on fire. Anakin groaned into your mouth, the hand on the back of your neck tightened.
Your hand on him was bliss, just as soft and skilled as he imagined, but he had to stop it. He was sensitive to the new and heavily anticipated feeling, and he wanted to last long enough to get inside you.
He tore your hand away in a harsh grip and pulled away from the kiss. You opened your mouth to protest but then his lips were on your neck and all you could do was sigh.
“I need to see you,” He said into your neck, and you thought you may melt into a puddle.
He began to push up your nightgown, fingers brushing up your thighs, squeezing into you to feel your every curve. Suddenly he was kissing and squeezing you more roughly, getting more worked up at the feel of your naked body and the idea of finally seeing you bare.
Anakin pulled away from your neck to strip the dress over your head. His face was so pink and flustered as he drank you in, you thought he’d faint.
“You’re so beautiful.” He breathed, his hands coming up to rest on your waist, then sliding up to cup your breasts, gently squeezing your nipple, making you gasp.
“Maker, you’re so beautiful,” He repeated, bringing his lips back to yours before moving back to your neck, and further down your body. Your whole body buzzed and sparked in the path of his kisses, electricity hyperfocused where you needed him most.
He dropped to his knees in front of you, level with your core, and your hands tangled in his hair to keep you upright. He went into that deep, intimidating focus he often did, his eyes glazed over as he spread your thighs with his thumbs. He moaned at how you glistened.
His arms came around your back to hold you up as his tongue finally pressed against your clit and made you gasp. He pushed his tongue between your folds and licked you up, sucking your clit into his mouth as he reached the top.
Anakin’s tongue entered you and circled you and sucked you so well your head was swimming. You couldn’t stop the sounds that fell from your mouth, gasping and whining wantonly.
He would tease you with the tip of his tongue, then press it wide and flat and wet against you, careful to please and light every nerve.
Your legs grew weak and he lowered you on your back gently, his mouth never leaving you. He ate you like a man starved, diligent as ever.
One of his hands returned to your breast, and the other came up to your cunt and made you clench around his tongue in anticipation.
He gently pressed his finger into your wet hole and moaned at how the softness enveloped him, his cock twitching in the air. He focused his tongue on your clit while he fucked his finger into you, and you thought you might explode.
“Ah, Anakin,” you gasped, tensing around his finger. His mouth left you and you whined.
He kissed your thigh, adding a second finger to distract you from the loss of his mouth and stretch you out. His cock yearned for you as he watched his fingers disappear inside you, your face contorted in the pleasure he had given you.
“You’re so perfect,” He spoke, nearly overwhelmed at finally having all of you. He cursed and groaned your name and you groaned in return. He leaned over you and you could feel his erection on your thigh, making you gush around his fingers. Your hips ground against his hand, chasing your nearing orgasm.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” He whispered into your neck, shuddering as your eager whines filled his ear. He pulled his fingers out of you and gripped your thigh, throbbing at the sound of your sobs, knowing he’d make you feel better soon.
“Please, Anakin,” You whimpered, digging your nails into his back. Your whole body throbbed so violently it scared you. Your legs wrapped around him and pulled him close and tight, begging him in any way you could.
He entered you swiftly, your slick hole opened up for him easily, but his thickness still gave you a thrilling stretch. You both moaned, gripping each other tightly as you finally felt sweet relief. He already felt himself ready to burst as he settled into you, breathing deeply to control himself.
Anakin filled you to the brim and you couldn’t help but quiver around him. His mouth and his fingers had worked you up so well that you wouldn’t need much more to tip you over the edge.
“Oh, Ani,” You sighed, trying to catch your breath, “You feel so good already.” He moaned at that.
“Please move.” You begged, desperate to feel more of him.
Anakin was still dangerously sensitive, but he couldn’t deny you. His hands gripped the sheets and your thigh in a white-knuckled grip as he began to move.
He slid out and then back in to you so slowly you felt every inch and couldn’t hold back your whimpers, your stomach twisting into a tight knot and your cunt fluttering.
He did this again, and again, fucking you just right; slowly, deeply, passionately, forcefully, burying himself inside you to the hilt and dragging his hips into yours, as if he were molding your walls to fit him perfectly.
His moans became just as free as your own, filling your ear with gasps and grunts that made your whole body tense and inch closer and closer to cumming around him.
Your pussy gushed loudly with his leisurely pace. Everything was intensified, hot sweaty skin fusing together, sounds in sync, spirits beaming.
Anakin teetered right on the brink, the way your pussy swallowed him made his cock jump wildly inside you, but he needed to make you cum first.
“Cum for me,” He groaned into your ear, angling his hips so that he ground into your clit with every harsh roll of his hips, making you cry out.
“Please, I need you to cum for me, please,” He started to whine, chanting and pleading, his thrusts picking up pace and getting sloppier and harder.
His begging & the feeling of his cock hitting you in just the right, sweet, punishing, way made you snap.
“Ah, Ani- I’m cumming!” You shrieked, clinging to him with your arms around his neck and your legs squeezing around him as your orgasm hit you, flashing white hot, sending euphoric surges through your entire body.
The second he felt you flutter around him Anakin plugged himself deep inside you, his hips stuttering & grinding into yours, filling you so deep with his cock and his cum that your breath caught in your throat, cutting off your cries and replacing them with his own soft praises.
You felt him twitching and leaking as your walls clenched around him, seeing stars as he gave you shallow thrusts to work you through it. You could feel yourself extra slick as he fucked his cum into you, making you shiver.
