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joels6string · 11 months

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More Than My Father's Son

Joel Miller x f!OC

Chapter 11 - Rebuild What's Broken

Summary: Joel busies himself until the gates of Jackson open in the final week of January.

Rating: E

Word Count: 3.7k

Content: NSFW, high levels of violence normal to the TLOU world, angst, fluff, miscommunication trope (it’s Joel Miller…), slow burn, Joel’s traumatic childhood, getting together, smut, canon divergence after SLC, fix it fic

It wasn’t better this way, being apart, pretending like he didn’t want to cradle you against his chest while you slept and everything else that came with that feeling. He knew that now. But did you?

Chapter 10 || Series Masterlist

When did that clock get so fucking loud?

A halo of orange light circled the leather-bound journal Tommy had gifted Joel for Christmas on the old wooden table Joel called a workbench, pencil scratching against paper as he etched blueprint after blueprint until his hand and eyes ached from the strain.

Through the winter, he’d turned the spare bedroom upstairs into a workshop, slowly filling in a small set of drawers with whatever bits and pieces of guitar hardware he could find. A music store a few miles away was raided after he and Tommy had cleared it of a few infected, a house up by the chalet was full of nails and screws, and he’d developed a good relationship with a guy up the road, Daryl, who traded him wood prepped for carving and sanding for half the haul of whatever Joel cut down and towed back. On top of patrols, Tommy had also roped him into the Great Jackson Renovation of 2035, which he was currently planning, touring every house and building to assess the repairs needed to keep it in good enough shape to last whatever the elements threw at them.

“Thirty-six by…hundred and seventy-two…no that can’t be right…” he murmured to himself, the mug of coffee beside his right hand cold as a midnight dusting of snow floated through the air outside his window, “Seventy-two by a hundred-thirty-six.”

When he finally called it a night and slipped beneath the neatly tucked sheets of his bed the clock read 1:26 AM, the monsters of his dreams ready for their nightly feast. It was always the same now; Sarah was always the first to fall, her tiny body he could still remember the weight of in his arms crumpling to the ground, then Ellie who went down swinging, and finally you, with that forgiving smile and touch to his cheek. You always told him it was okay before you faded away, forgiving him in your final breath, and every day he woke with a scream.

“Ellie?” he called the following morning, gently rapping his knuckles on her front door, “Breakfast’s ready.”

“Okay!” she yelled from inside, “Be there in a sec!”

All he knew to do was work. Whether it was cooking new things, fixing the house, carving, building, fighting…anything that could keep his mind busy and unable to wander through the dangerous situations in his head. The restoration project had filled a large section of that void space, Tommy’s plan to keep him occupied working better than he’d like to admit. Maybe it kept some of the guilt he felt at bay.

The two had been at odds in the days before you left. Joel was furious Tommy had approved it, though Tommy swore he had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t his call. You’d volunteered, and Maria had given the okay despite Tommy’s best attempts at keeping you here. There had never really been a good reason, only selfish ones.

“Any sign of them yet?” Ellie asked as she sat at the small square table in the kitchen, a plate piled with eggs and toast in front of her.

“Not that I know of,” he replied with a sigh, walking right past the second empty plate set out for him and joining her, “Wanna help me today?”

“I’m on farming.”

“That a no?”

“Can you get me off farming?”

“I’m sure I can put in a good word.”

With Ellie in tow, Joel met up with Tommy at the church, tape measure and ladders out as a remodel was planned. It felt like the old days, Tommy’s ideas too extravagant and Joel’s too practical, the pair meeting in the middle on a design that was feasible, functional, and appealing. Maria had stopped by to see their progress, smiling ear to ear at the rough sketches Tommy had done.

“What about like, you know space right here. For dancing,” Ellie chimed in, waving her hands around, “And a little stage over there in case anyone wants to play guitar or…or sing something.”

That comment had Joel smiling a little, teaching Ellie how to play had been some of the better moments of the last few weeks. She’d been getting the hang of the strings of the guitar he’d gifted her in the fall, pride swelling in his chest at just the thought. Tommy and Maria agreed with her idea, talking with her about any other thoughts she had while Joel’s mind wandered into a realm of fantasy. Your fingers in his hair, his arm around your waist, he’d never dreamed of dancing before, he’d loathed the very idea of it. But after the sight of your forest eyes gazing up at him as you led him through the movements, the memory plagued him.

You’d granted him a second chance in a light snowfall when you’d both stepped out for some air as the credits had begun to roll the night before you’d left. Tommy’s Christmas carols of choice were heard even from outside, and though you hadn’t said a word to him since his plea you come back to him, you’d smiled when he’d asked for a hand.

“Still got some of those bad memories to replace…” he’d said, and you hadn’t been able to refuse.

There had been space between you still, but considerably less than the first time he’d found your hand in his. There were less toes smashed, too—still a few, but not enough that had his face burning in frustration. You’d left after that, patting his chest once with a simple “I’ll see you soon,” a gaping hole ripping open where your hand had been as you faded from view. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to see you off, he knew himself well enough, there was no way he’d have let you go without a fight.

“Earth to Joel!” Tommy’s voice thundered, “Can we build that?”

“Build what?” Joel replied, the three pairs of eyes locked on him rolling in unison.

Thursday brought the weekly night out at the Bison. Tommy and Maria along with Indy still met like clockwork, Joel begrudgingly agreeing to go just to keep his brother off his ass. He’d only ever gone for you, to get you out and making friends, to acclimate, but after a few months it was for the chance you’d need to slip behind him, your hand grazing over his back, shoulder, or arm. It sent a shiver down his spine every single time, he missed the feeling. A beer gone warm sat in front of him as Tommy lost at darts again, too tipsy to see straight enough, Seth celebrating another easy-won victory against the one man in Jackson who had decent perks to wager. This time, Seth managed to weasel a few extra bottles of scotch for his own personal stash.

“Miller,” Indy called out, her newly-established girlfriend Sophia on her heels, “What’s it been now? We’re going into week six?”

The two women took the seats in front of him, clearly this corner hadn’t been dark enough to hide him.

“I don’t know,” he grumbled, gagging down a sip from his glass, “Somethin’ like that.”

“As if you don’t have the days numbered on your calendar.“

It had been seven weeks and three days, four weeks exactly since last contact with Eugene when the group landed in Nevada. The anticipated return home was already a week later than expected. It had been gnawing away at him. Not that he had any expectations for your return, just the thought of you back safely in the gates was enough for him right now. The rest he could grapple with later.

“I know they’re late,” Indy finally admitted, quieter, more reserved, “And I know you’re as panicked as I am.”

The muscle of his jaw twitched as it tightened, “Yeah.”

“Think they’re okay?”

“How should I know?”

His answer should have been softer, more empathetic, maybe he should have lied, but it fired off with his temper. He didn’t want to talk about this. The moment he let his mind entertain the possibility you were gone would be the end of the waning control he had over himself. Once that broke, the path back to the man sitting at this table wasn’t one he could navigate without a guide. Indy understood, nodding and staying planted in her seat as if she somehow knew he couldn’t be alone, uncaring of the callous words he just spewed at her. He’d have to save the bludgeoning guilt over the fact he didn’t deserve the care he got from the people around him for later.

As soon as an acceptable departure time hit, he was walking the dark streets alone back home, the old desk lamp on the workshop table flicking on as he opted for sanding the body of his next guitar over doing the sketches and measurements Tommy had asked for. It could wait. He was being too rough, too fast, he knew he’d have to redo all the work he was doing tomorrow, but still, he couldn’t calm his movements, the wood taking the brunt of his frustrations. The table shook beneath his hands, his teeth grit together as the dust began to burn his eyes, the clattering of the frame that rest beside the light causing his hands to drop everything as he moved to right it.

It was the only photo of you he had, that anyone had. Tommy had taken it from Seth, no doubt for a price. The summer sun had been still filtering in through the bar’s windows, you were seated beside him at one of the small tables near the dart boards, the true focus of the snapshot Tommy and Eugene in a heated game. That wasn’t what he was looking at. It was you listening intently to whatever he was droning on about. He couldn’t even remember what it was he was telling you, it probably wasn’t interesting, but the way you looked at him told otherwise. He wanted to go back, pay more attention to you, he hadn’t caught it at the moment, but instead he was here alone with nothing but the heavy weight of regret on his shoulders.

Despite sleeping alone, he only pulled back the right side of the sheets, as he did every night, grabbing the book on the bedside table to distract him until his eyelids grew too heavy to keep open. Except tonight, he couldn’t even concentrate on the page. Too much of the dam had weakened, at this point he was contemplating sleeping at all. It wouldn’t be worth it. He’d be up in two hours sweating and panting.

“Joel!!!” He awoke with a jolt. “Joel!! Horses!! At the fucking gates!”

Ellie waited for him at the stoop, his jacket askew on his shoulders and your scarf around his neck as they took off towards the West gate. Tommy was already there, and Maria, Jesse and Seth as well as they awaited the group approaching. Joel’s stomach was tense, butterflies in a whirlwind; would you be happy to see him? Indifferent? He could handle either of those, but not disappointed. The time away likely worked against him, your own demons overtaking what little progress he’d made. It wasn’t better this way, being apart, pretending like he didn’t want to cradle you against his chest while you slept and everything else that came with that feeling. He knew that now. But did you?

In a sea of strange faces, he looked for the familiar. Eugene was there, chapped cheeks and wide eyes, Paulie too, who spotted Joel and quickly turned, and stranger after stranger marveling at the sights before them as he once had. The lights, the nostalgia of normalcy, it was captivating, but he didn’t care about them.

“Joel,” Tommy called, Eugene pressed behind him, “Joel…”

“Where is she?” Joel asked, everything sinking, the butterflies dropping dead and heavy like shotgun casings, “Where the fuck is she?”

“Come over here.”

A gentle hand on his shoulder was roughly shoved off, ire rising as his face burned in rage.

“Tell me. Right now,” he demanded, “Right here.”

“She’s gone, Joel.”

Gone.

“Ellie…” he mumbled, “Ellie, go with Maria…”

“What? No!” she argued, but Maria didn’t make him ask twice, wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulling her away, “Joel!”

His feet trudged across the pavement, the scraping of the rocks and dirt beneath his boots like nails on a chalkboard as he tried to remember how to breathe. He was underwater, his limbs slow as they dragged against the resistance, his lungs refusing air, the sight of your bow in his brother’s hands like a bullet to the chest.

“Christ…” he gasped, his vision tunneling, a snarl ripping free from his chest as he took off in a feral lunge and gripped the assumed perpetrator by the jacket, “What did you do?! What the hell did you do?!”

Paulie was quivering, his hands grasping Joel’s as he blabbered incoherently, Tommy and Eugene quickly following and failing to pull the irate Joel from his trance. When a fist was raised, Tommy was too slow, Joel’s knuckles connecting with a jaw that buckled beneath the force, the yelp of agony that followed only fuel for another blow. He didn’t even notice the crimson staining his skin when Tommy finally got enough of a lock around him to send him hurtling backward to the ground, his spine and head impacting hard enough to have him groaning as his eyes came back into focus. Eugene and Jesse were helping Paulie, Tommy standing in the middle as if he stood a chance if Joel tried to advance again, his eyes flicking between each of the two men.

“You stay down, Joel!” Tommy was yelling, muffled and far away, the ringing in Joel’s ears making the words only half audible, “Stay the hell down. I mean it.”

“Or what?” Joel threatened, delirious and bloodthirsty, “You were never any match for me, boy.”

“Stay down, Joel. Please. I’m asking.”

Once on his hands and knees, he could see the fear dripping into his little brother’s eyes, his body turning towards Joel as he readied to block the next attack, Eugene still trying to drag Paulie into the nearest building before Joel could recuperate. Your bag was sitting two arm’s lengths away, the bow you’d carried for years discarded on the ground as if his very will to live wasnt tethered to that curved piece of wood.

Dragging himself to your belongings, Tommy followed with a shuffle, easing only when Joel rose to his knees and clutched your prized weapon to his chest with trembling fingers as he stood. As reality came crashing down, one of his hands covered his mouth as the shock set in, Tommy’s empathetic grip falling to his shoulder without resistance this time.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Tommy whispered, “I know you—“

“Don’t,” Joel warned; not that fucking word, “I wanna know what happened. All of it.”

“I don’t think that’s—“

“I wasn’t askin’!”

With a reassuring pat to his back, Tommy went to find Eugene, leaving Joel in the darkness he was unsure he could ever wade out of.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered under his breath, “I can’t do this again. I can’t do it again… Please God, I can’t.”

But he had to. Just like before, he had a reason to keep going. Tommy. Ellie. Maria. Giving up wasn’t an option. He could fight for them. He had to.

“Joel,” Tommy sounded, “sit down.”

“What?” Joel snapped, finding not only Eugene with Tommy, but Paulie, too, “Why is he here?”

“Sit. Down. Joel. The second you get up, it’s over.”

Now he understood what a caged animal felt like. All this pent up anger, the tensing of every muscle, the empty, hollow feeling in his gut, it was all here. He wanted to pace, relieve some of the pressure, but he did as he was told for Tommy’s sake and no other, his fiery gaze set upon the group towering over him as they surrounded him.

“She was sick,” Eugene began, “pneumonia. We were five days from destination, I told her to hang on, we were almost to the medicine. I promised I’d get her home. Burning with a fever, coughing, whimpering with aches, it was… One morning I woke up and she was gone, all her things left behind. We checked everywhere. I swear. All day we searched, yelling her name, checking for tracks. They stopped at a river.

“We went back to the house we were in that night, thinking maybe she’d find her way back. By morning, we were…overrun. Horde. We had to leave and we assume that…well, that they got her before we did.”

“Christ…” How was reality worse than the scenarios in his head? “She’s out there.”

“Joel, no,” Tommy reasoned, “Joel…”

“You said all was well! When you checked in on the radio!” His mind couldn’t land on a thought, he was recalling every detail he knew, looking for a reason, a cause, a sign… You had looked pale the last night he’d seen you, your head had been warm, but he’d thought nothing of it. You were sick…

“We didn’t…want you to go out looking…” Eugene admitted, Joel barely able to suppress his anger.

“She’s out there,” he was mumbling to himself again, “She needs…help.”

“Joel.” It was Tommy’s turn to try and talk him down. “Don’t do this. Joel! God damnit!”

He was already halfway out the door by the time he was fully on his feet, he needed a horse, a few weapons, a map… Food he could find, the clothes on his back would do. The stables were thirty feet away, his horse was itching for a long trip, had to be, it had been awhile.

“Joel! Listen to me. For once in your god damn fuckin’ life. Listen to me!” Tommy was still talking, it was like the buzzing of a gnat. “You know how this ends! That the last way you want to see her!?”

The light would be gone from your eyes, he knew that. If he could find you, and he would. He’d take down everything in his path til he did. He imagined you scared and alone as you waited to turn, too afraid to walk back and get your gun to end it in favor of Eugene and Paulie, and he owed it to you to do what you weren’t able to. It was the one thing you always made him promise, to end it before the turn. And he couldn’t keep it. But he could end it before your face was overtaken, your skin turned into a putrid Petri dish, and your limbs seized and contorted. He could save you before it got worse.

“You don’t need to do this,” Tommy eased, taking advantage of the pause in Joel’s pursuit as he contemplated the next steps.

“Are you comin’ or no?” Joel finally asked, not turning to face his brother, his voice flat and lifeless.

“Joel…Don’t do this.”

“Are you comin’ or no?”

“Joel, we got families here—“

“She is your family!”

With those words he whipped around, chest heaving once again, eyes begging for anything to hold on to. Tommy’s hands provided the support he needed to let the levee finally break, his little brother that had been forced to grow up too fast despite Joel’s best attempts at preserving every last bit of innocence providing the net once again that could keep him from falling.

The fur of Tommy’s collar was soft on Joel’s face as his brother pulled him into his arms, Joel accepting the embrace away from prying eyes. It was a reminder that despite his loss, he wasn’t alone. It was a confirmation he desperately needed that terrified him all the same.

“You have been there for everything,” Joel finally began as he pulled away, letting vulnerability slip through the cracks, “Rebecca. Ma. Sarah.”

And I need you now.

“Okay, Joel,” Tommy finally conceded, “Alright. I’m with you. Okay? I’m with you. Go home. Pack a bag. Meet me in an hour at the stables.”

Was he cursed? The past year had been nothing but carnage and death. Tess, Sam, Henry, was this his penance for pulling Ellie out of that hospital? Being around him was a death wish. As he passed the cemetary within eye sight of his house, he paused. Should he leave now? Was bringing Tommy along just another risk? He could make it back to the stables in thirty with his machete, shotgun, and revovler in hand. Not that he knew where he was going, and he sighed as he realized Tommy had left him in the dark intentionally.

Panicked footsteps followed the creaking of the hinges on his front door, Ellie’s body slamming into his hard enough to push the wind out of him. She was crying, her arms locked tight as she buried her face into his shoulder, his arms instinctually wrapping around her.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he soothed, leaning his chin on her head, “It’s alright.”

“Don’t go,” was all she whimpered in response, his shoulders slumping in defeat, there was no winning this, “I know you’re gonna go. Don’t.”

“I have to.”

“So you can die, too?!” Her small frame yanked free, shoving at his chest as her face twisted in a fresh wave of tears.

“I ain’t gonna die–”

“That’s what she said!! And she’s gone!”

An eerie silence followed, Ellie holding in her gasping breaths as her soaked green eyes pierced through him. The thought of you out there alone and scared was plaguing him, the chance that somehow you’d find a way to survive was low, but it wasn’t zero. It was fool’s hope, but he’d never been the smartest guy in the room anyhow. He needed something to keep his feet moving forward.

“I gotta bring her home, kiddo,” he finally resigned, “I’ll be back. I swear.”

Ellie's Journal - January 26, 2035

Art by @natendo-art

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou fanfiction #more than my father’s son

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novantinuum · 8 months

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Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Rating: G Words: 1.7K~ Summary: heart•song (n.): An expression of our most inner being, identity, and reason for existence – what twists and turns of life have led us here, to this dangerous place? And by what strength do we keep enduring? - Or: For a sage to give one their vow, first there must be vulnerability. (A collection of shorts exploring the bond between each sage and Link.)

Some Tulin and Link bonding content for y'all today! I have a lil' one-shot planned for every single TotK sage.

NOTE: This fic contains TotK main quest spoilers.

Enjoy! <3

____

One: Tulin

The bitting air chill produced by the monumental cyclone they’re approaching is almost enough to send a shiver down his spine, downy feathers be damned.

Tulin tucks his wings in tight and scoots himself closer to the fire Link just lit, its delicate flames protected from the merciless touch of this wintery weather within a little alcove they spotted in the ruins midway up the Rising Island Chain. It’s not an impressive fire by any means— not like one of Gesane’s massive hillside beacons— but it’s more than enough to keep warm and cook a quick meal over.

Of course, resting and eating are the last two things he wants to focus on right now with the well-being of his whole village at stake.

