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hellyeahheroes · 3 years

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Robin(2021) #1 Review

Opening this comic with an assessment of a character that I have no choice but to agree with is a cheap way to score points with me.

Anyways, we caught heat for being unfair to this story since it was announced because all of us wanted it to be a Cass story since forever. And it became yet another thing Damian absorbs. I mostly ignored it because I’ve always been open about my disdain for the character and his fandom for nearly a decade. I never liked Damian because put these characteristics on a non-white passing character, they’d be dead inside of year. Then again I hate almost all of Grant Morrison monstrosities.

Regardless, new story who dis is in full effect here. We open this bad boy up with Damian gone missing and the Batfamily searching for him. Nightwing tried asking Damian’s old Teen Titans team and they obviously don’t know and probably hope Damian is dead. Tim checked Arkham Ruins(???) and Damian wasn’t there. I honestly don’t think Tim was trying to find Damian. Steph and Cass checked Damian’s farm and Steph concluded Damian has been there at least because while Damian may be a little shit, he loves his dog and pet bat dragon. Barbara checked facial recognition pings and his transactions and dude is an IRS nightmare.

Damian is missing. Bruce is worried that maybe making a violent murderous preteen Robin raised in a cabal of killers to be chief murderer was a bad idea and is worried. Barbara ensures him that they will find his son and we cut to Damian fighting Snake guy in some musty ass fight put somewhere. Because of course it’s a musty ass fight pit because while the story is well drawn, it never claimed to be not cliche.

Damian hands the scrub his ass and it turns out Damian is trying to earn a marker to participate in some tournament. I liked this panel.

Not because of the artist flex of changing the art style, but it establishes Damian with a relatable hobby, reading manga. And not just a Shounen as you expect him to read but a slice of life manga which kind of puts his life in perspective. Also the lesson in the manga is reflective of what happens in the comic. Damian’s mastery is reflective of how he sees Hana. Hana decides to go beyond what her masters taught her. She decides to innovate and make her art her own. And that’s indicative of another flaw of Damian: Damian leans of the prestige of his teachers. He is the student that replicates the style 1:1. He wants to inherit Batman’s mantle, but doesn’t want to shed his teachings that he is proud of. And it comes down to this idea that Damian refuses to innovate and adapt because he is hiding behind his masters.

This panel saved the story so good job.

And after a talk with dead Alfred, it’s revealed that Damian is on this journey as a way to mirror Bruce’s journey into becoming Batman. It’s his way to iron his resolve without a catalyst to find a need to. It highlights his naïveté. He thinks that he can just simply copy the steps and get the same results.

Regardless what happens next simultaneously undermines the story or the impact of it.

Okay, when you think of Martial artists in DC, you immediately think Batman, Shiva, Deathstroke, Black Canary, Bronze Tiger, Richard Dragon, and Shiva. Why I said Shiva twice? Because Shiva is the pinnacle.

So to reveal that three premier martial artists in the universe are not only not participating but they were paid off to not participate, cheated out, or were subbed in as an entry replacement, it undermines the promotion. It’s like going to a Beyonce Concert only to find out that between the words in small print Beyonce and Concert was ‘s Sister’s and now you are watching Grammy award winning Solange. Sure, it’s an unique experience but it ain’t Beyonce.

And also, there is no amount in the world that would keep Shiva away from this tournament if it’s as prestigious as it’s led to be. Let’s be real. If anything, it’s far more likely that she saw the roster of scrubs and decided to make some scratch.

There are two characters that I recognize: Connor Hawke and Rose Wilson. I am not familiar with Connor so I am not sure if he is out of place. Rose is fine but y’know, scrub. I’m sorry Rose Wilson got her ass handed to her by Cass in the previous universe. There is no universe where I take her seriously in a fighting tournament to crown greatest fighter because the ass stomp was so thorough that Cass was beating Slade’s ego by proxy.

Back to the comic, Damian interrupts the host and basically is the fighting tournament trope of overly confident disrespectful guy with too many accolades which he will proudly tell you about them. What I like about this is the nice nod to the previous manga panel. Damian is not a great fighter. There I said it. Damian’s ability hinges on the idea that he was trained by the greatest killers and Batman but the issue is that name prestige doesn’t make great fighters. Too many times, comic books overly rely on this idea of fighting being a what you know and not being a game of not getting hit and getting hits in. It does not matter if Damian is trained by the League and Batman and it’s questionable as to how much Batman taught him in the first place. Hence why we see Damian with a sword or staff to compliment his lack of range. Damian can’t read muscle twitches like a Cass or Shiva so he has a normal reactive response and comics never highlighted his ability. The most impressive thing I’ve seen Damian do is catch a Batarang which is something I’ve seen Tim do. Damian overly relies on the idea that his teachers taught him to be the best when they simply taught him to survive in a fight.

“But why does Cass get away with it?,” you ask. Cass has this broken hax that is reading muscle twitch and immediately knowing the instant of what you are going to do before you do it or decide to do. Cass doesn’t need range because to her, you are screaming your intentions. She doesn’t need to block an attack when she can just parry. She doesn’t need to step back when she can just step forward while slipping all attacks. She is an autistic savant at fighting with an absolute defense. Damian is just another badass teen in a world of badass adults.

And the humbling of Damian begins...again.

Pros:

-Damian’s new costume. I like that he is branching out and starting to own his own colors. It’s nice.

-Using a character flaw to make it a theme. I like Chekhov’s gun via teachable moment. In tournament arcs, what separates the good ones and the bad ones is the idea that the hero simply must overcome their opponents and not their own self. This is why Yuyu Hakusho is awesome.

- Great art and nice continuity. It’s nice that Damian’s past wasn’t ignored for once and they didn’t just throw his Teen Titans characterization down the tubes. Say what you want, but it was arguably Damian’s longest run in spite of his fans hating it. And contrary to what they believe, it was very much in character for him. My fear going into this that Damian would not face any fallout and lo and behold he ran away.

- it’s a good start for a Damian story. Say what you want, but it’s unique in that the little shit gets his comeuppance immediately. And not that just by losing, but by dying. Damian has killed before and readily justifies it because he never realizes the weight of taking someone’s life. He’s been killed before but those were painted in a way that he is valiant. Here, this is death caused by his own arrogance. He mocks a fighter for talking shit and gets murked while talking shit. He spouts names of his own teachers and expects people to care or be weary as if Rose Wilson and Connor aren’t there. It’s a tournament sponsored by the League of Assassins, Damian. They have been taught by the league too.

Cons:

-Look I get promotion. No promoter is going to undermine their product but the fact that this tournament reeks like ABA is killing my interest to give a shit. It’s a convenient caveat to say that, “Well, a character won this so they can have the title but the title doesn’t mean anything.” I know of regardless of whom wins this, they aren’t the best. Go ham or don’t at all.

-not enough emphasis of the importance of this arc. Why even have this tournament? What’s the prize? What’s even the point?

-While the art is nice, the action is framed poorly. I like physical action like this to be nearly choreographed in a way I can see and piece movement in my head. The two fight scenes we get are somewhat disjointed in that it’s just poses. For example, Flatline’s first kick makes no sense at all and I don’t get her follow up. Trying to picture the movement hurts my head and in an action concept like this, it’s best to frame action scenes as more than doing poses. Here is a good example:

This only emphasizes the action and gets the reader to acknowledge that this a tournament of great fighters or at least a great fighting story.

All in all, do I think this story is off to a good start? Yes. Is it going to change my opinion on Damian? Hell no. My reaction to Damian getting his ass handed to him was this.

The issue is that it never sticks. Damian can learn and be a better person but the development never sticks. It becomes a cyclical series of events because whoever writes him next will just keep writing him as this shitty entitled murder rich kid who never learns anything and gets validated somehow. It’s been over a decade and I’m tired of the same excuses of his shitty behavior. I am tired of writers validating it or excusing it.

Damian losing isn’t an outcome I care for because it’s wasted on him. Honestly I am more interested in Connor and Rose being there. I have no faith that it will stick nor does it undo the shitty idea of the character. I have never wanted to see Damian fight. It’s never been fun to read about nor has the impetus of his character emphasized the ability or style. Placing Damian in an Enter the Dragon style tournament lacks the pizzazz of Cass doing the same thing. For example, let’s try Marvel.

Let’s say someone pitches an idea of a tournament arc styled after Game of Death. Immediately you think Martial Artists non-powered. Danny Rand, Daredevil, Elektra, Shang-Chi, Pei and Colleen Wing. Okay, instead of giving those characters the honor, you give the story to Black Cat. Honestly, I’d read it because Felicia could sell me a documentary on grass and I’d buy it but the point stands, why does Damian have this Bruce Lee inspired Martial Arts story versus the actual Chinese or East Asian Martial Arts focused member of the Batfamily, Cassandra Cain?

But this has nothing to do with what could have been. It’s a fun beginning of a possibly fun arc. In that regard, it delivers but what’s the point?

Like I said, fun story.

@ubernegro

#dc #robin #damian wayne #batman and robin #batman #tim drake #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #batgirl #barbara gordon #oracle #dick grayson #batfamily

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unfunny-quips · 3 years

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Of all the many people in the world who wanted him dead, All For One had to admit that he was rather surprised by the person who actually managed to both track him down and get past his impressive security.

He knew someone was there the moment he opened the door. Could sense the presence of another person in his high rise apartment that shouldn’t have been there. A steady heartbeat, unflinching and unafraid. Brave or stupid, he wasn’t sure, but they’d be dead either way once he wrung out of them how they’d gotten in and which of his security detail he was going to have to kill.

He shrugged off his coat - it was new and fit him well, he’d rather not get blood on it - and hung it up carefully by the front door. Slipped off his shoes and rolled his shoulders with a sigh. Though that particular apartment was not homey per se, there was something oddly comforting about returning to a living space that was entirely his own at the end of a day. Though centuries ago, a childhood fraught with uncertain living situations and inconsistent care had left marks on him that time and power had not fully been able to shake.

All the more reason to make the intruder’s death slow, as insignificant a threat as they were, they’d at least been able to find him. Which meant finding a new luxury apartment, perhaps even in a new city. And he despised moving.

He kept his steps light on the polished wooden floors, stopping by the oversized and little used kitchen for some water before he meandered his way towards the living room where his uninvited guest waited. Perhaps he’d throw them out the window, eighty stories up would make for a rather long time to think about their impending death. Or maybe tear them apart inch by literal inch so they had to languish in their suffering.

Setting his glass down on the kitchen counter he stepped into his spacious living room and paused at what sat waiting for him.

All For One, Emperor of Darkness, King of all Villains, Boogeyman of the Boogeymen found himself...uncertain.

There was a woman seated on his couch. Casually dressed and relaxed looking, knees drawn up and tucked beneath her, an open book bag on the floor beside where she sat and a law textbook in hand. She finished highlighting a section carefully before capping the marker and turning her gaze on to him, letting him see her face properly for the first time.

Green eyes were the first thing that struck him. Clear and bright and intelligent, set in a kind face. Her hair, also green, was swept down a little past her shoulders with half of it pulled up in a fluttering little bun at the back of her head. He was struck by two thoughts as he took her in.

The woman sitting before him was entirely unintimidated by him.

And...

She looked a bit like Nana Shimura.

The woman tilted her head, seeming to take him in while he’d been observing her. She shifted on the couch a little, shutting the book softly and setting it down. Her heartbeat was steady, her gaze unflinching but not combative. Purpose seemed to flow off of her, as resolute as her steady gaze. He understood that she knew exactly who he was and felt no need for fear nor sense of unease in his presence. A strong will, he knew the aura he carried around him well and it was someone interesting indeed who could face the overwhelming killing intent that drifted off him in waves without so much as a flicker of uncertainty.

“Hello.” She said with a soft, clear voice. The kind of ease one has with an acquaintance or a friend not often seen, not a stranger whose house she had invaded. “I’m sorry to have broken in like this.” She started, with the appropriate level of apology one would save for knocking over a stranger’s drink. “But I was hoping you’d be able to help me.”

He should be irritated, he should just kill her and get on with his evening, he should make her an example for anyone else stupid enough to think they could waltz into his home without consquence.

He wasn’t irritated though. And he didn’t kill her. Instead he found himself oddly...charmed by the stranger that sat before him.

“Indeed?” He asked blandly, slipping his hands into his pockets before leaning against the wall casually. “I’m afraid you’re rather lost if you think this is a police station.”

The woman broke into a small smile, a soft huffing chuckle leaving her. Shaking her head she dropped her gaze for a moment and he saw the faint pink of a blush on her cheeks. He was, he realized. He was absolutely charmed by her. And it wasn’t even her Quirk doing it, hers had the feel of a gravitational telekinesis, not a mood altering ability. The woman that sat before him, who had broken into his home and casually asked him for help as if searching for her stray cat, was oddly endearing. And it had been a long time since he had found himself endeared by anything, let alone a person.

“Sorry,” She said, shifting on the couch. “I’ve probably done this all wrong. But I wanted you to know I was serious.” Green eyes met his own and he was struck again by the intelligence he saw in her gaze. “I don’t know why I thought this would be the way to do it but…” She gave a shrug, then slowly got to her feet. Careful not to topple her bag or trip as she untangled from her comfortable position on the couch. “Here, let me try again.”

He watched as she gave a short, polite bow, hands clasped before her. A neat and polite introduction, complete with a soft smile as she rose to meet his gaze again. “My name is Midoriya Inko. I’m a graduate law student at Kyushu University, and I was hoping you could take my Sensei’s Quirk.”

Well.

How on earth was he supposed to kill such a charming, polite young woman when she came to him with such an interesting request such as that?

He couldn’t, of course, was the answer.

---

Inko always had trouble with authority.

Even when she was very young she’d been prone to doing what she was told she shouldn’t just because an adult told her not too. Her father - in what faint and blurring memories she had of him before his death - used to call her his little revolutionary and would laugh over the hijinks her stubborn nature would produce. Then again, her father had his reasons to support the wholesale refusal to bend to the whims of authority.

Trying to take down the corrupt system the government had put in place had been the cause of his death, after all.

Her mother had been far less amused by Inko’s acts of rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Always begging Inko to please just follow the rules just once honey with a perpetually exhausted look on her face. Inko’s only picture of her mother - a snapshot of the entire family at a park, her small frame held in her father’s arms a month before he would be killed - showed Nana Shimura with a wide, infectious smile in place. It felt odd looking at it in years to come, as Inko could only recall her mother looking mournful and sad in those last days.

It had been Kotaro that was the well behaved one of the two of them. Thirteen minutes older than her, he took the responsibilities of the eldest sibling with a seriousness that was almost frightening at times when they’d been children.

He’d been the one to tell her not to get into trouble, the one to reprimand her when she misbehaved. The one to tell her not to sneak out when they were teenagers in one of their many foster homes after their mother had given them up. Rule abiding, strict and, as they’d grown, more and more obsessed with control. Of her, of their situation, of whatever he could. A strangling, grasping bid at a control that had only led their already rocky relationship to splinter even further.

Her last conversation with him before she’d stopped speaking to him completely he’d told her that she should be a quiet housewife. She’d gone and applied to law school the very next day.

She still found herself wondering if that had been Kotaro being clever. Using her own contrary impulses to make her commit to something she’d always wanted to do but been too uncertain about to try and follow. It would have been the kindest he’d been to her in years if it was true, and she’d been too afraid to reach out to him to find out for fear that it wasn’t.

Instead she focused on her studies, focused on being the person she wanted to be instead of the person she’d been forced to become over the years. Not the abandoned daughter of a hero that had to retire too soon, but someone who was able to take the rules she’d been so long rebelling against and reshape them. Twist them under her hands until they settled into something she could believe in. Something she could follow.

At nineteen, after careful consideration and one less-than-helpful conversation with her friend Mitsuki she changed her name to Midoriya. On her twentieth birthday enjoying the fact that she could - legally - drink herself into oblivion, she cut her waist long hair off in a single ugly cut with the kitchen scissors. The next hour was spent in laughter as Mitsuki’s shy fashion student boyfriend Masaru fixed the mess as best he could. At twenty-one she clutched her best friend’s hand and gritted her teeth as a tattoo artist brought to life a stylized kitsune on her shoulder. A mark of the trickster she wished to become. And in between all of that, she proved herself to the academic world at large and earned herself a full ride to Kyushu University’s much lauded law program.

The work was challenging, equal parts exhilarating and mind-numbingly boring. She spent her days working hard to get top marks in every class, to ace every test, and impress every teacher with her sharp wit and unbending will. Her nights were filled with studying and working whatever jobs she could pick up to cover what her scholarships didn’t cover. Mitsuki teased her that she would get wrinkles from squinting at so many books, but her friend was always supportive.

Years passed, semesters flying by in almost a dream at times, whisking her closer and closer to graduation and her dream of reshaping the system into something she could believe in. Despite her exhaustion, she’d found herself happier than she’d ever been in her life.

Which of course was the exact moment that it all started crashing down.

It started with one of the girl’s in the same program as Inko suddenly dropping the ball on her studies, the other woman’s grades began plummeting at an alarming rate. The girl - Shibata Aiko - looked ragged and exhausted, unable to focus and eventually being dropped from the program entirely due to the issues with her academic performance.

A few weeks later it was another female student shutting herself away in her dorm room for an entire week. The girl finally left her dorm looking haggard and sick, refusing to speak to anyone as she walked barefoot out into the wider world and immediately attempted to throw herself in front of a bus.

Then one of Inko’s senpai’s - kind and serious Hanako who had mentored Inko briefly when she’d first joined the school - had what could only be called a breakdown in the school library. Screaming and crying as she began tearing up law books and flinging chairs.

Each incident was quickly handled and waved away as young women not suited for the high expectations and difficulties of such a high ranking university. Most of Inko’s classmates had been, if not content to accept that information, at least too exhausted by their own heavy workloads to question further.

But Inko never was good at accepting the will of authority.

#My writing #Fic snippet #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #Inko Midoriya #kotaro shimura #all for one #all for one is midoriya hisashi #dad for one #inko x one for all #inko is nana shimura's daughter #rebellious inko midoriya #all for one is completely smitten #bnha au #all for one: this is the story of how I met your mother

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hannibard · 3 years

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I recently got second hole earrings and it inspired me to write this!

Pairing: Geralt x Jaskier

Read on ao3

“Do I really have to do this?” Geralt asked as he got inside his ex-girlfriends car.

“Yes.” Yennefer answered without looking at him before turning the engine on and exiting the parking.

“Hm. Can’t I just buy you a meal instead?”

“No.”

“What about one of those unicorn dildos you wanted?”

“Tempting but still no.”

Geralt sighed and raised his hand to run it through his hair before remembering that it’s up in a bun and doing so would ruin it, so he placed it back on his lap instead.

Yennefer rolled her eyes.

“Can you maybe chill a bit? You’re the one who bet that you could eat 80 hotdogs in a row without puking and you agreed that if you lost you’d get your ears pierced.” She said, hitting him lightly on the shoulder. “A deal’s a deal, you can’t just back out now.”

Geralt let out a frustrated grunt. “In my defense I was wasted at the time, but I know.”

“Then stop being a little bitch. What are you even worried about anyways? Don’t tell me you’re scared. It doesn’t hurt much, you’re barely gonna feel it.”

“Fuck no Yenn. I don’t mind a bit of pain, you know that.”

Yennefer turned to wink at him. “That I do.”

They were both silent for a moment as they reminisce some of the better parts of their previous romantic entanglement.

Yennefer cleared her throat and asked again. “Then what’s the fucking problem?”

“I just… I’m not sure how earrings would look on me.”

Yennefer hummed and Geralt chuckled softly. “That’s my line.”

Yennefer laughed but then turned serious. “…I personally think they’d look very sexy on you and fit with your general rocker/bordering on too much leather vibe but if you really don’t want to do this then I can find another equally torturous way for you to settle this bet but without any permanent changes to your appearance.”

