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nothinghcppens · 3 years

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small talk- pietro maximoff

part 1

part 2 here

masterlist

pair: pietro maximoff x female!reader

summary: after being apart of the team of super soldiers that hydra experimented on, y/n was one of the successful experiments and had been released to the world. the winter soldier and the siren had become the most prolific assassin duo in the world. but what happens when they get taken in by the avengers? what happens when she meets a particularly fast superhero with an attitude?

warnings: swearing, slight mentions of trauma

bang. the bullet left your gun and went through the targets skull and his body dropped to the floor with a thud. behind you, your partner barnes did the same, the body hitting the ground.

“go.” he demanded, pushing you forward. you ripped off your mask and turned to face him.

“don’t touch me.” you spat. you bent down and grabbed your knife, twirling it round your hand and placing it in your belt.

“hurry up. we have to report back to hydra.” barnes said, checking the bullets in his gun.

“you don’t tell me what to do.” you barked, sending him a sharp glare.

“shut your fucking mouth.” he seethed.

you went to retaliate but stopped yourself when he raised his finger to his mask, looking around.

“get down!” he called, throwing himself behind the wall. you dropped and rolled behind a metal box, covering your head. two smoke bombs went off next to you, clouding your vision. you peered around the box, seeing barnes stepping out of his hiding place, gun raised. you put your mask back on so that your identity wouldn’t be compromised and stood up. you took your knives out your belt and raised them.

trails of blue flashed in front of your eyes. you furrowed your eyebrows, confused and spin round, slashing your knives through the smoke. you heard barnes grunt and heard his body hit the ground. that was your cue to leave, you were in danger. you broke out in a sprint, preparing yourself to jump off the roof. but those blue trails cut in front of you, knocking you on the floor. you felt a sharp pain in your neck and your eyes began to feel heavy. you tried to kick and push yourself up but it was no use. your vision went blurry and everything kept going in and out of focus. before your eyes completely shut you felt a pair of arms reach under you and pick you up.

“i’ve got her! someone got barnes?” the voice said, it was a man with a thick foreign accent. the world went dark.

your eyes shot open and you tried to sit up but you couldn’t, your arms and legs were bound by some kind of force. your eyes darted around and landed on tow people standing guard. there was a man with light brown hair, his arms were large and crossed over his chest and a younger man with bleach blonde hair and a scruffy beard.

“good morning, sleeping beauty.” there was that accent again, he was the one who took you.

“pietro, enough.” the other man said. “i’m steve rogers.”

“i didn’t ask.” you mumbled. the man you learned to be name pietro let out a noise of surprise.

“you are y/n y/l/n, more commonly known as the siren. you are one of the more dangerous assassins on the planet.” steve said.

“how do you know my name? no one knows my name.” you questioned, trying to free yourself from their restraints.

“we know a lot about you, you and your partner james barnes.” pietro explained. steve stiffened at barnes’ name, does he know him?

“friday, tell stark that she’s awake. i’ll meet him in the lab.” steve announced.

“of course, captain rogers.” a female voice replied from thin air. you looked around confused, where did that come from? he left the room and went to find whoever he’s looking for, leaving you alone with pietro.

“how did you find us? where am i?” you asked.

“you were pretty easy to track down considering the trail of bodies you two leave all over the globe.” he declared. he pulled a chair over and spun it round, straddling it.

“well how come it took you guys this long to find us?” you spat, not liking how much he’s enjoying this, “who even are you?”

“we’re the avengers.” a man announced from the door. he had dark brown hair and a beard, he was wearing a zip up fleece and jeans. stood next to him was the steve that you had met previously, “i’m tony.”

“stark?” you asked, having heard his name throughout the hydra base you were trapped in.

“the one and only.” he said with a bow.

“are you all like that?” you questioned, really not in the mood for their nonsense.

“like what?” steve asked.

“annoying.” you spat.

“she’s feisty. i like her.” pietro stated with a smile.

“yeah. i’m dangerous too.” you commented.

“not when you’re trapped like this you aren’t.” he replied. he stood up from his chair and peered over at you. you struggled against your restaints and tried to get yourself free, but it was still no use. he chuckled condescendingly and you rolled your eyes.

“right, we’ll let you out. but you have to promise not to go all super soldier on us. we stopped you once before, we can do it again.” tony said, stepping forward and pushing pietro away from you. “we’ll explain why you are here and what we want from you.”

you agreed to stay calm as long as they explain what’s going on. they removed the restraints and you practically leapt out of the bed, landing unsteadily on your feet.