He lets out a faint huff, his warm breath condensing into a foggy cloud that‘s rapidly whisked away by the wind. Restless talons rap against the sky platform’s aged stonework. Nothing about this quest has panned out as expected so far, and it’s super frustrating to him. First his prized bow got stolen by monsters— and that’s embarrassing enough on its own— but then he’s been lagging behind Link all the way up these freezing cold islands… struggling to recover his full stamina after continuous use of his wind burst powers. He just feels… so, so small— so guilty, as if… he’s somehow letting his whole village down if he allows himself to slow down and rest for even more than a minute.

“Do we really have to break now?” he halfheartedly protests, fighting to keep his beak from chattering between syllables. “We’re like, halfway there!”

“Your stomach’s rumbling,” is all Link signs in response, before reaching into his bag.

Tulin’s features scrunch into a grimace as he realizes the Hylian is clearly attempting to spare his feelings. After all, it’s not a coincidence that Link suggested setting up camp right after watching him lose air momentum and almost miss his landing on this latest chunk of island.

He may be foolish sometimes, may be in way, way over his head up here, but he’s far from ignorant.

Or at least, he’d really like to believe so.

After a minute or so of rummaging through various pockets and flaps, his traveling partner retrieves two metal skewers and a handful of peppers and cubed venison from his supplies. (Good grief, just how deep is that bag?) He’s swift and methodical in preparing them for the fire— piercing their sides one by one, alternating between meat and vegetable to provide a well balanced meal: protein, and something to keep their bodies warm at these near impossible heights.

(For, despite what many of his people would have the Hylians think, there is a limit to how far up a Rito can venture before even their feathers freeze over.)

But even if he’s anxious to continue their mission as soon as he possibly can, there’s no denying the fact that a skilled warrior dare not fight on an empty stomach. Swallowing the rest of his impatience, Tulin mouths a hollow ‘thanks’ as Link passes one of the finished skewers to him. Clutching it within his feathery grasp, he starts to rotate it over the flames. The two fall into a natural silence in the minutes that follow. It’s quite simple to let one’s mind wander whilst cooking, of course. The eye is so fixed on the outer rind of one’s food— waiting for the fire to provide that perfect, smoky singe— that the auditory senses are left free to explore whatever else they desire. Like the rhythmic crackling of embers from beneath the wood, or the wailing gusts intermittently slamming into the sides of the toppled Zonai ruins that form their alcove.

Swallowing, he traces the path of the wind towards the very edge of the sky island just a few talon lengths away… marvels at how far down the steep mountain peaks of Hebra are.

“Y’know,” he begins with hesitance, forcing himself to glance away from the daunting view of The Down Below, “I don’t think I’ve ever flown so high before.“

Long pause.

He glances back towards Link. His friend doesn’t move to respond at first, clutching his skewer with both hands, but he can tell he’s paying attention from the way he shifts his head, angling his ear so he can catch his voice over the air’s violent whistling.

“Sometimes,” he continues, “it felt like… I dunno. Like even though I wanted to prove myself to my dad, wanted to explore the furthest reaches of this sky… it just wasn’t the right time yet.”

“And is it the right time now?” Link asks, almost so quiet so as to be imperceptible. It’s actually a little jarring— he doesn’t hear the man speak out loud too often. He wonders why he’s chosen to do so today.

Although on second consideration, the answer may be simpler than meets the eye- it’s probably because his hands are occupied with the cooking.

Tulin clamps his beak shut, considering for a moment. “I— I don’t know. I hope it is. Everyone back at home could really use a turn in this weather.”

His dad, most of all. It wasn’t too long ago that Elder Kaneli relinquished the role and passed it on to him. Seeing the way this duty has washed out his feathers, he almost wishes it didn’t happen at all. Of course, no one could’ve predicted the Upheaval, or this dreadful blizzard. No one could’ve predicted the village would have to reckon with the very real threat of starvation. So having to watch Dad’s dauntless spirit nearly crumple under the pressure all the responsibilities of leadership bring… it pains him. It’s why he’s been so fervent in pushing back against his non-engagement policy this whole time— because the Dad he knows wouldn’t just sit back and accept bare minimum survival when his people are suffering.

His thoughts are interrupted by a faint rumble at his side, likely Link clearing his throat. With a hum of intrigue, he turns to meet his gaze.

“Your skewer’s smoldering,” he says, nodding towards the campfire.

Sharp inhale.

Oh! Oh, yeah—

Thanking his lucky stars that someone was paying attention, Tulin yanks his meal from the flames. He summons a focused gust of wind upon his wing, blowing it across the skewer’s tip to make sure it’s not too burning hot when he bites into it. Well, at least it’s done. A bit overdone, but food is food. He certainly can’t complain after a few weeks of rationing back home. Stomach rumbling with ferocity once again, he digs in. The roasted spicy pepper warms him instantly.

From the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of a faint smile curving across the Hylian’s face.

“What?” he asks, the word garbled within a beak-full of meat.

Link removes his own skewer from the flames, and gestures towards him with the end of the metal stake. “Your ability,” he begins, voice a little hoarse with disuse. “Manipulation of air. How’d you become so skilled at creating such precise gusts?”

A slight laugh escapes his lungs, his body suddenly brimming with nervous energy. “I’m not sure, actually… I was really young when it started, and my memory’s kinda shaky… plus, most people don’t believe me, anyways.”

His friend scoots across the stone so he’s sitting a bit closer, and takes a hefty bite of his own dinner.

“Try me,” he says mid-chew.

Tulin inhales deeply. Oh boy, what’s the easiest way to explain this…?

“Well,” he begins, a cold burst of anxiety rushing through his veins, “it was when I was still a fledgling… still learning how to fly. I was playing with Molli and Kotts in the woods outside the village, and then… suddenly I was alone. Someplace completely different, as if I’d been spirited away.”

He pauses his story for a few seconds to take another bite of his meat and pepper skewer.

“I was in this huge, gigantic forest… even larger than the one I came from! I thought I was lost forever— that is, until this other Rito found me, and led me back to my dad. Like Dad, this Rito was also a warrior— but he had a special power, one he developed all by himself. He could push himself high up into the sky with one, mighty gust.”

Link’s brows raise in noted interest at that last statement.

“I wasn’t with him for long, but—“ Tulin lets his eyes flutter shut, thinking back to those clouded memories with deep fondness— “that day, I promised myself I’d train until I became just as powerful a warrior as him. Someone my people could really be proud of. But then again…” Opening his eyes, he turns towards his companion and gives a big ol’ shrug. “I still don’t understand how any of that could be real. That warrior… my memory’s a little fuzzy, but he looked a lot like how people describe Master Revali, from the age of Calamity. His powers, too… it’s all so strange.”

“How do you think it happened?” Link asks, his expression brimming with curiosity.

“Hmm…” he muses, curling his wing against his chin. “I dunno. For a while, I started to think that… maybe it was a dream. Maybe all my friends were right. But then again… if I’m hearing some mysterious voice calling to me from this storm… then who knows what’s possible? Maybe there’s more to all this than meets the eye, y’know?”

And maybe… just maybe… whatever’s hiding at the core of the maelstrom will finally feed him the answers he’s craved his whole life… finally feed him new purpose.

The Hylian hums, giving a short nod. “I’ve long accepted there’s things in this world I’ll never fully understand. And for what it’s worth… I believe your story.”

After a whole childhood of deniers, the sheer validation laced within those words are enough to almost bring him to tears.

“Thank you,” he says, his heart brimming with gratitude.

And though this is but a singular moment of validation after a whole childhood of being told he’s got ‘an overactive imagination,’ the pull of the world below suddenly feels a little lighter. Light enough to push through his exhaustion and scale the rest of this rising island chain, at very least! After all… it can’t be that much further to the top. And once they’re there… this whole mystery with the storm, and all the Zelda sightings, and the strange voice he keeps hearing is gonna slot right into place.

He just knows it.

#loz #totk #tulin #link #loz fanfiction #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #my writing stuff

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liangxinn · 1 year

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untitled fantasy/royalty AU

For someone who supposedly doesn't care much for writing royalty AUs, I sure have a lot of them in my WIPs... including a King's Maker AU which I really really want to see through to the end ><

Anyway, I found this abandoned draft for a different fandom from 2019. Looking back at my writing from 4 years ago sure was an Experience, but I didn't want to immediately throw up at least, so I consulted the oracle (Twitter) and decided to tidy up a little excerpt as a SVT/Minwon fic. Here's the basic gist:

Elven princes Mingyu and Seungcheol are shocked to discover that their late father has named Mingyu his heir instead of Seungcheol, the eldest

Newly appointed captain of the royal guard Wonwoo is assigned to protect Mingyu (spoiler: they do not like each other lol)

To avoid taking the throne, Mingyu pledges himself to the god of the hunt, joins a band of hunters (I'm thinking performance unit), and leaves for six years

He returns to the kingdom when a mysterious affliction sweeps the land, turning the people into demon-like monsters, and has to work with Wonwoo to investigate...

I actually have the entire story plotted out, and I am more than happy to answer any questions if anyone's curious to know more! You can find 3.2k of one of the early chapters, mostly unchanged from the original draft, below the cut ^^

Mingyu's sleep is fitful, leaving him tossing and turning and tormented with snippets of strange dreams.

He walks for an age along the secret corridor, only for it to lead him to his father's room when he exits through the trapdoor. Just the sight of it, unopened since the king's death, stirs up a sick feeling in Mingyu's stomach. He doesn't know what possesses him to press his palm against the wood, only that it feels like fire trying to burn the skin from his hand. Of its own volition, his other hand drifts up as well, and he watches, entranced.

Mingyu pushes lightly against the door, hears the snap of splintering wood. A voice escapes through the cracks like scalding steam, and he pushes harder. His father's sharp words rush back to him from weeks, months, years long past. A heavy ache settles over his body, throbbing dully in the places where he could not be forced into the mould they made for Seungcheol. Pain lances across his cheek, but whether it's from the flames or a blow meant for his brother, he can't tell. The door collapses beneath the pressure, and he disappears into the flames.

He wakes, gasping, and sleep claims him again.

At a coronation, a crown is placed upon Mingyu's head, so heavy that it threatens to crush him. Hundreds of eyes bore into his flesh, picking like crows at every part of him they can reach, ripping him apart with their scrutiny. His own eyes dart around frantically and land upon Queen Consort Hyeyoung only to find a cold, insincere smile. Seungcheol is somewhere among them, flashing in and out of sight.

Mingyu tears the crown away in repulsion. When he hurls it to the ground at his feet, it shatters as if it were made of glass instead of precious metals. A moment passes, then the crowd erupts into raucous sound. He has displeased them. They surge upwards from their seats in a writhing, screaming mass. They call for his head. They call for his blood to be spilled.

He wakes, feels the prickle of those eyes on him, and shudders.

By now, the sun has begun to rise, throwing weak light into the room. Mingyu had gotten just a couple hours of sleep at the most. His body struggles against him, forcing his eyelids to droop and demanding more time to rest. Just as he's about to succumb, a sharp rap on the door seizes his attention.

Mingyu knows exactly who it is when the person enters before he even has the chance to respond. His brother slips into the room with those distinctive footsteps of his, dark eyes alight with excitement and the corner of his mouth curled upwards in amusement. He perches on the edge of the bed, yanking the covers away when Mingyu tries to bury himself underneath.

"You got caught last night," Seungcheol says, mirth laced in his tone. Mingyu rolls over to throw a glare in his direction.

"Good morning to you, too."

"Was it him? That Captain Jeon?"

Mingyu scowls at the mention of Wonwoo, having forgotten his existence momentarily. Seungcheol takes his stubborn silence as confirmation. In a more serious voice, he asks if Wonwoo found out about the passageway. Mingyu mulls it over for a moment before deciding that Wonwoo shouldn't have been able to figure out how he left castle grounds. He must've traced his path by some other means.

"I have a guard, too," Seungcheol sighs, flopping back onto the bed and across Mingyu's legs, ignoring his squawk of protest. "His name is Vernon. He's quiet, but he seems like a good kid. Must be capable if he became a guard at his age. He thinks quite highly of Captain Jeon."

"Good for them," Mingyu remarks sarcastically before he can bite it back. He shoves his face into a pillow to avoid the intrigued look Seungcheol sends his way.

"What, don't you like him? He was pleasant enough when I met him. Surely you've heard that he's the youngest captain in the history of the royal guard."

Mingyu refuses to answer. There is silence for a long moment, which borders on suspicious, then Seungcheol says in a sage-like, all-knowing tone, "Oh, I see. You fucked him."

Mingyu's expression cycles between outrage and disbelief before deciding to settle on embarrassment, to his dismay.

"Hyung!" he hisses, springing upright to hurl a pillow at his brother's head and shoot a look at the door as if Wonwoo could hear them from outside. Seungcheol blocks the pillow with ease, the sound of his delighted cackling quelling Mingyu's outburst. There hasn't been very much to laugh at as of late.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Gyu-yah. Come to think of it, he's exactly your type-"

"I did nothing of the sort and I have no desire to!" Mingyu fumes, even as a giggle of his own threatens to escape him. He's painfully aware of the incriminating heat rising to his cheeks and ears, but he can't help the smile that tugs at his mouth. The roguish grin he receives in return is more than worth it.

Seungcheol has been run so thin lately, what with the burden of kingship dumped upon him in such an abrupt manner. And now, it may turn out that all of his efforts over the years were for naught. Mingyu reflects on what the queen consort told him last night, and dread fills his stomach at the very thought of having to take the crown. The vision of the coronation from his dreams flits to the front of his mind.

"How have you been, Mingyu?" Seungcheol asks softly as he pulls the pillow onto his lap and rests his hands atop it.

"Hyung," Mingyu begins with a heavy sigh, "did you know about the will?"

Seungcheol's gaze slides away. "Yes. I saw it the day before it was posted in the city centre."

"I don't blame you for keeping it from me, but how are you... alright with this?"

"The king's will is law, Mingyu-yah. I know this, and so do you."

"It doesn't make sense! Why would he name me his successor over you? He barely acknowledged my existence for twenty years and yet he left the entire kingdom to me? I don't believe it. I cannot believe it."

"Father took his reasons with him to the grave," Seungcheol says with grim resignation. "The only thing that we can do is follow his wishes."

"It should be you, hyung. It was always meant to be you. I'm not worthy," Mingyu finishes with a miserable sigh.

"I thought you would say something like that. But honestly speaking, I think you're just as capable of being a leader. Don't be so quick to undermine your skills."

Though Mingyu knows that Seungcheol is trying to be reassuring, he can't help but think that his brother sounds just like Queen Consort Hyeyoung. A product of her teachings, he supposes.

At Mingyu's skeptical raised eyebrow, Seungcheol gives his shoulder a light squeeze as a comforting gesture. "We'll figure something out. I'll still be here to help as much as I can."

Regardless of Mingyu's faith in his ability to lead the entirety of the kingdom, it simply isn't right for him to take the crown. Not when Seungcheol is the eldest, not when he has spent much of his life preparing for the inevitable day of their father's death. Despite having no choice but to take up the role of heir, Seungcheol has a true interest in the responsibilities of kingship. The life of a king has never appealed to Mingyu in the same way.

Seungcheol rises to his feet, tossing his pillow lightly at Mingyu's face and startling him from his thoughts. "Get dressed. Let's go to breakfast."

"Don't want to," Mingyu whines in response. "Can't we stay in here?"

It's definitely not because he doesn't want to face Wonwoo and be reminded of his wounded pride. Not at all. He's simply too tired to go all the way down to the dining hall and he'd much rather have breakfast in his room without having to take a single step outside, where Wonwoo is standing right now-

Mingyu yelps as the pillow makes contact with his face for a second time, more forcefully than the last. In his serious, all-business voice, Seungcheol insists that he comes down to have breakfast with Queen Consort Hyeyoung, so Mingyu acquiesces with a grumble.

"Choi Seungcheol, you are the rudest elf I have ever had the misfortune of meeting."

"I know you love me, dearest brother."

Mingyu's exaggerated eye roll threatens to earn him a third smack with the pillow, so he leaps out of bed under the pretence of getting dressed and shoos Seungcheol out of his room. After he's cleaned himself up and made an attempt at taming the bird's nest that is his hair, Mingyu scrutinises his reflection with a critical eye.

He's visibly tired, his under eyes stamped with dark half-moons. His mouth is set in a displeased line, his shoulders are hunched, and his eyes are too full of worries. The image staring back at him doesn't look at all like a king, not even when he tries to picture a crown on his head. Its phantom weight pushes his head down, forcing him to break his gaze from his tired reflection.

Seungcheol always resembled their father more, anyway.

Breakfast is doomed to be a sombre affair as soon as Mingyu and Seungcheol enter the hall, followed closely by Wonwoo and Vernon. They slide into their seats across from Queen Consort Hyeyoung under the sympathetic eyes of the staff present, and Mingyu resists the urge to steal a sideways glance at his father's empty place at the head of the table. He almost prefers it this way.

The last time they all had breakfast together must've been at least four years ago, when Mingyu and Seungcheol were only sixteen. He barely remembers what it was like, though it isn't a particularly fond memory to begin with. It was around that time Mingyu took to having his morning meal alone in his room or the gardens. Immersed in his studies, Seungcheol wouldn't even come to eat sometimes either.

When Queen Consort Hyeyoung greets them, her slight smile doesn't quite reach her tired eyes. Mingyu meets her gaze, and the knowing look he finds there is enough to make him break eye contact to stare at his plate. A welcome distraction comes in the form of food brought out by the kitchen staff, who he thanks courteously.

Queen Consort Hyeyoung and Seungcheol begin to discuss an upcoming trade meeting with one of the western nations, so Mingyu helps himself to a roll still warm from the oven. After a liberal application of butter and honey scented like the local flowers, he bites into the soft bread, relishing the satisfying sweetness. Honey spills over his fingers and threatens to turn into a sticky mess. Perhaps he was a little too generous.

"Prince Mingyu," Queen Consort Hyeyoung calls to him. "What do you plan to do today?"

Before he even has the chance to open his mouth to respond, Mingyu feels a shift in the air, something odd that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. And before he even has the chance to even furrow his brow in suspicion, it happens.

The sound of shattering glass pierces the air, followed by a soft thud. The razor sharp tip of an arrow impales an orange perched precariously at the top of the fruit bowl, sending it flying off the edge of the table. Mingyu tracks it with his eyes as it rolls in a wobbly line to stop at Wonwoo's feet. A note written in black ink is tied to the shaft of the arrow like a mockery of a white flag.

A violent chill races down Mingyu's spine when he realises that the arrow had flown straight through the space between his and Seungcheol's heads. There had barely been a beat between the moment that he'd felt it twist the palace magic and the point of impact. He would've been dead before his mind even processed the window shattering.

After the last shards of glass have settled, the dining hall is silent. No one dares to move an inch, all eyes glued to the arrow which interrupted their morning meal. Slowly, carefully, with tension lining his body, Wonwoo leans down to pluck the arrow free and straighten out the message. Mingyu can see that his jaw is clenched, his knuckles pale with the intensity of his grip.

"I will come for what I am owed," Wonwoo reads out in a grim tone. His eyes flicker to Mingyu, then Seungcheol.