Geralt was somewhat shocked to see her yield this easily but he probably shouldn’t have been. He knew how good of a person she was underneath her cold exterior and he also knew that even though things didn’t work out between them she still cared a great deal about him, the same way he still cared about her. It’s the reason they became such good friends after their inevitable separation, and she would never push him to do something outside of his boundaries.

He smiled softly even though she can’t see it with her eyes on the road.

“It’s fine. I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”

…

They arrived at the piercing/tattoo parlor soon after, Yennefer telling Geralt about a new sushi restaurant she and her girlfriend, Renfri, went to last weekend as they enter the building. They walked up to the counter where a clerk with shoulder-length curly chestnut hair was waiting to assist them. “Hello and welcome to ‘Yellow Lotus Body Art’, my name’s Triss. Do you have an appointment?”

Yennefer nodded.

Triss smiled politely. “Great, could you please give me a name?”

“Geralt Rivia.”

“Oh, for the ear piercings right? Please wait a moment while I go check if Jaskier’s ready.” She said before disappearing behind a door.

Geralt side-eyed his friend. “You made the appointment in my name?”

“You’re the one requesting their services so isn’t it natural?”

Geralt was about to reply with something snarky when suddenly the backdoor opened and the most attractive guy Geralt had ever laid eyes on walked out.

He was a little bit younger than him, maybe in his mid-twenties and he had short brown hair in a teen Justin Bieber type hairstyle, that while long out of fashion looked really good on him and gorgeous cornflower blue eyes that seemed to look right into his soul.

He was wearing an oversized dress shirt with wide pink and white stripes which was messily tucked into his skinny ripped jeans that were folded at the bottom. Several of the buttons at the top of the shirt were left unbuttoned, revealing pale skin covered with a thick patch of chest hair that made Geralt’s mouth go dry.

For shoes he was sporting a pair of brown leather oxford boots that were short enough to show his ridiculous SpongeBob patterned socks. He had various jewelry on, such as a black choker and a simple silver necklace around his neck, rings on his fingers and also several piercings on his ears as well as his nose, eyebrows and one single silver stud on his chin and his arms and collarbone were covered in tattoos depicting yellow flowers (buttercups maybe? Geralt wasn’t sure), music notes and many other random designs. Last but not least, wrapped around his wrist was a bracelet with the bisexual flag on which Geralt was especially happy to see and it made his heart soar with hope.

The man looked at both Yennefer and Geralt up and down with a glint in his eye and grinned widely. “Hello there! I’m Julian but everyone calls me Jaskier. I do both piercings and tattoos here and I’m very happy to make your acquaintance.” He clapped his hands together. “So! Which one of you is Geralt?”

The pair gave him a dry look, or at least Yennefer did because Geralt’s was closer to smitten more than anything else.

“What? I didn’t want to make any assumptions.” Jaskier said sheepishly and bit his lower lip. Geralt’s eyes were immediately drawn to the gesture.

Yennefer leaned on the counter and nodded towards her ex with a roll of her eyes. “It’s him.”

“Perfect! Please follow me.” Jaskier said and led them down a hallway and inside a room. There was a tattoo chair in the middle and the younger man motioned for Geralt to sit on it.

“Triss mentioned that it’s your first time getting a piercing correct?” Jaskier asked while putting on some plastic gloves.

“Yeah.” Geralt answered and avoided eye contact trying to not stare at the guy too much, something which was proving to be quite hard.

Jaskier sighed and looked up dreamily.

“I remember when I first had my ears pierced.” He said and started taking various small packages out from a drawer and arranging them neatly in a surgical stand next to Geralt’s chair.

“I was in middle school and the guy I liked at the time had earrings so I asked him where he got them just to start a conversation and he told me and then offered to come with me if I ever wanted to try it out so of course I said yes and after I did it I became obsessed with piercings so here I am today.”

Yennefer snorted from the doorway where she was standing with her arms crossed. “Wait, so you basically just did it for some guy?” she asked in a judgmental tone which Geralt was confused about since she literally brought him here for an even stupider reason.

Jaskier just chuckled unoffended. “Not just some guy! I lost my virginity to him not long after.” He said and started opening the packages and taking various metal tools out of them. “And I’d blame it on the fact that I was a teenager at the time but even now when I fall in love it’s always fast.” He turned and winked at Geralt. “And hard.”

Geralt’s eyes widened and he blushed. He cleared his throat trying to feign nonchalance “Hm. That doesn’t really sound fun honestly.”

Jaskier made a thoughtful sound. “Sometimes it is and other times it isn’t I guess. Depends on how the other party will respond.”

He seemed to want to say more on the subject, but he was done with the preparations and he had no reason to stall. “Before we start, I must inform you that all the tools I’m gonna use have been sterilized and sealed in those packages you saw earlier to avoid infection so you don’t have to worry about that.”

He picked up a marker and came close to Geralt to mark the place where the holes on his ears would be made. Once he was done he held a mirror in front of his client. “Is this ok?”

The older man just nodded and Jaskier put the mirror back.

“Have you thought about what sort of earrings you’d like?”

Geralt had in fact not thought about this at all. “Not really.” He answered honestly.

“Whoa seriously? How do you even come to a place like this without deciding that first?”

“…I lost a bet.” Geralt grumbled while Yennefer laughed.

“Well I’ll have your friend here tell me all about it while you go back to the counter and choose something with Triss. Come on now, off you go!” Jaskier said and kicked him out of the room.

Geralt was worried that his newfound crush was more interested in his ex-girlfriend than him so he wasn’t really paying attention to what Triss was saying, basically letting her pick the first thing she suggested before hurriedly making his way back to the room.

As he got closer, he could hear Jaskier’s beautiful laugh and he quickened his pacing. He was about to open the door when the question the tattoo artist asked Yennefer stopped him dead in his tracks.

“So are you guys together or…?”

“No no, we’re just friends currently. Tried the whole relationship thing out long ago and it didn’t work out. Though I must inform you that I’m dating someone else at the moment but Geralt’s single if you wanna shoot your shot.”

“I just might.” Jaskier was saying as Geralt re-entered the room.

Two pair of eyes looked back at him and the piercer shot him a charming smile. “Welcome back big guy! Come here and show me what you’ve chosen.”

Geralt handed him the earrings and sat back down.

“Black studs huh? Not a bad choice for your first time.” He said and picked up something that looked like scissors, leaning over Geralt.

“You ready?” he asked and Geralt took a deep breath which was the wrong thing to do because his lungs filled with Jaskier’s scent and it was intoxicating. If he had to use words to describe it he’d say it was a pleasant mix of lavender and something citrusy with a hint of sweat coming through as well.

His heart started beating faster and he looked at Yennefer all panicked. She just raised an eyebrow in return. “What? Need me to hold your hand or something?”

Geralt growled and looked back at Jaskier. “Just get it over with.”

Jaskier shrugged and got to work. It stung a bit, but it didn’t bother Geralt in the slightest. He actually barely noticed it with Jaskier’s close proximity and the sound of his gentle humming as he worked being all he could thing about.

After he was done, Jaskier picked up a few cotton swabs and poured some sort of clear liquid over them before using them to wipe at Geralt’s ears.

“All done!” He said after stepping back to admire his work. He gave Geralt the mirror from previously to look at the earrings himself as Yennefer came over as well.

Geralt was pleasantly surprised to note that he really liked what he saw. They were very noticeable with his hair being white and all but they didn’t make him look any less masculine as he secretly feared. Plus, they fit quite nicely with his all-black outfit that consisted of black jeans, black combat boots, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket.

Yennefer whistled appreciatively. “I don’t know about you but I love them.”

Geralt shook his head. “No no, I feel the same way. Thanks for convincing me to do this.” He turned to Jaskier who was smiling back at him. “And thank you for everything.”

“Just doing my job.” He said in a sing song voice and turned around, bending down to rummage through one of the lower drawers and giving Geralt a very nice view of his ass. His shirt rode up as well, making the tramp stamp of a dragonfly he had tattooed on his lower back visible and Geralt felt himself getting hotter by the second.

Yennefer noticed him looking and smirked but didn’t comment.

Jaskier stood back up and handed him a piece of paper and a small card. He pointed at the paper. “This one has instructions on what to do after you go home, though the gist of it is clean the holes with a cotton swab drenched in saline solution two to three times every day for 2 months and then you’d be able to take those earrings off and try on others.”

He then pointed at the card. “And this is the warranty for the black studs.” He said and took the gloves off, throwing them in a trash can.

“If you somehow happen to lose them, come by and we’ll just redo the process ok?”

“Yes.” Geralt answered and cursed himself for his bad social skills. How does he keep the conversation going?

“Oh, and I also think I should give you my personal number, y’know, just in case something happens.” Jaskier added and looked up at him expectantly.

Geralt was quick to take the chance that was given to him. “I’d like that.”

Jaskier beamed at him relieved. He took back the paper and quickly scribbled his number down before handing it to him. “Have a nice day Geralt. And Yennefer too.”

“I’m honored you remembered me. Come on Geralt, let’s go pay.” Geralt smiled and gave Jaskier a small wave as he was dragged outside by his ex.

“Goodbye Jaskier.”

#geralt of rivia #jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #geraskier #the witcher #fanfiction #text #mine #julian alfred pankratz #gerlion #dandelion #geralt x jaskier #my writing

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noonachronicles · 4 years

Text

Monsta X S/O Reaction to Their Kink

Loosely based off of a requested by @nemesyis but ended up with me really just doing whatever I felt like. lol

Warnings - As the theme is kinks, there are themes of smut. Please also note, that I took some liberties on a couple of the kinks and they are a bit on the kink lite side of things. Dacryphilia and graphoerotica are typically much more...intense, and often not as...nice. Basically I’m trying to say please be cautious, do your research, and be safe.

Authors Note - This ended up being really long. Are reactions supposed to be this long? Did I do it wrong??

Shownu - Garters and Stocking – Many men get turned on seeing a woman in this (now) uncommon underwear.

Hyunwoo had sat down at the table to eat his ‘between lunch and dinner’ meal. Which, as you knew, meant it would be the perfect time to get ready, because nothing distracted that man from his food which meant he wouldn’t be hanging around to distract you.

You were nearly ready, hair done up in victory rolls, eyeliner winged to perfection and lipstick red as a candy apple. You’d just been pulling the stockings up your legs and clipping the garter belt when you noticed you didn’t have the main component of your outfit.

“Crap...” you muttered before walking out to the living room.

You went quickly to the couch were you’d dropped a bunch of shopping bags from your last minute shopping spree that morning. Your mind elsewhere you didn’t even notice Hyunwoo look up from his plate.

It was just a quick glance. He knew it was you when he heard the movement in the adjacent living room but he had to look up, out of habit. When his eyes dropped back down to his plate he gulped. His mouth was watering and he wasn’t sure it was just because of the fried chicken in between his fingers.

“What...what’s that?” He asked from the table.

“What’s what, baby?” You called over your shoulder, still digging in your bags.

“Your outfit.” He said putting down the chicken leg in his hand and sucking on his fingers.

“Oh.” He bit his lip as he watched you bent over the back of the couch. The subtle black seam of the stockings lining the length of your legs. “It’s my outfit for the bachelorette party! It’s swing themed, remember? I told you. I just need...aha! The dress.”

You tugged the dress from the bag and turned around. You jumped back in surprise that Hyunwoo was standing right in front of you. Your forehead creased as he eyed you hungrily, you looked around his broad shoulders to the table where he still had half of his meal waiting.

“What are you doing?” You asked curiously as he lifted his hands to your hips and pulled you closer.

“I’m hungry.” He murmured, his large hands spreading out over your legs and running down the stockings and back up again.

“Well...you didn’t finish your food so...”

“Not hungry for that.” He said simply, leaning in to kiss your neck. “Hungry for you.”

“Oh.” You fisted the dress in your hand as his mouth moved over you. “I can’t, I’ll be late.”

He hummed and kissed the tops of your breasts, his hands moving over the lacy fabric of your bra before dropping back down, “I’ll make it worth it.”

You nodded, “Okay, but... don’t mess up the hair. Promise?”

He’d lifted your leg up against his hip and was running his hand over the stockings, “Only if you promise to wear these more.”

Wonho - Dacryphilia - When one is aroused by tears or sobbing.

Hoseok was only half surprised when you burst angrily through his front door. For weeks he’d felt horrible. Something had been eating at him and he wasn’t sure how to explain it to you, so instead of communicating he withdrew.

“Are you breaking up with me!?” You shouted as soon as you saw him. Tears and mascara were already streaking your cheeks.

And his shoulders sank. It was happening again.

The first time it happened the two of you had been cuddled on the couch after dinner watching Goblin. For you it was the third time through because you couldn’t get enough of it and he was watching because he couldn’t say no to you.

There was a particularly emotional scene playing and he couldn’t bare to watch it, knowing he’d probably cry. Instead he turned his gaze to you. That’s when it happened. You’d already been crying, tears clung to your lashes and streaked your cheeks. He thought you looked beautiful. He was in love with your emotion, your passion. So much that he felt a familiar stirring in his shorts. He instantly felt like a monster! How could he be aroused by your tears? Just the idea of you being upset broke his heart, so he shook it off as residual arousal from earlier and tried to forget it.

The second time had been different.

You’d been laying in your bed together. You were reading a book and he’d been working on music and both of you were taking breaks in between for a little kissing and heavy petting. It was an accident really. He’d been sliding his fingers over your skin when he hit a sensitive spot on your side. When you jolted with a laugh he couldn’t help himself. He had to tickle you more and before either of you knew it, you were crying with laughter. Tears streaming out of your eyes as you gasped out for air. It happened again, the stirring in his stomach. After that he found it hard to be around you. Just... in case.

“Answer me! Are you breaking up with me?” You asked again.

“I like when you cry!” He confessed.

You stepped back, “What?!”

“I don’t like when you’re sad or upset!” he specified, “Just...when you cry...you’re so beautiful. It’s...sexy.”

“What do you mean it’s sexy?”

“I know it’s weird. It’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s why I’ve been avoiding you.” He looked deflated.

Looking over at him you noticed the bulge in his shorts and raised your eyebrows, “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Yes. I don’t know why it’s happening.”

“You think...you think I look sexy right now?” He nodded and you looked over at the mirror hanging on the wall and quickly turned away in disgust of your hot mess reflection, “Ugh god... seriously? I look like a sad, crazy panda.”

“No!” He stepped in front of you and cupped your cheek. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“Hoseok. This is so weird.” You muttered skeptically.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“So you’re really not breaking up with me?”

“No! I was worried you were going to break up with me.” He was a little worried you still might. “I love you...”

You sighed, “Okay.”

“Okay?” He asked.

“I love you too and as weird as this is... it could have been something weirder I suppose.” you shrugged.

He leaned in and kissed you hard, his arms wrapped around you, nearly lifting you off the ground. He was so relieved. When you had two feet solidly back on the ground you pulled back and looked at him. He’d really been so worried, in retrospect you found it almost amusing.

“There’s like...twenty more episodes of Goblin.” You whispered against his lips.

“Of course! We can do anything you want, for the rest of our lives, whatever you want. Anything to make up for this.” he said enthusiastically.

“No...I mean,” you ran your fingers up from his chest to his neck, “There’s like twenty more episodes of Goblin and every single one of them makes me cry.”

Hyungwon - Graphoerotica - Writing words on someone’s body.

You didn’t get a lot of dates with your boyfriend, as he was a very busy man, so when he asked if you wanted to be his date to a charity event you jumped at the chance. Being around so many celebrities made you just a tad anxious so when you found the clicky pen at the bottom of the swag bag they handed out at the door when you came in you held it like a lifeline in one hand while you held Hyungwon’s hand in the other.

He walked you around the party and introduced you to the people he knew and himself to some people he didn’t know yet. He’d met a producer that was interested in his dj/solo work and needed somewhere to take down his phone number. You’d left your phones at the table so you offered him the pen.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” He asked staring down at the pen.

“Write it on your hand...”

He pouted at you slightly and you stuck your palm out with a roll of your eyes. With a small smile he quickly wrote down the number of the producer. Afterwards he looked down at the ink on your skin and hummed thoughtfully before dropping the pen in your hand and going back to his conversation. Leaving you to think nothing of it.

A couple of days later you’d been laying in bed next to one another. Hyungwon was taking a nap and you’d been doing a crossword puzzle when you’d fallen asleep too. When you woke up Hyungwon was missing, likely in the kitchen getting food. Looking down at your arm you realized there was a mark that you thought had just been from knocking into the pen in your sleep. However upon closer review you realized Hyungwon had written ‘Hi Cutie :)’ on your arm. With a small smirk you let it go.

A week after that he’d invited you to the studio. He’d been there for days and missed you like crazy and you’d been more than willing to visit him. You sat on the couch talking to Jooheon about some of the collaborations he’d done on his latest mixtape while Hyungwon sat on the ground between your legs going over some checklists with Shownu. After awhile you felt the wet tip of the marker Hyungwon had been using press against your bare thigh.

“What are you doing?” You asked looking down at him.

He looked up at you innocently as he could, “nothing.”

“Mmhmm.” You hummed trying to look at what he’d drawn but he had covered it up under his large hands. “What are you drawing?”

He shrugged cutely, “Just a turtle.”

“You’re so weird.” You said ruffling his hair with your hand before going back to your conversation with Jooheon as he continued his drawing.

Maybe ten minutes passed when you felt Hyungwon press a kiss against your thigh before getting up to record his part of the song. You didn’t think about it. You didn’t think about the drawing until Jooheon looked down at your leg and chuckled.

“Point made hyung.” He laughed.

You looked down to see he had drawn a turtle like he said, only inside of the turtle he’d written ‘Property of Chae Hyungwon. Don’t Touch’. Your face reddened in embarrassment and you told Jooheon to tell Hyungwon his property took herself home.

When he arrived home later he slinked into the bedroom like guilty puppy waiting to be reprimanded. He was surprised to find you sitting on the edge of the mattress in his favorite lingerie. He stepped between your knees and looked down to see his art from earlier still on your skin.

“You didn’t wash it off yet?” he noted, dragging his finger over the ink.

You shook your head. “I kind of liked it. I like being yours Hyungwon...maybe just not in front of your friends like that.”

“You do?” he grinned.

Lifting your hand you offered him a more easily washable marker. “Do your worst.”

Minhyuk - Body Painting – Painting bodies, treating the skin as a human canvas.

Minhyuk and you had been dating for awhile now. He’d been a very ambitious lover since your very first time together, which you always appreciated from him. Recently, within the last few weeks, you’d just felt so comfortable with him. Really loved, like you could confess anything to him and he wouldn’t run away. So you had been. You told him all the weird little things you were into and he tried every single one of them for you with as much or more enthusiasm as you could have wished for.

One night, laying in bed, you watched him move under the blankets and realized that he’d been so understanding of your kinks and you’d never tried any of his. He’d been leaving little bruises on your hips and stomach with his mouth when you tore the blanket from him. He’d already left little love marks on your thighs and chest.

“Everything okay, Jagi?” He asked wide eyed as his head popped up.

“I just missed you.” You grinned, “Come back.”

With a bright smile he moved back up the bed to give you a proper kiss. After a moment you pulled away and gave him a smile.

“Minnie...” you whispered against his mouth, “what do you like?”

“I like you, Jagi.” He said giving you a quick kiss.

You laughed, “No, baby, I mean...what do you like? We’ve tried all the stuff I like. Isn’t there anything you want to do? Something you’d like us to try?”

He thought about it for a moment, his gaze moving passed you as he cyphered through his thoughts. There was a hint of excitement in his eyes but he quickly let it go before looking down at you and shaking his head.

“No. I like what you like.” he answered.

You frowned. “You don’t trust me? Are you...uncomfortable with me?”

“No!” He said reassuringly. “It’s just not a big deal.”

“Tell me, please?”

He sighed, “I guess...I’ve really only thought about it a couple times but, I’d like to...paint you.”