“careful there.” pietro muttered, reaching his hand out for you.

“don’t pretend that you care.” you grumbled. a look of hurt flashed in his eyes but was quickly replaced by that sarcastic smirk that never seemed to leave his face. “so, why am i here?”

“come with me and i’ll explain it.” tony said. you looked down at your clothes and saw that you were still in the same clothes from your last mission except your belt was missing along with your jacket and bulletproof vest.

“where’s my belt?”

“confiscated, for obvious reasons.” steve explained. you groaned and pushed your way past the men and out the room, tony following behind you. you stopped quickly, realising that you didn’t know where you were going. he overtook you and you walked behind him.

“welcome to the avengers tower. we brought you here because we know that hydra have experimented on you and barnes and you have been their weapons for the past few years. barnes and steve knew each other during their war days so steve wanted to free him and you, well you just got lucky.” he looked back and saw your angry expression.

“i’m only kidding, you’ll be a good asset to us. we’ve just got to get hydra out your brain. they’ve wormed their way inside you and at any moment you could go all assassin and try to murder us all.”

“they don’t control me.” you stated.

“say what you want, but they do. you won’t realise it but they are using you.” he stopped you and his tone went more serious. “pietro and his sister wanda, they were experimented on by hydra. they got sent out to attack us. we helped them realise hydra’s hold on them.”

“maybe i don’t want your help.” you said, thrusting your head towards him in an attempt to intimidate him. he didn’t flinch.

“i think you do. would you rather go back to being tortured?” he queried.

“i-“ you didn’t know how to respond.

“that’s what i thought, so i suggest you take our help before we change our mind.” he said, turning away and heading up the stairs. you jogged up behind him and followed him as he led you along a hall lined with doors. “welcome to your room, get yourself cleaned up and when you’re ready just ask friday to alert someone and they’ll come and bring you down.”

“who the hell is friday?” you asked.

“friday?” he announced.

“yes mr stark?” that voice from earlier replied.

“this is y/n y/l/n, she’s new here. i’m just introducing you to her. make sure she doesn’t leave her room unless accompanied.” tony said, opening the door.

“no problem, it’s lovely to meet you miss y/l/n.” friday added.

“uh yeah, you too.” you spoke quietly, unsure of who or what you’re talking to.

you stepped into the room and turned round to see tony flash you a small smile before closing the door on you. you let out a sigh and looked around the room. there was a large king sized bed against the right wall, a rug across the centre of the floor. there was a wardrobe and a set of drawers which you pulled open and saw filled with clothes.

“uh friday?” you asked.

“yes miss y/l/n?” the robot lady replied.

“who’s clothes are these?”

“they belong to miss romanoff and miss maximoff, they are for you to borrow until you can purchase your own.”

why would they give you their clothes? they don’t even know you. do they not know who they’re dealing with?

you let out a sigh and turned to the door on the left side of the room and opened it. inside was a bathroom equipped with a large glass shower and a small smile crept onto your face. you stripped yourself of your clothes and ran the water at the highest temperature. you stepped into the shower and felt the hot water run over your body, goosebumps forming on your body at the change of temperature. picking up the coconut scented shampoo, you opened the bottle and took a long inhale of the scent before placing some in your hand and running it through your hair. then doing the same with the conditioner. you then washed your body with the body wash they provided you with, it was amazing. constantly being on the run and in hiding, you never got the opportunity often to take a minute to take care of yourself.

after the shower you brushed your hair and got changed into some sweatpants and a hoodie. you lay down on the bed and closed your eyes for a moment, you didn’t mean to fall asleep but as soon as your head hit those soft pillows you were out like a light.

you were awoken by a soft knock at your door and a voice calling your name, “y/n?” you recognised it to be pietro and you shot up. you glanced around and noticed it was darker outside, it had been a few hours.

“sorry, come in.” you called, your voice a little hoarse from sleep. he opened the door and leaned against the doorframe.

“uh sorry to bother you but tony wanted me to come and make sure you hadn’t escaped or something.” he explained.

“still here.” you stated.

“i see that.” he replied.

“is there something else you need?” you asked. all of a sudden he wasn’t standing at the door, those flashes of blue light whizzed past your eyes and he was next to you on the bed. “speedy, how fun.” you complained.

he chuckled and flopped back on your bed. “make yourself at home i guess.” you said.

“so, hydra huh?”

“careful you might trigger the super solider within me.” you teased. “seriously though, i don’t know what you guys did but i don’t have the urge to complete my missions. i don’t feel like i have to murder anyone in my sight.”