A murmur erupts throughout the room, pulsing in waves of concern. To their credit, none of the staff panic or dissolve into hysterics, though the palpable tension sits heavily on Mingyu's shoulders. He shares a sideways glance with Seungcheol as Queen Consort Hyeyoung says in a dangerously calm and even tone, "A perimeter search, if you will, Captain Jeon."

Wonwoo strides out of the room with a curt nod, still clutching the arrow in his hand. The remaining guards band closer towards the three of them left sitting frozen at the table. It makes Mingyu's chest constrict with snake-like fear, the kind that suffocates hope. Such a blatant threat, a direct attack. Mingyu and Seungcheol aren't the only ones left of the royal bloodline but they're certainly aware now of the bright red targets stamped upon their backs.

Queen Consort Hyeyoung clears her throat pointedly, and the maids, startled into action, bustle about using spells to gather the broken glass shards and dispose of them safely. A shield is put up across the empty frame in the meantime. The arrow must've been enchanted to break the protection on the window, powerful magic to counter the intensive safety measures woven into every single brick of the palace. It will take some time before a replacement is ready.

"Who would dare do something as bold as this?" Seungcheol asks in a low voice as Queen Consort Hyeyoung speaks to the guards. There's something almost like incredulity in his tone.

"I don't think they were acting alone," Mingyu murmurs back.

"Sounds like it has something to do with Father."

All this talk of an assassination plot has sapped Mingyu of his good mood, filling him with anxiety instead. But still he wonders, why? Whoever it was had both the resources and the opportunity to kill either of them in that moment, perhaps even both. So why go to the trouble of revealing themselves and their intentions in such a brazen manner?

Mingyu casts his gaze down at his half-eaten roll, regretful now that his appetite has entirely vanished. The honey has soaked into the bread and formed a golden sheen, but not even that enticing colour is enough to assuage the sick feeling in his stomach. He nudges the plate away with some reluctance.

"As I was saying," Queen Consort Hyeyoung begins in a slightly tense tone. "Prince Mingyu, what are your plans for the day?"

"I was... actually hoping to visit the city centre."

"Absolutely not."

Mingyu cannot say he wasn't expecting to get shot down immediately, but it does nothing to quell his disappointment. His dismay only deepens when Queen Consort Hyeyoung contemplates a total lockdown of the palace until the threat has been eliminated. If there's one thing he hates, it's being confined. The urge to protest is too compelling to push aside.

"My lady, we're playing right into their hands. Whoever was behind his, they want to create fear-"

"Prince Mingyu. Your safety is no trivial matter."

"I refuse to be afraid," Mingyu insists, all too aware of how stubborn he sounds, how he's playing a dangerous game with the line that marks defiance. "I will not stay shut up in the palace and wait for someone to kill me."

The warning Seungcheol gives him in the form of a kick under the table reminds him to keep his tongue in check, though he doesn't pay it much mind after that. He's not ready to back down on this just yet. Queen Consort Hyeyoung shows no indication of her thoughts except for a slight, almost imperceptible, flaring of her nostrils.

"Very well," she begins in a steely tone. "I don't doubt that you can take care of yourself, Prince Mingyu. But Captain Jeon will accompany you at all times, and I want a tracking spell bound to you."

Dissatisfied with these conditions, Mingyu clenches his jaw. He loathes the thought of being monitored at every step, but he recognises the immense leniency Queen Consort Hyeyoung is showing in allowing him out of the palace in the first place.

"Of course, my lady," Mingyu concedes quietly as he bows his head in respect. He's given a sunset curfew which he agrees to without any resistance; the idea of being out at night with a potential assassin in their midst is none too appealing. At that moment, Wonwoo returns with a steely expression.

"We weren't able to find anyone, Your Majesty," he reports, his deep voice tinged with frustration. "But we did catch a faint trace of magic. I've got someone looking into it."

"Thank you, Captain Jeon. I trust you will keep me informed. In the meantime, please accompany Prince Mingyu during his visit to the city centre."

The incredulous look that crosses over Wonwoo's face would be amusing if not for the tension still throttling the room.

"I'm beginning to get the impression that you are quite stubborn, Prince Mingyu," Wonwoo remarks dryly, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. "Foolishly so, one might even say."

Mingyu raises an eyebrow, but otherwise remains unaffected by the obvious bait.

"Think what you like about me, Captain Jeon," he shrugs even as the urge to retort does a tantalising dance at the forefront of his thoughts. He shoulders his satchel and sets off down the corridor without waiting for Wonwoo. The way that Wonwoo falls smoothly into step right beside him is something Mingyu will have to get used to.

"All I'm saying is that I don't think it's very wise for future King Mingyu to be so insistent on leaving the palace, especially when someone wants you dead."

"There won't be a problem as long as you do your job," Mingyu replies airily, shooting a sly sideways glance at Wonwoo. "Are you implying that you're incompetent, Captain Jeon?"

The sight of Wonwoo's face scrunching into a scowl might be the most satisfying thing Mingyu's seen all morning.

"Let me make this clear, I am your guard, not your mother-" Wonwoo begins in an irritated tone, but Mingyu stops walking and effectively cuts him off.

With narrowed eyes, Mingyu says, "I'd watch my tongue if I were you, Captain Jeon. I may tolerate the less than appropriate way you speak to me, but others certainly will not."

There is a moment in which Wonwoo holds his gaze firmly, expression unreadable. It's rather tense, and Mingyu finds himself unable to look away from those sharp eyes. Then, Wonwoo seems to relax a little.

"My apologies, Your Highness. I misspoke," he murmurs, and though Mingyu doubts its sincerity, it's better than nothing.

#yan writes #snippets #long post #minwon #seventeen fic

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restlessmaknae · 7 years

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Disastrous [pt.6]

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Genre: fluff, comedy, romcom

Main Characters: Kim Namjoon; Gu Dasom (OC)

Setting: holiday AU; friends to lovers AU

I knew that this holiday will be difficult with Namjoon by my side but I never thought that it would be this difficult.

An arranged holiday with my best friend to a breath-taking island? What could actually go wrong? In my case, the question is, what didn’t go wrong?

The next hours were spent with walking back to the bus station. The distance was long, so it took us 5 hours to get there. Namjoon said that we could have gone faster if the weather hadn’t been so hot and it hadn’t been around midday. I sometimes really felt like I could faint because as I’ve mentioned, we had no food, nor water. Luckily, we found a fountain on our way where we could drink a little but because we didn’t have money, we couldn’t even dream about buying anything. It was so humiliating. I didn’t have any kind of headwear, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had gotten sunstroke. Namjoon also felt a bit dizzy but he always felt it as his priority to encourage me to keep going.

I was never keen on walking or hiking or any kind of those outdoor physical activities but after our 5-hour journey, I hated even the idea of moving my pinkie for the next few hours. I’d never been more tired in my whole life and I immediately sat down on the ground when we got back my best friend’s backpack. I was just so exhausted. So, so exhausted.

“Ah, I’m so happy it’s over!” I blurted without much thinking and took a big sip of the water bottle. It felt incredibly good as my throat had been dry for hours.

Namjoon also let himself slide down to sit on the ground beside me. I voluntarily leaned onto his shoulder while he slung his arms around mine. It was beyond reassuring, it was almost like heaven. I could pacify my crazily beating heart and wildly rumbling thoughts by then, so I could finally feel at ease. He was beside me, I was beside him and nothing ever seemed more perfect than that.

“I feel like I could eat a cow right now,” I murmured out a jumble of words and earned an ethereal chortle from Namjoon.

“We don’t have enough money to buy you a cow,” he said in between laughs but I just playfully smacked him in the chest.

“Yah! Don’t make me sad, Namjoon!” I pouted like a little girl and it made him laugh even more. I adored watching him laugh because I never considered myself a funny girl and he still had a fun time beside me. I was kind of proud of that.

“I don’t want to but that’s the truth.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll pay for your dinner. Deal?” he raised his eyebrows in question when I withdrew. I knew he wanted to compensate me for losing his bag and making me super worried throughout the day, so I gave in. I didn’t want him to feel worse.

“Deal,” I nodded as excitedly as I could but I must have looked like a runner after completing the marathon. My hair was more like a bird nest and my face was all red thanks to the heat. My clothes were covered in sweat and I was happy if I could walk back safely to our accommodation on my feet.

We just sat there for God knows how long before we decided to find a cosy and fairly cheap restaurant to eat something. I was never really fond of hamburgers but when I saw that it was on the menu, I didn’t hesitate to order one. A really big one. I was hungry and my stomach was growling again and again, its weird noises an urging for me to get some food. Namjoon chose the same and we were munching away on our hamburgers without saying a single word out loud. We desperately needed those extra calories.

Due to the fact that it was already 5 o’ clock and we were hardly in a condition to continue our sight-seeing tour, we headed back to the guest house. I was never happier to see those dull, white walls and familiar bunk-bed than that particular night. I realised that a lot of mishaps occurred during our holiday and our room wasn’t even the worst of them.

“Can I sleep now?” I sneaked a glance at Namjoon like I needed his permission to go to bed. He looked at me dearly and pinched my cheeks. If the hot weather didn’t make them heat up a bit, his touch definitely did.

“Of course you can. We had quite a rough day, so you deserve a good night’s sleep,” he nodded and pointed to the bottom mattress. I hopped down without hesitation but before I fell onto the quilt, I made sure that I grabbed his wrist and pulled him with me. It didn’t take him by surprise, thus he didn’t even protest.

I wanted to doze off against his shoulder because I didn’t really remember the last time when we slept like that. We were best friends for 15 years now but our friendship started just like any other; totally unexpectedly. We encountered at a playground in Goyang and made a pinky promise that we will be together until the end. It all started with silly things that 6-year-old kids do; killing our time at the playground, sharing our toys with each other, talking about our favourite animated shows and playing hide and seek in our garden.

We weren’t neighbours but we spent a lot of time together and the more we grew, the more we needed each other’s company. I remember vividly that I always shared my fears with him while we were looking at the stars from the terrace of his room. He listened to me patiently and waited until I didn’t have anything else to say. Then, he rubbed his chin, tilted his head in contemplation and started talking about solutions how I should be more confident and face those obstacles. I never knew how that 6-year-old immature guy with the grey braces turned into a wise, philosophical teenager but he definitely changed. Puberty hit him so hard – or me, I don’t know – that I started seeing him as a man and not a boy. But soon, I felt the same way about my male classmates as well and that thought never flew across my mind again until 2 months ago.

“You know it’s funny,” Namjoon whispered as I rested my head on his shoulder. This silence wasn’t like the one before; it was serene and soft like a cloud hovering on the clear-blue sky.

“What?”

“I saw a lot of sides of you in the last 15 years but you never fail to show me new sides since we started our journey,” his hushed voice was full of awe and I didn’t really know why. I was pretty sure that witnessing how I had acted in the last couple of days was nothing but troublesome. I was whining, I was yelling at him and I was screaming because of a giant spider. What could have been so pleasant about that?

“Is that a good thing?” I glared at him, not sure what kind of answer I would get. His serious expression slowly dissolved into a nostalgic smile.

“Yes, it is. You are my best friend and it’s such a pity that we can’t spend as much time together as we used to since we started university. I guess that’s why I felt like we slowly drifted apart in the last couple of years. You know, there was school, assignments, new friends and you had Hyeonuk as well−” he suddenly confessed and I couldn’t help but flinch painfully at the mention of my ex-boyfriend.

I met Heyonuk 2 years ago at a college party and we had been a couple for 23 months when he said that he wanted to break up. That asshole. I inwardly cursed myself for ever trusting that guy, even though he was such a sweetheart until he announced that it was over.

“You felt like we drifted apart because of Hyeonuk?” I asked, almost frantically because I’d never thought that Namjoon would feel like I had chosen my boyfriend over him. He wasn’t jealous, he seemed to get along well with Hyeonuk when I was around, so he didn’t show any sign of jealousy. Or he was a really impressive actor.

“Yes, a little bit,” he admitted without hesitation. He didn’t seem nervous, he didn’t even nibble his lips but the dimples deepened with his smile. He wasn’t mad and I admired him for his understanding. It was one of the things on the endless list of what I loved about him. “But I don’t blame you. If you’re in love, you have to spend more time with your boyfriend than with your best friend.”

“That’s not true,” I shook my head immediately because I learned from my parents that you shouldn’t neglect your friends and family even if you are in love. “You should have told me if it really irritated you.”

“It doesn’t really matter anymore,” he waved his hands in an attempt to leave the subject and move on. “Hyeonuk doesn’t know what he missed when he said that you’re too dull and worthless for him,” he quoted the exact same words that my boyfriend had told me two months ago and even flinched like he was hurt.

He was the one who scooped me up after Hyeonuk said goodbye and that’s when I started developing feelings for him. Seeing how he cared about me and cursed at my ex-boyfriend made me feel touched. He never acted like that before when my relationships ended but that’s also true that none of my relationship were as long yet painful as the one with Hyeonuk.

“That douchebag,” I snorted furiously but my expression suddenly changed when I heard my best friend’s reaction. I couldn’t suppress the urge to smile as widely as possible.

“That crazy bastard,” he spluttered the words dismissively and when we met each other’s gazes, we broke into little fists of laughter. That made me remember for the good old days when it was so usual that we dissed my ex-boyfriends and his ex-girlfriends like that. The thought that we were getting closer and closer again melted my heart a bit.

We were talking for an hour or so and I wish we could speak more but I had already stifled a yawn like 12 times and when he noticed my sleepy eyes, he turned off the lights and walked up on the ladder. When I heard that he arrived on his mattress, I whispered to him like we always did when we had a sleepover at each other’s houses.

“Good night, Namjoonie.”

“Good night, Dasomie.”

His deep, hoarse voice was the sweetest melody that could cherish me to sleep.

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arrowthewriter · 5 years

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Chapter 22 is up!!

#park jimin #jikook #kookmin #jeon jungkook #bts fic #jimin #new chapter #jungkook #ao3feed #ao3 jikook #yoongi #min yoongi #rap monster #namjoon #kim namjoon #bts au #jung hoseok #hoseok

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bang-tan · 7 years

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booty calls arent biz calls, kids (more fake subz here)

DO NOT REPOST.

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kissmyhandcallmedarling · 2 years

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my controversial ahs opinions

yeep. don't come at me. please. thank you. they are controversial for a reason. everyone has the right to like what they like, ship whom they ship, etc etc, as long as it's not insensitive towards sexuality, gender etc etc.

and remember these are just my opinions!

okay. thank you.

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1. i don't ship cordelia and misty

i'm sorry! i've just never really seen this as a romantic connection between the two of them!

they certainly do have a connection and i would consider them platonic soulmates

and the fact that lady paulson herself denied this ship also sorta shapes my opinion. she said, i quote "cordelia LOVES MISTY. she just doesn't want to kiss her. but she is very special and important to her"

and thats essentially the way i feel about it too :)

2. i adore apocalypse

i know apocalypse has gotten a bit of a bad rap; you either love it or you hate it, and whilst i would have prefered a different ending, i loved it

it was so EPIC and NOSTALGIC at the same time! like; BANG, we have witches; BANG, we have cordelia being the badass supreme she was made to be; BAM, we get a jpm cameo; BAM, murder house with tate and violet. i just loved the way it had all these crossovers. made ahs feel more complete and compact

i literally still get goosebumps and chills when i watch certain scenes, like the cinematography is exquisite, and induces physical reactions in my body.

i just love apocalypse. it's my second favourite season (after hotel, before coven)

3. i am a tate stan

i honestly don't understand why tate stans get so much hate?

like yeah, he did some shitty things, but so did james march, and no jpm stan is hated on as much as their tate-loving counterparts. it's a horror show; the best characters are going to have done fucked up things - i'd argue villains make better characters simply because they have more to them - there's always a reason why thy became who they are - they weren't born a monster

i really love how violet softened tate; she gave him a reason to be good, and loved him in a way he'd never been loved by anyone

4. maggie didn’t deserve to die

i must admit, maggie’s death in freakshow was one of those moments where i had to ask myself “did that actually just happen?” - even for ahs!!

i know everyone has mixed feelings about this character and yeah, she was in it for the wrong reasons at first, but she was young - society taught her that the “freaks” weren’t people. everyone was brought up like this. they were taught that their lives didn’t matter, so for maggie to realise on her own, that what stanley was doing was wrong, AND do something to fix her mistakes, was a huge character development. she could have easily gone along with it, even taken the money from stanley and ran, once the freaks mutilated him, but she did what was right

her death was terribly unfair and really quite sudden and random - and very much in vain! she had a good heart, and considering she admitted up to her mistakes and ended up saving the freaks (well, from stanley at least) she really didn’t deserve the ending she got

5. i don’t like mallory

it’s probably just because she is the next supreme in line, and that takes the supremacy from cordelia, even though there must be a successor blah blah blah

idk she just annoys me and i feel like she just appeared and then bang! new supreme

i just don’t like mallory. yeah she’s really nice and whatever, and i love billie, but i’m not a mallory fan

6. antichrist + miss supreme = power couple (under certain circumstances)

DONT COME AT ME! but i lowkey could see cordelia and michael together

i actually started writing a fic about this titled ‘are monsters born or created’ where i explore the idea if michael went with cordelia when she told him she could help him if he went with her. it’s a work in progress and i need to go back and work on it and flesh out the chapters a bit more, but you can read what i’ve drafted out so far, if you’re interested :)

honestly michael langdon has sexual tension with everyone, but under specific circumstances delia x michael could work, or at least, I believe it could

7. austin loves women too

i have mentioned this before, but im going to restate it again; i don’t believe austin sommers is exclusively mlm

if this character’s sexuality was in fact canon, then obviously i wouldn’t question it, but as ryan murphy said, austin’s sexuality would not be revealed in red tide, it is obviously up to audience interpretation

my interpretation is that austin isn’t explicitly gay, but instead bi, pan, or even unlabelled. he loves many, many genders and sees beauty in all of them!

———————————————————————

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pleasantanathema · 3 years

Text

Graves into Gardens | Reiner Braun x Reader | Chapter One

Chapter One: Living Ghosts

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Warnings: Modern AU, spoilers up to season four, slight manga spoilers (only by including characters met later), captivity, mentions of violence, enemies to lovers, angst, and eventual smut (don’t worry, it’ll come sooner than you think).

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Here’s chapter one of my multi-chapter series for Reiner— chapter two is already ready!

A very special thank you to @present-mel , and @whats-her-quirk for encouraging me to take the plunge and create this monster (I’ve got a lot planned for this fic and I’m so excited for it) 💕

Masterlist | Next Chapter

You were having that same dream again, the one where you felt like you were dying. Your shoulder ached with the memory of bursting pain, but there were warm hands there, holding you, pressing down to keep the bleeding at bay. You could never recognize the face, never identify the voice, your ears still ringing from the sound of a piercing gunshot. It was always the same; a delirious memory warped into a nightmare. Sometimes the dream ended in the hospital, other times with you staring at the inside of a coffin, or in a shallow grave.

But this time, you were waking up, eyes flickering open to meet harsh fluorescent lights and clinking, cold handcuffs around your wrists.

A white-hot sense of dread pooled over your body.