“Like one of your French girls?” You joked.

With a small smile he shook his head. “Not like that.”

“Well,” you sat up next to him, “tell me what you mean. We can try it.”

“Yeah?” You nodded and he jumped up enthusiastically, “okay!”

He left the room for a moment but was back quickly with an armful of paints and a hand full of brushes. Before long he had you lying on your back while he sat on the tops of your thighs. His tongue was sticking cutely out of the side of his mouth as he ran his brush over your abdomen a few more times perfecting his oceanscape. As he looked down at you his chest puffed with pride.

“See? No big deal.”

But it was a big deal. Between not being able to move beneath him and the gentle, wet strokes of his brushes you were trembling. Goosebumps lined your skin and your nipples had been so sensitive from when he painted them that every pass of cool air over the wet paint felt like the flick of his tongue and it was driving you insane.

“Was it horrible?” He grinned. Trailing his fingertip over the spots on your skin that had already dried. You shook your head silently as his hand reached the moist, heated fabric between your thighs. “Oh? I think you liked it quite a bit actually.”

You gasped as his fingers moved under the fabric of your panties and your back arched off the bed. Quickly his other hand was on your hip pushing you back down against the mattress.

“Don’t move.” He commanded, and your jaw dropped at the way his eyes moved over you, “It’s not dry yet. You don’t want to ruin it.”

Kihyun - Intelligence Fetish – Sexual arousal from intellectually stimulating conversation or debates.

Kihyun knew you were smart. It was one of the things that had immediately attracted him to you. Your intellect, your sense of humor, your good heart. He just hadn’t realized at first how much your intelligence attracted him to you, and the specific ways it affected him. He didn’t put much thought into the fact that after every debate over politics, every argument about some new scientific development or even little heated conversations about which group had a better comeback this week, he had to have you.

In fairness, though you were smart, you hadn’t put two and two together either. You always figured it was just adrenaline from another hot debate. The thrill of the argument maybe. That and the fact that Kihyun had, surprising to you when you first got together, a sex drive like a machine.

Realization hit him at a truly inopportune moment. The two of you had been having dinner out at a restaurant with Hyungwon and his most recent partner. The four of you had been in a mild conversation that was quickly turning into a heated, yet friendly, debate between you and Hyungwon. At first Kihyun just sat back, enjoying listening to your passionate opinions, agreeing with most everything you said. He was certain you were going to come out on top. You were so quick witted and clever. Even against a professional sass and back talker like Hyungwon.

As time passed, with every new point you brought up there was a new surge of blood to his dick until he was swollen and uncomfortable in his dress pants. He was a little confused by his arousal as you weren’t even arguing with him. He had no skin in the game. He didn’t really even care about what you guys were talking about if he was being honest. Still, here he was, wanting you. Needing you.

He adjusted himself in his seat and an accidental groan escaped his lips. You looked over at him and sighed.

“We should stop. This must be so boring for these two.” You said referring to your dates.

Hyungwon just shrugged, “Already giving up. I expected more from you, y/n.”

“Keep going.” Kihyun muttered from his seat. “Don’t stop.”

“Are you sure?” Turning back to him you raised an eyebrow, “I feel bad. You haven’t exactly been involved in the debate.”

Reaching down you placed a kind hand on his thigh, this time both eyebrows shot up. He just nodded, “Please...destroy him.”

“Okay.” You said with a blush and turned back to your opponent.

It didn’t take much more time at all, maybe ten more minutes of excruciating fore play, before it was clear the argument was yours. Hyungwon conceded with his pride still intact. And the two of you laughed over the whole thing as Kihyun pulled his wallet from his too-tight pants. He stood up and pulled you to your feet, honestly he just needed to use you as a way to hide his obvious erection.

“I don’t mean to be rude, please don’t take it that way. I had a lovely night,” he said dropping a wad of cash on the table, “If that’s not enough let me know and I’ll get you more later but we need to leave. Now.”

With that he maneuvered you through the restaurant like a bank robber using a teller as a human shield.

You barely heard Hyungwon call out, “Thanks for dinner, Young Flexer!”

Luckily you did hear and you laughed. You laughed again as Kihyun pushed you a little more aggressively and said, “Please, just keep walking I can’t wait any longer.”

Jooheon - Wax Play – Play with dripping hot wax on the skin.

The power had been out all day. It felt like you’d been taken back to medieval times once your uncharged phones finally perished. Some of it was nice. Just being with your boyfriend, Jooheon. No interruptions, no social media, no work. It was just the two of you and some much needed alone time together.

He was already pretty turned on. You’d been grinding on his lap for about fifteen minutes worth of make out session by candlelight. He whined when you pulled away, releasing his thick swollen lip with a pop.

“Give me two seconds.” you said, “I really have to pee.”

“Hurry.” He begged.

“I will!” You promised and reached over hurriedly to grab one of the candles next to the couch to take with you to the dark bathroom.

When you turned to get off of him you did so with a little too much enthusiasm and some of the wax from the candle splashed out over the rim and splattered across his chest.

“Oh fuck me!” He cried out.

You stopped everything to tend to him. “I’m sorry, Honey! Oh my god, baby are you okay?”

He watched as you blew on the wax to try and cool it quicker so you could peel it off his skin and as you did he realized that it didn’t exactly feel that bad. It was mostly just shock from the unexpected.

You gently rubbed the pinked skin, and pressed sweet kisses against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Honey. Please forgive me!”

“Babe, it’s fine.” He chuckled lightly, “I’m okay. Just go to the bathroom. I swear I’m not upset, it doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m still so sorry.” You whispered, you were shaking at the sight of how pink his skin still was.

“You’re okay. I’m okay.” He reassured you, “Now go, and hurry back. Just carefully this time.”

You did as he said and disappeared from the room. When you did he gulped and looked over at the other candle burning on the side table before picking it up. He looked back towards the doorway and then quickly dipped his fingertip into the liquid. The sensation sent a pleasurable chill down his spine.

You’d just walked into the door after work a few days later, long after the power had come back on and everything went back to normal. You dropped your keys in the bowl by the door and kicked off your shoes. You were absentmindedly sorting through the mail from the mailbox when you noticed the bag on the counter.

Curious as a cat you peeked into the plastic bag and immediately your brow creased. It was candles. A lot of candles. Picking up the bag and dropping the mail you made your way into the bedroom where Jooheon was sitting up in bed, his laptop sitting on his legs and his glasses falling off his nose.

“Honey...” you said from the doorway.

He looked up and smiled at you. “Jagi.”

You lifted the plastic bag at your side, “Expecting a sudden surge of blackouts?”

He laughed and shook his head, “Did you know you have to use a low temperature burning candle for safe wax play during sex?”

“Excuse me?” you choked out.

“Do you want to try it with me?” He asked enthusiastically, his dimple digging deep into his cheek. How could you say no?

Changkyun - Exhibitionism - Becoming aroused by the idea of being seen by others, or by the thrill of being caught.

As long as you had known him and in every aspect of your relationship, Changkyun was a limit pusher. He liked to find your line between acceptance and disapproval and then just inch by inch see how far he could move it until he was really in trouble with you. This meant you were both incredibly comfortable with him at all times and uncomfortable, in general, most times. And the fact that he was a bit of an exhibitionist was not a surprise to you. He’d given you about a hundred breadcrumbs along the path to what would be his eventual end game.

When you first got together it was hand holding. Were you okay with light PDA? Then it was kissing. First on the hand or the cheek. Then gentle nuzzles against your neck, his leg over your lap. It was cute, you thought, like a baby koala. Needy and clingy. You didn’t mind at all and everyone else in his life seemed used to the behaviors too.

Then he went a step further. Kissing in front of the others. Not cute, sweet kisses like before. Real kisses. Tongue between your teeth, irrepressible moaning, gentle groping. Kisses that left you flushed and frantically needing him alone afterwards. While he sat smugly beside you. Visibly unbothered by the heat bubbling between you and unconcerned about the disapproving eyes of his hyungs.

Next was a big leap. Miles outside of your comfort zone. Though, somehow, Changkyun had a charisma that made the discomfort more thrilling than anything else so you went with it.

It was movie night at the dorms and you’d been snuggled up together in the couch like usual. Changkyun had been whiny and needy all evening begging for you to feed him snacks while held onto you like a sloth on a tree branch. Sometimes it was sweet, when he held you. Warm and cozy. Somewhere about mid movie you could physically feel a shift in him. When you looked over to his face you saw the deviant look in his eye and the evil grin that crossed his lips.

You cleared your throat as he leaned in and kissed your clavicle. You’d been so distracted you didn’t even feel his hand snake between your bodies until it was much too late. You gasped loudly at a scene that absolutely didn’t call for it and several of the others turned to look at you in surprise. Changkyun gave his best sweet boy smile, and everyone went back to the movie.

“Don’t.” You murmured as his fingers teased your panty line.

“Please.” he begged.

You let out a slow breath and nodded. With your permission he slipped his fingers between your slick lips. He dragged his wet fingers back up and rubbed them slowly against your hardened rosebud.

“Kyun...” you whispered, panicked, “they’re gonna know.”

“They don’t know shit.” He whispered back before leaving a loud smooch against your cheek and turning back to the movie.

You bit your lip hard as he pumped his fingers into you, the heel of his palm, pressing heavy against your clit. After a few minutes all it really took was looking over at the dark look in his eyes and you were putty.

Wide eyed you mouthed, “I’m gonna cum.”

With a broad, amused smile he mouthed back, “I know!”

He was laughing as your head rolled back, and your toes curled beneath the blanket you’d been sharing. At least for him the laughter went appropriately with the film. Once you’d ridden your orgasm out on his fingers he pulled his hand from between your legs and grinned mischievously.

“What are you doing?” You hissed.

“I want some popcorn...” he laughed reaching into the bowl.

“Oh my god.” You groaned, mortified, as he came back to snuggle against you.

“I love you.” He grinned.

“You’re evil.” you sighed in defeat before getting up to replace the popcorn.

#monsta x reaction #lee jooheon scenario #shownu scenario #yoo kihyun scenarios #lee Minhyuk scenario #chae hyungwon scenario #wonho scenario #im changkyun scenario #monsta x smut #monsta x scenario

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bangtanlalaland · 4 years

Text

getaway car | kth (m.)

synopsis ⇣ you and your boyfriend are on the run, having robbed your town’s local bank. the both of you spend what you feel may be your last moments together.

— established relationship!au

⇢pairing: kim taehyung x female reader

⇢genre: angst, fluff, pwp, smut

⇢word count: 2.9k

⇢contents ⨯ warnings: sub!taehyung, dom!reader, car sex (unprotected but plz stay safe!), some swearing, some insults lolol (it’s all out of love), masturbation, squirting, voyeurism (oop), oral sex (f receiving), soft love making in this (oof), mentions of a crime (robbing a bank specifically)

a/n: somewhat inspired by the movie “queen and slim” (the sex scene was beautiful omf) also this is unedited because i’m a lazy hoe ok sorryyyy

song rec: “getaway car” by audioslave

The revving sound of the car’s engine rumbles, as you and Taehyung cruise through the California desert—having been driving for hours. The scorching sun and dry atmosphere grants a sheen of perspiration, your clothes now glued to your skin. It’s hot and so are you. You ogle at the view of Taehyung on your left, in the driver’s seat with his arm bent and leaning out the window—one hand gripping the steering wheel and his curly, blonde strands flowing through the breeze. You quickly realize how much you miss his usual dark-chocolate hair, but you know this was all part of the plan.

He borrowed his father’s old Ford Mustang from like the 70’s and unfortunately there is no air conditioner—to which you now regret the decision to go on the run with said vehicle. You deliberately fan yourself with the sundress in which you’re attired, but the act didn’t help much, just breezing more warm air onto your being.

“Fuck,” you let out with a sigh of frustration. Taehyung knows that you tend to have an attitude when you’re: 1) hungry; 2) on your period; or 3) just too damn hot.

He notes your aggravated expression. “What’s up, babe?”

You roll your eyes in reply, “It literally feels like the devil’s ass right now. Is there any place we could stop by for some air?” You quickly add, “Conditioning!”

He chuckles at your annoyed figure, and you hate when he teases you. You instantly scoff, “It’s not funny, okay! You know how I get when I’m too hot.”

With a coy smirk, he adds, “But, you already are.” He peers at you for a quick moment to wiggle his eyebrows before glaring back to the road ahead.

“Seriously, Taehyung. Fuck you!”

He shakes his head, his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip as he attempts to bite back that boxy grin of his. “I really wouldn’t mind.”

You roll your eyes so hard that you’re surprised you don’t have a headache by now.

“Relax, babe. Besides, we have another 40 miles out until the nearest anything.” Your jaw drops at his comment, and you let out a choked laugh. You feel like screaming.

“You’ve got to be kidding, right?” You probe, twisting your body to face him directly. He shrugs, “Clearly, you don’t know how to read.”

Your eyes naturally narrow in on the asshole, and you playfully jab his arm.

“But seriously, we’ll stop soon,” is all he says. You give a pout towards his comment—your lips poking out in a childish way, followed by crossing your arms.

“No fair,” You whine. “We are going to have to stop anyway a lot sooner than you think. Look at the damn gas!”

Taehyung notes the gas marker sits just above “E.” He verbally swears, “Ah, fuck!”

You shake your head at his silly self, “And you say I can’t read,” you add with a devious smirk and a quirked brow. He seethes, squinting his eyes at you and sucking his teeth.

“Suck my dick.”

You burst out in a laughter that has his insides fluttering. You can’t help how hilarious it is whenever you catch Taehyung slipping. You gasp for air, still laughing your heart out, and he couldn’t help himself from shining that familiar boxy grin you grew to love.

“Ah! It’s not even that funny.” He spills, every so often glancing at your heaving figure in the passenger seat. You slap your thigh and cover your face, attempting to shake away the giggles—your cheeks now hurting from laughing dramatically.

You retort, “You should have seen your face!” Taehyung snarks at you, his hair blowing through the breeze and golden skin glowing gorgeously; and you honestly have never seen anything more breathtaking. He notes your expression and lands his eyes back on the road.

“What are you lookin’ at?” A small smile paints across your face whilst you slip, “The hottest man on the planet.” His gaze snaps toward you in a quick fashion, and he doesn’t miss the way you examine him as if he’s a species you’d just discovered. With the added heat, your hormones are on overdrive; you shamelessly trail your hand onto his thigh, inching toward his groin area.

“W-whoa, baby what are you-” He’s cut off by your palm resting on top of his soft cock, gently grazing against the material—adding a soft amount of pressure. He grips the steering wheel tighter, just in case. You watch his facial expressions tentatively, pressing your hand down just a tad more; you love how the hiss spills from between his teeth, a soft groan shortly follows after.

“Mmm, do you like that? Like when I touch you here?” You coo, rubbing your fingers in a circular motion; your pussy throbs at the way his cock suddenly twitches from behind his slacks. He whines, wanting so desperately to rut against your hand, but he can’t. His foot remains on the gas pedal, and he doesn’t want to swerve off the road and/or risk getting into an accident. He sits there, taking whatever you give him. His eyes are glued to the steaming asphalt ahead, not breaking his stare; which slightly irritates you, granting a harsh squeeze within your grip.

Taehyung’s foot presses down on the pedal too harshly, by accident, and he instantly chokes out, “Yes, b-baby! I love it- When you touch me, Mmmm.” Your lips quirk up and you immediately snatch your hand away—gaining a small whine paired with a pout. Taehyung’s eyebrows furrow as he looks to you for a brief second, and he almost runs off the road.

“____,” he warns with that deep voice of his. You have your hands groping your breasts, as wanton moans spill from you. You close your eyes and throw your head back, in hopes that he’d watch you some more; maybe doing so would convince him to pull over already. And he does, continuing to catch glances of you while struggling to drive, yet each time he steals a gaze, you progress more and more. With your legs now spread out and lace panties on display, you rub your fingers across your clothed core, the soft material soaking itself in your wet.

“Want you to touch me, Tae Tae.” You whisper softly, but loud enough for him to hear. He swallows a thick gulp while peering at your hidden goods for a split second. You moan just a little too loud, wanting his attention on you again. He curses under his breath, his forehead glistens with sweat.

“Want to bury my pussy in your face,” You pull the thin material to the side, showcasing your lady lips. Taehyung witnesses the action and his cock jumps, an aching boner gradually approaching; you hear a growl escape from his lips—which prompts you to egg him on even more.

“Fuck, babe.”

“Touch me, Tae. Touch me now,” you demand, using a finger to glide along your folds, spreading your wetness. He takes another glance at you and back to the road, letting his right hand free to make its path toward you. His lengthy fingers reach out a little further, and graze upon your core—causing a low gasp from you.

You moan, “More.”

His left hand remains on the steering wheel, while his right continues to coat his fingers in your arousal—the slick, wet feeling causes his cock to harden to its full potential. You naturally buck your hips to follow his motions, and you gain another moan from him. He unintentionally grazes upon your clit, and your thighs jerk in response. He pulls his fingers from you and pops them in his mouth, tasting your essence.

He hums in reply and blurts out, “Fuck! That’s it. I’m pulling over.”

The sudden jolt of the car causes you to slide across the seat, bumping into Taehyung slightly. He abruptly parks the car on the side of the road, right onto the dry land of the desert. The door on the driver’s side shuts rigidly; Taehyung marches around the car and flings your door wide open.

“On your knees.” You command; and being the gentleman he is, he kneels down. You lift your bottom from the seat to remove your panties, throwing them somewhere out of reach; your legs spread open on their own accord, and Taehyung forcefully drags you closer to the edge of the seat—his arms wrapped under your knees. His intriguing, hooded lids fixed on your heat, his knees slightly burn from the scorching plains of the desert.

Your fingers run through his strands, lightly caressing his scalp. “Such a good boy. Now eat me.”

You push his head further down and the tip of his nose nuzzles your clit, his lips covering themselves in your wet—his tongue graces itself upon your inner lips, gliding along the juicy flesh. Your head falls back, while your grip on his hair tightens, forcing him to devour you whole whilst your hips grind against his face. Low hums and groans spill from your man, as he takes all of you into his steamy mouth.

“S-so fucking good,” You moan, Taehyung’s finger nails dig into your thighs, his tongue lays itself flat—the wet muscle skids up and down your labia, smothering you in his saliva. He purposely stops right before reaching your clit, repeating the action over and over again. A drawn out moan falls from you, and you tug his strands a tad too much, causing him to whimper under your hold.

You rut yourself against his tongue and state, “Bad boy! No teasing.” He pulls away and takes a quick look at your pussy that shimmers with his spit, then he peers up at you—staring straight into your eyes and watching as your chest rises and falls with each labored breath. He opens his mouth just enough to cover your clit, teasing you yet again and you grow impatient—needing to feel his lips on your throbbing clitoris. He inches closer and closer; you desperately push his head further and finally his soft, pink, plush lips encase around your needy nub. Lewd sucking noises follows soon after, and you treasure the view of Taehyung devouring your clit, vigorously jostling his head back and forth. Your grip on his curls falters, and you find yourself falling flat on your back, finding purchase on top of your thighs, nails grazing across the skin.

“Oh, ungh! T-tae” You lose your breath for a moment, keening in on the noises he makes with his juicy tongue and soaked lips, that you nearly miss the sound of a car passing by. Your moans now turned into cries, your kitty clenches and just as you thought this was enough, you feel Tae’s fingers rubbing along your folds, smothering them in your wetness. He inserts one of those long fingers and buries himself to the knuckle, whilst lapping at your clit. He pumps vigorously, and you find yourself squirming underneath him.

“Mmmm,” is all you hear him say as he doesn’t let up on eating you out.

“Fuck yes, just like that.” You add, swaying your hips to meet his finger thrusts. He sneaks in a second finger, and your walls welcome them in completely. You grip the leather seat of the car, and wriggle within his hold. He brushes up against that spot deep within you, fucking you with his fingers. Taehyung’s member knocks against his slacks, as if calling out to your kitty. You’re so wet that you coat his fingers nicely—like a lubricant.