“well that’s always a bonus.” he joked, moving himself up the bed and resting his arms behind his head on the bed frame.

“what was it like for you?” you asked, sitting cross-legged.

“isolated in a case, random injections, training. standard stuff. you?”

“shock therapy. makes me forget who i am.” you explained.

“wow. sounds like fun.” you huffed out a laugh, “what makes you change? how do they control you?”

“they have these books, one for each of us and there’s a sequence of words that like triggers something in each soldier. they just say them and it’s like a switch flips and then i’m ‘ready to command’.”

“sorry to interrupt but i have a message from mr stark.” friday announced, tony’s voice came blasting through, “speedy you had one job. see if i come up and see that the siren has brutally murdered you, i will not be sorry.”

you laughed at tony’s message and looked at pietro who’s expression was the same as yours.

“friday, i have a message for stark. put me through.” he said, “fortunately for you i am still alive, you better watch it before i send her to brutally murder you. we’ll be down soon.”

“he seems nice.” you stated.

“he’s a pain in the ass. wait till you meet clint, he’s even worse.” he joked.

“god, can he be any worse than you?” you questioned, copying his sarcastic smile.

“rude.” he said, getting off the bed, “let’s take you down.”

he took out out of the room and back down the stairs, he stopped at a large set of double doors and turned to look at you giving you a nod. he pushed open the doors and opened his arms wide, “i’m back! and i brought a guest.”

“took you long enough.” tony complained.

“what can i say? we get on like a house on fire, don’t we love?” pietro teased, placing his arm around your shoulder.

“just because i’m not being controlled by hydra, doesn’t mean i won’t kill you.” you growled and shrugged his arm off you.

“you’re right tony, she is feisty.” a man said from the sofa. “hi i’m clint.”

“where’s barnes?” you asked, ignoring him.

“he’s resting, i can take you to him if you want.” a woman with long brown hair suggested. “i’m wanda.” she added as she approached you.

“you’re pietro’s brother. tony told me about you.”

“glad to see my reputation proceeds me.” she chuckled. “come on.”

the walk began quiet until she broke the silence between you two, “i’m glad to see you and pietro are becoming friends.”

“far from friends.” you mumbled.

“he seems to think you are. it’s okay to admit it.” she said.

“nope. not friends.” you stated.

she laughed, “whatever you say. anyway, what’s barnes like? are you two close?”

“honestly, no. we only go on missions together and we don’t exactly get along. i don’t know much about him, i only know his last name. i guess there’s a lot of rivalry, we both want to impress them.” you explained.

“why do you want to see him then?” wanda asked.

“i want to meet him and get to know him when we’re both... free. maybe then we’ll get along.”

wanda pulled open the door and revealed your partner, the winter soldier lying on a bed in the same restraints you had been in this morning. steve sat in a chair next to him, eyes closed and his head on his shoulder.

“why is he still restrained?” you asked wanda.

“well, hydra seemed to have had more of an effect on him than you. he has been under their control for a lot longer than you have, so it’s taking him a while to come to terms with everything.” she explained.

you nodded your head in approval. wanda approached steve and nudged him awake, he blinked rapidly and looked around before meeting her gaze. “go get some rest, we’ll watch him.”

he nodded slowly and yawned before slipping out the room, leaving you two alone with the sleeping super soldier.

“i’ve never seen him this peaceful.” you mumbled, sitting down on the chair that steve left empty.

“where’s steve?” he grumbled, stirring awake.

“he’s away to get some rest, you’ve got us for now.” wanda said.

“siren?” he asked, now noticing your presence.

“yeah let’s drop that, call me y/n.” you insisted.

“how are you out? why am i still tied up?” he questioned.

a massive grin spread across your face, “you, my friend, are even more mentally unstable than i am. because hydra had you for like, what? 500 years? and they only had me for 8.”

“i am not 500 years old.” he spat.

“you certainly look it.” you muttered.

“what was that?” he asked.

“i’m kidding!” you chuckled, “it’s good to see you barnes.”

“bucky.” he said. a smile grew on your face.

“bucky.” you repeated.