You knew where you were. You knew how you got here. And suddenly, you wished you were dreaming again.

You could still see it all, still hear the deafening blades of the helicopter whirring above you. None of your team had expected the Marleyans to be in the warehouse; they hadn’t been on the soil of Paradis in years. They’d caught you off guard and sent your escape plan into action sooner than expected. You’d tried to follow Mikasa and Armin, but Jean was in your way. The lines of your vertical movement gear had tangled with his as you both hurriedly attempted to ascend and meet Levi in the aircraft, sending you spiraling back into the window, back into enemy territory.

Someone kicked you in the skull when you landed, you could still feel your head throbbing with the soreness. That must’ve been what did you in, what made you easy pickings to become a captive to the Marleyan government.

You sat up, taking note of your surroundings: of course, they’d put you in a cell, one void of a bed but thankfully containing a fucking bucket. How considerate. Just outside the iron bars was a table scattered with broken pieces of your gear, undoubtedly torn apart to be studied and to keep you from using it to escape.

Anger brewed inside your chest, a familiar feeling of betrayal returning that you hadn’t felt in years. There were faces here you didn’t want to see, enemies with broken facades that still haunted your thoughts at night. People you’d trusted, people you’d loved.

You knew they would show themselves soon. If you were still alive, it’s because there were questions that Zeke Yeagar wanted answers to, tendrils of doubt and duplicity that he wanted to sink into your mind.

━━━─── • ───━━━

Reiner felt sick. He’d never wanted to see you again, yet he’d been the one to carry your unconscious body through the compound, to cuff you and leave you on the frigid concrete floor. He’d stood over your figure for a while, heart pounding his chest out of fear that you’d wake up and flash that scrutinizing gaze of yours toward him again. But you’d just laid there at his feet, small, vulnerable, like a lost memory washed back upon the shores of his life.

And of course, now that you were awake, you weren’t talking, refusing to take Zeke’s bait.

He watched the older man pace around the room, glasses glinting as he wrung his hands. Truly, Reiner had been surprised that Zeke didn’t kill you on the spot, instead opting to transport you all the way across the border to their headquarters, insistent that you be treated like precious cargo. Though, it had been hard to keep Porco from poking at your body in the floorboards of the armored truck. Reiner had tried to keep his gaze away from you, eyes glued to the dark horizon outside of the rain smeared window. Maybe if he had stopped looking at you, you would have disappeared.

There was something pressing Zeke, something worrying him that he wasn’t sharing with the rest of the warriors. He thought you knew something, or perhaps that you could be valuable in some way.

Reiner knew that if you were to live, you needed to speak, needed to give them a piece of information to work with. He placed his head in his hands at the table, palms rubbing at his eyes. He shouldn’t—he didn’t—care if you took your last breath here. You were the enemy, someone who’d once held a knife to his throat when his true intentions within the ranks of The Scouts were revealed. He almost wished you’d killed him then, that you’d ended all the years of misery and regret that still clung to his mind like a poisonous leech.

“Maybe she’ll give in to someone she knows,” Zeke stopped his pacing, attention turning to Annie Leonhart who sat across from Reiner, “why don’t you give it a go?”

“Absolutely not,” she rejected, long legs crossing at the ankles upon the table.

“Bertholdt tells me that you two were quite the comrades during your reconnaissance mission.”

“I wouldn’t say that. We just found each other tolerable. Bertie was always sweet on her, though.”

Zeke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Bertholdt is kind to everyone, he’s as soft as they come.”

Bertholdt, per usual, stayed quiet in the face of Zeke’s remarks.

Porco Galliard chuckled at that statement, straightening his shoulders before he spoke.

“Which is exactly why you should’ve sent me to Paradis instead, Chief. I could give her a go. You were being too easy on her, anyways. Once you start ripping off fingernails people really start to give in, you know.”

Reiner’s gut twisted at the thought.

“You’re not allowed anywhere near her, Gailliard,” Zeke crossed his arms as a smirk settled into the lines of his beard, “she’s far too pretty, you’d break down and grovel to her before it was all over.”

Galliard huffed, a pink tinge dusting his cheeks as he shrunk down in his seat.

“Reiner—”

He had an inkling that it would come down to this. There would be no point in disputing it, he’d have to come face to face with his past, with sins he thought he left behind four years ago.

He stood before Zeke could complete his thought, heavy knuckles rapping at the wood of the table.

“Well, looks like we finally have a volunteer.”

Every inch of Reiner’s skin bristled as he marched down the corridor to the prison cells. His footsteps were jarring, heavy, like he was determined to leave prints in the floor to mark a final walk of shame. Some part of him hoped you’d be gone when he opened the door, that you would have used your wits and crawled through some air duct and run away from this, from him.

He almost didn’t turn the door handle. He felt invisible, burdensome hands pulling at his shoulders, calling at him to run. He’d always been a coward, especially when it came to you. He hated you, loathed you because he knew you pegged him as fraud from the beginning. You never threw a kind word in his direction, always looked at him like he was below you, like his pride meant nothing to you.

Reiner just wished that you had meant nothing to him. Even when the opportunity had presented itself, he couldn’t even find the strength to kill you like his orders demanded. He wondered if you remembered it at all, if your memories had finally flooded back after all this time. Something inside his heart wouldn’t let him that night, some unknown, egregious feeling that by some means overshadowed his hatred.

That feeling returned when he entered the room and found you sitting with your back to the wall, your tightly bound hands in your lap.

He took in a deep breath as he averted his gaze, teeth gritting at the sight of you awake. Zeke was right, four years had done you justice; time had only made you more beautiful than before, and he worried he might fall to his knees before you.

“Reiner.”

Sometimes, he just really wished people would stop saying his name.

━━━─── • ───━━━

A strange relief settled into your stomach at the sight of him. Reiner was as hulking as ever, broad shoulders stretching the threads of his shirt to their limits. But he was different, older…demure, in some ways. He didn’t hold his head as high anymore, didn’t immediately cross his arms across his barreled chest to appear larger. He took tired, golden eyes less intense than you last remembered. His fingers rubbed at his lips, at the facial hair that adorned more pronounced cheekbones.

You hated to admit that he appeared even more handsome than you remembered.

There was a red armband tied around his bicep, an insignia emblazoned on it that you’d never seen before.

“Do I make you nervous, Braun?”

You caught his attention then, made his eyes look at you as you leaned your head back against the stone wall.

“Tough question from the one behind bars.”

His voice had changed, too. He sounded more stoic, more serious. There used to be a hint of glee under that tongue of his.

“Why am I here?”

“I’m supposed to be the one asking you things.”

You shrugged, biting at your cheek as you wiggled your toes to try to make them feel again. Your limbs were starting to ache, your head too, body feeling like it was starting to cement to the floor. You didn’t want to be Zeke Yeagar’s plaything, but you knew that if you were alive, there was something they wanted. There was some leverage you held, but you weren’t sure what it was just yet. You had hoped they would send Bertholdt in to talk to you, you always could get under his skin.

Reiner was a more difficult case for you. He always coated himself in arrogance, made it harder for you to chip away at his armor. He never let anyone in, just always grinned, acted like he had everything under control. But before you was a man with cracks, a man that time and guilt had eroded. You almost felt sorry for him, almost. A man like him deserved to bear the weight of his burdens.

“Listen, if you don’t start talking—”

“You’ll what? Kill me?”

“We’ll torture you.”

He said the words with a weight that knocked you back a bit, stole the last breath of gusto you were holding onto. You expected as much, but hearing it said aloud made fear crawl up your spine, made the cuffs around your wrist feel even more strained against your skin.

“What do you want to know? I could tell Yeagar was prodding for something tangible to use against Paradis.”

“I just want to know what you know about us, if you know anything about what Marley has been doing in the last few years.”

“You’ve been fighting a war, that much I know.”

And he looked like he had been through battle, been through hell in trenches and gunfire. Your intelligence agents had reported that Braun had been promoted to be Vice Commander of the Warrior Unit, and the hardline of his frown told you he’d seen more horrors than you wanted to know about.

“Tell me something you don’t know from news headlines.”

Levi had trained all his scouts for this situation once upon a time ago. You could still hear his voice in your head, commanding you to give up as little as possible, learn what the enemy wanted and then give them something else to cling on to. You had a few things you knew you could feed to them, beneficial tidbits that would satiate their hunger and keep them from feasting upon your teammates. But relaying any kind of information was a death sentence within itself; give the dogs a treat and eventually they’ll want more.

And you knew that Reiner, that Zeke Yeagar, was a very greedy host.

You stood slowly, releasing the aching tension in your lower back. Reiner didn’t flinch away from his place beyond the rusting iron, instead eyeing you like you were some exotic thing in a cage.

There was a nostalgia of being in his presence, even if the atmosphere around him was contrary to what you were used to perceiving. He still made your blood boil, still made your fighting instincts come alive in the back of your mind. You still felt small in his shadow, but there was still a lingering feeling, a fleeting memory, about how being around him once made you feel safe.

Your bare feet moved toward him, toes stinging against the cold of the floor.

One of your hands wrapped around a bar to your prison, the metal of your handcuffs clinking against the barrier.

You could catch his scent from being this close, and at least that much stayed the same—he always smelled like cedarwood, earthy and sweet, like the spice of the forest floor after a fresh rain. It was almost funny how smell created memories more frequently than any other sense.

Suddenly, you felt like you were back home, like nothing had changed, as if his deceit had never been revealed. Your mind’s eye flashed images of your old training camp, of Reiner lifting Connie onto his shoulders after the small boy had successfully managed to triumph over Jean in his marksmanship practice. He’d used one of the tricks that Reiner had taught him. That once sweet memory turned sour as you remembered just why Reiner was always such a good shot.

You tilted your chin up to look at him, to come face-to-face with the imposing penumbra you thought you’d warded off. He was a living ghost brought back to haunt you once again.

“You seem pathetic, Braun, like you’ve lost all that bravado that made you so special.”

He took your words, let them bounce off his chest like you hadn’t even spoken them.

“Why did they send you in here? Did they really expect I’d crack under such pitiful pressure? You’re a deplorable, miserable—”

His fist wrapped around your hand, crushing your fingers between his might and the metal bar you’d secured yourself to.

You hissed at the pain, but…there was something you had missed in that touch of his; he felt warm, worn, like there were secrets being pressed into your skin.

“Be. Quiet.”

You expected his fingers to flex, waited for him to crack your fingers under his pressure. But he kept his strength at bay, electing to keep a steady, continuous tension against your knuckles.

“Talk, or tomorrow will be your last day. You wouldn’t want to die at the hands of a pathetic, wretched man like me, would you? No, you’re too proud for that.”

He took a step back, releasing his bruising grip before turning on his heels to leave.

A string of panic began to uncoil inside you, snapping as his arm extended towards the exit.

“Reiner,” you called, “tell me something. How much do you really know about Zeke Yeagar?”

“I know enough.”

“No, you don’t,” you were starting to sound worried, you could hear it, “there’s something I know that you don’t, and I’d be willing to give you information in return for you answering a question for me.”

You could feel your heart beating in your chest, every pump within your ribs like the ticking of an oppressive clock. He was silent, steady, back still turned away from you. You noticed that his fists were clenched by his side, a vein starting to appear up the exposed length of his forearm.

“I’ll consider it. Depends on what your question is.”

He still didn’t turn to look at you.

“Reiner…tell me what happened to Marco.”

The door was slamming shut before the last syllable of the dead man’s name left your lips.

Next Chapter

#reiner braun x reader #reiner braun #reiner x reader #snk reiner #AoT #aot x reader #aot fanfiction #aot reiner #aot reiner braun #snk x reader #snk reiner braun #reiner #attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction #attack on titan x reader

479 notes · View notes

cockslutpadalecki · 4 years

Text

All The Good Girls Go To Hell (9)

Summary: When Sam marries into Y/N's family he naively believes she's a little princess incapable of putting a step wrong. But once he comes face to face with evidence that proves she's far from angelic which also implicates his own brother in her misdeeds, Sam finds himself battling against his own moral judgement.

Characters: Step Dad!Sam x Step Daughter!Reader, Uncle!Dean x Niece!Reader.

Words: 2925.

Warnings: stepfather/stepdaughter relationship, oral sex (male and female receiving), sexting, rough sex, degradation, dirty talk, female masturbation, bratty!reader, cheesy double entendres, Dean's filthy whore mouth, consensual amateur pornography, thigh riding, cockwarming. Assume all tags will apply to every chapter and warnings may differ/alter as story progresses.

A/N: Dream sequence is in italics. Hope you all enjoy. Thank you for being patient with me for not posting last week, I really appreciate it. Betas: @negans-lucille-tblr and @mummybear but all the general bullshit is entirely mine. While likes are gold, feedback is golden. Masterlists/taglists can be found in my bio. Subscribe to Patreon and get access to fics two weeks before Tumblr for as little as $3.

Chapter ten and eleven already available on Patreon.

SERIES MASTERLIST

It’s pitch black when you jolt awake, obsidian cloaking you like a blanket. Shooting a cursory glance over at the alarm clock you had to pilfer from Bobby as Sam still has possession of your cell, you see it’s a little after 3am. How have you only been asleep for an hour and a half? For a split second you’re baffled by what woke you, but the quick flash of your dad’s face— your real dad— brings you hurtling back to reality.

Instinctively, you reach for your necklace as a way of reassurance— something he always told you to do when you were scared— you feel tears sting when you realise it’s not there.

It’s broken and it’s all Dean’s fault.

Dean.

You remember the brief Skype call, blood boiling at the memory of that woman’s voice. “See ya soon De.” You know you have no right to be jealous, you weren’t exactly exclusive and you most certainly couldn’t be. He was bound to sleep with someone else sooner rather than later, but you naively hoped he would stave off a little longer than just shy of a week.

Combined with the green-eyed monster nipping at your heels and the lead feeling tugging on your heart, you find yourself trying even harder to avoid crying and suddenly craving a hug from your Mom.

Rolling out of bed, you pad softly to the door, desperate to leave your room behind— now feeling too spacious and claustrophobic all at once. The first thing you notice as you make it into the hall is that your laptop is gone from where you left it— probably locked away back in Sam’s desk drawer, but that’s the least of your cares right now. The breath that’s catching in your throat finally releases as you lean against the wall to steady yourself, managing to swallow a lungful of air that calms you just enough to make the short, shaky walk to her room.

It’s not until you reach the door that you remember that she could still well be at the hospital, but your hand is already pushing the door open, knuckles rapping lightly on the wood, too anxious to wait.

“Mom?” You whisper weakly into the darkness, eyes slowly adjusting.

The sound of bodies shifting across the mattress breaks the silence followed by Sam’s confused voice floating through the sheet of ebony. “Y/N?”

“Honey, are you okay?” She calls out as her bedside lamp clicks on bathing the room in dim light. Sam’s shifted up onto his elbow and your mom slowly sits up, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “Is everything alright?”

“Sorry,” you say softly, eyes temporarily diverted to the sight of Sam’s bare chest before looking down at the floor. This was a mistake— you should’ve just ridden this out in your room, now extremely aware of the heat inexplicably spreading between your legs. ”I, um, had a bad dream—“ you pause before adding, “about Dad.”

“Oh Y/N,” she sighs, flashing you a sympathetic smile and holds her arms out. “Come here.”

You close the gap, shuffling across the carpet until you reach the bed and fall into her open arms, instantly clocking the way Sam narrows his eyes at you over her shoulder with immense skepticism. You can tell he doesn’t believe a damn word, but you don’t care. He lets out a deep sigh, flopping back onto the bed, the blankets only just managing to cover his hips and the perfect slope of his pelvis makes your mouth go dry.

“That better?” She asks, giving your forehead a kiss as you pull away.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Thanks, Mom.”

She strokes your cheek tenderly with her thumb, the corners of her lips curling up into a tender smile. “C’mon, get in.”

You haven’t done that since you were sixteen. And even then you felt odd doing it, especially as you didn’t know Sam all that well back then, but he was more than accommodating— this time you doubt he’ll show you the same level of compassion.

As soon as the words leave her lips, Sam jolts up, abhorrence in his eyes. “Audrey, she’s not gonna want to sleep—“

“Maybe I shouldn’t—“ you protest.

“Nonsense both of you, c’mon on,” she repeats, pulling the covers back and she scoots closer into the middle of the bed, her ass no doubt squashed up against his crotch. You stiffen a little in jealousy and slowly slide onto the bed, skin prickling as you feel Sam’s steely glare penetrating you like a red hot poker.

She’s already curling into your side as you lay your head down on her pillow, her sweet perfume filling your nostrils. She lets out a contented sigh, her eyes fluttering closed as you brave a look towards Sam who’s still propped up on his elbow, staring you down.

This used to be comforting— your mom’s arms tucked around you and you’d always fall into a heavy, dreamless slumber as she cuddled you tight, but with the daggers Sam shoots in your direction as you flick the bedside lamp off, you know there’s no way in hell you’re going to be able to sleep.

You’ve no idea how long you laid there willing yourself to drift off, but when she moves from beside you, startling you from whatever daze you were in, you realise you must’ve dozed off eventually.

And when she returns moments later from the bathroom— the flush of the toilet hazily crossing your periphery— she doesn’t bother attempting to get back between you, instead slipping in beside you which makes you edge closer towards the middle of the bed and in turn, accidentally brush up against Sam’s back.

He stirs slightly, and you try to get her to switch positions without waking him, but she’s already asleep by the time her head hits the pillow.

It’s still dark when you wake up to Sam’s dick half-hard against your ass. For a moment you think you’re dreaming, but as he shifts harder against you, it dawns on you that this is very much reality. You clench your legs together trying to stem the flow of heat pulsing between them, but it’s no use, slick already dampening the tops of your thighs.

You lay there for what you assume is no longer than a few minutes— but ultimately it feels like a goddamn hour, stewing in the building warmth that’s causing your belly to flip as Sam’s rigid cock continues to swell against you. You know you should get out from between them and go back to your room, but the need to have Sam inside you again suddenly takes precedence. Lifting your head a little, you check to make sure your mom is still asleep— the light airy sounds of her breathing confirms it, and let it drop back onto the pillow gently.

Taking a massive gamble, you reach around with caution, fingertips grazing over his hip as you feel him bristle behind you, his chest now flush to your back.

“Audrey?” Sam whispers thickly, but you don’t respond, instead moving your hand lower and over the bulge digging into your ass, giving it a gentle rub. His hand clamps down on your wrist, stilling your movements. “Y/N,” he chastises, but the deep timber of his voice against your neck just makes you wetter.

“Need you inside me,” you whisper back, words reminiscent of your earlier plea before you fucked his thigh. His grip on your wrist loosens, enough to slow you but not enough to stop you entirely and you take the respite in Sam’s silent protest to manipulate your way past the waistband of his boxers and pull his dick free, tip already dripping with pre-cum. It feels like forever since you felt his weight in your hand, throbbing and desperate to be sucked, and the memory causes you to pull up your bottom lip between your teeth, straining to hold in a zealous whimper.

You can’t articulate how just the mere scent of him makes you go fucking insane, let alone the way he makes you feel when he’s laid thick between your fingertips.