You heaved and sighed as you came down from your high, pleasure dissipating and quickly being replaced with a lazy, giddy feeling. A grin came over your face and you turned your head to see him watching you, as always.
“Oh, Anakin,” you breathed, a hand coming up to cup his cheek as you looked at him with delight. For the first time in his life Anakin was speechless, the Force inside him multitudes lighter than before, basking in the happiness of having you at last.
You pressed your lips against his and kissed him sweetly, now full of love instead of lust, just as his eyes were when you pulled away to look at him.
Anakin pulled out of you and shifted just slightly to lay directly next you, his skin still connected to yours at many points. Now that he had you, he’d never let you go.
You were just as captivating as ever, lazing in your post-orgasmic glow, now able to embrace how happy you were to see him. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.
“Tell me you’ll have me again.” He said, knowing very well that you would, just wanting to hear you say it. In your comfortably vulnerable states, you could sense he wanted to hear more.
You kissed him gently once again, just shortly. “I love you, Anakin.” You said against his lips, with a smile. “I’d have you anytime.”
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inoreuct · 3 months
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thinking about zoro being the crew's main protector.
it’s quite literally his role amongst the straw hats; luffy's captain, usopp's their sniper, sanji cooks, nami navigates, chopper's their doctor, franky's their shipwright, jinbei's their helmsman and brook's their musician but zoro? zoro's their swordsman. zoro’s their guardian. his job is to be the first line of defense and protect everybody else so they can focus on doing their own thing and sure, none of them really need protecting— but they don't have to worry about defending themselves, either, because whoever they can't or don't want to handle zoro will finish up (if he hasn't gotten to them first).
like imagine a bunch of idiots cornering one of the crew (bad idea.) and picking nami because she's the woman without a devil fruit, as opposed to robin (BAD idea.). they've got her surrounded in the dead end of an alleyway and have somehow neutralised her clima-tact and she’s not worried, she’s not.
but against twelve men and with her weapon essentially now just a regular staff, she might be panicking. just a little. she’s gotten a couple of them good enough that they’re down for the count before a chain wrapped around her ankle trips her. it pulls at enough memories, faded but never forgotten, to bring up a sickening wave of fear and anger— and nami decides that she’s had enough of the bullshit.
she takes a deep breath and screams. “ZORO!”
the silence afterwards is deafening. the wind shifts, gently lifting the pieces of hair stuck to her sweaty face, and the men laugh uneasily. one of them yanks hard on the chain and she spits at him, heels scrabbling against the dusty ground even as he starts reeling her in like a fish on a hook. “he can’t hear you, little missy,” he snickers, grin widening the longer nobody shows up.
it’s still on his face when his head slides right off his neck.
blood sprays right before his body crumples like a doll. it takes a second for the others to realise and then the screaming starts— none of them get any farther than three steps before zoro’s cutting them down, swift swings of his sword and almost surgically precise slices rendering them incapacitated if not plain dead.
“sorry i’m late, witch.” the swordsman’s breathing hard, gore dripping off his blades even as he arcs one down and snaps the chain off nami’s leg with a growl. “did they hurt you?”
“no. no, i’m fine,” nami breathes, her smile quivering just a little— not because she’s shaken, no. because she’s pissed.
zoro’s voice is gruff as always, but his hands are careful if not outright gentle as he kneels to inspect her ankle before pulling her to her feet. “stay close,” he mutters, making sure that she’s nodded before cutting them a path through the fray. they bump into chopper next, and the doctor’s out cold over zoro’s shoulder in his regular form by the time sanji joins them to guard their flank. nami’s taken to just using her clima-tact as a bat for now, and it’s admittedly efficient.
she knew zoro would come. he always does. for all that they bicker and snip at each other, zoro has always protected his crew— even when said crew was just three people on what could barely be called a boat. he’d fought for her at arlong park and he fights for her now, his sword slicing over her head at an enemy she can’t see as she ducks low to jam her staff into another’s stomach.
they’ve moved closer to their ship when they find jinbei, then robin, then usopp, then brook and franky, and then zoro’s yelling luff, time to go! and their captain’s launching them all back onto the Sunny with a gleeful cackle that makes nami wheeze a laugh as they land in a mildly painful pile of limbs. somebody’s elbow digs into her ribs and she’s pretty sure that’s sanji’s bony kneecap pressed into her lower back. the swordsman swears as he sets about trying to pry them all apart and luffy seems to be actively fighting him, based on how his cursing’s getting more and more colourful.
behind them, their enemies burn, sliced to pieces. they debrief in the galley and zoro refuses to come away from the door until nami drags him by the ear and sanji threatens to personally shove dessert down his throat. they both know it’s because zoro’s still guarding them from a threat that doesn’t exist anymore.
they know he pretends not to care as much as he does. they know he keeps his words blunt and his swords sharp, but zoro lets luffy hang off him, unfazed, and makes a marginal effort to stick to nami’s budget even when he’s getting booze, and he eats his dessert. every last bit. he lets usopp fire moving targets to slice through so they can both practice. he keeps collateral damage when sparring with sanji to a minimum. he stitches whoever needs it up himself when chopper’s a little too tired.
and when his crew calls, he answers.
(now with a part from nami’s pov!)