———

a month or so passed and you had began to train with the rest of the team, you took it easy because they didn’t want to risk you somehow freaking out and trying to kill them all. during the month you had spent many hours in the lab with tony, running tests on you and making sure you were 100% safe to be around. he is still wary of you, so you aren’t allowed on out missions just yet, but, even if you were you wouldn’t go with them, just in case.

occasionally however, they let you join in for a few hours of training and you really enjoyed it. as much as you hated hydra and everything they put you through, you loved training and fighting, it was your nature. training was your release, it was your opportunity to take out your anger against the world. every punch was a way of pushing out every negative emotion pent up within you.

grunts left your mouth as you punched the punching back hanging in front of you and sweat dripped from your forehead. you then stopped and picked up a staff and moved to the dummy across the room. you took your stance and began to hit the dummy, changing techniques every so often. you felt a rush of wind behind you and stopped before turning around and sticking out the staff. pietro stopped on the left side of the stick, his sarcastic smile present on his face.

“remind me not to get on your bad side.” he stated, pushing the staff away from his face.

you rolled your eyes and turned round, “carry on with that attitude and next time i won’t hesitate to hit you.”

“well i’ve caught you once before, what makes you think i can’t do it again.”

“you caught me off guard. it doesn’t count.” you said, going back to your training.

“don’t be a sore loser, i did it for your own good.” he replied as he sped around and stood behind the dummy.

you looked up at your teammate, seeing his stupid smirk. deciding to make training even more enjoyable, instead of hitting the dummy in your next swing, you swung at pietro. he moved his head out the way and the stick missed him.

“what was that for?” he asked, a shocked smile spread on his face.

“you got on my bad side.” you replied, glaring up at him.

he grabbed the staff and thrusted it towards you, aiming for your stomach. you dropped and rolled out the way, and pushed yourself up, landing on your feet.

“just because i can’t tavel at the speed of sound, doesn’t mean i’m not fast.” you teased.

“him, we’ll see about that.” pietro said. all of a sudden he was gone, those trails of blue light following behind him. he stopped behind you, staff across your throat. his head rested at your right shoulder and you could hear his light breathing in your ear.

“okay fine. you win.” you stated, but before he let you go you grabbed hold of the stick and bent forward, flipping him over your head. he landed on the mat hard and you dropped on top of him, straddling his chest. you placed the staff across his throat and held it there with a sly smirk on your face.

“what? didn’t see that coming?” you questioned.

“impressive.” he said as you stood up and grabbed his arm, pulling him up with you.

you unwrapped the protective bandages from your hands and threw on a zip up hoodie over the sports bra you were wearing.

“want to order pizza?” pietro asked.

“no.” you replied.

“oh come on! it’ll be fun.” he said, leaning against the dummy.

“nope.”

“please.” he begged.

you glared up at him while tying your shoes. “fine.”

#pietro maximoff x reader #pietro maximoff imagine #pietro maximoff #pietro x reader #quicksilver x reader #quicksilver imagine #quicksilver #aaron taylor johnson #marvel cinematic universe #marvel imagine

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imagine-lcorp · 3 years

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Make You Feel My Love (One Shot)

MarvelsDC22 1K CELEBRATION!!!

Prompt

Person A falls through thin ice into sub zero water; person B rescues them and tries different remedies to prevent hypothermia.

A/N: Hello my dears!!! long time no see, but here I am once again and this time with a little piece celebrating my little rascal @marvelsdc22 since she reached the wonderful follower count of 1K!!!!!! She’s awesome, amazing and so so great, so go follow!!! and please enjoy this little piece I wrote for her writing challenge (hope you enjoy it too lil rascal). So here it is, thank you all for your patience and let me know what you think! love y’all!!!

Lena Luthor x R//Word Count: 3, 515

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When you invited Lena to your little cabin in the woods, the last thing you expected was for her to actually accept the invitation.

Not that you didn't want her to come but, after you uttered such invitation, you had realized just how awkward and creepy it sounded. You had been quick to explain your little cabin was in fact located within a little compound, around a small lake other little cabins shared.

"I would love to." She had said after listening to your little rambling, with a little smile forming in her face as you tried not to blush too hard.

Now there you were, trying to open the now stuck wooden door of the shack.

It was an early morning during the late winter when you made the trip but it was colder than you had expected it to be. There had been a couple of snowstorms a few days back and everything around was covered in snow. Fortunately, the roads had been cleared of snow and you had no trouble reaching your place, but the cabin had also been covered by snow and icicles. The door was stuck by it all and you kept pushing with your shoulder, and hoping the inside of your cabin wasn't a complete mess inside.

"Need some help?" Lena's voice startled you for a moment.

You turned around, watching as she approached you with your bags in hand. You had told her you would go to help her with them as soon as you opened the door but it seemed you were taking a bit more than expected.

"It's alright." You struggled for a moment, feeling your shoulder ache as you tried pushing the door once more.

With that and a little grunt, the door opened and you smiled triumphantly as you looked back at Lena.