“Yes, yes you’re going- t-to make me cum!” You cry out, he jabs into you at a quicker pace, creating squelches that’s like music to his hears. He lodges a wad of spit onto your cunt, then flits his tongue out to prescisely stimualte your clit yet again. He creates a “come here” motion with his fingers, ramming into that same sweet spot repeatedly. A strained cry escapes from you, and everything is blazing.

“Mmm, fuck!” Your legs quiver out of control, and you feel something build up only to be bought down as your pussy shivers, spurts of liquid project onto the car seat and Taehyung’s fingers, some reaching his blouse and his chin. Your body grows limp—having been drowned out by your orgasm, but he doesn’t let his tongue up. He pulls and tugs your lips, licking along your entire mound—touching your now sensitive clit in the process.

You lie there watching him and push his head away to keep him from touching you anymore, “Drink up, baby boy.”

“Yes ma’am.” You love how he complies, slurping the juices that stream down the seat. You beam at his obedience, and there’s this fluttering-like feeling within you that approaches—something like butterflies in your stomach. Taehyung watches you with those big, asymmetrical eyes. You scoot back to let him in on the passenger’s seat, and he seats himself, slightly soaking his slacks from your juices. But he doesn’t break his stare from you, and you feel scorching under his gaze. You pull the hem of your sundress and over your head, dropping the material somewhere behind you. Taehyung unbuttons his silky blouse just a few buttons, putting those sexy collarbones on display. His lips part at the sight of your black, lace bra.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that?” He reassures, rubbing your thigh and easing his grip onto your waist, pulling you on top of him. You straddle him in the cramped space, grinding your pussy along his clothed cock, a tender yet odd sensation of the fabric of his slacks as it grazing amongst your core. Taehyung catches your lips in a heated kiss, small moans muffled and whimpers caught in between breaths. A soft cry spills from you, and tears prick at the corners of your eyes. He notes how you’ve shut your mouth closed, and a frown graces upon your expression.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” He asks, brushing his fingers across your cheeks to caress them softly.

You can’t ignore the anxiety that fills you from the thought of being caught. What will happen to the both of you? Surely you’ll pay for your time, but then that would mean you and Taehyung would be separated, and who knows for how long?

You shake your head at the thought of it all, “I-I’m so scared. What if we-” You can’t finish your sentence, cut off by your sobs.

There’s a pang in Taehyung’s chest at your words, and he cups your cheeks to fix your gaze onto him.

“Look at me,” He says with a hint of certainty laced in his sentence. Your eyes pry open, soaked with tears.

“Look, I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. Okay?” He expresses, pressing soft pecks to your lips. Your fingers lace within his hair while you continue where you left off before, grinding yourself against him. The warmth of his body consumes you, that the summers heat is long forgotten.

You moan in between kisses, “Please, Tae.” You pull away and stare into his eyes for a moment, finding placement on the button of his pants, unzipping the zipper. He lifts himself up to tug his slacks and briefs down to his ankles in one go.

His hard cock bolts upwards, the rosy-tinted tip shimmers with precum—that oozes from the slit.

“Need you,” you whine, wrapping your fingers around him—eager to pump his shaft. Taehyung grips your waist, his Adam’s apple bobs in the moment of his moaning—as the tip of his cock brushes against your pussy lips. He bucks his hip upwards, pushing himself past your entrance, and you engulf his thick length inside of you that stretches you out like no other.

Broken moans fill up the atmosphere.

“Fuck,” he slips. You gush at the melody of his moans filling up your ears; his large hands press against your back, as he darts his tongue out to lap at your breast, sucking your nipple and caressing the other. He starts with a sluggish pace, jamming up into you, but you want more—crave more.

“Harder.” You order, slamming back down to meet his thrusts. He rams up into you, making you jolt upwards, almost hitting the roof of the car. You note another car that passes by. He places kisses along your jawline, leaving a trail down to your neck and collarbone.

Your fingers pull on his strands a little harder, both of your bodies drenched in sweat. Taehyung forces himself to hit your spot repeatedly.

“I love you,” He lets out followed by another moan, “Love you so much, you know that?” You both pant for air, too lost in the feel of each other and too caught up in the moment; you ease your fingers down to find your clit and rub furiously.

Taehyung grazes his nails along your ass cheeks, while still fucking up into you. He lands a harsh smack, gaining a yelp from you.

He takes a break to let you gain control, and you deliberately ride his cock, the sounds of your thighs smacking against his makes him shudder underneath you.

“I-I’m going to cum, babe. Fuck!” You clench around him intentionally, wanting to make him cum inside of you. Just as he spilled those words, you fall like apart on top of him. He gives a few last harsh strokes, to help ride out your orgasm, whilst also gaining one of his own.

“Oh, Taehyung!” Your fingernails graze along his scalp, with trembling thighs and a pulsing cunt, you gasp for air—immersed in your orgasm. Taehyung slips a drawn-out moan, as spurts of warm cum project deep inside of you. Your grasp from his hair loosens up, and you pull away to lost yourself in those hooded lids that made you fall in love.

“I love you, too. So much.” You say passion, wrapping your arms around his neck—never wanting to let go, feeling protected in his embrace.

#bts smut #taehyung smut #bangtanarmynet #btswritingcafe #bangtanhq #vantaenet #mikrogalaxynet #btsguild #ficswithluv #btsgoldnet #kim taehyung

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visionsofus · 3 years

Note

Hi! I’ve been reading some of your Wanda & Vision mixtape series and after the season final, I HIGHLY recommend giving “Our Corner of the Universe” by K. S. Rhoads a listen! I think your series is such a great idea and it’s so well written; warm without being cheesy.

You seriously are trying to break my heart with this song - I'd never thought about listening to it in the context of Wanda and Vision but boy once I did my heart was in pieces. Anyway! I hope you like where I went with this.

| read on AO3 here | mixtape playlist | send me an ask with your song/prompt request |

track #8 of Wanda and Vision’s Mixtape ~ Our corner of the universe

Synopsis: In which Wanda and Vision are coming to the end of a few weeks together in Paris pre-IW and Wanda dreams a life for them where they no longer have to run and hide. Unknowingly, she draws Vision into her dream and they both must contend with the idea that this reality isn't something that will be easy for them.

Paris had grown colder in the last few days, as though the city knew the time was coming when Vision would have to leave. The sun had disappeared early that morning behind a cover of clouds that had seen the day through until sunset, leaving a soft rain to patter against the glass French doors. They were huddled in bed now, Vision tracing soft patterns about Wanda’s back as he watched the rain drizzle down the glass.

“Tomorrow is too soon,” she whispered, her head shifting slightly from where it was resting atop his chest.

“I know,” he murmured into her hair, kissing the top of her head affectionately.

“One day we won’t run like this,” Wanda said looking up into his eyes and Vision tried to smile. Normally he was more hopeful, but it was now coming to the end of their second year of meeting up like this and it was difficult to see a future where they could be else. Of a time when they might have a life together that was more than stolen moments in distant cities.

“One day we’ll be able to live together in one place, we’ll have neighbours and friends, we won’t have to hide.”

“I hope so, my love,” Vision said opening his arms wider as Wanda got under the dark bed covers for the evening. Once she was settled, he slid off the bed and went about turning the lights out and checking the doors were locked. It was routine for them now. Once Vision was sure that everything was safely locked up, he joined Wanda, pulling a blanket from the foot of the bed atop the covers for added warmth.

Wanda shuffled closer to him as he lay down beside her and he opened his arms for her to rest atop his chest once more. They were often inseparable like this on the last night, needing the physical connection of each other to remind themselves to be present in the moment and not spend their precious hours dreading the coming morning.

Vision ran his fingers through Wanda’s hair in calming motions as her breath slowed. Eventually he stilled and started to drift off himself, into the version of sleep that his synthezoid body demanded.

Neither of them was conscious when Wanda’s hand twitched atop Vision’s chest, red mist forming before dissipating in the air between them.

Vision didn’t dream. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, if he really wanted to his synthetic brain could replicate something close to the dreamlike state that humans experienced. But he generally preferred the endless quiet that came with his brain’s resting state. The chance for stillness, even for a few hours, was a relief. Perhaps there was an element of self-preservation to it, the fear that Wanda would be caught and that he would have to watch her be imprisoned once more haunted his waking hours enough, he would rather not be consumed by the same thoughts at night.

So it came as something of a surprise when Vision found himself opening his eyes to warm sunlight, despite his brain reminding him that he was indeed, still resting. It disconcerting trying to reconcile his physical form, which remained in the Parisian apartment in bed beside Wanda, and his mental form currently cast in sunlight somewhere, somewhen, else.

Judging from the light streaming through the four paned windows opposite his face, it was early morning, where though, he couldn’t tell. Slowly, Vision rolled over and came face to face with the peaceful, sleeping face of his partner. She sighed softly and shifted closer to him.

“Go back to sleep, it’s too early,” she whispered to him.

“It’s night-time,” Vision said in confusion.

Wanda’s eyes opened and she scrunched her nose up at him. “Just a few more minutes.”

This put him at ease, it was exactly what his Wanda said most mornings. “Of course, a few more minutes,” he said, and Wanda sighed happily, moving closer to rest her head upon his shoulder like a pillow.

“We should stay like this forever.”

Vision smiled and his eyes drifted closed against the sun, wishing that every morning might be like this.

He started when he suddenly found himself standing in an unfamiliar living room. It was a cosy space, mostly occupied by a large red couch and a collection of armchairs assembled around a flat screen television. He spun on the spot looking around for Wanda.

“Vis? Is that you?” Came Wanda’s disembodied voice and Vision followed it through the next room into a quaint kitchen complete with cluttered island and wooden dining table.

“Darling?” Vision said hesitantly, closing the kitchen door behind him. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to make sure that your evening is free for next Friday, we’ve been invited to dinner,” Wanda said running her fingers atop a calendar and marking a square with a black marker.

She was dreaming, that much he was now sure of. This strange transition to what appeared to be a few hours later was the most obvious indicator. Not to mention the haze like state of their surroundings, as though the interior designer had given up halfway through the décor process. Kitchen tiles faded off into exposed wall, there were two clocks hanging above the sink ticking in opposite directions, and though there were cookbooks sitting on the kitchen island, when Vision tried to make sense of their titles, he found he couldn’t read any of them.

He’d talked with Wanda about what kind of house that she would like one day, but that had been a while ago and he’d been hesitant to add himself to that image. Now here he was in her dreamscape, in a made-up house that they appeared to live in, together.

“So that is a yes for you next Friday?” Wanda said absentmindedly as she began to move around the kitchen assembling a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Yes,” Vision said, deciding it was best to play along, distantly recalling that it wasn’t a good idea to wake sleepwalkers. He didn’t want to give Wanda a fright or force her into a lucid dream state. Instead he watched in wonder as she continued to navigate the space with ease, her hands finding the cupboard with the saucepans and the cutlery drawer without hesitation, it was fascinating to watch. He wasn’t entirely sure how Wanda had drawn him into her dream, but for now he was content to observe.

“I was thinking of making Paprikash to take, what do you think?” Wanda asked as she brought her meal to the table and gestured for him to join her.

“I think—” Vision began, watching her smile up at him as he hovered about the table. “I think that is a wonderful idea.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she said grinning and taking a napkin from a pile on the table, “perhaps I can teach you how to make it properly?”

“I’d love that,” he replied, thinking tenderly of his pathetic first attempt at the dish all those years earlier. Back when he’d been a lovestruck being, not entirely capable of processing the wave of feelings he got every time she was near. He supposed not much had changed, if anything the feelings had grown more intense.

Before Vision had time to further dissect the space about them, the scene changed yet again and he found himself standing in a park whose grass was slightly too green, the colours of the playground a little too bright. The colours lost their saturation around the corners of his view, as though the paintbrush had run out of paint for the edges.

Vision instead turned his attention to the woman walking beside him, her arm tucked into the nook of his elbow as they strolled through the park. He was distinctly aware of Wanda chattering away about their imaginary schedule for the weekend, suggesting a movie the following day at the outdoor cinema with their neighbours and reminding him of the community meeting the following Wednesday.

He smiled softly and listened to her creating this life for them, wishing it into existence. He was content to just hear her speak, to gain this glimpse into a future they clearly both wanted, even if it was just a dream for the time being. It reignited his desire to fight for a shared life with Wanda. The running and hiding had been wearing them both down recently, but it humbled his despair to know that Wanda still longed for this version of life. It made him want to do as much as he could to get them something close to this life.

Vision turned his face to the sun as they walked, relishing in its warmth as glimpses of light made it through the greenery above them. Her hand was a constant on his arm, her voice in his head telling him of all they both wished for, birds providing a background chorus.

His eyes opened once more, smiling as he turned his head to look at Wanda. It took a moment to realise this wasn’t part of the dream, that he had returned to their current reality once more.

It was still dark outside and for a brief moment his heart held onto the hope that time had paused while they dreamt, that it was still evening, but a glance to the digital clock on their bedside table told Vision it was nearing 7am. He was due to get the train at 10am.

Wanda was still curled against his side, her breathing slow and steady, one hand had reached across the covers as they slept, reaching for him. He took it rubbing her cold fingers to warm them up. As he did so, she stirred beside him.

“Wanda,” he murmured to the morning air, brushing her hair off her cheek with gentle touches.

“No,” she whispered back, scrunching her eyes closed causing little tears to leak from the corners. “I didn’t want to wake up.”

“I know,” he said.

“I wanted to stay there.”

“One day.”

Wanda opened her eyes at this and looked up at him, her questions clear. He smiled tightly at her but was sure it came across as something closer to a grimace. Understanding reached her eyes and he nodded sadly, confirming that he’d seen it all too.

“One day,” he repeated, like a promise and she slid her arms around his waist in answer, pulling herself closer to his warmth.

They held each other for as long as they could afford before knowing that they had no other choice than to get ready for their respective departures. With their bags packed, Vision set about making a quick breakfast for Wanda, the same scrambled eggs and bacon she’d made in her dream world. She stayed pressed to his back, her arms wrapped around his waist, as though afraid he’d disappear like her dreams.

At the station they waited at the platform as the train pulled in. Vision hated this part the most, hated that he had to be the one to turn his back first, but Wanda never told him where she was going next, it was to protect them both.

“We will find a way to that home,” he whispered at her ear as they hugged one last time.

“You really think we could have that?” she asked, voicing the question they both seemed too scared to ask all morning.

“I promise to you,” he said holding her hands tightly between them, “that I will do everything in my power to make that life for us.”

She smiled and leant forward to kiss him one more time.

“Travel safe,”

“And you,”

And Vision was leaving again, not knowing when they’d next be able to meet up, or for how long. At least some of his hopelessness had turned to hope in the last few hours, reignited by the knowledge that she longed for the same life he did. Doubt was always following him, and he’d started to wonder if he’d been overstepping where they were at in their relationship, but he could no longer ignore how right it had felt. They’d find a way to that corner of the universe, one day.

#wandavision #wanda x vision #scarletvision #ScarletVision fanfic #visionsofusfics #wholesome domestic stuff but also sad SV #longing for a life they can't have yet #hurts more in the context of WandaVision #but no spoilers or anything

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baldwin-montclair · 4 years

Text

The Unlikely Advocate - Part 4

Just a little backstory to how this little family of a vampire and two witches formed.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

Tagged: @sylverdeclermont @christi14 @fanficqueen306 @holamor

———

“You fucking asshole!” Eileen hissed viciously at Baldwin, standing by the projection board and over the heads of his underlings at their desks as time and space seemed to evaporate, judging by the frozen nature of their stares.

The silence was broken when four security personnel caught up with her. Two grabbed her roughly by each arm to escort her from the building.

“Do not fucking touch her!” Baldwin roared at them and without a beat, they dropped their hold.

Despite her own anger and feeling of betrayal, Eileen suddenly realised that her actions were indistinguishable from someone knowingly entering a bull-fighting arena whilst wearing top to toe in red.

“In here!” He called back as he retreated to his office.

Everyone stayed frozen, not entirely sure who he’d been speaking to and much too afraid to be mistaken.

A moment later he reappeared at the office door, his gaze focused on Eileen.

“Miss Percy,” he clarified and regarded his still slightly traumatised team, “everyone else back to work.”

Eileen was more than a little aware of the stares she had prompted from the workers, some fascinated by the person who’d given voice to a sentiment they were too afraid to even think, others like she was walking the last few yards to her place of execution. In reality, if they had any notion of how actually dangerous their ball-buster boss really was they would have run a long time ago.

As soon as she’d crossed the threshold, the door closed behind her and Baldwin retreated to lean against his large mahogany desk, folding his arms and watching her intently.

“You lied to me-“ she started.

“I haven’t Miss Percy, which is why this intrusion is unacceptable-“

“How dare you,” she interrupted again, “come over all high and mighty after what you did.”

“What manner of offence do you imagine I committed ?” He asked with a sigh, his patience visibly dissipating.

“Izzy, you told me everything was fine, that the Congregation had ruled to let me keep custody.”

He stood straighter, his fixed gaze more intense.

“Your mother disputed our ruling, if there is a problem you should take it up with her.”

“My mother allied herself with her precious big brother, leader of the witches in Congregation, she still thinks he was used as a scapegoat for your family to grab more power. I haven’t spoken to her since she disowned my sister for accusing him. Why is she even being taken seriously?”

“I promise that she isn’t,” he stepped forward, “she’s not getting near your niece. The way to ensure that is to conduct a proper hearing.”

“You’re choosing an arbiter, some stranger is taking my niece away from me until that’s done!”

“Standard procedure,” he assured, “I have chosen Diana as her guardian during the proceedings, the Congregation have agreed, I simply have not yet been able to reach her today. Once the arrangements were made I was going to inform you.”

“Can...” she stopped, feeling the righteous fury fade to embarrassment at her failure to imagine this option, “can you do that, make Diana her temporary guardian?”

“I assume she is an acceptable choice given your close friendship?”

Eileen nodded mutely, there was no-one in the world she trusted with Izzy more than Diana and Matthew.

“Then if we are done?” His sniping tone had softened slightly. The regard in his expression belied curiosity rather than anger.

“Yes...of course,” she stammered as he stepped close, leaning past her to open the door, “I’m s-“

“We’ll discuss this another time,” he cut off her apology as he stood over her, his frame intimidating as his dark amber eyes fixed her in place.

The encounter stayed with her long after she’d left his offices. Despite her embarrassment at her rash behaviour, she couldn’t help but feel comforted by his easy authority over the situation. Every decision she’d made of late, with regards to taking over the coven, becoming a mother to her fourteen month old niece, she’d second guessed and panicked over, dealing with her mother had been a source of anxiety but the vampire her family had been so wary of was the one fighting them with her.

Also, she knew she’d be lying if she argued she didn’t find him attractive. Objectively, her friend’s husband, Matthew, was a very attractive man but definitely too much of a friend to really lend him the mysterious gravitas as his step-brother.

Also, in such close proximity, Baldwin did smell incredible, leather and firewood, very masculine aromas and despite herself, she felt drawn to his authoritative energy.

Eileen was not looking forward to the journey to France, not nearly as much as all previous social visits. It was not just because she was going to be without her niece for some time but because she would be met there by the vampire whose office she’d stormed just one week prior.

She loaded the gurgling baby into her chair as the doorbell rang. Hoping it was not a neighbour - as she was already behind in regards to time - she opened the door a crack.

That was all her brother’s needed to push the door open harder, knocking her backwards to the ground, splitting her lip.

Isobel started crying in her car seat, loudly.

“You’re weak, just like that Bishop bitch, if you both had your way, we’d all be under the thumb of the vampires.”

“Joshua, not you too-“ Eileen winced as she stood, looking into the eyes of her younger brother, the baby of the family was now angry and hateful, just like her elder sibling Mark.