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novantinuum · 1 month
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mmmmmmm. messy ass ramble thoughts ahead. this is not coherent, it is 1am, you have been warned.
so i've been thinking about that "i can fix anything! i can just keep messing up and fixing things forever, and you'll never have to know or think about any of it!" line during steven's lil manic panic moment in the ep everything's fine in the context of like... og SU episodes
this whole lil manic slip is one that's like... it seems a little extreme for him as a character at first, when one looks at the situation on surface.
but i think it really does shed a LOT of light onto one of his deepest fear. the same fear he's harbored for a good damn deal of the show.
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"i didn't wanna hurt anyone!"
this moment comes just a few eps after the S3 finale 'reveal' of rose shattering pink diamond. in that final scene of the season, steven gets 'confirmation' from garnet that this happened, and seems to accept it for what it was- a difficult decision made amidst a treacherous war.
but also, he Doesn't.
because he's the legacy rose left behind. because each and every day he's growing more into his power. because now, with this reveal of rose's decision to shatter on the table, he's putting each and every decision he makes under a microscope.
he had no choice, he claims. she wouldn't let him help her.
he had no choice. it was self defense.
but is that true?
isn't that the same thing his mom probably told herself before ending a gem's life forever?
even though she poofed bismuth and holed her away for suggesting the very same idea??
rose became a hypocrite... so what if HE becomes the hypocrite, too?
see, with steven... i think it's really easy in the main show to sorta... observe all his actions on the mere surface without considering the deeper tickings of his psyche. like... take lars being brought back to life. from audience POV, that's a good deed. steven just saved someone with his magic! positive moment.
but genuinely... i think this was one of the worst moments of his entire life. i think he's still haunted by it- by the fact that he can just "fix" people in that way. and i think fixing jasper's shattered gem only made the specter of that day worse.
steven believes his role is to be the Shield.
the protector.
the one who is willing to do whatever it takes- even up to turning himself in for a crime he didn't commit- to protect his family and his friends.
and like, we all know that it's not steven's FAULT that lars died. BUT- he still died while under steven's protection.
and so the same way steven blames himself for "hurting" bismuth, jasper, and eyeball, he blames himself for killing lars. mentally, he Takes Responsibility for his death. yet another tick mark in the box of horrible "mistakes" he's made, yet another tick mark landing him just a little closer to the rose he's desperately trying not to become.
and worst of all... it's a mistake he "covers up."
because his tears are able to bring him back from the dead entirely.
and years later he realizes this is true for gems as well ;-;;;
so yeah, i absolutely think lars' death was also at the back of his mind when he said that line at the beginning
what steven saw in the depths of his mind as he was panicking there was him slipping down a slippery slope of violence that he couldn't escape from
first, causing harm to other gems and calling it self defense...
then, letting your friend die protecting YOU when you're the one who should be protecting him and facing NO consequence for this misgiving because you bring him back to life
then, expressing anger so visceral it can shatter floors, destroy whole rooms, flip vans. out of control. inexcusable.
then... outright shattering a gem in a duel while training to hone that anger. once again, facing NO consequence because you bring her right back.
then, that sudden, terrifying thought of "what if i shattered white diamond"
like, steven has absolutely no framework by which to separate his actions from genuine desire or just plain abstract thought.
he has no framework by which to understand the beautiful tool of adding a "man would it be fucked up or what-" to the beginning of those sorts of intimidating, dark musings.
he has no framework by which to understand the complexities of his trauma, and the way in which genuinely fighting back against someone he once called an enemy might feel empowering- instead, it would seem he's disgusted in retrospect with how deep he pressed into that fight, how much a part of him ENJOYED it, all because of the horrid destination it led to.
anyways at this point steven thinks he has now become the Hypocrite like his mom, and that he's just destined to hurt everyone around him forever but never be punished for it and Ouch
this post has no end, these were just ramble thoughts, the end. goodnight. i am sleepy and need to prepare to make Wig tomorrow bc OH boy i am con crunch.
yeehaw .
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roguenancy · 1 year
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Something so interesting about Steve to me is that even during his King Steve reign, when everything is about being at the top of the food chain and being impressive and cool, his true nature still slips out. That big heart of his that's been buried deep keeps rearing its head, begging to be let out once and for all instead of stuffed down beneath layers of Lacoste tennis shirt and Farrah Fawcett spray.
You can see it in the way he always makes a point of making eye contact with Barb whenever he's talking with Nancy so that she isn't left feeling ignored or left out, and never questions or dismisses why Barb shows up with Nancy at his house.
In the way he enjoys the stupid and mean jokes that Tommy H. and Carol make but is quick to put a stop to them whenever someone else, like Nancy or Barb, seems uncomfortable with them.
In the way that he stops during sex to ask Nancy what's wrong, then holds her hand through it and tells her how beautiful she is.
In the way that he tries to reassure her afterward that no one's judging her or knows what happened, that he had a good time with her, and that everything is okay.
In the way that he can be seen giving his lunchmeat to Tommy and his applesauce to Carol and how he doesn't hesitate to step up to bat when he thinks Nancy's been wronged even if it seems a bit out of his comfort zone judging by the look on his face at the end.
In the way he grows concerned for Nancy after she blows him off and goes to check on her later that night because he wants to make sure everything is okay and it isn't just her being busy.
In the way that, even in the midst of high emotion, a possible head injury, and heavy confusion about why Nancy was even at the Byers' house in the first place, his primary concern was about her hand being hurt and whether or not she was okay.
In the way he went back inside the house to try and save them even after seeing the monster that makes no sense, having a gun pointed at him by his girlfriend, and being told to leave by both of them.
In the way that he didn't leave when it was all over or make a fuss and instead went to the hospital with them to sit and wait for what was probably hours for word about Will.