"Uh, welcome to my crib?" You shrugged and Lena chuckled.

"Thank you." She handed you your bags.

You took a quick look around, noticing the little dust particles dancing with the rays of sunlight.

"Sorry if it is a bit dusty inside. It's been a while since the last time I came."

"When was the last time?" She stepped in and observed the place were you were supposed to spend five days together.

There was a big sofa, with a couple of cushions and colorful blankets, placed in front of a little fireplace. A big Persian rug adorned the floor between them and the walls around had paintings hanging from them. She followed as you walked inside and placed your bags in the floor except for the big one.

"Almost a year." You said walking through a short hallway Lena noticed lead to the kitchen. She left her bags along with yours and followed you.

You opened the big bag and started to fill the couple of pantries with the groceries you had bought for the trip. Cans of food, bags of snacks, bottles of water, and some more.

"A year? Doesn't look like it." She went to your side and started to take a couple of items of her own, helping you put them in their place.

"Well, I lend it to my friends from time to time or rent it for the holidays."

"So, you let a lot of people in here?" Lena questioned with a raised brow. "Strangers?"

"Sometimes." You thought for a moment before leaving a couple of snacks back in the bag. Only then you realized you missed a safety protocol.

For the past couple of years, since you have known each other, you had known Lena to be very cautious about the places she frequented. She wanted to make sure no one around was in danger, including herself, and that everywhere she went had at least an emergency exit in case she needed one. She always worried about people.

Your cabin, however, was surrounded by miles and miles of woods, had a lake in the yard, and the neighbor next door was at least ten minutes away from you. There was no emergency exit and practically no one around to help you if you turned into someone's target. You were living in a place for terror movies, of course she was worried you let strangers inside.

"Uh, I should check if everything is okay."

"We can go check after we're done with this." Your heard Lena chuckle again. "Don't worry, (Y/N)."

"You sure? I mean, I could make a quick scan or-"

"(Y/N), really, I'm sure there are no hidden dangers here. I was a bit surprised you would let other people stay here."

"Oh, okay." You said taking the last couple of food cans and opening one of the pantries. "It's just that, if there's someone else here, I can keep the cabin in good shape."

"Instead of leaving it abandoned, you get some money from it, right?" Lena smiled. "Who would have thought you were an entrepreneur of your own."

"Well, I may have picked a few things from you." You finished putting everything in place and closed the pantries. "But I think I still should check around, make sure everything is in place, and then we could light the fireplace. How does that sound?"

"Fine by me." Lena nodded. "But we should light the fireplace first, I can't feel my fingers." She raised her hands, showing you how her fingertips were slowly turning purple.

You made a horrified face and quickly went to grab some matches. Thankfully, the last visitors you had were kind enough to restock your little woodpile and leave some fuel. In a matter of minutes, the living room was filled with the comforting warmth of the fire and you and Lena sat for a moment in the sofa getting used to it.

You talked for a moment, mostly you, about the things you could try while you were there, which were essentially hiking, chopping wood for the fire, leaning how to cook with little food, and spend your days close to the fire.

"I know there isn't much to do, but that's the idea. Peace and quiet for a few days." You said pulling your head back to rest it on the sofa.

"It may not be much but that's all I need. I was starting to feel suffocated with all that was happening." Lena looked sad for a moment before leaning and taking your hand in hers. "Thank you again for inviting me."

You tried not to blush at the contact, remind yourself you and Lena were friends, close friends now, that were in the middle of the woods, sharing a little cottage for a week. Just the two of you. Alone. Nothing extraordinary. Something friends did all the time.

"Yeah, anytime." You said smiling and even when Lena noticed the redness in your cheeks, knowing perfectly it wasn't because of the cold, she smiled too. "Should we check the house now?"

"Sure." She said and you both stood from your seats.

First you searched the living room, where nothing seemed out of the ordinary. You even remembered it being exactly that way since the last time you had been there. You moved then into the kitchen, although you had already filled the pantries with food and snacks, there wasn't much to look into. Next, there were a couple of rooms, placed behind the living room and the kitchen and separated by the hallway. There was a bed in each one and Lena was a bit disappointed when you told her you would have your own rooms.

"No need to share a bed." You laughed a bit awkwardly and moved to check under one of the beds.

"Alright." She replied with a small sigh that you could hear.

You would have wanted to ask what that sigh meant but thought best of it. "All clear."

"Good."

You stood and walked to the door. "Alright, so, uh, this is your room and I don't know, I still haven't showed you the lake so maybe we could go for a while after we unpack."