“Don’t talk to him,” Mark sneered, “you only talk lies, we won’t let you take another family member away.”

He made to move towards Isobel but Eileen rushed to stand in his way.

“Lies? Like how our uncle, capturing witches and supplying them to a sadistic madman for rape and torture?” She yelled and felt the strike of a hand on her cheek.

“Yes, lies, you misled our dear departed sister with your false accusations, her blood is on your hands.”

“He killed our sister, Knox did, she was the one who figured out he was behind the disappearances. The de Clermont’s suffered just as much at Fuch’s hands, they were not in league with him.”

“You whore,” he grabbed her hair, “has he had you, is that why he’s taken such an interest?”

“Who?”

“Who do you fucking think? Montclair!”

“No.”

“We’ll see,” Mark nodded at Joshua, “she always sucked at keeping her mind protected, hold her.”

Joshua hesitated.

“We were meant to just take the baby, not hurt her.”

“It only hurts if you fight it, you should know that, little brother.”

“Don’t listen to him Josh.”

“Shut up!” Mark shoved her against the wall.

She waited for the sickening thud of her skull striking the hard surface but it didn’t.

Opening her eyes, she realised she was no longer looking into her malice driven brother’s gaze but a concerned Baldwin who had shielded her head with his hand, preventing the injury.

The same could not be said for Mark, lying and groaning amidst a mess of splintered bookcase and it’s contents.

Joshua, frozen in fear up until now moved to go towards him but was stopped by a growl from her saviour before he turned his attention to her.

“I’m going to attend to your sister now,” he spoke to her attackers as he looked her over, “I suggest you not be here when I turn.”

Mark made to rush Baldwin but he was suddenly frozen in place before being threw out the door, Joshua running after him as the door slammed and locked behind them.

Baldwin turned back to Eileen stunned, he had no idea she possessed such power.

He was unable to query it as he found her unconscious but with her breathing steady and her heart rate at the pace it usually was, higher than most but normal for her, he decided it best to just let her rest.

Isobel had quietened down since the commotion and was now staring at Baldwin as he gently placed Eileen on the sofa, her gaze held a silent calculation. Then, her arms outstretched, demanding to be picked up.

“You don’t have the genetic markers for Witch Wind Eileen,” Matthew looked over the blood work he’d conducted shortly after she joined their conventicle, “fire and earth yes but not witch wind.”

“So what does that mean?” She asked.

“We think you leant your power to Isobel, she has the markers and you have a genetic connection through your sister, the earth marker.” Diana explained.

“Not intentionally, I’d never just put it all on her so I can peace out and nap while she’s alone and scared.”

Diana smiled a little and nodded to Rebecca ‘serving’ empty plastic cups of tea to Isobel and Baldwin, the latter with Isobel still at ease on his arm.

“She wasn’t alone, she knew she was safe, as were you.”

“He’s so much better with kids than adults,” Matthew shook his head in bewilderment at the family head, “it’s very strange.”

“She’s very taken with him,” Eileen agreed.

“Obviously runs in the family.” Diana commented to an exasperated eye-roll from her friend.

Eileen flicked through the photo’s on the iPad, those and her daily FaceTime ‘chats’ with her niece being the only thing to keep her sane after a week without her.

She didn’t even have the comfort of familiar surroundings as Baldwin insisted she stay in one of his guest bedrooms, given the hostility of her family.

As grateful as she was for his help, she found the situation increasingly difficult in some ways.

For over a year, her sole focus had been her niece, protecting and taking care of her, her own needs secondary. She didn’t begrudge this, she didn’t even think about it. Now, with nothing to do or focus on, Eileen found herself at a loose end and attracted to her friend’s brother.

That has to be breaking some code.

Still, the memory of Baldwin’s cold and firm touch cradling her head from impacting the wall stayed with her, making her consider just how that same strong hand would feel around her throat as he took her on the long table of the dining room.

A guilty flush made her shake her head involuntarily. Sex was not something she’d been shy about agreeing to in the past but she was out of practice, now she might as well be a nun staring at a well-endowed statue a bit too long.

A shower, she needed a shower.

The hot water helped give some semblance of peace to her mind but did not assuage her desire and she dipped her hand down between her thighs to aid in easing her frustration.

She was close, in a very short span of time, making up for months of neglecting that aspect of herself when the tell-tale sound of her phone sounded in the bedroom.

She hastily ended the shower, dried off and rough towelled her hair before throwing on a silk dressing gown.

The phone had stopped before she reached it.

“Dammit!” She swore.

It came alive again in her hand.

Mother.

She couldn’t tamp down the boiling anger, not enough to stop herself doing the one thing Baldwin ordered her not to do.

Answer the call.

By the time she’d taken the breath needed to cuss the woman out, the phone was in Baldwin’s hand at the far side of the room.

He emphatically hit the hang up button and placed the device on the table.

“So that lock really is just for show,” she accused, gesturing to the door of Baldwin’s guest room.

“Every call from your mother is monitored, you know that, and I did tell you to not to speak to her.”

He was focused on her face, not the sheer dressing gown stuck against her still slightly damp skin. His gaze was deliberate, as though his will was employed in avoiding so much as a glance at her body.

“I did not give you permission to enter.” She went to the door and opened it, “please leave.”

“As you wish,” he shrugged, picking up the phone, “but this comes with me.”

“You can’t,” she stood in front of the door, blocking his exit, “I need that”.

Eileen made a grab for the phone but he managed to hold it just out of reach.

“You cannot be trusted.” He explained.

“I can-“

“Whatever you say to your mother could be used as an argument to give her custody, I’m trying to protect you, and the child.”

“I don’t need your protection!”

“And I really don’t care what you think you need, in this situation I know better.”

“You are an arrogant prick!”

“Indeed I am, and will continue to be so until you accept my guidance in this matter.”

“You’re asking me to trust you?”

“Not at all,” he stepped closer to her, “I’m telling you to do as I say.” His gaze was now fixated on her throbbing jugular vein.

“And if I want your help with my family I have to obey, right?”

“Yes, but more important than that,” he reached up and gently moved a lock of hair obstructing his view of her neck, “you want to.”

“You have no idea what I want.”

“I do, only you’re afraid to ask for it,” he grasped her throat, firmly but not tight enough to hurt, “tell me to stop.”

Her hands clasped his wrist and forearm through instinct but still well aware this would do nothing to save her if his goal was to harm her.

“I’m not afraid of you.” She hissed in defiance.

“That much is clear,” he taunted, lips centimetres from her own, “tell me to stop.”

“No.”

“Then tell me what you need?”

Her gaze flickered from his eyes to his mouth, willing him to close the distance, kiss her, fuck her, bite her even, she wasn’t certain.

“I-“ she hesitated.

Baldwin pressed his lips gently onto hers, not allowing her to pull him in for more as he set the pace, maddeningly slow, before pulling away, causing her to release a whine of frustration.

“I can leave if you want me to, you need only stay silent.”

”No.”

“No what?”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“Then you’ll trust me, put yourself in my hands from now until sunrise?”

“S-sunrise?”

It was only six-thirty, sunrise was in at least twelve hours, she had to wonder what he had in mind.

“Can you do that? Relinquish all responsibility and concern and simply obey?”

The seductive abilities of vampires were well known to witches, humans mistakenly attributed hypnotic properties to what they deemed the fictional creatures.

“Yes.”

“Excellent,” he leant forward and placed a kiss on her forehead, “get ready, we have a table booked for dinner in an hour.”

#adow #a discovery of witches #adow baldwin fic #baldwin montclair #adow baldwin #stern dom baldwin

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retorioworld · 3 years

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The One-Stop, Interview Prep-Shop for Video Interview

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packsbeforesnacks · 4 years

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Misguided Ghosts || Matty & Winn

TIMING: Monday, May 25th, 2020, after Unbreakable Oaths and before The Trail Begins. LOCATION: Candleton Cemetery PARTIES: @likeamattoutofhell & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: Matty and Winn are both lookin’ for an escape. Nothin’ like the quiet of the dead to liven up a conversation. Winn makes a decision. WARNINGS: Alcoholism (mention), addiction (mention).

Running. Faster, faster. Had to get somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere with no people. Couldn’t hurt anybody, didn’t want to hurt anybody. Leave. Go away. Come back? Maybe. No time to think about that. Just run. Just… run. Winn’s lupine form cracked through the trees of the nature reserve, tripping over the odd grave marker in a thunderous one-wolf stampede. The wolf howled at him, telling him to go back, to k— No. No. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t hurt people. He wouldn’t hurt people. (Anymore?) He came to a halt in a patch of unclaimed (he hoped) grass, collapsing onto the ground, breathing in the late spring air and exhaling hard, labored, shaky. The sun had set past the horizon, and night was fast approaching. Winn couldn’t change back yet but, here, he’d be alone.

Drinking in a graveyard. Drinking and — Matty slumped back from his last line of ash, drawn across the smoothest edge on a bit of tumble-down masonry. With a sniff, another, he fumbled for the bottle of tequila he’d brought along. There. Sunk in the soft dirt at the back of this crumbled-open mausoleum he’d settled into. Because, now, there was a reason, for this. A good reason. To turn up hammered in a graveyard. Not the fuckin’ ambience, for sure. No. Easy: everyone was dead, already. Meaning, he could get stupidly, dangerously trashed, and be a danger to precisely no one. That was the idea. Going great, so far. He just hadn’t wanted to be at home, where some hunter might come knocking — fuck ‘em — or out, surrounded by loud, living hearts and songs he knew the words to. Songs they’d listened to together, howled out the van window, together, Bennie and him. Not right now. Right now, all he needed was…

Not that. He flinched, shrinking back against the stonework as something big, and quick, streaked by. A sudden thump. Panting. Real close, shit. Was it, like — hurt? Matty stayed put, listening, swallowing that tequila, finally. And snuffling, abruptly, twitching as the heat of that ash rolled down the back of his scalp, his spine, bone to bone, sinking in. Clapping a hand across his mouth, he didn’t quite manage to catch a couple rough coughs, shaken out as the high dug in. Fuck — just had to hope that thing didn’t hear. Whatever it was. Besides big enough to snap him in half.

The smell of this place was a mixed bag for Winn. The earthy, fresh smell of the flowers, the trees, the grass, relaxed him as he picked himself up off of the ground. The smell of dead, of death and decay, was here too, though, and Winn knew he could never fully relax so long as that smell soaked into everything good and alive about this place. When in France, Winn had seen the Parisian Catacombs and, though it was before he’d become a wolf, he’d felt like it was a fine place for the dead to rest. There was nothin’ in those corpses, no soul to speak of. He knew that, for sure, now, and the scent of rot had only given him more cause to support it. When he died, Winn wanted to be spread across the Appalachians, the ashes of his form giving life to the world. The thought of his body, fading away slowly under the earth, repulsed him — even if he knew, rationally, that his ghost wouldn’t care (if he even had a ghost).

He heard a cough, and his ears perked up, a low growl forming in the back of his throat. Was it a Hunter? No. No, they’d be smarter than to wait for him to hear them. But, then, he was at his near-weakest, even the run from the clearing to here had worn him out. He was close to shifting back into his human form. If it wasn’t a Hunter, though, the next-worst option was a regular human. Oh, they’d try to rationalize it (a deformed moose? bizarre coyote?), but Winn would always be nervous that the truth would come out, and that he’d end his entire species because of a careless mistake. He listened for a heartbeat, trying to suss out where the cough had come from, but heard… nothing. The wolf raised itself, ready to fight (if need be). He wanted to get away, not go to an early grave. He prowled, slowly, looking around the markers and the mausoleums, searching for a sign of another living being. Could he howl? No. Too dangerous, even this far away from the Moon. Scare it away? Unlikely, if it hadn’t run already. Just leave? No. Couldn’t risk the secret gettin’ out.

‘Course, when he’d been absorbed in his thoughts was when he came face-to-maw with a scaredy-ass lookin’ motherfucker.

Oh, fuck. Was it — no. Not the full moon. Almost no moon, actually, so… well, that didn’t change the fact that that, over there, was definitely a werewolf. Matty had seen a few. Enough to appreciate how much fuckin’ damage they could do, any day of the month. Even to a vampire. Eyes wide, bloodshot, Matty watched this monster watch him, slowly raising his hands. Hand. The tequila wouldn’t do him much good, unless he had to clock the thing. Really rather not get that close, to start with. “Uh — hey, there,” he slurred, the heat of that ash starting to burn a little, like usual. Normally, it was nice. Like sunshine. Now, staring down a werewolf, all he felt was antsy, boltish. No way, though. Couldn’t outrun that. So. Just had to hope they weren’t hungry. Or in the mood for playing. Such big teeth. A laugh jangled out of him, sounding nothing but nervous, the high at work. “Sorry. Sorry. I’ll, I’m gonna…” He was sort of getting to his feet, more or less. Less. “I’ll get outta your hair, yeah?” Another snicker, dry, thin. Panicky. Goddammit, he was gonna die a chew toy, in Candleton. Seriously? Did he have to get eaten unalive, too?

Oh, Christ, the dude was nervous. Winn listened again for a heartbeat, and found none. He logged that information away for later — he’d never met somethin’ without a heartbeat, though the list of suspects was scant. He could feel the wolf, exhausted, try to slip back in, so Winn let it, changing back into his human form, not really givin’ two shits about his nudity. Sighing, Winn tore a hand through his hair. “Nothin’ to be sorry for, looks like I was walkin’ in on a party.” He gestured at the bottle of tequila in the other man’s hand. “Don’t let me stop you; drink up. Just need to… rest for a minute, and I’ll be outta your hair.” He sat down on the grass, some semblance of modesty the only reason he didn’t stretch out and think about his life some. The stars were comin’ out, thank fuck, ‘cause he really needed somethin’ to wish on right now. “Name’s Winn,” he said, always sick of silence before it had a chance to settle. “Local werewolf.” Maybe about to be less local. “Can I get a swig o’ that, actually? Been a long fuckin’... year.” Sure, he wasn’t happy in January, but his life was less… complicated. Less movin’ parts, less people to keep track of, to keep ahold of. “What brings you here, Mr. No Heartbeat?”

Honestly, that was fuckin’ gnarly. Matty cringed, finger curling at the sight of all that… rearranging. And the sound of it. Fuck, man. But, okay. No more murder-claws-and-fangs. Solid. Just, just a lot of dude. A lot. With a blink, slow and sandy, Matty kept things cool. Respectful, you know. Wasn’t like this guy had decided to let it all hang out, not really. Must be a thing, for werewolves. Just. Yeah. “No, no, you’re cool. To stay, or whatever. I mean, it’s… a free cemetery,” he croaked, wrung out from — from everything. Sliding the rest of the way up, somehow, he stepped just close enough to pass the bottle. Would’ve gone back where he’d started, but. That was too far, now. So. He found himself a perch, some cracked headstone, and shook out of his jacket, a warm flush riding over his cheeks, his chest. Like sunshine, yeah. Best burn he’d ever had. “Matty. Local…” Mr. No Heartbeat. Of course he, Winn, could hear the difference. Werewolf shit. “Dude who drinks in cemeteries, apparently.” That’d do. One of those laughs came around, again, as he shook his head, hair a mess. What brings you here. Fuck. “Nothin’ good.” Wait, wait. He held that jacket out. Not like he needed it. “How about you, man? How’s shit?” Shit, obviously. Winn seemed like he wanted to talk, though. So. Given he wasn’t going to be wolf-chow, yeah. Matty could talk. Ash made that kinda stuff easy. Didn’t it?

Winn barked out a laugh at the man’s free cemetery quip. “Pretty sure the dead folks who had to pay for these tacky-ass mausoleums would wanna have a word with you, bro. Only free death is lettin’ the earth take you, or…” He shot the other man a glance, head tilted. “I mean, is it a free death if it doesn’t stick? No ‘ffense, first, uh, person-of-undead-persuasion I’ve had the pleasure to meet.” A swig from the bottle, the tequila burning as it went down his throat. Tequila made him sad, but, fuck it. Winn should be sad. Another glug, this time longer, just enough to buzz his head, make the stress headache go away. He wasn’t ‘bout to get caught drunk with his tail out… again. He stood, handing the bottle back to Matty, and took the jacket he’d been offered. He had half a mind to slip it over his chest, but figured he should cut the guy some slack. Looked like he was havin’ a time of it. There was a buzz about him, kinda like… well, Winn had known enough frat boys in college to know when someone was strung out. His head panged, sharp, decidedly not a stress headache. Huh. “Shit’s… bad,” he said, honestly. “Almost hurt a friend o’ mine. Didn’t, but… It can be hard, y’know, separatin’ the man from the beast. The more I try to push it back, the harder it fights to rip outta me.” He sighed. “I don’t know why ‘m tellin’ you this, bro, you didn’t expect a sob story when you came to, uh, drink in a cemetery. I’m… a counselor, almost. Wanna talk about it?”

Yeah, those tacky-ass mausoleums. Bennie wouldn’t have wound up in anything like that. Not that Matty knew, honestly, what she’d wanted — seemed to change all the damn time, every picture a little wilder than the last. They’d laughed about it, back then. Tie my corpse to a rocket, and send it off into space. Why not, yeah? Why the hell not? Matty scuffed a hand across his face, his nose, sniffing again, and swallowing, barely. Looking out, away. At a lotta night, and gravestones. A shit-ton of nothing. “Mm. Nah. Nothin’ free about it.” He glanced back, trailing a handle-with-care kinda chuckle. “More like some kinda sick cosmic debt than anything. And the fuckin’ interest. That shit’s killer.” Laugh it off. Had to try. God, was he ever happy to get that tequila back. Boot heels kicked up against some knocked-over statuary, knees poking through his worn-to-pieces jeans, Matty had a chug, then a sip. Just drifting, with the cool, loose breeze. Well, not just that. Listening. Seriously. Ash made that easy, too. Made everything easier. Even in arm’s reach of a werewolf. Fuck. If he were sober, or close as he got, he’d have booked it. Maybe that would’ve been the smart thing to do.

But Winn just sounded fuckin’ sad. And— Matty was nodding along, wincing, here and there. Hit close, some of that. “Fuck.” More tequila. “Yeah, it’s… you try. Trying matters, right?” It had to mean something. Not enough, maybe. Not all the time. But something, some days. “And you didn’t actually, actually do any damage, like you said. That’s—” that’s more than he’d managed, when it counted most. Not that everybody he half-or-less remembered hurting, since Arn, weren’t anything. They just weren’t Arn. Matty let that hang, and drop. “That’s good.” Another drink, then he passed the magnum back, with a weak shrug. “You say what you want, seriously. Counselors gotta get counseled too, huh? Not that I’d be, like, a good pick, for that. But.” But he was avoiding the question, and even an almost-counselor would catch that. Ground-up bird bullshit could only do so much, in the end. Tossing his hair out of the way — a bit, at least — Matty scraped up a smile. Something close enough, anyway. Folded fast, though, and crumpled hard. “I... I lost somebody.”

Winn had never given much thought to immortality. Death… It didn’t scare him, not even before he’d been turned, before he’d found out that there was something after this world. A debt. Nothing came without a price, he’d just said that to the guy, and he’d been serious, but he hadn’t considered what that might mean. “It must be… hard,” Winn tried, “to watch the world pass you by and not change with it, physically. Emotionally? All the time in the world t’ change, to really work at… whatever, but… all. Wow. ‘S almost too much, right? Our lives are so fuckin’ short, spit in eternity’s swimming pool. Most of us, we try to do everythin’ we can with that drop, but…” He trailed off, not wanting to be a bummer summer about it. Matty’s laugh was nice, considering how fake it felt. Winn hadn’t known the undead could drink themselves to death, but this guy sure was tryin’, by the looks of it. The wolf, when it was out, when the Moon was high and full, craved blood, craved flesh, and it had taken years to pull that urge to animals, stave off the uglier, cannibalistic parts of his adopted species. If this guy, what, drank blood? Had to, to keep livin’? Well, Winn could sympathize. Animal-to-animal.