Steve is a bitch. He is a mean girl. He is sassy and shallow sometimes. But he's also the jerk with a heart of gold. An atoner. A protector. He's had his bad moments, sure, and he's going to have some more because he's human, and none of his good moments can truly wipe those away. And while a lot of these are generally the bare minimum a person can do, it is more than one would expect from a guy called the King, who is known for his hair, keg title, house parties, and ever-growing list of companions. Making it a true testament to how it's never been a case of "Steve Turned Good After [meeting Nancy/the fight with Jonathan/being exposed to the Upside Down]."
Good!Steve has always been there; he's just been hiding in plain sight. So it's not a case of an absolute change or a reaction due to trauma. Only case of a boy, good at his core, who never wanted or felt like he could genuinely expose that side of himself in its full glory, who finally learned how to say fuck it, and allowed himself to come forth and show off the parts he kept hidden in the dark for so long.
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xmalereader · 7 months
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Miguel O’Hara x Bunny! Male Reader
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|| Masterlist ||
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Authors note: I’ve had this idea in my head for a very long time now and couldn’t stop thinking about it! This is technically an OC of mine but tried my best not to make there characteristics too detailed or anything that gives away too much OC. This is also an inspiration from MLB, I don’t care if it’s a kid show I have a love and hate relationship towards it and had some things changed for the character, either way hope you enjoy!
Summary: Miguel was the protector of multi universes, what happens when he meets someone who isn’t a spider and is able to do the same, protecting the timeline and making sure that it doesn’t get destroyed, changing the future and clashing within Miguel’s line of work.
Warnings: Angst, reader is a hybrid, time traveling, semi crossover, not mucha of Miguel honestly, language, slight lore, betrayal, hurt no comfort, mentions of genocide, slight depression, enemies to friends but not lovers, slight magic use, miguel is a bit OOC, bunny ears and tail, slight fluff, coping mechanism, readers hero name is Bunnix.
Word count: 5.4k
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In his universe hybrids and humans co existed. In his universe he was a rabbit hybrid born in a large family with many siblings, in his universe he was seen as a monster due to the things he was able to do as a hybrid. His sense of smell was stronger, his hearing better than others and faster that a normal human being. He had the features of a rabbit, long ears and a tail big enough that reached his lower back, who he tends to have issues with whenever it came towards buying clothes for himself since most stores didn’t have much clothes for hybrids that he worked for hours making a hole big enough for his tail and to make sure that it didn’t pinch each time he slipped them on.
He was a normal hybrid trying to survive in a world where he is hated and possibly taken advantage of whenever rabbits fall into heat. He worked at a normal job and had a normal family until at the age of twenty he received a gift, heirloom to be exact from his great grand father who he watched him grow an eventually passed away when he was only a teenage. Y/n would visit his grandfather as a kid, listening to him ramble on about his past life and the things he saw and did.
Due to Y/n being a kid he would believe his stories while his own parents, even his siblings wouldn’t believe their grandfather as he spoke about time traveling and seeing their futures. Everyone disregarded his stories as plain fairytales or crazy due to how old he was getting and growing delusional that no one listened to him, but Y/n.
After his grandfathers death he left his will to the rest of his family, providing his parents and siblings small things. He never received anything that day and thought that his own grandfather hated him and that the idea of leaving something behind to the only child who listened to him was ridiculous. Only to be proven wrong when his grandfathers lawyer approached him that day and told him that his grandfather did leave him something, but was not ready to receive until he got older.
After years he finally got that gift.
When the package arrived he was quick to claim the box into his hands and dart towards his bedroom, closing and locking the door. He knew his family should be around to see what he received from his late grandfather, but something inside him was telling him to do it in private. When getting the package opened he’s met with a letter folded on top of a small box that he picks up to read, noticing his grandfathers handwriting.
My dear child,
I hope this gift got to you at the proper age that I assigned.
And hope for you to take very good care of it.
All those years you were the only one who listened to my stories of my time as a time travel and wish to gift you my most prized possession.
A watch.
This item will show you everything you need to see. It was once my duty to take care of the future and to make sure that no interruptions were made and to decide the right path that our world must face. I know this duty will be hard for you, but I trust that you will know how to use it. I only advice that you do not let this power blind you and don’t let others tell you what is right and wrong of your duty.
If you accept this gift then you will be in charge of our future.
Y/n had opened the small box that held a silver pocket watch, picking it up in his hands as he examined the outside before popping it open. Instead of seeing a regular watch on the inside a bright blue light quickly surrounds him, seeping into his body as his grandfathers life flashes before his eyes, witnessing the pain and suffering he went through, the glee of saving a future, the hesitation of having to choose the wrong path in order to save another. He saw his grandfather at a much younger state and the power that he held in the palm of his hand.
Everything went by fast that when he opens his eyes he’s still in his bedroom, panting heavily knowing that his life changed forever that night.
He figured that he watch helped for this moment only to realize that the pocket watch worked as a safe for his power that was deep inside of him, feeling it coursing through his veins. He kept the gift from his grandfather a secret from his family, knowing that they wouldn’t believe him. If they didn’t believe his grandfather than why believe him?
The hybrid would spend every night trying to practice his ability, which grew difficult since his grandfather never really left instructions on how it worked. He didn’t figure out how to open a portal until three weeks later when he was playing around with a ball and bouncing it against the wall of his apartment, bored out of his mind that when the ball bounced off the wall and towards his open palm, all of a sudden white portal opens, startling the poor rabbit with wide eyes as the ball disappears into the portal.