"Okay, I like how that sounds." Lena said meeting you at the door. She was a bit closer to you than you would have expected and you felt your heart skip a beat. "Let's go for our bags."

"Right." You moved to the side and walked with Lena to the main door, unaware of the grin that had formed in her face. You took your bags and headed back to your rooms.

An hour later, you were out of the cabin, walking through the dirt road that lead to the shore of the lake. You had to kick your way through the snow that had accumulated around but you managed. The lake itself was frozen, the blue and white of the surface contrasting with the clear blue sky and the dark brown trees. The light reflected on it, making everything around brighter. It reminded you a bit of Lena's smile.

"It looks beautiful." She said stopping near the shore.

"It is." You said while looking at her.

"I get why you like this place." She turned to look at you and you couldn't help but smile.

"It's a little piece of paradise." You said stepping near her. "And I gotta show you a little thing."

You started to walk past the shore of the lake into it frozen surface, waking a couple of yards away.

"(Y/N), what are doing?" She said worriedly.

"It's alright, the lake stays frozen until spring so I can show you a little something."

You bent down to clear some of the snow on the surface and smiled when you got a glimpse of the fishes that could still swim in the cold water. Every time you stayed in the cabin you tried to fish under the ice out of curiosity and stubbornness. Many locals tried it too and although you had never caught anything, it was fun to try anyways. Maybe this time, with Lena's help, you could actually catch something. So you had, in fact, another thing you could do during your little vacation.

"Show me what?" Lena raised her voice. She was still standing along the shore of the lake, unsure if it was safe to follow.

You were about to answer when you heard a loud crack under your feet and Lena watched with horror as multiple fissures made their way on the surface of the lake where you stood. It seemed you had miscalculated the resistance of the ice you were standing and now you were in trouble.

Just like the lake, you froze in place, trying to keep yourself calm. If you could move slowly and steady enough towards the shore, this would be nothing more than a little scare.

"(Y/N)." You could hear the worry and fear in Lena's voice as she approached the lake.

"I'm fine." You raised your hands, trying to keep them out of your body for some balance, and looked at Lena with a little smile, reassuring her as much as possible. "The ice is a little soft here so I'm gonna move to the shore."

You took a short step forward but instantly regretted it as the cracks expanded along the ice. You felt the panic raise in your chest.

"(Y/N), please don't move." Lena said looking equally scared. "I'm gonna get you out, okay? Don't move."

"I won't." You swallowed hard, taking a couple of deep breaths, filling the cold air with a warm mist.

Time seemed to stop for a moment as you tried to calm yourself and watched as Lena approached the edge of the lake. She was going walking towards you and you feared this would only worsen your situation but not just for you but for Lena too. If the ice could hold her weight then you had a chance to reach her and get out of the lake without further problem. However, if the ice kept cracking it would put the two of you in danger and falling into freezing waters was not something you wanted to happen on your first day of vacation.

Lena took the first step into the lake, slow and steady, testing the ice under her feet. She was looking down, making sure she wasn't stepping on some other cracks, and raised her eyes towards you from time to time to make sure you were still in place. She was a couple of steps away from you when you both heard a loud cracking.

There was a look in her face you had seen a couple of times before but never directed towards you, a mix of fear and worry that let you know you were in trouble. You felt the ice move, so subtle at first but then like a tremor under your feet, and you were about to jump to the other side when you were sucked into the frozen lake.

First you felt the pain, as if thousands and thousands of shards of glass were being thrown at your body in a second. Then you tried to take a deep breath, which only made everything worst. You tried to move your arms and legs, to swim out of there but you couldn't. You had no control over your body and after the initial pain you started to feel numb. You couldn't breathe, you couldn't move. The only thing you felt was cold.

Suddenly, as you still fought for air, you felt even colder, with the winter breeze hitting your already frozen face. You coughed the water in your mouth and tried opening your eyes. Beside you, a tall greenish figure was dragging and pulling you from towards the edge of the lake, grabbing you by the back of your winter jacket. Only when you reached land the figure moved you, placing you flat on the dirt and putting her hands under you. They carried you all the way back to your cabin and, even when you couldn't think, you wondered where Lena had gone and if she was okay.

"I'm fine, (Y/N), I'm here." You heard the green person say and you wondered why they sounded so much like Lena.

You still couldn't move, or feel, when Lena reached your cabin door. She knew you were barely aware of what was happening as she carried you inside and placed you on the rug. Using the weaponry in her Lexosuit, she reignited the dying fire of your fireplace and found herself in a little moment of panic as she watched you lay there, trembling and hugging yourself.