“Thing is,” Winn started, taking a ‘bad idea’ pull off the magnum, “I’ve been tryin’, been tryin’ for years and years. Shovelin’ my own shit into the fire, hopin’ to burn up all the bad parts of me, to kill the guilt. And this…” He was too tired to be angry, really, and so he settled on: “This guy came into my life, recently, tried to tell me who I am, that I was… different, than I think I am, thought I was. And the thing is, I can’t tell ‘m he’s wrong, ‘cause I don’t know if he is.” He sat the tequila beside him on the ground, hands fisted in Matty’s jacket. Winn knew a thing or two about avoidance, wouldn’t have held it against him, but. Loss. How many folks did an immortal lose and care about? Would it be harder to care? Or would your heart stay open, painfully so? Winn coughed, the lingering tequila in his throat burning, just for a second. “Tell me about them,” he said. “They might be…” Winn’s mouth curved into a scowl, never an easy way to say this. “They might not be here anymore, but you remember them. I’m not sayin’ some cheesy, ‘don’t be sad ‘cause it’s over, smile ‘cause it happened’ bullshit. Naw, fuck that. You should get to grieve, and scream, and drink yourself stupid. But y’can’t keep it bottled up, ‘cause then no one gets to hear about that person, their memory stops with you. And that’s… well, worse than death, I’d think, to be totally forgotten. Stories, man. They stick with you, change you, even if you can’t feel ‘em changin’ you. So. Storytime.”

Hard. Fuck. Matty’s chest was caving in, word by word. Who just out and said that kinda shit, anyway? Like he wanted to think about how hard it was. All the time he had. What he was doing with it. That was the whole fuckin’ point of coming out here, like this, just… not thinking. Thinking as little as possible. That was the point of most things, these days. Honestly. “Yeah,” Matty started, hollowly. “It’s… a lot,” he finished. Or, almost. “I don’t know. S’what you make of it.” If that sounded like a fuckin’ platitude, it’s because it was. Because he didn’t have anything else. Just something to say, dragged off the bottom of this barrel he was seriously trying to drink dry. What the fuck was he supposed to make of this? He knew what it was supposed to make of him, had met enough real vampires to know what they all wound up as. Monsters. Those freaks who’d opened him up, laughing, and left him to die alone, with a smile. So, barring that. What? What did you get to be, living like this? Unliving. None of it made sense, on any, like, serious level. Never had. And nothing made that simpler, made it softer. Not really. Not for good. Just for long enough.

But that’d sound pretty fuckin’ miserable. For small, spiraling talk. In a graveyard. God, this must look bad.

Matty’s eyes ticked towards the tequila, hopefully. Nope. Didn’t seem to be coming back. He sure as shit wasn’t getting close enough to take it. Anyway, Winn clearly fuckin’ needed the stuff. “Sounds like an asshole.” He worked up a smile, sort of, another one of those brittle little laughs crumbling away from him. Wasn’t wrong, though. “C’mon. Maybe you don’t know if he’s wrong, but — if he was so right, if he really had you figured out, I mean, it’d… well, you’d know that. Yeah? And you don’t, so. Sounds like an asshole. People have to sort out their own shit, eventually. Nobody else can come along and fuckin’, like — tell you what you’re about.” His therapist had said something like that, ages ago. Ages and ages. Everything was ages ago. Bennie’s stories. Their stories.

With a sniff, and a brush at his nose, Matty managed a raw, watery chuckle. “Fuck, I’d have you out here all night. All week, shit…” He itched at that ashy, smoldering sensation, fingers scratching up the back of his neck. Resting there, cheek in his own hand. Eyes squeezed shut, burning in a way that had fuck all to do with all the phoenix he’d just blown through. “She was my fuckin’ hero. Like — like the best big sister you ever had. Didn’t take shit from anyone, wouldn’t let you, either. And she went out and did her thing, did her. Said stuff. What she thought. I ever wanted a real answer, about anything, I asked Bennie. Every time.” Dan, he’d be all easygoing. Key, a total enabler. Arn — Arn was always so goddamn gentle with him. Bennie, though. “She just — she kicked the door in. Everywhere. Didn’t apologize for fuck all, and, and yeah. Kind of a dick, sometimes, but.” But he’d loved her. Like they’d all loved each other, back then. When they were a thing at all. “It was like she walked around on fire, man. And I knew, if I just stuck close to that… nothing was ever gonna be too dark to deal with.” Only, he hadn’t. Not like Matty had meant to run, had — had even really been there, at all. Not like that mattered. Because she was gone, and it was done, and… he just had to smile because it happened. Sure. Smile and drink, if Winn ever tossed the tequila back.

Winn wouldn’t pretend that Matty’s words had no effect on him. He wasn’t a crier, for all of his loud emotionality. But he wondered if he had anyone like, what’s her name, Bennie? Someone like a sister, someone who wouldn’t take anyone’s shit. It sounded, honestly, like Blanche and her would’ve got on like a house on fire. Blanche… His mind wandered back to the clearing, trying to suss out what exactly had happened. Now, removed from the realness of the situation, back in his human form, Winn went through the scenario again, staring at the night sky pokin’ out from behind the clouds. He had been fine, until he hit the tree. Then, the wolf had, what, taken over? It hadn’t done that before… or, at least, not to Winn’s knowledge, his memory. Which… well, there was the rub. It wasn’t impossible that, when he’d been turned, when he’d… that the wolf had had a hold on him. That year or... two, all of it, was a blur of forests and dirt, and no specific memories stood out to him. He thought, again, of the way Salva’s scent had set him off. Was it even about Salva? No. It wasn't. But how had he come back to his senses? And… well, who would know? Winn— he needed more answers before he even knew what questions to ask.

“I’m sorry,” Winn said, lamely. Typically, he was, well, not amazin’ at grief counseling, but better than he was frankly prepared to be right now. “It sounds like you really loved her.” When he was gone, who would miss him? He had cut all of his ties, run away, lied and lied and lied. Even the folks he knew now, people he… cared about. They didn’t know half of the shit rolling around in his head. And some of that… some of that, he could keep to himself. But some of that, goddammit, he was so tired of being people he wasn’t. Winn Zhou. Winn Woods. In the space between them, that was where Winner was. The last time he’d felt real, the last time he’d had enough of himself to hold onto. Had people he loved, really loved, and who loved him in return. Hearing Matty talk about something so… final. It slotted something into place, something it felt like he should’ve learned a long time ago. He took that kernel of truth and laid it in the place in his heart next to where the wolf was caged. It wasn’t everything, but it was a start. Speaking of starts…

“Matty,” Winn said, rising from his place, holding the jacket delicately in front of his dangly bits. He left the magnum on the ground; he needed to be sober in order to drive and, even with his increased metabolism, it would take a little bit before he was ready to go. Enough time to get back to the cabin, talk to Blanche, and then some. “I’m sorry to leave you alone, and this is gonna be an extremely shitty thing to say. I’m off my game, forgive me, but you sound like you need someone to be honest with you, to tell you how it is.” He wrapped the jacket around his waist firmly, gesturing to Matty to figure out if it was alright for him to borrow it. “I don’t know much ‘bout Bennie, but I do know this: She would hate to see you drink yourself into an after-afterlife. I’m sorry she’s gone, really, I am. But you gotta keep livin’. Grieve, and push forward. Aaaaaand,” he turned to go, “come back here, same time next week. I’ll be on my game, and we can talk. You seem like you need someone to talk to, and, like I said. Almost-counselor. I work for free.” Winn turned his head back over his shoulder, winking, before walking off. “And don’t forget!” he called back. “I’m a werewolf! I can find your ass if you miss your appointment!”

No more lies. It was time for him to go home.

Yeah. Sounded like. Because he did. Always fuckin’ would. Matty just nodded, though, wrung out. At least that phoenix-heat was simmering properly, now. Almost felt alive to the touch, with enough of that stuff in him. Almost. He glanced up, barely, as Winn stood. Was that what he needed? If he’d had more in him, Matty might’ve bridled at the point. But he didn’t. The jacket, that got most of a shrug. Whatever. Poor dude needed it more.

Fuck, though. Winn wasn’t wrong. Bennie would’ve totally, fairly reamed him out for a stunt like this. The way she always did, when anyone was a good shake away from thinking right. Keep livin’. A smile snuck up on him, around there; not a strong one, but all the same. Hell of a thing to say to a vampire, yeah? Kind of funny. Kind of a punch in the kidneys. A good laugh, though. Could always use more of those. Someone to talk to — sure. He’d take that, as well. Or, at least, he might. Easier to think that sorta thing from up here, drifting on a stupid amount of everything. Yeah, from there… from there, he could see next week just fine. And that tequila. About to be unspoken for. Actually, fuck it. For later. Throwing off a loose wave as Winn ambled away, Matty took a long lean back, the world, the stars, spinning and sliding overhead. “Sure thing, man. You — look after yourself, huh?” Of all the people to track him down, honestly — Winn didn’t seem anywhere near the worst on the list. Which was saying something, at least.

Maybe something real shitty. So, nothing Matty wanted to look any closer at, right now.

Maybe next week. So long as Matty managed to drag his ass into the dark before morning. So long as Winn sorted out whatever was going on, over there. Seemed like some pretty rough shit. Maybe he needed somebody to talk to, as well. Hopefully over some more, you know. Therapeutic tequila.

#wickedswriting #para #Matty #Misguided Ghosts #Sunshine Riptide #alcoholism tw #addiction tw

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thefinalcinderella · 5 years

Text

Tsurune Book 2 Chapter 5 - Marebito (Part 2)

Glossary here

Full list of translations here

Translation Notes

1. The joya no kane, or New Year’s Eve bell, is a tradition in Japan where temples ring a bell 108 times on the New Year to get rid of evil desires and thoughts, and 108 is believed to be the number of these thoughts.

2. Kin-teki and sen-teki are targets that are used for entertainment on special occasions. And yeah a sen-teki is actually a folding fan.

3. Zenkyuuren, short for Zen Nippon Kyudo Renmei (All Japan Kyudo Federation) is the main organization that oversees and promotes kyudo activities in Japan, including organizating tournaments. University students have their own organization that is not affiliated with Zenkyuuren.

4. A shigetou-kyuu is a lacquered bow wrapped completely in rattan strips. Only high level archers may use one.

5. Anatta is a Buddhist term that refers to the doctrine that states humans do not have a permanent, underlying substance that could be called the soul.

6. Shikoku is one of the five main islands of Japan and the second smallest.

7. This is actually the second time the Shikoku Pilgrimage is mentioned in the series. The Shikoku Pilgrimage is a pilgrimage of 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kuukai. There are also over 20 temples that are not associated with the pilgrimage.

8. Zouri sandals are traditional flat sandals made of rice straw that look like clogs.

9. Green foxtail is called nekojarashi in Japanese, which is also the name for the cat toy that resembled it.

Previous | Next

“I'm going first!”

“Do it, Minato!”

After Ryouhei shouted, Minato jumped into the river with his back facing the sun.

A powerful splash went up, and Minato came up from the water after a pause. Ryouhei and Seiya also dived in the same way from the rock that was jutting out over the river.

It was the afternoon of the second day of training camp. They had finished morning practice, and were immersed in playing in the river.

Just a short walk away from the inn, there was a river with a gentle current that was suitable for swimming. Hearing about the local children diving into it, Minato, Ryouhei and Seiya eagerly changed into their swimsuits. It was hot today as well, and there was a thin sheen of sweat covering their limbs. Since the river bottom was filled with rocks, they fully prepared themselves for it by wearing trekking sandals so their feet wouldn’t hurt.

The rock didn’t look very tall when seen from a distance, but when one stood on it, it had a height that made one hesitate to jump from it. However, the three dived without any hesitation, and were bathed in cheers from the local boys who had done it earlier.

There was no trace of it nowadays, but the three of them were actually mischievous kids when they were little. They also did things that gave scares to the people around them—getting lost in the mountains behind their homes on their “heroes’ adventures,” building a little house on top of a tree and called it their secret base, then falling through the floorboards when they tread through it, and other such things.

The cousin duo of Kaito and Nanao were enjoying a different kind of play. Nanao sat down in a swim ring and floated along with it. Kaito overtook him, swimming in front crawl. He was swimming in earnest, wearing goggles. The two reached a part of the river where it would be dangerous if they went any further and walked upstream against the current. Then, once more, Nanao rode on his swim ring and floated off, and Kaito swam down the river.

Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo were preparing to enter the water on the riverside. Hanazawa tied twintails beneath her ears, and Shiragiku gathered her hair on top of her head. Their pale skin stood out.

“I was quite surprised this morning, by Onogi-kun’s scream.”

“Oh, that. It was probably Kisaragi-kun who scribbled on his cheeks with permanent marker, right? Thank goodness Takehaya-kun was able to erase it with a cooling spray for him.”

“It sure was a bold prank,” Seo replied as she was looking at their feet.

“Oh? You got a pedicure? That pink color is so cute. It really suits you, Shiragiku.”

“I am so happy that you noticed, Seo.”

Hanazawa took off her back-strapped shoes and stretched her foot in front of the other two.

“Ta-da, look at mine too!”

Hanazawa’s toenails were painted white, with three black circles drawn on each of them.

“Kasumi-mato!? Did you do them yourself, Yuuna? If you don't hide your feet, you'll get targeted, won't you?”

Seo and Shiragiku were hugely impressed. They had Hanazawa promise to help them do the same for their nails tonight before they went to bed.

The three placed their clothes on a rock by the riverside and then slid into the water.

“So cold! The boys just go into cold water like this a lot, huh?”

“I can just barely soak my feet.”

Seo went all the way to around the middle of the river and submerged herself all the way up to her head. After she rose from the water, she combed back her wet hair. Since she was a handsome girl, it was strangely picturesque.

“It’s cold at first, but once you’ll get used to it once you take a soak.”

“If Seo says so…”

Hanazawa and Shiragiku clasped hands and went into the water, submerging themselves up to their shoulders, and screaming, “Kyah, it is cold!” When they were about to get up, water was splashed onto their backs.

“Seo, stop that!”

“Fufu.”

The three had a water fight, running through the water and trying to escape each other. They had fun throwing a beach ball around and swimming breaststroke, but suddenly, laughter turned into screams.

Two boys, lying face down, were floating away from upstream.

At the girls’ screams, Kaito cut around to in front of two boys, striking their heads. Upon doing that, the two planted their feet on the river bottom and raised their heads.

“What’s up, Kaito-kun?”

“Ryouhei, Narumiya! You guys scared us. You looked like corpses floating away. Stop playing like that.”

Ryouhei scratched the back of his head.

“Oh, sorry. We were looking underwater. There’s fish there.”

“…You guys really are wild children. I wanna see your childhoods.”

Without noticing the sarcasm, Minato answered him seriously, “Should I recreate it for you? In the past, if there was a shallower area, we’d often pile up rocks to dam up the stream and make it like a pond.”

“Oh, do it, do it. If we put in the fish we caught, the water turned into a hot soup by the heat of the sun, and then the fish became boiled fish,” Ryouhei added to the topic, and Kaito’s eyes also became like those of a boiled fish.

After Seiya and Nanao joined, the eight left the water temporarily. They covered themselves in bath towels while repeating, “So cold, so cold.” They were in the water for too long, so their finger and toes became swollen and pale white.

Tommy-sensei and Masa-san handed out cups of hot coffee. They stuffed their faces with sandwiches and yakisoba bread, and warmed up their cold bodies around the fire pit.

Minato finished drinking his coffee and placed his cup on the ground.

“Masa-san, you dive too.”

“I’m an old geezer, so I’ll have to pass on that.”

Minato was about to say that he wasn’t an old geezer when he quickly realized something.

Even though Masa-san’s head wound had just been completely healed, wouldn’t it be dangerous if it reopened while doing something like diving…?

After he realized the insensitivity of his words and shut his mouth, Masa-san spoke.

“When you all finish eating, shall all the boys have a race? I’ve put a towel on that rock that looks like a frog downstream, and whoever grabs it first is the winner. The winner will have more meat added to their dinner.”

“Alright!” Kaito said, quickly standing up and beginning warmup exercises. He was so enthusiastic that he even put on a swimming cap. The others also put on goggles and entered the water.

Tommy-sensei raised his hand up high.

“Take your marks, get set, start!”

Kaito, Ryouhei, Seiya, Nanao, Minato, and Masa-san simultaneously kicked the water.

The distance was about twenty-five meters. Their arms rotated in huge circles from their shoulders and they paddled against the water, stretching their knees. Six flexible bodies glided through the water. Kaito, Minato, and Masa-san were neck-and-neck, and in the end it was Masa-san who arrived at the goal first. With a calm smile, he held the towel in his hand and went up to the riverside.

Nanao also got out of the water and protested.

“Masa-san, it’s not very adult-like to swim seriously, you know?”

“Everyone, you’ve misread the current. It’s faster at the edges.”

“Shit, one more round! And this time, let’s change the lineup,” Kaito said.

The six once again submerged themselves in the water. This time, it was Seiya who won. “One more round!” Kaito shouted. It didn’t seem like this competition would end until he won.

The laughter of the ten people continued into the evening.

On the third day of training camp, they decided to hold a competition.

Tommy sensei spoke, “Let us do a ‘hyakuhasshakai’. It is patterned after the ringing of a temple bell for one-hundred-and-eight times on New Year’s Eve (1), and it’s common to do it at the end of the year for kyudo. The way to do it is with teams of five in two shajos. First, you shoot two arrows in zasha, and then you shoot four arrows in rissha for twelve rounds for a total of fifty shots, and this is all done twice. However, the first-year students from Tsujimine High School will finish with fifty shots. Your advisor is right next to you, so I want you to shoot with peace of mind. This is an individual competition, not a team competition, so those who feel that can’t shoot anymore may drop out midway. Why the hundred shots are finished, the remaining eight shots are open to all, so look forward to it since the kin-teki (gold target) and sen-teki (fan target) will be prepared. (2) Item prizes will also be prepared.”

A kin-teki was a three sun (9.1 cm) target with gold painted, and a sen-teki, as its name suggested, was fan-shaped. Both were used for celebrations and events.

The girls from both schools made a merged team, and the total of thirty people were made into six groups and divided into the two shajos. Nikaidou and Minato’s team were in the second shajo.

The team that finished shooting their four shots would have the oomae and second archer watching the targets, the third archer would be recording the results on the blackboard, and the fourth archer would be writing the results down in the books. When one team finished, they would switch roles with the next team. Since it wouldn’t be fair to have only the same person retrieving the arrows, of the five people in a team, they would change the order by having everyone shift forward one spot for every round of shooting. For that reason, the record-keepers needed to pay close attention.

Nikaidou looked at the profile of his advisor.

It was unusual for him to watch over his students without leaving. He wondered what kind of magic the Kazemai advisor used on him. It might have been that he just couldn’t excuse himself from it because an elderly teacher gave him a talk.

The Tsujimine members also exchanged words with the Kazemai coach and members. It was motivating to shoot with archers from another school. It was a fresh surprise to compare the differences between shamen uchiokoshi and shoumen uchiokoshi, especially.

There was someone who felt the same way. Ryouhei spoke to Tommy-sensei.

“What kinds of shooting methods and schools are there?”

“Well, the main organizer of Inter-High is the All Japan High School Athletic Federation, and now what high schoolers are taught in club activities and the like is the same style as the ‘Zenkyuuren’. (3) The rules are slightly different if the competition is sponsored by a university or a company. Zenkyuuren is the abbreviation of the All Japan Kyudo Federation, which is also abbreviated as Nikyuuren. It is roughly categorized into three groups.

“Shoumen uchiokoshi in reishakei.

“Shoumen uchiokoshi in bushakei.

“Shamen uchiokoshi in bushakei.