When first seeing the portal he grows cautious, primal instincts triggering him as his ears fall flat against his head while he nervous reached inside the portal, his hand disappearing and when pulling away he is surprised to see his hand still intact. It took him a few minutes to finally gain the courage and step through the portal where he finds himself in a white abyss full of different portals that showed him the timeline of his universe, witnessing future events before his eyes and being able to see the various outcomes of a future event. He’s able to jump from one timeline to another, visiting different areas and seeing their world before he was even born. The amount of power he had was dangerous and now realized what his grandfather meant by how hard the job would be. Having to keep everything organized, making sure that everything is intact.
Y/n first started off small, seeing his friends future and fixing their life events, picking paths that worked best for them. He sometimes felt guilty for picking a path that didn’t work out for them, but didn't;t have a choice but to decide a bad path in order to get a better one with time. He had the control of the future in the palm of his hand.
It wasn’t until three years that he made his biggest mistake.
His world was going through a war with hybrids and humans and the human government had seen the hybrids as a threat, claiming that they didn’t feel safe living, eating, or working with someone who was different to them. Someone who could do things that no human could and were coming up with ways to exterminate everyone who they saw as a threat. Y/n was only twenty three when he witness the genocide of his people, watching as his family and siblings were separated from him, being taken away. He climbed inside his burrow that night, checking the different outcomes of his worlds future hoping to find a positive end to this situation only to find nothing.
His people were meant to die and he couldn’t save them.
That day, Y/n stayed in his burrow, watching his world kill his own people until none were left but him.
Leaving him on his own without his family or friends, without the comfort of someone like him. Y/n had mourned for days, feeling so alone as he watched his universe future thrive without hybrids, watching as humans celebrated the extinction. The image alone hurt and wanted nothing to do with his own world that with time in the burrows he figures out a way to travel through different universe, alternate ones where his family is alive and safe, ones where he and his family never existed.
Even though he was suppose to keeping things small and protect the future of his own universe he decided to expand his work and protect the future of all universe, traveling from one place to another, hopping from dimension to dimension. The hybrid spent six years learning new things and setting his own rules of balancing out the future.
Each time he visited a dimension he made sure to keep his identity hidden, wearing a black and blue neon stealth suit with a hoodie over that allowed his ears to pop out from the holes he created along with a domino mask over his eyes along with a hole in his suit for his tail as he worked faster in the suit whenever he needed to escape a universe before being noticed.
The hybrid would also spend his time in universes, either trying to coexist or to stay in for awhile since he couldn’t stay in his burrow forever. He mainly stayed hidden on top of large buildings or found ways inside empty apartments in order to get away from the harsh weather conditions. He didn’t think much of his disturbance when hopping from universe to universe until one night he met a flash of red and blue.
He was visiting a earth-4837, noticing an error in the timeline that he’d been trying to fix only for his ears to perk up at the sound of fast movements, catching him off guard as he’s suddenly pinned against the ground, gasping for air at how hard and sudden the push was and regain his breathing only to come face to face with a larger build that stood before him.
“Finally caught you.”
Y/n can only stare with wide eyes under his mask, ears falling back against his head in both worry and fear as he stares at the mask stranger before him. It takes a few seconds for his brain to respond back to him as he tilts his head to he side with furrow brows. “What, what do you mean caught?” He asks, clearly confused.
He can feel the other man’s grip tighten around his stealth suit, pulling him closer as his eyes narrow down at the hybrid. “I have been chasing you through universe and you are always escaping me. You keep disturbing the universes.” He clarified. “Now I have to take you back to your proper universe.”
At the mention of being returned back to his own universe caused a switch to go off in him, reacting quickly as he grips the others mans wrist, using his own strength to kick his feet up and kick him in the chest, sending him falling back with a grunt. The hybrid watched as the masked man coughs under his mask and groan, placing a hand against his chest as he slowly sits up. “Shit, that was a really strong kick.”
Y/n finds satisfaction in the mans words only to gasp when he comes charging at him, making him move quickly and ducking away from his grip, reacting quickly as his instincts as a rabbit take over.
“I am not going back there.” He hissed out, ears pinned back and tail puffing up in anger while the other turns around to face him, taking notice of the movement of his ears and tail. “Those things are real? I thought they were some weirds thing that went along with the suit you wear.”
“I could say the same about those.” Y/n nods towards the strangers hands, noticing the talons from his finger tips. “Thought they were fake, but I guess they aren’t if you have a good grip on that building.”
His words cause the stranger to look over at his hand, talons deep into the wall that he had struck after coming after the hybrid and letting out a small laugh as he detached himself from the wall. “Now you listen—“ When turning back he finds the rabbit gone, earning a disappointed groan.
“Lyla.” He speaks up as the artificial intelligences appears on his shoulder. “Yep?”
“Find me the rabbit.”
From then on, Y/n’s grew careful of his work now that someone as after him. Spending more time in his burrow and less time in other universe and whenever he was in one he would make sure to stay in alert while buying himself to eat and keeping his features hidden from the public, trying to blend in with everyone else.
He figured that he wouldn’t see that same masked stranger again until a week later. He didn’t know how he got involved, but one minute he’s working on keeping a stable future and the next he’s being tossed around by a man dressed in a rhino suit.
“You okay? Whoa—never seen you before.”
That’s how he met the cities hero known as Spiderman.
His suit was similar to the guy who was hunting him down for some unknown reason, but this one was far nicer than the other. The hybrid got a good feeling about the kid and was quick to jump in and help him out as the two take down the rhino, Spider-Man using his webs to keep him from running off while Y/n worked on getting rid of the suit in breaking it apart.