Of all the things she imagined could happen, Lena never thought that you falling into freezing cold water was one of them. She had to think quick and fast before the symptoms of hypothermia started to take a hold on you. Leaving to get some help was no option, even using her suit to take you to a hospital would take considerable time you didn't have. So she did the only few things she knew could help you.

She took off her Lexosuit, something easy as she had modified it with nanotechnology to appear and disappear as quick as possible, like she had done with Kara's suit to use in case of emergency, and ran to your rooms to get all the blankets she could. She even found a towel for you head and took it with her. She put them in front of the fire to warm them while she moved you once again to take your own clothes off. You were soaked and hadn't stopped trembling.

"I'm sorry, (Y/N), I have to take this off."

She removed every piece carefully off your stiff body, your jacket, your sweater, your shirt, your boots, your socks, your pants, leaving you in nothing but your underwear, and tried not to get distracted by your sudden bareness. This was not the way she had expected to see you like this the first time. She put your clothes aside and put the towel around your hair to help it dry.

You still hadn't opened your eyes by the time she had finished, and were a bit unsure of what was happening, but you didn't complain since you started to feel a bit of warm. Your brain seemed to get back to working as you realized Lena had placed some blankets over you.

"Y-you hav-ve a s-supers-suit." You said through clattering teeth.

Lena, who feared you might be losing consciousness, let out a relieved breath.

"I have." She started to take her clothes off too and kept talking to keep you awake. "What do you think?"

"I-it's c-cool." You replied.

"Thank you." Lena finished putting aside her last piece of clothing and moved down towards you.

You could feel the blankets being lifted and a sudden mass of warmth pulling itself closer to you. You tried opening your eyes and in a second you could feel your own temperature rise like a boiling kettle. Lena's face was a couple of inches away from you, the mass of warmth you had felt was her own body, her own semi-naked body.

"L-Lena?" You said and this time you were sure the trembling in your voice was not due to the cold this time. "W-what are y-you d-doing?"

"Sorry but we have to keep you warm, alright?" She moved her arms, wrapping herself around you. "We need to stay like this for a little while."

"Just a l-little?" The words left your mouth before you could think better.

"As long as it takes." Lena said with a serious tone. "I'm not leaving you, (Y/N), so we better get comfy."

"I already a-am." You replied.

"Good. Now, you need to stay awake."

"A-awake, yeah." You nodded, closing your and feeling Lena's nose rubbing gently against yours. You were incredibly close to each other.

"I'm serious, (Y/N). Don't fall asleep."

"I'm not." You assured her.

Watching as you couldn't keep your eyes open for too long, Lena decided it was best to at least keep you talking.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

"Cold." You said still shivering.

"Can you feel your toes and fingers?"

You tried moving them. "A b-bit, I think."

"Good. Can you feel this?" You felt Lena as she moved her arms so she could held your hands within hers.

The contrast between you two was abysmal, you felt like a block of ice against a heater. She radiated such warmth and you were grateful you were there with the smartest and kindest woman in the planet or you would have been swimming with the fish.

"Yeah, I can feel it." You said and noticed some of your tremors had stopped.

"Okay, can you feel this?" Lena moved her legs this time, covering yours.

"That too." You felt the chills at that.

"Okay, we're making progress."

"Sorry." You opened your eyes with a pained expression in them. "You shouldn't be worrying about me."

Lena was a bit taken aback by your declaration but reassured you as best as she could. "There's nothing to be sorry for, and as for worrying about you, well, I'll do it gladly every time."

"Every time?" It was your turn to be surprised by her response.

"Yes." She said looking into your eyes. "You may not have noticed but I do worry about you, (Y/N), a lot. Maybe more than I should."

"You do?" You didn't know if your brain had suffered some damage but this conversation was taking an unexpected turn. A great and wonderful unexpected turn you had never imagined was possible for you.

Lena wasn't sure either about where the conversation was going, for someone used to getting things on her own way, she was finding it difficult to express what she wanted you to know. She had accepted your invitation thinking, that if you could spend some time alone together, you would realize how much into you she was. Now, there you were, almost naked under all the blankets she had found in your cabin and trying to get you out of your hypothermia, and you still didn't realize how caring and protective she was towards you.

If that was the case, she had to make a more direct demonstration.

"Yes, (Y/N), I do." She moved one of your hands against her chest, placing your palm where you could feel the beating of her heart. "Can't you feel it?"