“Kazemai and Kirisaki shoot in the first category, and the Kirisaki twins shoot in the second category. Tsujimine shoots in the third category. Since kyudo schools are different from Zenkyuuren in things like taihai, it is common for many people to belong to a school and Zenkyuuren. I myself belong to Zenkyouren and Ogasawara-ryuu hosha.”

"Whoa, that’s pretty complicated."

"Even for shoumen uchiokoshi, between reishakei and bushakei there are differences in the spot-the-difference levels, such as the way you hold your arrows and the movements of nocking an arrow, right? For shamen uchiokoshi as well, there are differences such as the one between the methods of not stopping midway during hikiwake and 'sanbun no ni.'"

"Ooh, that's really interesting. Thank you for the explanation."

"Ho ho, was I a little bit helpful to you?"

Fuwa, who heard the two’s conversation by chance, also murmured "Whoa" in his mind.

He remembered that the cheering for university matches was very lively, but conversely, the average kyudo match organized by the Zenkyuuren banned vocal cheering, and showing support was limited to applauding when there was a kaichuu. The way things were done changed with the place. It wasn’t an argument of which was better or worse, but a difference of tone. The variety was very interesting.

The competition continued after that, and when fifty shots were finished, they had a lunch break.

Ryouhei and Nanao were obsessed with Ootaguro’s huge bow and got him to let them hold it. Kaito and Seiya were checking whether or not the records were correct. Seiya was also inputting the records into a self-created smartphone app. Among the Kazemai boys, Ryouhei had the least number of hits with thirty-six, and Kaito and Minato had the strong results of forty-two hits.

Masa-san sat next to Minato, who was drinking barley tea.

"Minato, if your wrist hurts again, don’t overdo it."

"Got it. I really am okay. I’m doing great."

"It's true that you aren't bending your left wrist anymore. You're stretching it straight."

"When I was conscious of not bending my left thumb and pointed my thumb at the target at kai, I didn't bend my left wrist anymore. I think that maybe the line above my arm went straight by me stretching my thumb, and the line below my arm went straight by tensing my little finger."

"You've discovered it for yourself. You probably won't forget what you understood by yourself."

"Yeah, I'm kinda happy."

Minato smiled.

When the call came for the resumption of the competition, he put on his yugake again.

For the second half, the five Tsujimine first-year students and the five girls refrained from shooting, and it became a match with a total of twenty people. The ones who refrained took on the roles of checking the targets.

As expected, perhaps due to exhaustion, the ones who did well in the first half missed a lot. The number of hits had gone down considerably, but the starting members displayed their willpower and produced a hitting ratio of seventy to eighty percent. A dragonfly stopped on the tip of a leaf, as an arrow crossed over the pond, and the sounds of "All right!" came flying.

The results after the hundred shots were over were as followed.

Nikaidou had eighty-two hits, Fuwa seventy-nine, Ootaguro seventy-seven, Higuchi sixty-nine, and Aragaki seventy-four. A total of three-hundred-and-eighty-one hits.

Kaito had eighty hits, Ryouhei sixty-seven, Seiya seventy-seven, Nanao seventy-three, Minato eighty-two. A total of three-hundred-and-seventy-nine hits.

The top two were Minato and Nikaidou with eighty-two hits out of a hundred shots. There was a loud round of applause after the results were announced.

The last eight shots were with the kin-teki and sen-teki.

The targets were changed from a thirty-six-centimeter kasumi-mato to a nine-centimeter kin-teki. Since the sen-teki was just as small, they were hard to hit. In addition to the products, the people who hit them could also get a set consisting of the kin-teki they hit and a small decorative arrow. It was a shooting side-show rather than a competition, so there were lively conversations from the stands while they watched the game.

In the midst of it all, Nikaidou had a grim expression on his face. His usual hitting rate was over ninety percent, but he was lacking life and vividness on this day. Something was getting in his way and his right hand couldn’t move as sharply as usual. When he turned his face towards the azuchi, the kin-teki glittered like it was laughing at him.

Shit, I don’t wanna lose. He’s the only I absolutely do not want to lose to――.

Just when Nikaidou was thinking that, he noticed a defect in what he was holding.

There was a gap in a part of his bow’s yazuridou.

A yazuridou, as its name suggests, is a piece of rattan (tou) wrapped around the part of the bow that the arrow rubs against (sureru) that was just above the grip. Japanese bows were usually wrapped with rattan in three or five places. Bows that had more places wrapped were high-caliber objects, and required a suitable location and level of ability to use. For example, the shigetou-kyuu (4), which was wrapped entirely in rattan, could not be used without a license in the Ogasawara-ryuu school.

The "aim" of the Japanese bow based on the yazuridou, and it was said that the aim was a few notches above the rolled rattan, but as the width of the rattan was only a few millimeters, it was easy for it to result in a deviation. This deviation of a few millimeters was a deviation of about ten centimeters at the target, so there were methods such as making a mark on the bow to make it easier to aim, but that was prohibited.

The place where the gap was located was exactly where his "aim" was.

If that was matched up with the center of the target, the heights would line up exactly…

That’s right, this wasn’t intentional; this was a natural phenomenon. I should just pretend not to notice it. This isn’t like an official tournament where there are equipment checks, and no one looks at other people’s bows in a festive atmosphere.

It’ll be good if I hit. I will hit.

Nikaidou made a grinding sound with his yugake. He took four arrows in hand. It happened when he stepped forward with a heart that was beating with an unsettled rhythm.

"Your yazuridou has a gap in it. Shall I fix it for you?"

He could just barely withstand the feeling of his heart nearly leaping out of his mouth. His trademark amiable smile did not appear on his face.

Following Masa-san, who headed towards the shajo as though he was gliding, Nikaidou headed for the waiting room.

Even from inside the waiting room, he could see what was going on outside. It seemed like the competition still hadn’t started yet, since it was noisy with the sounds of everyone talking.

Masa-san got a bottle of wood glue and a small spatula, used for repairing, and skillfully filled up the gap.

"Wait a little bit longer. I'll be done soon since it's only a little bit dislocated."

"…Did you notice it, sir?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"If it weren't for me being called out by you, then I would have intended on going out to the competition as I was. While the yazuridou had the aim marked on it."

"Today's competition is an interschool match, but well, if I had to say it, it's for fun. Why are you so obsessed over whether you win or not?"

"It's because once you lose, you'll get into a habit of losing. I will continue to win, during this summer…"

"During this summer? It's okay to not win after that?"

"I don't care about next year. I don't plan on continuing to do kyudo for a long time like everyone else. …It's stupid, getting all worked up and emotional over such a simple sport."

Nikaidou smiled. Even though it should have been his usual smile, for some reason his face was strained.

Masa-san then spoke, like he was addressing the bow in his hands.

"There's a story that goes like this. There was a warrior who got hayake and was told by his master to stop practicing archery. Resolving to cure himself by any means necessary, he placed a kimono that his daimyo gave to him in front of his aim, and challenged himself to commit seppuku if he let go of his arrow, but as expected, he shot through the kimono. Also, two university students were worried about hayake, and when they attempted to not let go of their arrows by facing each other and drawing their bows, both of them shot their arrows at the same time. Those are anecdotes that really cannot be imitated."

"Really… So what? What do you want to tell me? If it is that you get hayake when you're obsessed with hitting, or that I should sympathize with those who have it, or something like that, then I am afraid those stories have nothing to do with me."

"Since hayake is the condition of releasing your arrow against your own intention, what about its opposite? It is your body moving naturally without you thinking about anything, and all of your released arrows hitting the target——. What do you think the state of reaching that superhuman level, the opposite of hayake, is called?"

"I don't know, the state of selflessness (anatta)? (5) Pretty mystical, isn't it."

"It's called 'the zone.' Achieving the best level of physical activity in the ultimate state of concentration――. Don't you want to experience that sort of state just once?"

For a fleeting moment, the sounds were interrupted.

The sounds that should have been so noisy didn't reach his ears at all.

The buzz of cicadas sounded from a distance.

"When Mr. Eugen asked Awa-hanshi to 'please teach me Japanese archery,' Awa-hanshi replied with, 'Don't think about hitting the target.' If they only heard that, most people would be puzzled, wondering what he was saying, but that was only a conclusion, and the process of reaching that conclusion was omitted.

"Why don't you think about hitting the target.

"How do I avoid thinking about hitting the target.

"Awa-hanshi was speaking about those parts with a Buddhist mentality, so it might sound like something from the other side of the clouds, but it does in fact tell you how to enter the zone. Wouldn't you like to revive the secret techniques that Eugen Herrigel left behind in the modern age?"

"…You're telling me to do that?"

"A high school archer who's able to do kakehodoki is the rarest of the rare. Is it okay for that skill to end with only you? There are some who may admire your shooting. As well as those will evolve further."

"You are the coach for Kazemai High School, aren't you? Is it okay to give your enemy such important information? "

"Even if they know it, no one can do it right away. And, just as you cannot learn a lot by completely copying the answers in a workbook, the answers you derived from the questions that you yourself asked, worried over, and suffered over are more memorable. Rather than just listening to what other people say, there is nothing better than what you gain from experience."

Nikaidou took a breath. There was too much information and his thoughts couldn't catch up with it all.

Masa-san continued to speak.

"Some parts of you overlap with how I was just a little while ago. I can't win more, or hit――. Wanting to win, wanting to hit—those are primitive feelings that we have by nature without requiring training for them. It's fine to set winning as your goal, but if you make it your ultimate goal, then you would definitely suffocate. You need five, six, ten years to be able to boast a high-level hitting rate. So then, when your physical strength and ability decline, what should you do?"

"…You should quit. A person who hadn’t hit a hundred targets doesn’t have any persuasiveness, you know?"

"I have. Since I did it when I was practicing by myself, I can’t provide evidence, but I have continuously hit two-hundred-and-eleven targets."

"…Heh, congratulations."

"I thought that a brilliant future was waiting for me after hitting a hundred targets. That an unknown power would awaken within me, and I would reach a superhuman level. However, in actuality, nothing happened. I was satisfied for only a moment, and just a quiet time passed."

Masa-san narrowed his almond-shaped eyes and smiled.

He looked beyond the door, towards the shajo.

"Now, I am very satisfied. I have fun shooting my bow. And so, I wanted to pass it down. It would be inexcusable if I was the only one who used up what my ancestor left for me and it became lost. I want to hand over all the power I have now and see even more new ways of shooting."

"…Everyone at Kazemai must be truly excellent. Since they keep listening to your sermons."

The call for convening sounded. Masa-san handed the bow to Nikaidou and returned to the shajo.

Nikaidou gripped his bow tightly.

The kin-teki competition began.

The target was small, so there wasn't a lot of hits, but many arrows landed right next to it. Those were places that would have been considered hits if it were a normal target. Since this was different from a regular competition and there wasn't a ban on chatting, things like, "Ooh, what a shame" and "Whoa, so close" could be heard, along with laughter.

In the second round, Fuwa hit the target, and there was applause along with the sounds of "Alright!"

In the third round, a first-year beginner also landed a hit, and he couldn't stop grinning. It was something that came from being genuinely happy when one hit the target. Kaito and Seiya both hit the target in the fifth round, and the gold targets were replaced with new ones.

Fuwa said, "Nikaidou, go and snatch some items."

"Ha, don't boss me around. I'll be hitting next."

And just as he declared, he shot the target.

Thus, Nikaidou carried out all the steps of shooting in order and conquered the hyakuhasshakai. Minato missed all his shots since the kin-teki were brought on. Nikaidou hit half of the eight kin-teki shots and ended up with a total of eighty-six hits.

After the competition, Kaito went to the inn's lounge.

There was a bookshelf in the lounge, and besides books about kyudo, there were also books such as a field guide on wild grasses and flowers and a travel book with information on nearby places. Kaito, surprisingly, happened to be an avid reader. Beneath the bright red sky, he sat on the porch and was reading a book when Masa-san visited the room.

"Masa-san, there's some old kyudo magazines over here."

"Those are pretty valuable."

Masa-san sat down next to Kaito. Kaito looked at him.

"During the shakai, you were deep in talk with Nikaidou, but you weren't talking about arrows going missing or anything like that, right?"

"Oh, there wasn't really an issue. It's more like he got annoyed with my unwanted butting-in."

"…Also, Masa-san, to tell you the truth, on the day of the Yata Shrine festival, I heard something that has to do with your privacy. Sorry."

"Was it really something that would make you look so ashamed?"

"I heard from the parishioner's conversations that Ren-san and you aren't blood-related. I thought I was the only one there at the time, but the other club members might have also heard it."

"Oh, that? I wasn't really hiding it, so there's no problem."

"I see. That's good."

During the night festival, Narumiya had said that he had met Ren-san just now and then got really talkative, so Seiya got suspicious, wondering if something happened. Ren had the glamour and appeal of an adult man, or rather, a shadiness to him that gave off a wild allure, and he was no doubt an unreadable person, even for Kaito.

As he was thinking that, cats appeared from out of nowhere and snuggled up to him. One of them looked a lot like his own cat, Lucy.

"You guys again? Well, there's nothing to do about it."

"You're popular no matter where you go, eh, Kaito. You were even mobbed at Shikoku."(6)

"Oh, did that happen?"

Masa-san beckoned over a cat who was sizing him up from a short distance. He rubbed the chin of the cat that approached him quietly, and it closed its eyes in bliss. He held it up when he saw that its wariness was dispelled, and the cat curled up on his lap. Seeing the two of them, it could be thought that Masa-san also had the qualities of a cat-seducer.

Kaito and Masa-san met at a night festival at Yata Shrine. Some bothersome people picked a fight with Kaito, and it was Masa-san who saved him. This was when Kaito was a first-year middle schooler and Masa-san was a third-year university student. At the time, he hadn’t known Masa-san did kyudo. When he was on a family vacation in Shikoku, they stayed at the lodgings of a temple that wasn’t included on the Shikoku Pilgrimage. (7) The chief priest there was an archer, and he unexpectedly ran into Masa-san, who was in the middle of an archer’s training pilgrimage. He learned that Masa-san’s grandfather, who was his kyudo master, had passed away, and that he himself was also a master archer.

It had only been a few months since Kaito joined a kyudo club. He requested that he be allowed to watch them, but the two of them spent nearly all of the time having a question-and-answer session rather than shooting arrows, and furthermore, the contents of their conversations was almost incomprehensible. The priest was a stern person who also had a kindly face, and a dignified atmosphere drifted in the kyudojo.

A boy about two years old lived in the temple, and he had frequently curled up on Masa-san’s lap in the exact same way as the cat was doing now. And nowadays he wondered if it was Masa-san who had been the one to have a relieved and easy smile rather than the toddler.

When they returned from their trips, they were emailing and going to meet each other. They even went to a Japanese rock concert together. For Kaito, who had two older sisters, Masa-san was the coolest big brother ever. It felt somehow refreshing whenever he talked to him. Masa-san was a real charmer—in a good sense—since back then, and had many friends. And yet sometimes, he would look up at the sky with a gaze that screamed, "I can't take this anymore."

He gave off such an unsettled air, like he was perplexed about how to deal with a concealed blade――.

He never talked to anyone about this, and didn’t plan to.

He had only seen Masa-san shoot at Shikoku, and because he was allowed the chance of practicing at a private dojo back at home, he wasn’t able to get him to tell him details like its location. That was why when he learned that Narumiya had Masa-san teach him in kyudo, he was furious. The time when Kirisaki High School's Fujiwara entered Kazemai was no match for it. Even though he never even taught me, why did he teach you, who ran away from kyudo?

"Kacchan, Masa-san, there you guys are!"

It was Nanao's voice. Ryouhei , Seiya, and Minato were also behind him.

"It's a bit early, but Tommy-sensei and Hanazawa-san and the others went for dinner. Aah, kitties! Masa-san isn’t hated by cats either, I see. Must be nice."

"They might see you as a rival. Wait here a little bit."

Masa-san placed the cat on his lap on the balcony, put on zouri sandals (8) and went out into the yard. When he returned, he was holding green foxtail, also known as the cat teaser. (9)

"I think this is just the thing?"

When Masa-san lured it with the cat teaser, the cat crouched, and then jumped at it immediately. While it batted at the tip, it approached the knees of Nanao, who was crouching. Around when the cat was stepping on Nanao’s hand, the cat teaser was raised, and the cat jumped onto Nanao’s knee. He immediately tried to hug it, but was hit with a barrage of cat punches.

"Ow ow ow!"

Next to Nanao, who was pressing his hand to his face, Seiya spoke.

"Masa-san, let's leave it to those two this time."

Ryouhei and Minato held cat teasers in both hands. The two were shaking the tips to attract the cats’ attentions, but they ignored them. Ryouhei tilted his head.

"Why's it not working?"

"Give that to me for a sec?"

The cats approached Masa-san when he had a cat teaser in his hand, so Ryouhei, Minato, and Nanao were strangely not good enough. Kaito held the cat that looked like Lucy and stood up. With a book in one hand, he went back to the bookshelf.

It's pretty irritating that Narumiya is so attached to Masa-san even though he showed up later, but well, there's nothing to do about it. It's probably just as Fujiwara said—Masa-san's shooting can shoot through the hearts of almost any archer. There are tons of skilled archers, but Masa-san's shots have a feeling of depth to them.

Masa-san, if you only pay attention to Narumiya, I’ll kick you hard.

Because you’re our big brother.

Kaito parted with the cat and said, "Masa-san, it’s almost time. Let’s go eat."

"Alright."

Previous | Next

#tsurune #tsurune translation

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catsafari25 · 5 years

Text

SPFANCLUB’s Competition Entry

A/N: Like Icarus, I am flying far too close to the sun with the deadline looming tomorrow, but it’s done! (just.) For spfanclub’s Skulduggery Pleasant competition, the pinned message I went with was: “If I didn’t concern you I wouldn’t be me and you wouldn’t be you,” and was based on a discussion that went down in the Discord chat.

Skeletons didn’t sleep.

They did, however, meditate and frankly, Valkyrie thought, aged 16 and poised with a Sharpie before Skulduggery’s face, it was a minor miracle she hadn’t been tempted to do this before now.

Quite how she was going to explain this if - okay, when - Skulduggery realised, she hadn’t worked out yet. But that was an issue for future Valkyrie. Present Valkyrie was much more occupied with drawing the perfect moustache. She curled the ends like the villains out of her father’s old movies and sat back to admire her work.

Somehow, she had avoided waking - or whatever the equivalent was for meditating - Skulduggery, or at least she assumed so. It wasn’t always the easiest thing to gauge with someone without eyelids. Or eyes.

“If you’re awake, you legally have to tell me now,” she said.

He didn’t move.

“Good enough for me,” she said and she leant forward to complete the other side. When it was finished, she considered leaving it at that. That would be the sensible thing. The practical thing. The not-getting-caught thing.

She drew glasses around his eyes.

And angry eyebrows above that.

And a goatee beard.

And a flower on his left cheek.

It was only really through fate’s intervention that she wasn’t following it up with a heart on his other cheek when his phone rang.

She watched from the doorway, glass of water in hand as he obliviously answered the call, and tried not to look too surprised as he finished the conversation without calling out Valkyrie’s little deceit.

“That was Ghastly,” he said. “Trouble at the Sanctuary.”

“Isn’t there always?”

Luck - or perhaps the opposite of it - was on Valkyrie’s side today.

Skulduggery didn’t glance once at his reflection in the passing windows or the car mirrors on their way to the Sanctuary, righting his tie on feel alone as he swept into the Bentley. And as they got closer and closer to the Sanctuary and Skulduggery still hadn’t realised what she’d done, she got quieter and quieter.

He didn’t realise on the journey, and he didn’t realise when they arrived, and he still didn’t realise as the Administrator gave them a curious look as they were escorted through the Sanctuary.

“Skulduggery, Valkyrie,” Ghastly greeted them. “Good you could make it, we could do with--” He pulled up short at Skulduggery. “What have you done to your--”

Behind Skulduggery, Valkyrie gestured sharply.