Letting go of his cock, you slide your hand over the curve of your ass and finger your pyjama shorts to one side, exposing your naked pussy before reaching for him again and slowly guide him towards your dripping slit. The head of his cock softly brushes between your silky folds and you feel Sam tense behind you, his breath hitching high in his throat as you stifle your moan into the pillow beneath you.

There’s resistance at first, but as you wiggle your hips, aided with your juices coating every inch that slowly penetrates you, he finally bottoms out and the perfect burn and stretch of his thickness make your lips part in a wordless O.

You try to move, but blunt fingernails cutting into your hip and a gruff voice muffled into your hair stops you in your tracks. “You never said I had to fuck you.” You open your mouth to speak, however Sam’s still not finished. “You wanted me inside you, you got it. Now go to sleep.”

Is he fucking kidding? Sleep is literally last on my list of priorities right now.

Of course you can’t sleep. You lay there with Sam’s cock stuffing your pussy to the brim— occasionally shifting against him to entice him to move— right up until you can no longer keep your eyes open.

“So, how many times did you make her cum Sammy?" Dean presses, voice filled with mirth. He fingers the hem of your shorts out of his way before allowing them to graze your still cum-damp cunt. “Hm, someone’s wet already,” he chuckles against your throat, tips of his fingers slipping through your folds, “did my little brother cum inside you baby girl?”

You know how this ends— Sam lunging toward Dean with his fist raised, but somehow the memory distorts and instead of red mist clouding your vision, Sam’s stepping forward, closing the gap between you and Dean whispers: “Think Daddy would enjoy a live preview of our latest masterpiece?”

Sam stares down at you, lips parted and tongue tucked behind his front teeth. The darkness in his eyes is no longer indicative of rage, but of something much more carnal. His gaze flickers up to Dean, lips curling up into a malicious grin and the depraved look he gives his brother practically makes your knees buckle— like they have some sort of metaphysical bond you’re not privy to. There’s no softness left in Sam’s features now, each line and divot creating his unique visage filled with a frightening, unfamiliar hardness.

He scoffs, dimples deepening as his lips split into another wide, almost clownish smile. “I think it’s time Dean.”

Time? Time for what? You want to yell, but your tongue feels like lead, weighted down by the question you’re desperate to ask as the room shifts abruptly to black.

You’re suddenly on the couch, bouncing in Dean’s lap, unsure of how you’ve got there. When did your clothes come off? Where is Sam?

As if on cue the younger Winchester comes into view, sauntering up behind the couch while slowly pumping himself to full hardness, the dome of his cock coated in sticky pre-cum and you ache to lick it off.

Sam lets his tongue roll over his bottom lip, eyes hungrily devouring the sight of you like you’re prey. It’s like he already knows what you’re thinking. “God, look at you,” he demeans with the click of his tongue. “Practically drooling to suck my cock again, aren’t you?”

Wait. This doesn’t seem right. Everything’s odd somehow— like, the world has been reversed or knocked off its axis. Since when does Sam do all the talking while Dean remains silent? You’ve barely heard a peep from the older brother except for the occasional grunting through teasing nips and licks against your swollen nipples, sore from the pull of his teeth.

“Uhh.” You’re at a loss for words, Dean driving upwards into you at a pace that seems almost inhuman. You clutch the back of the couch for dear life, shifting further up the cushions as Dean alters position slightly so you can reach for Sam’s cock. It feels heavier than you remember, thicker— like it’s grown a couple of inches since he fucked you and knowing you’re never going to fit the extra inches down your throat, you swallow deeply, feeling it constrict at the thought.

“What’s the matter baby girl? Can’t you speak? Me and your Uncle Dean too much for you now, hm?” Sam pulls your head up by a chunk of hair, forcing you to look at him. He’s a fucking Adonis— chiselled to perfection and you notice a small sheen of sweat already clings to his abs and chest, a rogue droplet trickling into the crevice at the base of his neck. The browns of his eyes are almost black with lust and his lips bitten pink from the force of his teeth nibbling into them as you lazily drag your hand up and down his stiff cock.

He purrs, eyelids fluttering through the pleasure, his grip tightening as he pulls your head towards him. You part your lips to allow him to slide over your tongue and the rest of his heft soon follows, manipulating your jaw open until you can’t widen it any more.

“That’s it slut, take all of Daddy’s cock,” Sam huffs deeply, using the hold he has around your skull to piston his hips to a rhythm your throat can’t keep up with. You gag and splutter around Sam as Dean fucks you, your eyes rolling as the room tilts and your mouth is suddenly empty save for the gasps and moans currently rolling off your tongue.

Now you’re up against the wall, cheek pressed hard to the plaster as you’re pinned in place by a muscular forearm wedged against the base of your neck. They fuck you long and deep, each drag of their cock hitting all the right spots inside you, pulling free before slamming home and repeating the process all over again.

“That’s it slut, take all of Daddy’s cock.” Sam echoes in your ear, low and gruff. You manage to glance up expecting to catch his solid brown gaze to plead with them to fuck you harder, only instead to be met with olive green. Dean?

You inexplicably try to push away but he has you pinned too tight, his feet either side of yours keeping your legs together. “Where are you tryin’ to run off to baby girl? Don’t you want me to keep fucking you? I thought this was what you wanted?” Dean’s face with Sam’s voice coos and your belly flips as heat bubbles away in your core.

You attempt thrice more to flee, to find the source of Sam’s location, but each time Dean manages to keep you trapped between him and the wall. He spits vitriol at you every time he pulls you back, fucking into you like he hates you— telling you what a pathetic little bitch you are.

“Slut like you ain’t good for nothing ‘cept gettin’ fucked.”

“So desperate for cock you gotta chase Daddy and your Uncle for it, huh?”

“Gonna be so full up of cum you’ll be dribbling it outta ya for days.”

How can this be? It’s clearly Dean behind you— you see his damn mouth opening and closing as the sneers cross his lips, but his voice is all wrong. You don’t have time to question it, your crescendo building, building, building...

You stun yourself awake, skin clammy as you jolt up from the damp sheets tangled around you. Mind too muddled to make sense of what you just dreamt, your only cohesive thought pulls you towards the thickness missing from between your legs.

The water cascades down over Sam’s chest, pooling and overflowing in his fist, hastily tugging on his cock as the other lays open and flat against the cold, marble tile, attempting to keep himself steady. His eyes squeezed shut, he thinks of her pussy wrapped around him as she laid in his bed, wishing he could have just flipped her onto her front and fucked her into the mattress.

Watching her ride herself to orgasm on his thigh was bad enough— the urge to throw her over the coffee table almost unbearable— but the feel of her hot cunt pulsing around his cock, slick dripping down over his balls drove him to damn near breaking point. He’d managed to slip from her while she was clearly in the midst of a dream— the little whimpers and groans she made while unconsciously rolling her hips back against his made him almost blow his load— and locked himself in the en-suite, taking all of two seconds to start relieving himself of the painful ache in his cock.

Low grunts tumble from his parted lips as he abruptly reaches his end, imagining her calling his name as hot ropes of cum spurt down the marble tiles and wash away under the steaming jets of water.

With his breathing shallow and erratic, Sam slumps against the tiles, guilt overwhelming the temporary serene buzz throbbing dully in his veins. He despises himself for his lack of self-control, the way Y/N can so easily exploit him to fit her desires and how unequivocally he bends to her will but deep down, he knows he doesn’t care.

***

Please note I have tagged you if you showed interest in the story so far. If you’d like to be taken off, please let me know.

ATGGGTH: @slut-for-jared @squirrelnotsam @awesomesusiebstuff @deans-baby-momma @xhannahbananax03 @atc74 @stephaniecanfield96us @wavesofafeather @spnfamily-j2 @pastathighs @passionpunch @southernbell91 @beautifulbowleggedangel @awkwardyhot @petitgateau911 @welldonebeca @bobbie3939 @kazkingdom @lyarr24 @nihilismworld @charmed-asylum @sycochick @sandlee44 @findingagoodnameishard @ilovetaquitosmmmm @stuckys-whore @waywardsistersandpie @moosekateer13 @beth-winchester21 @yoongi-holland @waywardson2020 @lovelyrocker @dr7girl @beyoutiful9413 @fictionalabyss @midnightmystic @abbirae99 @kricketc29 @the-fever-of-mankind @maresmiley @rebel-author-chick @salt-n-burn-em-all @desisamslut @softsebastian @okilover02 @kittenofdoomage @kittenmstr @destielstuffandthings @chamberofsloths @quietgirll75 @splendidcas @lustkitty69 @amisha25 @chenshemesh1 @babylorelei @queenmadi2 @tessellaneous @spideysimpossiblegirl @impala-dreams-and-bunker-scenes @i-make-questionable-choices @bitchoftheclouds @amirra88 @nerdwholikesword @4theloveoffanfiction @djj1999 @nurse-unicorn @spaceybissh @myfavefics01 @lostdarksoul6 @deanandsamsbitch @im-catching-feelings @ficpantry @winchester-girl96 @omgspnfanfiction @mistofellee @trinnwazheree @flutistbyday2020 @polyamorous-winchester @idabbleincrazy @mstsukii @allinhishands @winchesterswoonathon @traceyaudette @jbbarnesgirl @hawkerz12 @cluz1babe @prisao-sem-muros @why-hello-sweetheart @pepsiemax @michellemxndes @slutmutton @ares-raye @gublergirls @stayfrostystilinski @flamencodiva @lady-pswrld @fandomismyspirit @princess11296 @high-ashell-hargrove @patrick-hockslutter @sellingmysoulforfamoushotmen @biceraswitch @bee-a-sams-girlx @nekocookie11 @beardburnsupersoldiers @curlygirly @cltex84 @hhiggs @d-whinchestergirl87 @bxbyizzy @bxxbxy @pandaxo79 @kattn019 @icantthinkofaname-oops @mrstarksslut @regina-laufeysonholmes

Supernatural: @angelofthetrenchcoats @ambthegamer @akshi8278 @becs-bunker @blancatobarxoxo @caspleasesavemyass @clemanime @deans-mind-palace @deanwinchesterswitch @dawnie1988 @deanloveboi @doctor-hp-mcu @ellewritesfix05 @fandom-princess-forevermore @fanngirl19 @gayasslookinass @gabbywindsor @heavensangel45135 @hoboal87 @hobby27 @homeward-fics @inlovewithspencerfuckingreid @katymacsupernatural @joseyrw @mummybear @mrswhozeewhatsis @p---ink @peachyafshawn @spnbaby-67 @stoneyggirl @sammykb1994 @sharp-cheekbones-locked @shylittlewolf @sidbecross @swinchester27 @samwinchestersbitch555 @tumbler-tidbits @tootsie562 @trinnwazheree @vicmc624

Forever: @akumune @amandamdiehl @crashdevlin @daughterofthenight117 @donnaintx @deanmonandnegansbitch @dandywinchesterbras @dumbbitchenergy17 @death-unbecomes-you @demonxbloodrunsthroughtheseveins @fandomfic-galore @foxyjwls007 @hurricanerin @hoewkeye @heyyouwiththeassbutt @ilovefanfic86 @itsjustfics @itsthedoctah10 @imyournewfairygodmother @jewelswrites-ish @letsby @letsdisneythings @multi-fandom-fanfiction @maddiepants @mogaruke @nightsbite @notyourtypicalrose @negans-lucille-tblr @onethirstyunicorn @pink1031 @princessmisery666 @randomparanoid @rain-dance-goblin @ssworldofsw @sambucky8 @sea040561 @sillygoose6969 @sweeterthanthis @warriorqueen1991 @xoxabs88xox @yaynewton @zpandaqueen

#sam winchester #sam winchester x you #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester fanfiction #dean winchester #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction

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promisedneverwrite · 3 years

Text

Until Dawn

A Vamp! Poppy and Werewolf Bea fic

A retelling of Queen B with added story plots

A/n: Thank you to the people who took a look at my writing. Not gonna lie I have most of this fic written out already, like 81K, and ongoing cause the brain rot was real strong when this book came out. Sorry it took so long. :’D

If you wanna be tagged just lmk

Tag list: @somewillwin

Masterlist

Chapter II

“You took your sweet time getting here.” A small smirk planted itself on the girl's face as she leaned on one leg, her arms crossed. Bea gulped when the girl crooked her finger in a ‘come hither’ motion to enter. Bea cautiously shuffled in closing the door behind her with her foot, her bags still under her arms.

“Am I in trouble?” The girl’s smirk remained as she quickly turned to their shared common space, going through the cabinets in the kitchen and pulling two champagne glasses. Bea set her bags down by the floor and followed her to sit on one of the island chairs, taking in the interior before landing on her roommate who turned to place the glasses in front of her on the counter popping the bottle open.

“Au contraire my dear, you just survived the rabid mob looking for you earlier today. Good job.” Bea took the offered glass with a small thanks. Bea swirled the drink before downing it like a shot. Zoey’s eyes widened and she laughed.

“Oh you’re fun. I’m Zoey Wade, I think this years going to be the best yet.” Bea chuckled and raised her glass, which Zoey topped up again.

“Bea Hughes, and I hope you’re right. I came here earlier in the day but it seems like new people don’t really get a good rap here so I kinda hid.” Zoey nodded.

“It’s understandable, it's a miracle no one found you. Where did you hide anyway?” Bea chuckled nervously.

“In a tree.” Zoey’s face scrunched between deep concern and amusement.

“...for four hours.” Bea mumbled, taking a sip of her drink and looking away. Zoey pursed her lips and took a drink before setting her drink down and smiling.

“We’ll unpack that on a later date. For now, let’s just unpack those instead.” Zoey pointed to her two bags when Bea’s stomach rumbled like a dying whale. Bea blushed at the slightly horrified and surprised face Zoey had. “On second thought, let’s get that monster fed.”

“Yes please.”

One large pizza later, Zoey sat her down on the couch telling her everything she needed to know.

“Good. So any questions?” Bea hums scratching her chin then looks at Zoey seriously. Zoey straightens up and waits.

“How’s the food here?” There’s a pause then Zoey laughs then looks at Bea who was still looking at her seriously but a small smile on her face.

“Oh you were serious. Girl, you made me worried. Cafeteria is good, but a little variety outside campus is always a good choice. I recommend Spicey’s, great place.” Bea filed that place for later.

“Oh good, I was worried all you guys ate was like caviar and pate.” Zoey waved her hand laughing.

“No no it’s pretty much buffett-esque and 24 hours.” Bea filled that as the most important info.

“Sweet!” Bea would maybe visit later tonight to see what they had.

“Anything else?” There was a distinct look in her eyes. Bea tried to decipher tilting her head a bit, kinda reminiscent of when you made a weird noise in front of your dog and they looked confused.

“Uhm there was something about tea people were talking about when I was hiding out in that tree that was good?” Zoey laughed and Bea blushed, embarrassed that she may have interpreted it wrong.

“Not the drink boo, The T’s basically the school’s gossip blog. But it’s so much more than that. What it says about you can make or break you. It can boost your rep, or it can destroy it… and you… and your entire future, basically.”

“Oof wig.” But Bea’s face remained lax. Zoey grimaced like it was painfully hurting her then Bea wasn’t bothered but also amused at her perspective. Zoey took out her phone and handed it to Bea who scooched closer to look at it.

“A warning, this isn’t pretty. Just like, steel yourself.” Bea hummed okay and looked through the blogpost. She scanned the texts, one making her brows furrow and chest clench at the mention of her deceased aunt before she moved on, easing the bit of anger that flared at the assumptions. She stopped at the culture shock bit and snickered.

Zoey looked at her quizzically.

“What?”

“I watch too much garbage tv for fun, I know the lingo.” Zoey gave her a small amused look. “Well I know what tea means now! And English is English, so either I’m speaking a different language or someone else is.” Zoey laughed, the angelic noise making Bea smile.

“I’m gonna enjoy being roommates with you.” Bea grinned.

“Same here!” Zoey motioned once again to the phone scrolling through the posts and comments.

“But this is what happens when you show up at Belvoire out of nowhere. Don’t think we’ll ever find out who wrote this, though.” Bea was intrigued, no one could remain anonymous for long, not to Bea. Though they do have the upperhand in being online, Bea couldn’t sniff them out there. “The T runs on student submissions and because most people are total spineless cowards, they submit anonymously. It might be the school's trashy gossip blog but the fools around here treat it like CNN. And girl, you just made primetime. Especially because people think you were a no show.”

“I just came here to have a good time, and honestly I’m feeling attacked right now.” Bea held a hand to her chest as Zoey rolled her eyes amused. Bea winked, giving her finger guns.

“I’ll explain more, but we have class tomorrow and you need sleep. Tomorrow is a big day, and you are going to need it.” Bea nodded, but she knew she would be staying up a bit, sleep never really came easy with beast blood.

Zoey papped both her hands on Bea’s cheeks which made it squish. Bea let it happen just to see the amusement on Zoey’s face.

“Anyway, as much as I’d love to talk more about your epic battle with the squirrels around campus, I have to sleep.”

“Kay, night Zo.”

“Don’t stay up too late.”

Well, safe to say she couldn’t really be held liable for not answering Zoey’s last comment.

“You filthy mongrel! Who do you think you are!”

#poppy x mc #poppy min sinclair #queen b #zoey wade #bea hughes

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renaerys · 3 years

Note

Prompt 50. But Berserk & Boomer😔👉👈💕

50. “I thought you left.”

We’re calling this one Unfortunately, She Impressed Him. This is a pair of characters I love with all my heart in any flavor of relationship and can’t wait to write more of in my ongoing multi-chapter fic Trinity House over on AO3.

This fic is part of a prompt challenge that is now closed to new requests, but you can read all the completed submissions here. Reminder that the challenge is to make everything SFW, so we’re getting creative here.

xxx

Boomer was halfway across the deserted lobby of Faust Keating Rogers, LLP when he realized he’d forgotten his keys at his desk. He groaned aloud because it was 8 p.m. and no one was around to hear him because they had all gone home to their families hours ago like normal people. Boomer didn’t have two to three kids and a house in the suburbs, though, and neither did his boss. The three hour lull reserved for dinner, baths, and bedtimes before the evening work-from-home grind offered him no alternative but to power through. He fully planned to grab take out on his way home and enjoy an episode of whatever was on HBOMax before getting back to the tedious work of reviewing the draft prospectus statement his boss had sent him to proof by tomorrow morning.

Except, his keys were forty floors up and he now had to risk running into her again when he’d managed to slip away so neatly. He’d even removed his tie on the elevator ride down, and now he rubbed his exposed neck, flushed with anxiety over what might happen if she saw him and asked him to stick around to finish the work here.

“Nice going, dumbass,” he lamented as he stepped onto the elevator and hit the button for the fortieth floor.

It wasn’t that Boomer disliked his job. In fact, he didn’t mind it at all. It was better than slinging drinks or waiting tables. He had health insurance, a steady paycheck, and a resumé that could proudly display the name of one of the most elite accounting firms in the country. He could pivot his career if he wanted to, as Brick would say. Boomer wasn’t thinking about his next job right now, though. Right now, he was thinking about this one and how his boss was a hard-ass and a workaholic even if she was brilliant, and how there was a one hundred percent chance she would detect him coming back to his desk (which was annoyingly set up right in front of her office so that he could answer her calls, manage her meetings, and deal with whoever passed close enough to her event horizon to get suckered into the latest heinous audit in need of staffing).