“We make a good team.”
Y/n can only give a small smile. “Guess we did.”
The kid can only tilt his head in questioning and asks. “What do I call you?”
Y/n hesitates, not wanting to give away his own name and doesn’t know how to respond. The hero takes notice of his hesitation and is quick to step in. “I guess you don’t have a hero name?”
“I’m not a hero.” He is quick to cut in, his work wasn’t seen as a heroic thing.
“No worries,” The hero holds his hands up as he suddenly blurts out. “Bunnix.”
“What?”
“Bunnix, can I call you that?”
Y/n thinks about the name and can’t help but feel comfortable with it, finding it fitting. “Sure.”
That day he was given a new name by the cities hero who he later befriends. Y/n doesn’t tell this universe Spider-Man why he was there and what he did, only following him whenever he needed help and fighting off the villains in the city while Bunnix did his work on the side. There’s moments where he’s given the opportunity to save a future while working alongside with Spider-Man, fixing them without notice and when checking his work he left in shock by how much he is able to do.
Things were working well while staying in that universe and once again he let his guard down this time he’s met with the same stranger after helping Spider-Man fight off electro. His body was already sore from all the fighting and tired and all he wanted to do was get back to his place where he could lie down and relax only to be picked off the ground which shocks him.
Eyes wide as he frantically squirmed and looked up to see the familiar red and blue. “You!” He points at him with a deep glare, yelping when he nearly slips from his grasp, the rabbit holds back a cry as he climbs the mans body, keeping his legs and arms wrapped around him. “Hey! I can’t see!”
“Put me down!”
“How can I do that when you are blocking my vision?!”
The two banter with each other while the spider swings through the city, unable to see where he is going as he pries the hybrids hands away from his eyes only to see a building up ahead. The two scream and prepare for impact, but Bunnix is quick to act, opening a portal as they fall through it and opening another at a building where they fall on top of.
The same stranger groans as he lands on his back with the hybrid on his chest.
“How—?”
Bunnix scrambled off his chest, stepping away from him. “You could have killed us!”
“Kill you? You were the one blocking my sight!”
“You picked me up out of nowhere! Rabbit don’t do heights!” He shouted back at the man who slowly stood and rolled his shoulders, easing the pain from the hard fall. “Okay, I’m sorry, but also not because I am still here to take you back.”
“I already told you I am not going back to my universe.” Bunnix groans out, shaking his head while rubbing his temples. “I can’t have you roaming around universe, your disturbing them and I am fixing up your mess.”
Bunnix ears perk up at this. “Wait…what do you mean by fixing them?”
“Look, I don’t know what it is that you are doing but each time that you end up at a universe you cause a disturbance that can destroy timelines, let alone canons so I have to fix them—“ Before he can go on, the rabbit cuts him off. “You can fix them too?”
The others raises a brow. “What do you mean, too?”
Bunnix doesn’t know what to think, the fact that someone else is able to do the same as him leaves him in surprise. The hybrid allows himself to take small steps towards the man as he explains himself. “I can travel through universes without issue, my job is to fix the future and to make sure that no disturbance is caused whether good or bad its my job to protect it. I can’t go back to my universe because…” He hesitates before finding the courage. “My universe co existed with hybrids and humans and a genocide occurred with my people, I tried to fix it to find a better outcome of our future but found nothing and had no choice but to watch as the people I love die. I escaped and continued on with my duty and if I go back they will kill me.” His voice is full of sorrow and pain, not being able to read the others reaction towards his past.
He hears the other sigh softly, hand on his hip as he thinks. “That explains everything, all this time I thought you were an anomaly but your not your—your something else.” He finally says, understanding that the disturbances are the outcomes that Bunnix choose in order to improve the universe, at first Miguel thought that he was only making a bigger mess and whenever he checked on a canon expecting some mess he had to fix, instead he saw the canon already fixed for him.
Which only raised questions to the older man, giving him another reason to come after the hybrid.
As the two stand apart from each other it’s Miguel who speaks up.
“I’m not taking out back.” He finally says. “But I would be interested in seeing your work, perhaps you can help me.”
Bunnix raises a brow. “Help how?”
“You fix futures and I fix canons, together we can protect the universe from being destroyed.” His words intrigue the hybrid as he stares at the man before him, eyeing him up an down before sighing to himself and agreeing to his offer to protect the universe. “Good.” The rabbit flinched in surprise when the man’s masked is removed, dissolving away to reveal his own face. “I’m Miguel.”
Bunnix swallows nervously, but gains the courage to speak up as he reached up to remove his own mask. “Y/n.”
==
Y/n ends up working with Miguel in his universe for two years, being the only hybrid in base while everyone else was a spider felt off to him. Everyone knew him as Miguels second hand since he was their from the very beginning. Everyone thought that Jessica was Miguel’s best spider only to find out that its Bunnix. A simple hybrid that didn’t belong in any universe, but powerful enough to change anyone’s future and seeing that they couldn't.
His time working with Miguel made him realize how much the other spiders feared their leader due to his short temperament and the fact that he too had a beast inside of him. He once caught Miguel taking a serum that helped control the beast within him. At first the hybrid didn’t think anything of it until he decided to test a few things out, noticing how Miguel was sensitive to the bight lights and often kept his own lab under dim lighting, the noticeable fangs whenever he talked and now he used them in order to paralyze the anomalies that struggled the most. He already knew about the talons on the base of his finger tips, curious about them that he once approached Miguel and without asking he takes the mans hand into his hand and checks out the talons.