“--tie?” Ghastly finished clumsily. “What have you done to your tie? Is that new?”

“It is,” Skulduggery answered. He looked to Valkyrie. “See, Ghastly appreciates my style.”

“He’s your tailor,” she muttered. As they headed down the Sanctuary corridors, Ghastly raised a questioning eyebrow at her; Valkyrie gave a guilty shrug back. She didn’t listen too intently to Ghastly filling them in - her mind was on other, more Sharpie-based matters - just enough to know they had a mortal to interrogate, for reasons that Valkyrie managed to miss.

Ravel was waiting for them outside the interrogation room, usually a welcome sight but today all she could see was the way his eyes widened as an obliviously decorated Skulduggery walked into the room. Ghastly elbowed him rather sharply, cutting Ravel off on the verge of a question.

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Yes?”

Ravel coughed, probably - Valkyrie suspected - to hide the laugh. One hand suspiciously rested over his mouth. “Mortal’s in there,” he managed. “Do you have all the information you need?”

“More than enough,” Skulduggery answered, glancing back to Valkyrie.

She nodded.

“Right.” There was a beat. “We’ll leave you to it then.”

“You’re not going to stay?”

“We have other, Sanctuary business to attend to,” Ghastly said.

Ravel nodded. “Yes. Important Sanctuary business. That way.”

Ghastly and Ravel disappeared off, possibly to make bets on how long Valkyrie’s deceit would last. “Well,” Skulduggery said eventually, “that was odd.” He tapped the sigil on his collarbone and the facade of fake skin flowed over his skull.

To Valkyrie’s mortification, the marker pen remained.

“Maybe you should let me do the interrogating,” she offered quickly. She tried not to stare at the inked moustache. It stubbornly remained above the sigil’s moustache, inanimate while the fake one moved on fake lips. It was mildly mesmerising, but mostly unsettling.

“I am. I’ll even open the door to let you go in first.”

“Alone.” ignore the moustache ignore the moustache ignore the moustache “As part of my training.”

“Valkyrie, I know you can interrogate. You did a splendid job while tracking down my head. But, even if you hadn’t, I hardly think that he,” and he pointed to the door, “is the way to prove that.”

“He could have hidden depths.”

“The man is a semi-retired mortal milkman.”

“Very hidden depths.”

He looked at her. Valkyrie did her best to keep a straight face.

“As much as I appreciate this newfound and frankly uncharacteristic enthusiasm for tackling a straightforward and impersonal interrogation, I think we can afford to both get involved today.”

“But I really want to do this.”

He looked at her again. His eyes were blue today. She tried to focus on that. “Valkyrie, is there something you’re not telling me?”

ink ink ink

“No.”

“He didn’t kill your hamster when you were five or run over your dog? Because you’re being weird.”

“I’m not being weird, you’re being weird. I’ve never owned a dog, you know I’ve never owned a dog, and Fluffy’s still alive. Somewhere in the floorboards.”

“The average lifespan of a domesticated hamster--”

“I don’t care. Are you seriously going to squash the dream that he’s been living happily beneath the house with his hamster family? Are you really going to make the five-year-old in me cry with stupid things like logic and reason? Are you?”

Skulduggery paused. “I suppose not.” He opened the door. “Shall we?”

Valkyrie was halfway inside before she realised she’d been outmanoeuvred.

“Sneak,” she muttered.

Skulduggery raised an eyebrow. The facade skin moved.

The marker pen did not.

Valkyrie watched, with a mixture of fascination and disgust, as the eyebrow moved up, into, and through the inked glasses. She managed to disguise her splutter with a cough. .

Their interogee did not.

“What the hell is wrong with your eyebrows?”

Skulduggery swept towards the mortal. “Mr Delaney, I understand you’ve had a shock--”

“And your chin. Why is none of it moving?”

Skulduggery paused. Looked at the milkman, and then Valkyrie, and then, finally - finally - to his reflection in the window. The eyebrow rose again and shot through the marked glasses and secondary eyebrows. He wiggled his chin and watched as the drawn goatee remained eerily stationary.

.”Hold, please,” he said and swept back out of the room.

Valkyrie gave an apologetic smile to the milkman and followed Skulduggery out. Ghastly had rejoined them, but was rapidly looking like he had regretted returning to watch the interrogation.

There was a long, long pause.

“Valkyrie,” Skulduggery said slowly, “is there marker on my face?”

“Mm-hmm,” Valkyrie confirmed.

Another pause. Another silence that was somehow filled with disappointment despite the absence of words. “Valkyrie,” Skulduggery said, “explain to me exactly how you pictured this going in a way that benefited you at all.”

“It’s funny?” she offered.

“This,” and he motioned sharply to his sharpied face, “is not funny. This is a liability to the mission.”

“It is a little funny,” Ghastly said.

Skulduggery spun to Ghastly. “You do not get a say in this. You may not have wielded the pen, but I heard no protests from you. Valkyrie, I could believe this from, but you--”

There was protests from both parties involved that was cut short by a sharp gesture from him. “Valkyrie, for what it’s worth, you concern me sometimes.”

“If I didn’t concern you,” she retorted, “I wouldn’t be me and you wouldn’t be you. And, for what it’s worth,” she added, a trite ruefully, “I honestly didn’t think I’d get this far without you noticing.”

“Because you thought the magic keeping my bones together would detect the intrusion?”

“No - well, yes, but mostly because you’re really really vain.”

He started to cock an eyebrow, visibly remembered the state of his face, and tapped the sigil to remove the facade. “I’m really really vain?” he echoed back.

“I thought you would have looked in a mirror before now.”

“Sometimes, with the life we lead, I can’t always spend all day before a mirror.” He pulled off a glove and passed a thumb over the markings. They stubbornly stayed. “And if I’m vain, it’s simply because I have standards. Valkyrie, tell me you have a removal plan for this.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Oh? That better be a good oh. That better be a ‘I have the cleaning fluid on me right now’ oh.”

“It’s permanent marker.”

#spfpins #skulduggery pleasant #cat writes #thank grimm I booked today off for other reasons #writing characters from another fandom #is like trying to steer a car you've never driven before #I wrote the first line a month ago and promptly lost the paper with it on #also tanith turns up with nail polish remover #or whatever you remove permanent marker with #if valkyrie did ever mention a hamster I can't remember #she did mention having a rabbit I remember that though #other option: skul just uses a temporary skull until they remove the marker #*checks word count*#huh only 1.5K #also in the distance you hear ghastly and ravel exchanging money #discuss amongst yourselves who won the bet

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sakura-soldier · 4 years

Photo

This is a Christmas gift for @crop-stomper / @prophetic-duck-drawings! This is one of her characters, Helen Bethel, one of the Victors/mentors in her many SYOTs! Helen is the Victor of the 120th Hunger Games, and she ends up dating the escort in my story, Anakyn Skyavich. Seriously though, she’s a fun, energetic, and very intriguing character to read and draw by herself, so she gets her own drawing!

Helen was first featured in Danzon: The 125th Hunger Games (yes, the same fanfic I did my escort drawing from: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12245444/1/Danzón-The-125th-Hunger-Games), but I’m showing her current appearance in Whims of Fate: The 127th Hunger Games (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13034535/1/Whims-of-Fate-The-127th-Hunger-Games), wearing her Pre-Games Party outfit that I picked out for her in that story. It took me like... 2 months to do the drawing, I think (started in September and finished in October)? But I didn’t get to upload it here or in deviantArt until today, so that’s why it’s a Christmas present.

The mediums I used are pencil crayons, fineliners, a black pen, markers, a white pen for the lace (you can only see it close-up though because of the scanner), a blue pencil (sketch only; my cousin let me borrow it), and acrylic paint for the background.

This is what the 2-piece dress looks like! It’s from an Italian wedding dress designer brand called Maura Brandino. It consists of a white crop top with scalloped edges and a lace overlay, while the dusky pink skirt is made of tulle. You can also see the lace overlay in the crop top since it didn’t fully show up while the drawing was being scanned:

https://fialleril.tumblr.com/post/178935418666/andantegrazioso-pink-haze

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdKm3DWAsep/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFR7isMLEYB/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3b2njto7Ra/

And this is what the hairstyle actually looks like on the back, which has hair turned into flowers at the back (plus, you can do this on your own hair!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d77vjtnZEXc&t=17s

Helen Bethel doesn’t belong to me; she belongs to @crop-stomper / @prophetic-duck-drawings (also known as CelticGames4 on fanfiction.net). If you scroll down long enough, you can learn about her here: http://just-let-lux-eat-pastries.blogspot.com/p/the-mentors.html and here: http://lux-still-wants-pastries.blogspot.com/p/mentors.html

This is drawn by me, @sakura-soldier. Please don’t remove credit.

#whims of fate #syot #the hunger games #thg #thg fanart #helen bethel #my art #someone's oc #mentor #127th #fanart

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friendlylocalwhumper · 5 years

Text

cole causes trouble, pt. 2

“Why did you do that?” Cole demands to know, storming around. It would be kind of cute, how he’s forming his own opinions and getting worked up over them. Except. What’s kept Cole alive here was being complacent and listening to Lux without hesitation. And if Colten gets too loud in his frustration, the Hunter might come down here and make one of them pay for drawing his attention. And Lux is in enough pain right now to make him reluctant to interact.

The younger boy stomps over. Lux is looking down, just trying to keep his opinions in his head. Everything he considers as a response to Cole’s current behavior wouldn’t be helpful. Things like I was just trying to protect you, or you’re not old enough to understand, or if I stomped around and asked questions when I was a kid… there’s no need to say anything like that. Colten has been put in a situation where he has to be mature and accepting of harsh truths, and it was only a matter of time before he felt the instinct to lash out. Lux took it for granted that Cole hasn’t acted like a typical ten-year-old yet.

“Why did you do that?” The younger boy asks again, crossing his arms. “You made it worse. You lied. You made him angry.” Cole unfolds his arms a second later, and pokes a finger to his own chest. “It’s not my fault he hurt you.”

Lux looks up, his expression mournful. “I know. It’s not your fault. Nothing here is your fault, Cole, you shouldn’t have to be here. I just… I did what I thought would keep him focused on me. So he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Nuh-uh!” Cole frowns and walks over. “You didn’t have to make him angry. You weren’t trying to protect me. You always say that. I think - I think you - you know what?” The younger boy has drawn close, and Lux’s back is pressed to the wall where he’s chained up. He looks up at Colten, waiting to hear what the boy’s working up the courage - or venom - to say.

“I think you like getting hurt.”

It makes sense. In kid logic. Lux tries not to show that it hurts to hear. Lux asks the Hunter to hurt him instead of Cole. Lux obeys, he scrabbles to do what he’s told, he doesn’t struggle. To a frightened, angry ten-year-old who doesn’t want his friend to get hurt, it could look like Lux isn’t doing his best to keep himself from getting hurt.

A small, aching part of Lux wonders what he did to make someone so patient, and kind, and innocent, this angry at him. As if it’s the grown-up thing to do here, to take this personally.

“I don’t like getting hurt,” Lux says slowly, a chill making him feel ill. “Cole, I’m s-still in some - some pain, do you think we can do this la-”

“You’re always hurt,” Cole parries, not missing a beat. Lux doesn’t contest being cut off, he just watches and listens. “All the time. I’m bored, I hate it here, and you just stay there and get hurt, that’s all you do. I’m bored and I wanna get out, I wanna go up there!” He points to the top of the stairs, to the locked door.

A pang of guilt strikes within the older boy. Of course Colten is bored. There are no toys, or friends, or games down here - no TV, no playground, and very little interaction. Just a plain concrete room and watching someone get tortured. Of course he’s bored.

“I can - I can ask for books, for you, or maybe - maybe markers and paper, something to do, since you can’t - can’t go upstairs.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. He was trying to say, in the gentlest and least overbearing way possible, that Colten can’t go upstairs. They’re not here by choice. They are prisoners. But Cole fumes. He doesn’t want books or markers, he wants to be out of here.

Lux can’t back up or move out of the way, but he can straighten up a bit and hold his breath when Colten storms over. It’s a reaction beaten into him over a long time, assuming he’s about to be hit - and then, he is.

Cole has reeled back, curled his little hand into a fist, and driven it straight into Lux’s nose. It knocked his head back and drew out an instinctive frightened whimper. Lux blinks up at the ceiling for a second, then tips his head down. There’s a rush of blood in his head and he feels something hot just above his lip before he sees red dripping into his lap.

Maybe Cole’s waiting for a reaction. Maybe he’s reeling back for another punch, or he’s about to rant some more, or he’s going to stumble back and cover his mouth in horror and burst into apologies. Lux doesn’t have it in him to meet Colten’s eyes, or to tell him something like you should never hit people. It’s been quiet, now, for a few seconds.

Lux lifts his head so the blood slows down - it’s been spilling happily from his nose - and he tucks it against his right arm, manacled up on the wall. It’s as close to tipping his head back and pinching his nose as he can get.

It sounds like Colten’s stepped away and is moving over to his usual spot. Lux closes his eyes before the younger boy passes into his line of sight, and tries not to cough on the bit of blood that tries to slide down his throat.

He’s fallen asleep. Lux only realizes it when his hair is being touched, a shadow falling over him as the Hunter leans close.

“What’s this, little light?” A finger traces the dried blood that dripped down Lux’s bare upper arm, and the prisoner shivers, waking up. His head aches terribly, and his nose hurts still. Not broken or swollen at all. Just bloodied. What hurts more is how it got that way.

“‘s blood,” Lux answers sleepily. Sadly.

“Yes. How did it get there?” The warlock’s chin is held and moved so that Lux’s head is no longer nestled into the crook of his arm. The Hunter puzzles over the dried blood under Lux’s nose for a second. Did he push too hard inside his light’s mind the day before?

No. He would’ve known if he was that close to doing serious damage.

A smile spreads across the Hunter’s face. He looks over to Colten, who’s still awake, and watching nervously. “Did you hit him?”

Cole’s eyes flick to Lux, then back to their captor. He nods seriously.

“Come here, then.”

Lux closes his eyes with a soft emotional sound. He doesn’t know what the Hunter plans to do, but it won’t be good. He hopes desperately that Colten won’t be punished. Of course, if he still can, Lux will offer himself in Cole’s place. Nothing has changed there.

He can hear Cole walking over. Light-footed and uncertain.

“Did you like hitting him?”

Lux opens his eyes, and sees the Hunter has laid a hand on Colten’s shoulder. It’s not to keep Cole in place. It’s more… proud, supportive. They’re both looking at Lux. He closes his eyes again.

“...No,” The youngest answers quietly.

“Why did you do it?”

A beat of silence. “‘Cause I was angry.” The Hunter waits for more, and Cole finds words to tag onto his simple answer. “He was being…” Colten’s voice gets softer, a near-whisper. “Is ‘stupid’ a bad word?”

The Hunter laughs, big and jolly, and Lux flinches.

“It’s not a bad word. You haven’t done anything wrong. You hit him to make him listen to you. Did it work? Did he get quiet?”

Lux doesn’t hear a response. He assumes that Cole just nodded. The Hunter hums in thought.

“Good. See, it worked. He’s being good. If you wanted to yell at him right now, he wouldn’t argue or tell you you’re being too mean, too loud. He would just listen. Go on, is there anything you want to say to him? Anything he does that makes you mad?”

“Mmm… no, he doesn’t make me mad, really.”

“He made you mad when he made you hit him.”

“He… didn’t make me…”

“Oh, yes he did. He got you so angry that the only way to make him listen was to hit him. That was the only way. You know that, don’t you?”

It’s quiet again. Colten sniffles. Lux opens his eyes to see the little boy rubbing at his eyes, his chest hitching. The Hunter isn’t smiling now. Cole is sad, he’s crying, he’s overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry,” Cole gasps, and hunches his shoulders up until the Hunter moves his hand away. “I’m sorry, Lux, I’m sorry I h-hit you.” He takes a breath, and then another; they get more and more tumultuous until he’s sobbing. “I, I, got ang-gry, but, but, don’t w-w-wanna be mean, I got mean, I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry, h-hitting is bad and mean and I’m r-really sorry…”

He stops rubbing at his eyes to try and look at Lux, but all he sees is sad blue eyes and blood from when he was hit. Colten croaks out a miserable sound and falls into Lux’s lap, leaning against his chest and crying into his shoulder, still apologizing.

Lux can’t hold him because he’s chained up, and he can’t comfort him because he’s emotional and scared. The Hunter seems disappointed with this turn of events, like he was going to get Colten to say it was worth it, or like he was even going to make Colten hit him again.

The Hunter sighs. “Move. I’m going to show you how to really do damage with a punch.”

Lux’s heart breaks for the little boy as he hurries to get away from Lux, remembering what the consequences were for going too slow last time. The Hunter tells Colten to watch, and the kid rubs at his eyes again, sitting up on his knees, before the Hunter reels back for a punch of his own. Lux watches the man before him in fear.

“Don’t turn your head away, you keep looking at me,” The Hunter instructs, and Lux nods slightly with a bit of a whimper. Colten watches, mortified by how much control the Hunter has right now. How Lux is about to let himself get hit in the face again.

That heavy fist is swung and it crashes against Lux’s nose, making it creak and shift as the warlock’s head snaps to the side. Lux cries out and then moans, more blood spilling to the floor. He keens when his head is made to tip back up, and his nose is touched on either side.

“Broken. Let me fix that for you, keep you from looking all crooked, darling.”

With some pressure and force, the Hunter realigns Lux’s nose, drawing cracking and grinding sounds, along with pained cries.

“That is how you hit someone. Maybe you’ll get better at it if you practice when you’re angry.” The Hunter’s speaking to Colten, who’s watching with wide eyes as Lux stops groaning and taking loud, staggered breaths when their captor glares at him.

“I’m going to bring down your breakfast now.” He’s not speaking to Lux, even though their eyes are locked. Colten gets breakfast, and it’s pretty good, for something given to a prisoner. Lux doesn’t get his invariable oatmeal this early.

“If - if I can -” Lux starts, terrified - “C-can I earn something, please? A - a book, or crayons, or - a baseball, just, anything, he’s r-really bored.” His voice sounds clogged and heavy from his nose being broken. He still does his best to get the words out.

The Hunter chuckles. “Is that what he hit you for? He wanted you get him toys, and you refused to try and earn them for him?”

No, that’s not it, that’s not what it was about. It wasn’t that simple or childish. Lux isn’t sure how to answer, so he presses on. “No food. For me. For a c-couple days. And when I don’t eat, he can h-have things to do… if that’s something you’d like?” Lux’s voice has grown smaller and lighter with his nerves. “I’ll get… tired, and dizzy, and really hungry… and, and I won’t ask for food, for as long as I can, I’ll t-try my best.”

“Hmm. What do you think, Colten?”

Cole hugs himself when the Hunter speaks to him. “Um… I don’t want him to get hungry.”

“Well, he doesn’t want you to get hungry. Sorry my light, he’s going to have to stay bored. I guess if he gets upset about it again, he knows what to do.”

The Hunter taps the side of Lux’s nose, earning a flinch and a soft pained sound, before he stands over his light.

“You behave,” The man says, nodding to Lux. He looks to Colten, then. “You - I hope you don’t. I’d like to see you get better with your fists.”

As soon as the Hunter’s on the other side of the cellar door, Colten’s hurrying back over and clinging to Lux.

“I’m not gonna hit you again, I promise, never gonna hit again,” The younger boy babbles, terrified that Lux believes in the Hunter’s encouragements about becoming better at hitting. Lux looks down at the top of Cole’s head.

“I believe you. It’s okay, Cole. I know you’re sorry. You’re still my friend. It’s okay.”

#whump #drabble #angst #blood #broken bones #beaten #afraid #past trauma #lux #colten #the hunter #protective #captivity #restrained #mine #pain #emotional whump #cole causes trouble

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