There were his traitorous keys sitting on the desk next to the framed picture of his brothers. He glared at them, as if they were a forgotten household item that had developed a supernatural grudge like in those old Japanese folktales he liked to read online. He half expected them to jingle and alert his boss to his presence, just to spite him.

They didn’t, and he slipped them into his pocket as quietly as could be. He released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and took a beat. It was quiet. Most of the offices were dark, save for a few poor souls in the large conference room stuck on the ongoing year-end audit for one of the firm’s most important clients: Unicorn, Inc. His boss’s office was also lit up behind her closed door, but she hadn’t called out to him like she would during the day when he got back from his lunch break hoping for a few minutes to catch up on emails in peace before she dumped more work on him.

This, of course, was odd. The small legion of assistants who had come before Boomer were notorious for their short-term employment working this specific desk. The work was demanding and so was the boss, but there was something else that set her apart from other senior associates in the International Tax Services division, something that seemed to intimidate away any support the higher ups sent her way. Denise a couple desks down had warned Boomer not to bring too many personal effects to the office; chances were he wasn’t going to last long. Boomer had smiled thinly and thanked Denise for her advice, and brought the picture of his brothers in the next morning because he had his pride and Brick told him it was healthy to indulge that once in a while. Brick would certainly know.

So here he was, uncertain. Anxiety over having to sit here for another two hours finishing work and having tepid Doordash delivered pulled him toward the elevator and escape, while that annoying, rare pride demanded he check on his boss and make sure she knew he was here to support her, lest she get the idea that he needed to be fired.

The longer he stood there, indecisive, the greater his curiosity grew. What was she doing in there? It was quiet, even when he strained his Super hearing. He could hear Dean Matheson pouring whiskey a few offices down (that guy had a drinking problem and everyone knew they only kept him around because he had the Unicorn, Inc. account), Adebayo Hansou on a conference call with Dubai that was escalating to profanity, Shelly Kim with her head down and typing away at an Excel spreadsheet like a pro. Their assistants were long gone for the night, but here was Boomer, loitering and indecisive and what is she doing in there not yelling at me when she definitely knows I’m here?

He couldn’t take it anymore. He knocked on the closed door—rap, rap, rap—and called out softly, “Berserk?”

A beat, then: “Come in.”

Finding his boss in upward facing dog while still in her pencil skirt was not a sight Boomer was prepared for. Berserk had her eyes closed as she stretched at a near ninety degree angle and listened to music on her Airpods. Boomer had never seen her with her heels off and her mane of red hair thrown together in a messy bun; it was so casual that it was almost obscene.

“You’re staring.”

Fuck, he was staring and now she was looking right at him down her nose, even though she was the one on the floor. He stood up straighter, unable to help himself when she took that tone that reminded him so much of Brick’s when he was about to criticize, but he didn’t avert his gaze. “Sorry.”

She breathed in deeply through her nose and hoisted herself up into downward dog position. “Why are you here?”

Forgot my keys seemed like a really lame excuse that she’d probably laugh at him for, but he also was not in the habit of making shit up on the spot if he hoped to make people believe him. “I forgot my keys.” He took them from his pocket to show her, as if she might not know what keys are, as a concept.

“Smart locks.” Berserk exhaled and slowly walked her hands back on the yoga mat until she reached her feet and began to swing slowly left and right.

Huh? he almost said like an idiot, until he caught himself. “Don’t think my landlord would approve of me installing that.” Also, those things were like $200 a pop, which was not worth the occasional inconvenience and shame of forgetting his keys and then catching his boss doing yoga in her office after hours.

Berserk made some noncommittal sound like whatever, peasant and slowly uncurled upward one vertebra at a time. Boomer realized he was back to staring again, literally lingering in her door watching her and trying to equate this subdued, casual version of Berserk with the terse, no-nonsense businesswoman he was used to dealing with on a daily basis.

When she finally achieved her full height, she popped her neck. The hair that was too short for her bun fell in around her narrow face in a stylish, athleisure sort of way. The top buttons on her blouse were undone. She wore a small, golden necklace he’d never noticed before because he wasn’t in the habit of checking out his boss. “I thought you left.”

The accusatory nature of her words were totally at odds with her flat tone, only the barest hint of curiosity dangling there at the end, like she expected him to respond.

Oh, she expected him to respond.

Boomer took another step into her office because he was full of poor judgment today. “I forgot my keys.”

At which point he showed her his keys again and also had a mild stroke, because what the fuck are you doing, mate?

Berserk smiled. “Yeah, I got that part.”

Was she laughing at him? He had never heard her laugh before, unless it was at Dean Matheson, that comb-over in denial who, in addition to being a high functioning alcoholic, also had a reputation for throwing associates under the bus when a client wasn’t happy.

Boomer smiled back, because that was what he did when people smiled at him, and ‘people’ now included Berserk, apparently.

“Well, since you’re here,” she said as she padded around to her desk.

Crap, there was the work he was afraid of soliciting from her by remaining in the building. He debated an excuse to give her: picking up dry cleaning? Plausible, but transparent. Meeting up with his brothers? No, she’d probably make him stay all night for the chance to ruin Brick’s plans.

“Thai or Mexican?”

Boomer stared dumbly. He was becoming quite good at that (10,000 hours and you can become an expert at anything, they say). “Huh?”

The yoga must have put Berserk in an exceedingly gracious mood, because she actually repeated her question without getting that look on her face like she was picturing him getting trampled by stampeding monsters. “Thai or Mexican? I don’t have a preference.”

Oh.

Boomer’s stomach picked that time to snarl at him—8 p.m. and still no dinner, the fiend.

Berserk snorted in laughter and fanned herself with her phone. “Jesus. Mexican it is.”

Which was how Boomer found himself on the small sofa tucked in the corner of Berserk’s office, shoes off and belt loosened, with enough tacos, tamales, and rice and beans to feed a small family. He even had a beer from the mini fridge Berserk kept under her desk.

She hadn’t stayed late to work. Well, she had, but only because she didn’t have a reason to go home.

“I just hate getting home to a dark apartment sometimes,” she said in between bites of food. She had her legs tucked up under her on the sofa close enough to brush Boomer’s thigh if he reached to grab the salsa.

“I thought you lived with your sister?”

“Brute got her own place a few months ago. The arrangement was only temporary while she was in between jobs.”

It was weird knowing so little about a person whose whole family had been in Boomer’s inner orbit since childhood. As far as he knew, Berserk wasn’t close to any of her cousins, not even Blossom. Boomer himself had never been more eager to leave a room than when Brat walked into it. Only Butch, Brute, and Buttercup had ever found common ground among each other once the sworn rivalries and blood feuds of their youth gave way to teenage rebellion against their respective overlord fathers and then the slog of adulthood that was inescapable even for a bunch of Supers flying high on Chemical X.

The fact that Boomer had gotten this job surprised him more than anyone. After drifting from restaurant jobs to office temp placements over the last six years, he’d never thought he would dust off his economics degree and land a temp-to-permanent position that seemed way above his qualifications. And he never thought it would be working for a woman he’d most definitely electrocuted in battle at least a dozen times before puberty.

“What?”

Boomer blinked. He’d been staring again, Jesus Christ. “Sorry, I was just thinking… I didn't know that. I’ve been working here for five months and I don’t actually know much about you at all.”

“Hm.”

Her magenta eyes were wine-dark against the murky sky beyond the window forty stories up. Boomer did avert his gaze this time to reach for the salsa, but he didn’t use it.

“I don’t even know why you invited me to stay for dinner in the office if we’re not going to do any work.”

“Why did you stay?”

“For the free food.”

Berserk grinned—the third time she had smiled at him tonight (or ever). He needed to stop counting; he’d be disappointed when it stopped happening tomorrow.

“Don’t get used to it. Much as I appreciate the company now and again, there’s no need for both of us to be stuck here while Matheson’s breathing down the associates’ necks. Can’t have him poaching you out from under me.”

“Well, I don’t work for him; I work for you.”

“It’s sweet how you don’t understand office politics.” She ate a lone slice of avocado with a fork. “He landed Unicorn back when they were early stage, and back when he was still putting in the work to earn his reputation. But since they IPO’d three years ago and make up twenty percent of our revenue now, he’s just another big name coasting by on associate work. You know he regularly schedules client calls and just doesn’t bother to show up? He forgets half the time, and the other half he’s busy playing golf or buying a yacht or whatever the fuck rich, white Boomers do.”

“Well, as a Boomer myself, I can say I’ve spent exactly zero hours buying yachts.”

She chuckled. Fourth time. “Oh, really.”

“Never even thought of yachts. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not even real.”

“Thanks for your expert opinion.”

“Any time.” Boomer turned his body to face her and draped his arm over the back of the sofa. With only the soft light from the floor lamp in the corner, he imagined himself adrift in the darkness, the sky scraper lights nearby stars. It was a lonely thought, one made romantic in the knowledge that she was here too, and he wasn’t actually alone.

“Matheson almost did poach you, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Boomer couldn’t recall exchanging more than a few words with the man.

“When we were filling support positions. Someone recognized you from the news a few years back, when the Cyclops Monster attacked the marina district and you and your brothers took it out. Matheson got it in his head that you’d be able to work at Super speed and help lower his billables.”

“Wow. Maybe you should’ve let him. What do you think the net savings would be in yacht units of measurement?”

Berserk rolled her eyes, but she was smiling again. “I claimed you before he could get the paperwork in.”

Boomer hyper-focused on that word: claimed. He also pointedly ignored it entirely, much in the same way he ignored the new count of five smiles tonight. “Showed him your bending powers, did you?”

Berserk’s Corona bottle turned frosty under her hand in a totally unnecessary, big dick energy display of said powers, and she took another sip. “No. Sharon from HR likes me. And I promised her I wouldn’t fire you after three months like your predecessors.”

Flattered was not how Boomer would describe the feeling of being claimed by Berserk and eluding Matheson’s vampiric clutches. But he was a bit tickled all the same. This was the woman Butch had once described as essentially Brick, if he were constipated all the time.

And then he realized what she was doing. “Hey, you’re sharing things about yourself.”

She clinked her bottle to his, and Boomer shivered at the frosty chill she transferred on contact. “Aw, you figured it out all by yourself.”

“Ha ha.”

She didn’t quite smile, but she did look kind of serene then, content even, as she lay back against the arm of the sofa and yawned. Her gold necklace—just a simple disk with an engraving Boomer could not make out—reflected the lamp light when she moved. It rested just beneath her collarbone, which had suddenly become the single-most interesting part of Berserk, and oh no, was he interested—

“You’re staring again.”

Son of a bitch.

“Sorry,” he said automatically. “I didn’t mean to.”

Hard no. He was not allowed to be any percent attracted to Berserk. First, she was his boss, and there was a cliché here that, while subverted on the gender role spectrum, was still very risky for both of them. Second, she was Berserk, a fellow Super, cousin to his best friend Bubbles and a shrewd, stiletto bitch in Brick’s estimation, which sounded bad. Not that she was bad, or even evil, unless you counted helping rich corporations accurately report their taxes while taking advantage of the many egregious loopholes in the Internal Revenue Code. Which, okay, point taken, but he also worked here and anyway, people should not be deemed good or evil so much as their choices ought to be—

“Are you thinking about fucking me?”

You shrewd, stiletto bitch!

She was smiling again, and Boomer pathetically logged that as the sixth time, although he wasn’t sure he should count it given the overt malice behind it.

Unfortunately, Boomer was, as had been previously established, very bad at making shit up on the fly. So he miserably said, “Yeah.”

“Hm.”

She sipped her beer slowly, and of course he watched. If it was out in the open, as fleeting a bout of insanity as it may have been, at least he could wallow in it without worrying about appearances.

It was the yoga. That fucking upward facing dog, Jesus Christ.

It was more than that too. Over the last few months, he had worked closely with her, watched her navigate the cutthroat halls full of piranhas like Matheson and other account managers, getting herself work on the best clients while managing her juniors with efficiency and professionalism. She was excellent and sharp, and she demanded excellency and sharpness in kind. After years of going it alone or temping for bosses who didn’t care enough even to learn his name, much less provide him with guidance and mentorship, it was an unspeakable relief to work under someone who knew how to rally the troops. Someone who knew how to lead, how to motivate, and how to reward loyalty with loyalty in return. It didn’t hurt that she looked amazing in her daily stilettos, either.

Unfortunately, she impressed him.

“I have some work to get done tonight.” Berserk stood up and smoothed her skirt.

Boomer scrambled to his feet. “Of course! Um.” He began closing food containers and repackaging them in the bags they’d come in, because he was panicking. “I’ll get rid of the trash. Do you want the leftovers in the fridge?”

“You take them. Otherwise my office will smell like a burrito for a week.”

“Okay.” Numbly, Boomer finished packing everything up, while Berserk made her way back to her desk and logged into her computer to check her emails.

Boomer lingered at the door. “I’ll have the prospectus back to you later tonight.”

“Thanks.”

Wow, way to go, stud.

He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.

“Boomer?”

“Yeah?”

“Friday is good.”

He stared back at her in expert mode. “Huh?”

Berserk poked her head around the side of her large, external monitor. She was smiling again. Lucky number seven. “For fucking.”

“Okay,” Boomer said.

Okay?!

She pulled back behind her monitor. “I was going to get a cat, but you’ll do much better.”

Because she didn’t like going home to a dark, empty apartment alone. With no one to fuck.

“That was a joke.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he croaked.

Friday is for fucking, he thought, which was delightful alliteration and also completely insane and one hundred percent something he was getting more on board with by the nanosecond.

“See you tomorrow,” she said.

Boomer clutched the leftover Mexican food in his fist. “Okay. Goodnight.”

It took him the time to fly home and put the food away in his small fridge to realize that he had a sort-of date with Berserk lined up for two days from now.

He Y-posed at the window and whooped, “Hell yes!!”

Loud pounding in the floor followed by old Mrs. Cruikshank’s muffled Keep it down! couldn’t bring down his mood.

Boomer leaped onto his threadbare, living room sofa with his work laptop and took to the prospectus with alacrity. He’d send over superior work product and make Berserk’s job just that much easier tomorrow morning.

xxx

If you enjoy my writing, check out more of my fics on AO3, link in my profile. I’m currently updating Trinity House (which has a lot more Berserk and Boomer content, btw!) and The Alchemy of Us. Thanks for reading!

#powerpuff girls #powerpuff girls fanfic #bersoomer #ppg berserk #ppg boomer #september fic prompts #so this turned into a 3k one shot because i love these characters and i couldn't help myself #tfw considering a part 2

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

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By the king’s hand 🐍 IV

Warnings: warnings to be added as we progress but this series may contain non-consent, violence, death, and other triggers (this chapter, violence, oral, a bit of degradation)

This is dark!fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Loki closes in on his prey.

Note: Doing my best to update something every few days. I’ll probably switch it up here and there and try to get to other series old and new as well. I won’t be answering any asks about updates but I am working on lots between work so I appreciate the patience.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

You cleaned up the balcony for fear that Hal or another servant would happen upon your mess. You were aware that they would have little misconception about your position but you had no desire to flaunt your shame. It might not be your choice but others would not know that nor would they easily assume.

‘Bed warmer’; that was what he’d said. He’d assured you of it upon his last visit. You were nothing more than a whore to him and undoubtedly, to any other who knew of your existence in the palace. Your only comfort was that you might hide from prying and judging eyes for the duration of your service.

How long would that be? And after, what would you be left to?

You sat on the ledge of the window and stared out. The sunlight faded slowly, the summer lingered still. Even so, you could feel it was late. The king’s absence fed the dread deep in your chest and assured you that with each minute that passed, his return would come with inevitable zeal.

He promised you pain and had proven himself to be a selfish and sinister man. A man never told no, even to that one thing which had never been promised to him, the crown. How could he expect anything other than to be sated in his every need?

When the door handle turned and drew your attention from the ruffling leaves below, you stood. You watched Loki enter with the young boy, Hal, at his elbow The king’s day deepened the small lines around his eyes and brought out the vein on his forehead.

Hal removed his cloak and hung it and Loki fell heavy onto the sofa. He was skilled at ignoring all around him until they were required. Including you. He waved away the boy with his fingers and sighed.

“Fetch me wine for the night. I have little appetite…” He let his head loll and his eyes sparked as he saw you standing anxiously by the window, “Do you require anything to nibble on, little mouse?”

You shook your head but quickly corrected yourself. You cleared your throat and spoke carefully. “No, your majesty.”

“Very well,” he flicked away the servant and spread his arms over the back of the couch. The boy left and Loki hummed at the ceiling. You watched his profile as he closed his eyes. “I cannot lie. Our noontime delight did tide me over as the day stretched on. And how it did make it seem longer too.”

Slowly, he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at you again. He smirked.

“Just a taste and I want more, like a sweet tart secreted from the sill or a sip of ale stolen by a child. A simple craving turns to an irresistible hunger.”

You squirmed and he beckoned you close. You watched him warily as he pulled at his overcoat with one hand and unbuttoned the high collar.

“Sit with me. I should like a drink before we proceed.” He said and his lithe fingers worked down the front of his coat. “I must wash away this tension, little mouse, and you might drown your fear.”

You lowered yourself onto the edge of the couch as he let his overcoat droop and reveal his tunic beneath. His fingers ran along the back of our gown and he sat forward slightly as he snaked his arm around you. He pulled you against him as he reclined again and grabbed your chin as he made you look at him.

“I like that.” His nose was close to yours, “The way you try to hide your emotions. That artificial bravery that cannot still your fidgeting fingers or that tic in your cheek. It assures me that you are truly afraid of me, little mouse…” His hot breath grazed your lips, “As you should be.”

“I am not afraid of you,” you uttered, “I am appalled… your majesty.”

He chuckled and a rap came at the door. He parted from you, his hand slipped down to rest on your hand and he pulled it onto his thigh as he called for his servant to enter. Hal came in and set down the bottle of wine and the pair of cups. He was dismissed with a nod.

Alone again, Loki pulled your hand up his leg and forced it over his growing bulge. He snickered as he hardened against your palm.

“My patience wears thin,” he groaned, “So pour us some wine before my thirst is forgotten.”

You drew away as he released you and stood. You poured the wine to the brim and returned to Loki. He took his glass and pointed you to the cushion again. He drank smoothly as you nearly choked on the acrid alcohol. You pulled the cup from your lips and crinkled your nose. The king chuckled and reached to set aside his empty goblet on the side table.

He pushed on the bottom of your cup until it was once more at your lips. “I recommend you drink but do not require it. Perhaps, I should enjoy you sober and petulant.”

You gulped again but quickly recoiled. He laughed again and took the glass from you. There was still quite a bit of wine sloshing around in it as he placed it beside his empty one.

“Get undressed for me, little mouse,” he stood and shrugged out of his overcoat.

You hesitated and flinched as his face turned stern. You rose as he slung his jacket over a chair and pulled the tails of his tunic loose from his trousers and unbuckled his belt. You strained as you bent your arms back but only managed to tangle your fingers in the laces.