Miguel stares with a raised brow as the rabbit only hums to himself before dropping his hand back down and jumping off the platform while he continued on with his discoveries. Technically Miguel was a hybrid himself, but refused to say anything about it, Miguels own animalistic features bring some light comfort to the rabbit, feeling like he wasn’t alone anymore.
From their time together the two have grown comfortable around each others presence that Bunnix didn’t fear Miguels temper and whenever he grew upset about something going wrong during a mission he would usually come to Bunnix and rant to him, letting his anger out while the rabbit sat back and listened, watching the bigger man pace around the lab as he grumbled on about one of the spiders not listening to him.
Other times Miguel had grown to admire the rabbits tail, noticing how it flicked and twitched with each movement he made that without even asking his large hand reached down to touch the tail, fingers finding the soft fur while the hybrid tensed up. He’s caught by surprise and should yell at miguel to not touch him without asking, but the feeling of having someone touch his tail after so many years only brings back old memories of his family. He expected Miguel to be rough with his tail only to realize that the man was gentle, stroking the fur while he also concentrated on his own work.
It became a habit for Miguel to randomly touch Bunnix’s tail whenever he felt stress, feeling better after playing with the soft fur.
Their routine together grew and their trust for each other deepened.
Y/n only stepped into the whole canon issue whenever a screw up occurred, stepping into his burrow and meeting with Miguel two days before the moment happens, providing him instructions on how to handle the issue and what to do to fix it. Miguel had grown used to such moments happening, where the rabbit is hopping from past and future to present again.
The two worked well together and treated each other with respect.
As the spider society began to grow, Y/n started to see how alike everyone was and how their canons aligned with each other. He never questions Miguel as to why the canon events must remain intact or what would happen if one were to be broke. He kept those questions to himself while he watched Miguel command different spiders into different universe and getting the job done while also keeping the canons together.
It wasn’t until Miles came into the picture, he noticed a slight change in Miguel as their time together grew. The taller man used to be so blunt with him until he started hesitating that the hybrid started to notice. It felt like Ike he was hiding something from him and didn’t want him to know, as irritating as it was, Y/n would sometimes feel the itch to check his burrow, in hopes of finding his answer his questions, but promised himself that he wouldn’t due such thing. He could never look at his own future or know what to expect.
Bunnix had been working in the lab when Miles and Gwen show up alongside with Hobie, glancing at the teenagers while he works on a few of Miguel’s new gadgets.
“Oh! This is Bunnix, Miguels most trusted hero.” Said Gwen while giving Bunnix a soft smile while the hybrid nods in return before his gaze shifts towards Miles, noticing how the kids eyes widen a bit in surprise as he noticed his state. “I can tell from your staring you’ve never seen a hybrid before?” Said Bunnix with a raised brow.
Miles stutters out a nervous laugh. “I’ve seen weirder things.” The kids admits, avoiding his eyes while Bunnix chuckled and got back to his own work and allows them to approach Miguel. Y/n looks over his shoulder and watched as the platform lowers, rolling his eyes at how dramatic the man can be when trying to show intimidation.
The hybrid sets his work aside and turns around it make his way over to Miguel as the platform lowers only to gasp when a trash bin is thrown towards the teens way, causing the hybrid to react quickly as he grabs Miles by the arm and pulls him to the side, away from the hit.
Miles stares up at the hybrid who glared over to Miguel. “Miguel what the hell?!” Bunnix shouts, letting go of Miles once he checks him over and then turns his attention back to Miguel who ignored him and continued with his own rant. Y/n has never seen Miguel react in such way before, yes he had a temper, but it was never this bad.
The rabbit walks over to Miguel and jumps onto the platform. “What is going on with you?” He whispers low enough for Miguel to hear only to get a side eye from the bigger man a sense of irritation in his eyes before turning back to the teens. His actions only worry Bunnix even more, knowing that something wasn’t right as he takes a small step back.
His instincts were kicking in, telling him to run to hide, but from what?
While Miguel is distracted talking to Gwen and Miles, he takes the opportunity to step out of the lab, getting away from the others as he opens a portal and steps through, stepping inside his burrow and closing the portal behind him.
He’s surrounded by various timelines and universe, swallowing nervously as he approached one of them and placed his palm over it. Watching the scene before him as Miguel explains to Miles about the canons, fast forwarding Miles finding out about his father needing out die in order to keep the canon from breaking, from Miles escaping and Miguel chasing down the kid.
“No, no, what is happening.” He whispers as he steps away from the timeline and approached another with Miguel and Miles, watching as he chased the kid through the city. He can see the anger in Miguel’s body language, talons digging into the buildings and it sets an alarm off in the rabbit. He fast forwards to see the outcome, only for an additional timeline to show up, raising his ears in surprise as he moves over to check the two outcomes.
His looks into both outcomes, noticing how a third timeline appears. He’s never seen something like this before and it interests him as he checks everything figuring out the good and bad the right and wrong of his own choices that he is to make. When he connects all outcome together to create a new future he takes a step back, knowing that his next step could possibly ruin the trust he had with Miguel, but knew that it was the right thing to do.
It was his duty to protect the future.
The hybrid lets out a deep breath, extending out the palm of his hand as he opens a portal, jumping through and quickly holding onto the rail of the train that everyone clung onto. He can see as Miguel held Miles down, pinning him down as he shouted to the kid about how much of a mistake he was and how he wasn’t suppose to be a hero.