He neared and turned you. He expertly unknotted the top of the laces and your bodice slackened. You caught the dress as it drooped down your chest and reluctantly let it slip further. You stepped out of the skirts and he gathered the fabric from the floor. He tossed it over his jacket as you avoided looking at him.

You felt his warmth along your back as he came close and his fingertips brushed lightly along the scars that lined your skin. The ones he’d left there. Those which might never go away. He pressed his thumbs more firmly to the lacerations and traced them down to your ass.

He exhaled and his hand stretched around your hips as he gripped them firmly. He edged you toward the couch until your legs met it. He nudged you until you lifted your knees onto the cushion. It was like you were in a trance; the thought to stop him was overpowered by that which wanted it all to just be over.

“You are healing nicely,” he purred, “A reminder of me when I am kept for too long from you, little mouse.”

You lowered your head as your lip curled. You latched onto the back of the couch and clawed the cushion.

“I feel the anger in you,” he slithered. “I long for it. A sharp tongue calls for a sharper strike. Should I use my hand or another toy?”

You stiffened as his hand crawled back up to your shoulders and he squeezed them as he leaned in.

“Or should I give into my basest desires and leave all patience behind. I could be inside you in a moment. I could have you screaming with a different pain. One which would soon enough be pleasure. An insatiable need.” He hooked his arms under yours and cupped your chest. “Funny, how peasants differ little from ladies. You have the same curves, the same want of a man.” He nuzzled the back of your head, “Perhaps the cunt is tighter? Wetter? Sweeter?”

You snarled and he pinched you. You swatted him away without thinking and he caught your wrist. He twisted your arm against your back until you whined.

“Come on, mouse, fight me,” he sneered, “Give me a little entertainment.”

You bit down but remained still. You huffed and stared at the carpet on the other side of the couch.

“The ladies never do. They’re too proper. Even as a prince, they were all too eager. Of course, they thought their kisses, their words, would lead to something other than a carnal revelation. They thought of contracts and prestige but I only wanted the flesh. They are too proper, too polite to resist.” He pushed on your arm and a pang went through your shoulder, “And when I fucked them, they only cried. Silently. No matter, I’d rather the back of their heads.”

Your insides roiled and the thought of this man, this monster called king, doing to you what he proudly boasted of doing to countless others had you livid. You could not resign yourself to the shame. If he never had to work for anything, he would have to now.

You swung your leg back and your heel met his thigh bluntly. He let go of you with a surprised grunt and you spun, kicking out again. He barely dodged your foot and you were quick to stand. The back of his hand split your lip and you stumbled but not far as you threw your elbows up into his ribs. His second strike missed as you ducked away and struggled to gain your bearings.

You flung a fist out at him and he batted you away. He swept your feet out from beneath you with one of his and you landed with a gasp as the air rushed from your lungs.

“Do you not recall our first lesson? You do not strike a king.” He taunted and stood above you. “If you do, you should hit a lot harder.”

He jabbed your side with the toe of his boot and chuckled. He lifted his tunic over his head and tossed it away. He paced around you and as you tried to sit up, he kicked you back down.

“Shall I have you on the floor? A beast like you belongs there.” He spat, “Oh, dear, are you angry?”

He bent and grabbed your arms. He pulled you up to your feet, leaving you light-headed as he stared you down.

“Go on and try again. Your venom only feeds my own.” He leaned in and his cheek brushed yours as he lowered his voice, “And this snake is meaner than any.”

You pushed on his chest and he shoved you away. You collided with the side table at the end of the couch and wine splashed across your front. He followed you and kicked your ass so that you fell atop the the table entirely, leaving it overturned as you writhed on the floor.

“I’d use your mouth again but you seem like to bite, little mouse,” he chortled. “Oh, but I have waited for that which makes you a woman.”

“You’re… disgusting,” you choked out as he planted a boot on your chest and pinned you to the floor.

“Perhaps but those words mean little from a heathen like you. Tell me, how many men have known you, hmm? A peasant like you? Perhaps a butcher? A forger? Several, even?”

“Get--” You grunted as you grasped his boot, “Off.”

“Do be honest. There is no number which could tarnish you further. You cannot possibly sink lower, little mouse.”

“St-stop,” you pleaded as he pushed down and you found it even harder to breathe.

“Tell me,” he said, “Hmm? More than one? Perhaps five?” He peered down at you and smirked, “Is it more? In the tens?”

You wheezed and shook your head. You kicked out as silver dots floated around your vision. “N-n-none!” You gasped, “None.”

He relented but kept his foot where it was. He laughed. Loudly. He shook his head and scoffed.

“No man?” He said wryly, “Oh, the elusive untouched maiden.”

“Get the fuck off of me,” you snarled.

“A mouth like that on a creature so pure,” he bent and grabbed you by the throat.

He lifted you to your feet and spun you. He forced you over to the table and your middle met it with a thud. You bent over as once more the air was driven from you. His hand was on your ass as he pressed his crotch against you and rocked.

“I do like this angle but wonder if it better to look you in the eye as I pluck your flower,” he kept his hips moving and moaned, “See the pain, the fear, the realisation that you are completely and utterly mine.”

He reared back and slapped your ass. You whimpered at his strength as your hips knocked against the wooden table. He raised his hand again but was halted by a sudden knock. He paused and let out a thick breath. He struck you again. The knock came again. Louder.

“I told my guard, I was not to be disturbed,” he growled.

“Oh, your majesty,” the sing song came through the door, “I have a message for you.”

“Fuck,” Loki swore and backed away. You turned your head to watched him as he pushed his shoulders back, “That fool.”

You didn’t move as he snatched up his tunic and replaced it over his torso. He glanced at you and snapped his fingers. He pointed to the bedroom and you stood straight. He lifted a brow in a final warning.

You shakily retreated and ambled through the doors. You stayed close as you listened. You couldn’t stop quaking. The adrenaline was ice in your veins but seeped away and uncovered the flames of agony licking at your body.

“What is it, you dolt?” The door whipped open in tandem with Loki’s words.

“Why, it is I, your brother’s most beloved companion, aside from his wife, of course, and a message for his most esteemed brother, the king,” the man sounded like a jester.

“Lord Fandral, I do command that you are to the point and do not continue on in this mockery.” Loki tutted.

“Oh, you have not changed,” the lord, Fandral, quipped, “As dour and dull as ever.”

“But a king now so do be on with it.”

“I have been sent to present to you a humble invitation to your brother’s own tournament upon the celebration of his new marriage. He does apologize for the short notice but it would not take you much long than a day and a night to arrive which is why I did insist upon my interruption… I do assume I have disturbed some going on.”

“If I accept this ridiculous proposal, will you be gone?”

“Oh, I must, your brother does await the answer and I would be away tonight to insure you do not arrive before me. You see, the tournament does commence in three days thus. You do want to make the lists, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, go. Let him know that I will appear.” Loki huffed. “At once before I change my mind and have your head sent back instead.”

“As amiable as ever, your majesty,” the other man said, “Do continue on in your… well, whatever it is you do for fun.”

The door snapped shut quickly and you staggered away from the door as you heard the king’s footsteps beneath the muttered curses. His shadow appeared in the dim and you pressed yourself to the wall. You eyed the door behind him, the balcony to your left.

“Get in the bed,” he snipped. “If I must drag you, you will not drag yourself from it.”

You shuddered and forced yourself away from the wall. Loki undressed fully as you neared the bed and climbed over the covers. He was quick as he followed and met you from the other side. He shoved you onto your back and held you there with his hand across your throat. His hot breath glossed over your cheek as his fingers flitted to your chin and he squeezed.

He growled and let go. He flopped onto his back beside you and laid silently. Stewing. You watched his silhouette in the dark.

“My brother does ruin everything,” he whispered. “I am so… riled I can barely focus and…” he bit his lip and stopped himself. “Use your hand.”

“Wha--”

“Or your mouth. I don’t care, I only need to cum,” he closed his eyes. “And not think of what my brother has laid on my plate for the morrow.”

You grimaced and reached over blindly. You kept your eyes on the ceiling as you gripped his hard member and he winced at your touch.

“Tighter,” he murmured.

You did as he bid and slowly moved your hand up his length and back down. You thought of the balcony. At least it was only your hand. You stroked him as he groaned beside you, as his voice floated in the moonlight, and the night air skimmed over your bodies. He wrapped his finger around yours and guided you faster.

You kept the motion as his hand dropped back down and you felt his climax building as he trembled. He grunted as he reached over and kneaded your hip. He bent his legs slightly as he erupted and his warm cum dripped over your knuckles and along your palm. He stopped you and spasmed as he tried to catch his breath.

“You will fetch a rag and clean me before I sleep,” he said, “And we will continue our little game another day.”

🐍

You awoke with a heat wrapped around you. The king’s arm clung to you as there was a prodding further down. You could feel his arousal along the curve of your ass. You tried not to fidget in fears you would rouse him more or wake him. You laid, helpless and watched the early dawn light on the wall.

“It is merely a nocturnal habit,” Loki said as his arm tightened around you. “But, I suppose, your presence does evoke it as well.”

You scowled and said nothing.

“You slept heavily. Rather loudly.” He mused. “I had to roll you over to ease your snorts.”

“You might send me back to the dungeon if I see you sleepless,” you suggested.

“I did not say I was,” he countered, “I slept well enough.”

He drew away from you and the bed shifted as he turned his back to you and hung his legs over the edge. You rolled onto your back as the blanket crumpled around his back and you watched him. He stretched and shook out his black waves. He stood, unabashed by his erection, and went to the window.

“On the road by noon.” He said, “A brief rest on the roadside and the sojourn will not be more than a day.”

You stayed as you were. It might be his bed but it was the most comfortable you’d ever known. Besides, you were unsure of what else to do.

“The party needn’t be very large. Some guards and a few companions.” He spoke to himself as he picked at the window frame and stared out. “Of course, my armor will have to be polished and--” He pulled away and looked back to you on the bed. He smirked. You sat up, alarmed by his sudden interest. “And you will need a chest.”

“Pardon?”

“You must accompany me, of course. As my bed warmer.” He neared the bed and loomed over you. “Did you truly think I’d leave you behind? What in all the gods’ names would you do?”

You frowned and bent your legs to your chest. What would you do indeed.

“In an unfamiliar castle, my bed will certainly need warming and… my brother is the very being that does know how to irk me entirely. I will need the… respite.” Loki lowered himself back to the bed. “And there is so much undone.”

You couldn’t hide your discomfort. You watched him recline across the bed as you stayed huddled at the top of the mattress.

“I don’t understand…” you said quietly.

“Understand what?” He looked over at you with his discerning green eyes.

“Why you didn’t leave me in the dungeon? Or send me to the laundries or the stables?”

He considered you a moment and exhaled. “Well, you are of little use to me in either and I do see use in you. As king, it is prudent only to surround yourself with those who can further your own purpose; be it pleasure or otherwise.”

His answer made you sick. You were an object. A commodity. Well, you were just a peasant, what did you expect?

“And, was your life so glorious before? Were your clay pots and simple companions so amusing? Never touched? Did you ever expect it, at the least?” He challenged.

“Commoners do not marry so early as nobles,” you said quietly.

“Oh, but surely by your age they have considered it? Tell me, do I tread on another man’s grass? Is there some secret betrothal I do not know about? Or perhaps just a tryst unconsummated?”

You pursed your lips and begrudgingly shook your head. You kept your eyes on the blanket as he rolled onto his side and looked at you closer.

“I have done you a favour,” he said, “And I am not in the habit of favours so you might be thankful for it.”

“You would make me a whore. I could’ve done the same in any alleyway.”

“You will find no kings in your alleys,” he girded, “Nor silks, satins, or furs. I offer you all despite your crimes and you think I take from you. I have given you more than you know. You, little mouse, are not the prize in this game, I am.”

You looked at him and blinked. He ran his finger along the blanket that hung over your leg. He tugged until it fell down your knees. You shivered as you thought to grab it and pull it back to your body but he was quick. He pushed your legs apart despite your resistance and you fought with him as he moved between them, his head by your thighs.

His hands hooked over your thighs as he held them apart and he beamed up at you. He licked his lips and pulled himself closer. You felt his breath along your folds as he held your gaze. He lowered his head slowly and you squirmed as he hovered just along your cunt.

“What--”

He poked his tongue between your folds and dragged it up along your bud. You gasped at the peculiar sensation and he did it again, this time circling the sensitive bump. You grasped the pillows as he watched you and continued on, teasing and toying with his tongue. As he pressed his lips around your bud and suckled, you squeaked and you fell flat on the pillows.

“What are you--” You were breathless as he lapped at you and hummed, sending a thrill up your spine.

Your back arched without thought and your hand flew down to grip your own thigh as it pushed against his head. He held onto your legs as he hugged them and closed his eyes as he devoured you. Your eyes rolled back and you dug your heels into the mattress. You lifted your pelvis as you were driven wild by the flurry in your core.

You moaned and whined pathetically as he took control of your body. As he lured you closer and closer to an unknown release. A coil wound tighter and tighter inside of you until finally it snapped. You felt the pleasure flow from you as he drank it up and the tension left your body in an instant as the waves crashed over you.

You bent your arms across your chest and held yourself in your shock; in the sheer ecstasy that had overcome you. You panted and felt suddenly cold as he removed himself from between your legs. You peeked over at him as he sat up and wiped his glistening lips. His mouth curved deviously as he met your gaze.

“I am not the only in need,” he preened, “Though the need is so much more dire when you know what exactly it is you long for, isn’t it?

#loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #dark fic #fic #dark!fic #series #by the king's hand #king!loki #au #medieval #medieval au #medieval!au #mcu #marvel

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a-kind-of-merry-war · 2 years

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End of Year Questions for Writers and Artists

1. What project are you most proud of and why?

I feel like this goes against the spirit of the rules, as this is the fandom website for fandom things, but - it's ONITK. Hands down. Even if I wobble about "oh no it's actually terrible" I love it, and more than that I love Raff and Penn (an unreasonable, possibly concerning amount) and I can't wait for y'all to read it.

When I left uni (an age ago now) I swore I'd never write prose again. I hated it, and I wasn't writing anything, and I was miserable. Going from that to getting an actual book published is incredible (and I sincerely have everyone on here who supported my fic to thank for that. Without you 'orrible lot I would never have had enough faith in myself to write it in the first place).

2. Which project did you have the most fun making?

Well, I had a blast writing We Could Be Married, but I think the most fun project was definitely @valdomarxxx, if just for the sneaky underhandedness of it all >:3

3. Which project was the most unexpected and/or challenging and why?

Ah man, I'm gonna be That Guy again, but the most challenging? ONITK. The writing was hard, and somehow: editing is even harder. I think to say anything has been more challenging would be a big fat lie 😅

4. Which project would you like to receive more attention?

ahhh i'm pretty happy with the amount of attention everything's gotten! Ask me again in [REDACTED AMOUNT OF TIME] and my answer will probably be pretty different 😅

5. Is there a project you intended to work on but couldn’t find the time? If so, what is it?

Urgh, so many unfinished WIPs. I've got a 25k multi chapter fic that I started in 2020, and fully intended to finish this year, but never did. It'll probably end up ~50k, if I ever finish it, and just-- man. SO MANY UNPOSTED WORDS.

I also really wanted to finish My Beloved Monster, but just before I completed chapter 3 life got a Bit Much, and it's such a heavy one that picking it back up to finish it has been really difficult.

6. Have you noticed an improvement in your skill this year? Did a specific project help?

Hmm, I'd like to think my writing improves every year I do it consistently, so - yes. I'm not sure if any one specific thing really helped, just the fact that I've been writing consistently for so long!

7. If you could remake any project you’ve created this year, which one would it be and why?

I don't think there's any I'd really say I'd totally remake! I get weirdly attached to my writing, so this one is tricky to answer. Maybe go into MBM with a better plan 😅

8. What project would you like to make next year?

I'M GOING TO FINISH THAT 25k WIP. I've got a Modern AU about wildflowers and pining that I really want to finish that I'm very attached to, and a couple I said I'd write for/with people that I'd like to do.

And uh... no one has called me out on this, but I never actually posted the follower celebration fic. So watch this space for that (to celebrate the next milestone) 😅

(for real serious, and this takes priority over fic, is that I want to write ONITK Book 2, at the very least. Maybe Book 3 too. Watch this space.)

---

RIGHT-OH. Enough having feelings. I'm going to tag@dont-touch-the-phlebotinum, @rebrandedbard, @spielzeugkaiser and anyone else who wants to do it (and if you dont wanna do it, no pressure, i love you)

(sdfjks i just realised i forgot to say i was tagged by the ever-wonderful and exceptionally talented @srapsodia, thank u raps 💖)

#tag game #long post #catch me getting SOPPY #OH GOD #not allowed not here #i can only have emotions via proxy through a fictional person sorry

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keelywolfe · 3 years

Text

FIC: The Rose and the Thorn: Chapter 19 (Mafia AU)

Summary: Rus is having a chance for a few regrets. Bad mistakes? Yeah, he's made a few.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Cherryberry, Mafia AU, Flower Shop AU, Violence, First Meetings, Attempted Sexual Assault

Warning: Heads up, let me add a warning here for attempted sexual assault and violence.

~*~~

Read Chapter 19 on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Rus came to with his head throbbing, feeling as if his skull had been stuffed full of cotton wool. The blanket under his mouth was soaked with his own drool, sticking clammy and cold to his face. With a grunt of effort, Rus tried to move and found he couldn’t. That quickly woke him up the rest of the way, that and the jangle of chains as struggled to get upright. Craning his neck, he looked up and down the length of his body to see the cuffs circling his wrists and ankles, each with its own chain fastened to a bedpost. He was still mostly dressed, he saw. His sweater was gone, but the button-up and trousers he’d been wearing were still in place, if horribly wrinkled. A small consolation that Rus clung to desperately, uncertain if he’d even know if anything had been done to him.

He had a vague, foggy memory of being carried, being moved, and burning hands moving over him but little else. No, that was wrong, he could remember more and didn’t want to, remembered Lilith and blood and fear, and might not know where exactly he was, but he knew who brought him here.

“no,” Rus whispered to himself, struggling harder, the restraints jangling with an almost cheery chime against the bedframe. “no, no, no.”

“You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep that up, little flower."

A terrifyingly familiar voice, one that carried with it its own memories of hurt and fear.

“don’t touch me!” Rus blurted hysterically, struggling harder despite the tearing pain in his wrists. “you stay away from me!”

All his struggles meant nothing, the cuffs allowed only enough give for him to lay on the bed, and he let out a weak sob as a hot hand settled on the small of his back, pinning him firmly back to the mattress.

“Darling, we haven’t even begun.” The bed shifted as Blaze sat down next to him and his hand slid up Rus’s spine in a mockery of soothing. “How well do you understand me?"

Rus could taste salt-sweetness, tears running back into his sockets and gathering nauseously at the back of his throat. That hand moved to the top of his skull, knuckles rapping against it painfully. “Answer me.”

“well enough,” Rus said dully. This was his own fault, he’d been warned, and even if Edge found him this time, who was to say what might happen between now and then.

“Better. This will go much easier on you if you’re obedient, precious.” That burning touch moved down to Rus’s face and he tried to jerk away instinctively, the chains holding him back. “Now, now, pet, calm yourself. If I only wanted to fuck you, I could have done it already, couldn’t I.” Those burning fingers skimmed lower, fondling his jaw. “Tempting, I’ll admit, such a pretty mouth. But why use force when you’ll be giving yourself to me willing?”

That confident assertion set off a spark, scorching a path of fury through Rus’s dull acceptance.

“Fuck you!” Rus spat. He twisted around to look at Blaze, truly seeing him for the first time. A fire Monster, he’d known that much, his flames the deep purple of an old ugly bruise and whatever passed for his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. His shirt was mostly unbuttoned, exposing more purple flames and leading a path down to his undone belt. A warning of things to come and Rus couldn’t help trying to struggle again, twisting fruitlessly against the restraints.

“Manners,” Blaze chided. “You’re so certain? You haven’t even heard the bargain yet.”

“I don’t care what it is!”

“No?” Blaze leaned in closer, flames crackling close to Rus’s audial canal. “What if I agreed to let up on Edge and Red? I’ve been toying with them for some time, you’re simply a shiny new game piece. I’d let them be, no more long nights worrying about when the next strike comes. They’d keep their silly little club and all their sluts would be safe.” He leaned in, his breath pouring over Rus like the heat of an opened oven. “I’ve heard you’re quite fond of those whores, hmm? Did my little kitty tell me true?”

Rus said nothing, squeezing his sockets tightly shut as he tried to keep the memories from pouring in. He couldn’t, could only think of Lilith, her pretty, confused face filling his mind’s eye as she fell to lie bleeding in the street, only to be replaced by Mona in the same way, hurt and dying. Sweet Mona who’d been kind to him from the start, tried so hard to help him, who was studying to be a nurse to help other people, their people.

But it was what Blaze said next that sent the rising uncertainty and fear in Rus’s soul boiling, a heat to match the Flame Monster’s own as he said, “Oh, there’s also your brother. Adorable little thing, isn’t he? To be honest, he’s a little more to my tastes.”

Rus jerked around as much as he could, craning his neck to glare that smug face. “you stay the fuck away from my brother!”

“Well, now, I can’t do that unless I get to stay the fuck with you. What do you say?” Two blistering hot fingers curled under his chin, hooking into his jaw and flames licked and curled painfully around his face. “Tik tok, precious, limited time only. You spread your legs so easily for Edge, what’s one more?”

He didn’t bother saying that he and Edge had never had sex, not really. There was no point; even if this Monster, this monster, believed him, it would only be more fuel for the fire of his hatred. He’d probably be fucking delighted to hear it, one more thing he could take from them, one more cruelty to inflict. There was only one bargain available, this one, right here and now. Rus wasn’t so foolish as to believe Blaze was telling the truth, but if it only kept him away from Blue, bought them a little time, what other option did he have?

Tears burned, nearly as hot as that touch, trickling down his face and hissing to stinging steam as they fell against Blaze’s hand. He couldn’t even turn away, Blaze forcing him to look up into that hated face as he whispered out, “deal.”

“What was that, precious?” Blaze smirked. “Speak up.”

“i said deal!” Rus snarled.

“Perfect.” He let go of Rus and stood, unzipping his fly. Rus closed his sockets before seeing what it revealed, forced himself not to flinch away. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. “Now let’s see how good you suck cock to start.”

“don’t ever recall you bein’ much of a rapist. guess you learn somethin’ new every day.”

That unexpected voice seemed to come from nowhere at first, slowly solidifying by the door. Blaze whirled around, his flames crackling in loud astonishment and Rus craned his head to see, a feeble blossom of hope sprouted in his soul.

Red stood leaning against the doorjamb, hands in his trouser pockets and a smoldering cigar clenched in his jagged teeth. His eye lights were their own flames, deep red coals that matched his cold grin. “what’s the matter? don’t ya know how to greet an old friend?”

“How did you—” The question was bitten off so hard Rus could practically hear the click of nonexistent teeth over Blaze fumbling with his fly, fastening his trousers again with haste.

“eh, wasn’t too hard.” Red pushed off the wall and wandered closer, dusting off the front of his suit jacket with an absent flick of ringed fingers. “kid is wired up like a gyftmas tree, got little ornaments tucked all over in his clothes. figured you’d find a way to snag him eventually, so best to be prepared.” Rus’s sneakers were lying abandoned near the foot of the bed and Red nudged them with the toe of his shiny, expensive loafer. “you’re gettin’ soft, hothead, shoulda stripped him bare where you first took ‘im.”

Blaze crossed his arms over his chest, flames rising in a flickering dance the only sign of his agitation. “You’re assuming I didn’t want you to find me.”

“true,” Red allowed.

“I admit, I was expecting your brother. It’s so rare for you to come out and play these days.”

“well, now you’ve got me on the monopoly board, so let’s get this over with.” From that angle, Rus could hardly see Red, only from the chest down. Two gold buttons from his vest were visible and the broad chain strung across it, jewelry instead of restrains. Always that ridiculous extravagance, he thought with bitter, near hysterical amusement, even now. “you know, always had a little regret at leaving you behind that day, but, eh. can’t ask someone to choose them over their brother, can you.”

Blaze made a sound like hissing steam. “you left me to die!”

“sure did,” Red agreed, with such bald unapologetic blandness that Rus cringed into the blanket beneath him. “but that’s an ‘us’ problem.”

“You abandoned me!” Now Blaze was huffing like a bellows, his flames darkening nearly to black, lashing and crackling around him. “We came up from the gutters together and you left me behind like I was nothing, like I was ash to be scraped from your shoes!”

“you always were a fucking drama queen.” Red only puffed on his cigar, utterly calm, as if he were arguing with someone in the market over the last head of cabbage, and Rus could only listen with distant, dizzy surreality. Even his tears were drying, leaving behind itchy trails on his face. “turnin’ shit into a dust feud, like there ain’t enough people out there that want us dead? yeah, we did, dragged ourselves out, spitfire, and you shoulda already known by then that my bro always comes first.”

Blaze said nothing, but he took a step back when Red came closer. One of his hands shifted to hover over Rus and he could feel the banked heat even from the distance, a warning to them both.

Not that Red seemed to care. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to Rus, his words were careful, slow, as if repeating important directions to one who was easily lost. “been letting you blow off steam for a while now. lost some merchandise here and there, you’d stick your fat fingers into one of our pies and we’d lose a payday. that was fine.” A step closer and Rus could see his face now, Red’s grin wolfishly wide. “‘preciate ya leavin’ the school and the daycare alone. was a bitch settin’ those up without getting’ our names tangled up in ‘em.”

“Harming children is for Humans.” Bitterly spat, someone who’d met Humans on their terms too many times already.

“ain’t that the truth,” Red agreed lazily, His voice changed then, that easiness ceasing as it vanished into bitter, bitten cold, “gotta say though, i ain’t too keen on you threatenin’ my bro or his little pet.”

“They aren’t children. You’re here for him, then.” His hand dropped, settling in the small of Rus’s back and he couldn’t bite back a whimper at the sudden, aching heat licking at his bones. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, you always were too concerned about those sluts of yours.”

“always were a sweet talker, fire crotch.” Red straightened briskly, tucking his hands back into his pockets. “time to get down to business. brought you somethin’ ya might want, thought you might consider makin’ a little swap.”

“How generous,” Blaze purred. The tension in him hadn’t eased, his flames still licking high, but he shifted like he’d found his footing. “You have nothing that I want, lover, not anymore.”

“no?” Red licked his teeth, his wet teeth gleaming in the lamplight. “not even a fresh supply of golden flower tea?”

Blaze went suddenly still, all that oozing smarm stilling into whispered astonishment. “You do not.”

“sure do.” Red pulled a hand from his pocket and dangled a small packet between two fingers. “fresh enough you can prolly smell it from there and plenty more where that came from.” He nodded in Rus’s direction, “only, he’s the direct line to it. you kill him, that’s it. supply begins and ends with the flower shop. you can have your fun with him if ya want but—” He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under his suit coat. “i ain’t about to tell ya how to do business, but if you want in, i don’t mind sharin’.” He licked his teeth again, his smile widening as it curled around a single word. “lover.”

Blaze rocked from foot to foot restlessly and even beneath the sunglasses, the shift of his gaze from the packet to Red’s grinning face was unmistakable. “The fuck you would!”

“the fuck i ain’t!” Red countered, “see, that’s the beauty of it. you know the value, dontcha. these rubes ain’t got a clue, not even my bro gets it, but you and me? sweetspark, you and i know the value of a buck, don’t we. an’ we definitely know the value of this.”

“You’re lying.” But the words were without heat, almost uncertain. Wanting to believe.

“you think i’d come here without proof.” Red opened the packet and poured a little into his palm. He blew across it, scattering dried petals into the air subtle scent of golden flowers filled the air. Rus could taste it, his mouth automatically watering at the familiar flavor. Golden flower tea was a palliative when he’d been growing up, Blue brewed it whenever Rus wasn’t feeling well, whether the sickness was one of the body or the soul. There was always a cup for them both on days their pop had been particularly cruel or drunk, soothing away the lingering hurts. To taste it now, here, was abhorrent.

Blaze spread his hands and the floating petals still hanging in the air disappeared in tiny flares in his palms, that familiar smell going burnt and bitter. “You left me.”

“yep, i did,” Red agreed, unapologetic. "shoulda known if the choice was between you and my bro, there ain't no choice. get that you’re pissed, have every right to be, but don't go blamin’ me for being exactly who ya always knew i was. now, if ya wanna let the flower shop go, then we’ve got a deal.”

“Do you swear it to me?” Blaze said. He didn’t look at Rus, neither of them did; he was nothing, only a pawn in their game. They were the major players, two kings on either side of a chess board, deciding who to sacrifice and who to spare.

“’course i do,” Red snorted, “you got my word, sweetspark. i promise ya.”

The two of them stood for a long, terrible moment in a heated tableau. Rus kept as still as possible, terrified of tipping the decision in the wrong direction. Then came the sound of a drawer sliding open, a painful, hot hand grabbing his wrist as a key slid into the lock. Blaze repeated it on each limb and Rus scrambled to sit up, nearly falling in his haste to get to Red.

“get your shoes on, flower shop,” Red told him, “wouldn’t wanna hurt your little tootsies before i take ya back to my bro.” Rus did as he was told, all but shoving his foot into his shoe as Red turned back to Blaze. “good to be doing business again with ya. we’ll work out the details, but first. shake on it like pals, yeah?”

He held out a hand and Blaze took it, but the sudden sound that came from Blaze made Rus jerk, looking up from his shoes to see Red using that grip to yank Blaze closer, down to his level. His sunglasses slipped down, exposing the hollows that passed for a fire Monster’s eyes gone wide, disbelieving. “You—”

The whisper died in a fall of dust scattering to the floor. Red only watched it fall in a dark, glittering cloud and the soul speared through with the sharpened bone still in his hand was the last to dissolve. No king, only another pawn taken from the board.

Red shook his head, tutting softly, and tossed the little packet of golden flowers onto the dustpile, the remaining petals scattering. “better luck next time, pal. least you went out with dollar signs dancin’ in your head.” He frowned at his dusty hand and pulled out a linen handkerchief that matched his shirt, wiping it off as he turned back to Rus. “normally woulda let one of my boys do it, but i guess i owed him that much, to take care a’ it personal-like.”

Rus couldn’t move, crouched there on the floor with one shoe on as he stared at Red with words clotting in his throat. “you…you…”

The wide slash of his grin only went wider. “go on, spit it out.”

“you killed him.” The last word broke on a sob.

"sure did," Red agreed. He looked at his cigar, his expression twisting in impatient disgust at the dust coating it. He tossed it aside and pulled out another, biting off the end and lighting it with a match struck on the bedpost. "hate to break a promise, too. been putting it off too long. kept hopin’ he’d get over it and sign back on, but he took it a lil’ too far.” Red shrugged. “eh, dogs are better anyway. loyal.”

He wandered past Rus towards the door, his voice floating back where Rus was still sitting with his shoe in his lap. “thanks for the help. knew he’d get his mitts on you eventually and lead the way to where he was holed up. didn’t figure on it goin’ that way, but it didn’t work out too bad, all things considered.” He turned back, one finger curling in a ‘come here’ gesture. “hurry up, kid, time to go.”

With one shoe still untied, Rus stumbled after him as Red led the way out of the room. They were in a large house of some sort, open and spacious where the Fell brothers’ home was all narrow hallways and mazes. No one tried to stop them as they made their way downstairs, every room echoing and empty, and Rus clung to the bannister to keep from falling. His mind still felt fuzzy and wrong, disbelieving, catching onto what Red had said minutes too late.

“you used me as bait?” A sob heaved out of Rus, helpless and wretched, followed by more, as if they’d been bottled up in his chest and now that the first escaped, they were bursting out like bubbles an opened bottle of soda.

"’course i fuckin’ did. you were a pain in the ass to boot, always takin’ off like ya did. made it harder to track whether you were just bein’ a shit or not.” Red paused on the landing impatiently as Rus tripped his way down. “knock it off with the waterworks, yer givin' me a headache."

Rus tried, hiccoughing painfully as he said, "he shot lilith."

"and she almost got you a fire dick up the ass for her troubles,” Red said. The raw crudeness made Rus wince, choking back his tears. “anyway, save the cryin’ for somethin’ important, she's fine. for now. all bandaged up and ready for a heap 'o regret for sellin’ you out."

"don't,” Rus blurted. “please. don't hurt her."

Red swung around to look at him and Rus couldn’t keep from flinching, stumbling back a step from that piercingly sharp gaze. "you defendin' her?"

"she didn't know how bad it was. she tried to stop him."

“regrettin’ after you fuck up don't mean you get off." Red started down the stairs again, but he sounded almost pensive as he said, "’course, she did get shot, that ain’t no summer picnic. i'll think about it."

Hardly soothing, but Rus nodded, relaxing a little as he wiped at his face with his sleeve, mumbling out, “thank you.

Red chuckled, low and rich with perverse humor. "heh, already thinkin' you won, kid? i ain’t as easy as my bro, said i’ll think about it.”

Outside was a long black car, expensive and indistinguishable. A Dog got out of the driver’s side and held open the door for them, Rus scrambling in after Red and sat on the seat opposite. The door wasn’t even closed when Red began rummaging through a little fridge, pulling out a clear crystal bottle of dark brown liquid. “here, have a drink. think you might need it.”

The entire bottle was probably more accurate, but it was better than nothing. Rus took the glass wordlessly, swallowing it all down in one gulp. He couldn’t hold back a grimace; the sharp burn of expensive whisky tried to wash away the taste of burnt golden flowers clinging inside his mouth, but it still lingered in his nasal cavity and he wondered dully if he’d ever be able to smell them again without remembering this moment.

Across from him, Red slumped back against the leather seat, sockets closed, his own glass dangling loosely from his broad fingers. His browbones were drawn together, a line of weariness between them and Rus suddenly wondered how long they’d been looking for him. There were no clocks in the backseat and the sun coming in through the tinted windows revealed nothing. Blue was probably hysterical and Rus couldn’t blame him, his own stupidity got him into trouble again, and Edge—

He didn’t want to think about Edge, not right now.

His mind refused to be blank, kept flittering about and Rus latched on to one of the questions lingering inside his skull, pointless and perfect for this moment. He held his own glass in both hands, the cool crystal slowly warming between them. “why was blaze so interested in golden flower tea?”

“that’s need to know, kid.” Red didn’t open his sockets as he took a sip from his glass.

“yeah, well, i need to know,” Rus said stubbornly. “you used me as bait, so tell me. why was he willing to let everything go over some stupid flowers?”

Those closed sockets slit open, the barest gleam of crimson gazing out at him. “heh. you think i owe you somethin’, flower shop?” Rus said nothing, afraid of agreeing, and Red’s sharp grin widened. “learnin’ how to be careful of those debts, huh. good for you.” He shifted in his seat, loosening his tie as he sighed. “but you got a point. okay, flower shop, here's the deal. see, most monsters and humans get a little relaxed with it, s’all. probably a strong cup of chamomile’d have the same affect.”

“unless ya have lv. golden flower tea is pretty damn useful for monsters with lv.” That sharp smile twisted unpleasantly. “sweet thing like you don’t know what it’s like carryin’ around a lump of charcoal in your chest. feel it burnin’ ya from the inside out…”

For once, Red looked away from Rus first, stared pensively into the dark depths of his glass. “that tea helps, a fucking lot. only once we came to the surface it was hard to find. don’t grow easy around here, not without help.” Red tossed back the rest of his glass and poured another, whiskey slopping out around the lip, spattering the little bar. When he offered the bottle to Rus, he accepted it, pouring more into his own glass. “ain’t had any in ages. not ’til you turned up, flower shop, you and your brother.” He chuckled roughly and shook his head. “mother angel’s mercy, fuckin’ florists of all things.”

“i didn’t know,” Rus admitted, and now that he did, he wasn’t sure if he regretted asking.

Red shrugged. “that ain’t no surprise, you ain’t got any lv and your bro don’t have enough to make any difference.”

That idle statement made Rus jerk, spilling whiskey down the front of his shirt. “my brother has lv?” His voice seemed too small, confined in that backseat.

Red paused and a brief, bothered expression flitted across his face before it smoothed again. “like i said, not enough to make any difference.” He finished off the last of his glass, the silence filled with only the hum of the engine and the tires against the road. “anyway, that’s enough explanations for you. ya did me a favor helpin’ me get a lead on that old flame burnin’ up my ass. think i might owe ya a little extra for a rough time. so tell me, whaddya want?”

Outside the tinted windows, the real world blurred past them. The really real world, where the worst thing that ever happened was a rude barista might mess up your order or a Human might call an insult from the other side of the road, and Rus never hesitated. “i want to go home. i don’t belong in all this.”

“eh, that’s already on the table.” Red crushed out the stub of his current cigar and lit another, the burning smell from the match nearly making Rus heave. “what else you got?”

“that you leave my brother alone!”

Red exhaled a cloud of foul smoke and shook his head, “that’s ‘tween me and him. care for a third try before ya strike out?”

His empty glass thudded to the carpeted floor as Rus buried his face in his hands, trying to catch his breath. He should let it go, drop the pretense of ever balancing the sheet between them. He’d be back home soon, back to the shop and the normalcy, nothing but bouquets and daydreams, oh, the daydreams. There was one thing yet that he wanted with self-destructive desperation, and the words came out barely muffled by his bony fingers, clear and stark. “i want one night, with him. with your brother. no strings attached.”

“you think i can get you that, huh? well, honey, you hit the jackpot.” Through his fingers, he could see Red’s eye lights glittering, the deep, burning crimson of a devil or maybe a djinn from the stories Blue read to him as a child. Looking at them sent a shiver down Rus’s spine like a sin even as Red spoke, his voice rough and amused as he offered a single word.

“done.”

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #underfell sans #underfell grillby #mafia au

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