He can see the hurt in Miles eyes when hearing Miguels words only for it to grow worse when he finds out that his own friends knew the truth the entire time and never told him.
Bunnix holds on tight to the railing his movement getting Miguels attention, noticing the opened portal above them and hardening his stare. “I can’t let you go back.” Said Miguel, looking back to Miles as his grip on his shoulders tightened. “Bunnix, take him back to the lab.” His voice is full of demand, expecting the hybrid to listen and to take the kid back only to see no movement.
Miguel looks up to Y/n with a hint of confusion in his eyes. “Bunnix.” He hissed out towards the hybrid who can only frown.
Holding onto the rial he used his back leg to push himself up, eyes full of guilt. “I’m sorry.” He says, using the strength of his legs to push himself forward. “I have to protect the timeline.”
Miguels eyes widen when he finally realizes what he means, reacting too late as the hybrid uses his legs to kick Miguel off of Miles, sending him flying back. Y/n is quick to grab Miles, not letting the kid speak before giving Miguel one last look and jumping through his portal and disappearing from sight.
Both Y/n and Miles roll through the burrow together. “What—“ Miles starts as he stands from where he lies, only for his eye to widen. “What is this place?”
Bunnix grunts, getting up and rushing over to the kid, covering his eyes. “don’t look.” His voice is low and dangerous. He couldn’t allow anyone to see what he sees, not even Míguel had the privilege to look into his burrow.
“Hold on!” Miles starts again, reaching out to try and pry Y/n’s hands off his eyes, but Y/n tightens his hold. “You can’t see this, if you do it will alter the future and I can’t have that. happening, not now.” He is guiding Miles around his burrow, checking the different timelines while the kid began to ask.
“Why did you save me?”
The hybrids ears raise at his question before they fall back, forgetting to explain to him. “I know what Miguel is only trying to do his job into keeping the canons from breaking, but…I also have a job of my own which is to keep the future safe. I saw the outcome of Miguel’s doing and I had to fix it.” His voice is soft while leading the kid around, keeping his hands over his eyes still until he finds what he is looking for.
“Wait, so you can see the future?” Miles looks over his shoulder while Bunnix sighs, knowing his next questions as he opens the portal to where he is to take Miles, stepping through and into the rain. The sound gets the kids attention and his eyes are uncovered, looking around in confusion and then turning back to Bunnix who stood before him.
“I know you want to know if you make it to your dad on time.” Said Bunnix. “I know what happens, Miles and it’s something I cannot reveal. I decided that this path works best, whether its good or bad its the right one.” Miles is staring at Bunnix with a look of determination and desperation wanting to know if his own father make sit out of the situation alive and if he’s able to save him before its too late.
As Miles opens his mouth to speak again he is cut off by Bunnix holding his hand up, stopping him.
Y/n gives the kid a sad smile already knowing that Miguel possibly hates him for what he’s done. “Your path goes on, mine ends here.” At this point their is nothing he can do for him, knowing that Miguel will be searching for him and the only way to stay hidden without getting caught would be in his burrow until everything is complete.
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steveshairychest · 9 months
Text
It's the apocalypse.
It's the goddamn world splitting apart apocalypse and instead of freaking out like he should be, Steve's standing in front of his bedroom mirror trying to pick an appropriate outfit to visit his friend in the hospital.
The polo shirt is too casual and the sweatshirt is too colourful. And the plain t-shirt says that he doesn't care, but the button-up says he cares too much. He sighs and nervously runs a hand through his messy, grown out hair. It's been three months after all. Three months of mourning and wallowing in his own self hate and blame.
Only for it all to be for nothing because the person he's been grieving is apparently alive.
According to the nurse who called him at exactly 8:30am, he's just woken up from a medical induced coma and he's in the hospital just down the road from Steve's house. She said it so casually as well, like she was informing Steve that it was going to rain tomorrow. She had no idea what to do when he started crying hysterically on the phone.
And now here he is, stressed and flustered standing in front of a mirror because all Steve can think about is making a good first impression. He doesn't understand why, doesn't understand why he's not asking himself how this is possible, how someone he had felt die in his arms is apparently alive and well three months later. There are so many things he should be thinking about and questions he should be asking, but instead, the only thing he can think about is looking nice for his friend who has literally just woken up from a coma.
But he doesn't have time to unpack that.
That's for later; just like the apocalypse, which he pointedly ignores on his way to the makeshift hospital. The cracks that run through Hawkins are quite literally the last thing on his mind right now.
All he can think about is Eddie, who is alive and breathing, who will look at Steve's very carefully picked outfit and probably say something smartass-y and slightly mean, but Steve doesn't care. He needs that right now. He needs the witty jokes and crooked smile. He needs something to replace the lifeless eyes and blood-stained lips from his memory. He needs to know that this is real. That the phone call from the hospital wasn't a dream.
He needs to know that this isn't vecna toying with him.
"I'm here to see Eddie Munson." The words sound jumbled and unreal to his ears. He hasn't said Eddie's name out loud for months. Just the sound of his name would bring him to tears and remind him that he failed, that he is useless at his role as the protector; the shield.
When the nurses don't look at him like he's crazy, like he's lost his mind, and when they actually walk him down the crowded hall to a room marked with the number 27, that's when Steve realises this is real. This is happening.
Because laying there tucked into the all white sheets and hooked up to countless leads, is Eddie fucking Munson.
And he's smiling at Steve weakly, but it's the most beautiful smile Steve has seen in months.
"Hey, Harrington."
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