Your own heart skipped a bit as you felt her pulse in your hand and your whole body seemed to shiver and not because of the cold. You felt you heart burst with warmth and, as you looked at Lena, you could tell she felt it too. No fire could compare to what you were experiencing and you thought to yourself that, maybe, falling into sub-zero water wasn't so bad at all.

"Yeah, I can." You finally said with a little smile.

#lena luthor imagine #lena luthor imagines #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor x you #lena x reader #lena x you #make you feel my love #one shot #writing prompt #marvelsdc22 1k celebration #marvelsdc22

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justmypartner · 3 years

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Safe - 8x14 Speculation Fic

Writer’s Note: The idea for this came from the 8x14 synopsis, and while it technically still is a speculation fic, I don’t imagine the episode happening exactly like this. However, I did use what I’ve seen from bts photos and videos, as well as things Tracy has said in interviews to develop some of the scenes/details. This is probably my favorite piece that I’ve written in a while, so I hope you enjoy & thank you for reading!

Hailey rustled through her closet looking for her black wedged boots, trying her best to hurry as she knew Jay was waiting for her in the kitchen. She wasn’t much of a boot with a heel kind of girl, but she and Jay had special plans and she wanted to look nicer than usual. While they had been together for months, that night was the first time they were going on a proper date. They each decided at the beginning of their relationship that with both of their histories, they wanted to keep things simple and to themselves, which meant a lot of take-out and a lot of nights alone in their apartments. However, after Hailey mentioned something in passing about their clandestine time together starting to feel restrictive, Jay made plans at a fancy restaurant where he knew they wouldn’t run into any of their fellow team members.

“I don’t mean to rush you, but our reservation is in 45 minutes and it will take us about 30 to get there,” Jay said softly, peeking his head around the door frame.

“I know, I know. I’m trying to- finally!” she shouted upon finding the boots in the corner of her closet. She brought a knee into her chest as she pulled a boot onto her foot before switching to the other leg and doing the same.

“Okay, I just need to get my phone and wallet and then I’ll be-“ her words were cut short as she caught sight of him for the first time that evening. He was wearing a dress shirt with a light jacket, and his dark jeans curled over the top of a pair of black dress boots. It was much different from his typical, rugged workwear, but she took note of how well the look suited him.

“Wow you clean up nice, Halstead,” she told him with a dimpled smile as he blushed, extending a hand down to help her rise from the floor. Once she was standing, the small space between them closed quickly as she wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing her lips to his briefly. While the heels added extra height, she still needed to raise on her tiptoes to meet his mouth.

“Not too bad yourself, Detective,” he uttered as her lips pulled away. His hands grasped her waist, holding her steady as she remained on her toes. They stayed pressed against one another for a moment looking into each other’s eyes, and just when he was about to go in for another kiss, she fell on her heels and pressed the tips of her fingers against his chest.

“Normally, I would indulge in this further, but we’re going to miss our reservation and I’m starving,” she teased, moving past him to retrieve her phone, keys, and wallet, along with her jacket slung over the back of the couch.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Hailey was charmed by how nice it was. It was far different from the usual dive bars and pubs they went to after work, and part of her even felt like it was too nice for them to be at.

“Halstead, party of 2,” he told the hostess, holding up 2 fingers with the hand that wasn’t intertwined with Hailey’s.

A stifled smile came across her face and she nodded her head towards the floor as they waited for someone to guide them to their table. It seemed surreal to be standing in the middle of a fancy restaurant with him, holding his hand and waiting to be seated for a romantic dinner. She couldn’t tell if it was because of how long she secretly pined over him or if it was because being with Jay felt like her first real love story, but there were many moments when being with him felt like some fantasy, and that moment was one of them. At one point in time, being with him was something she only dreamt about. It was a thought that crossed her mind when his gaze lingered a little longer than it should or when an accidental touch sent her heart racing. Before they took that leap, she worried being with him would mean giving up being his partner. It was that fear that made her keep her feelings bottled up for so long, but as they proved time and time again, as partners, as lovers, and as both - they were good together. She turned her head and placed a light kiss on his shoulder. It was a tangible reminder that he was hers to kiss, but it also grounded her in that moment that felt like just another dream.

The dinner itself was incredible. Hailey officially added the restaurant to her list of favorite food spots in Chicago, and they spent the entire meal giggling and sharing stories they had never shared before. By the end of it, Jay was stuffed, but Hailey insisted they order a dessert, her sweet tooth getting the best of her. Jay teased her for ordering the lava cake, the most indulgent option on the menu, but she was able to tease him right back when he asked the waiter for a second spoon when it was brought to the table.

Just as Jay was about to pay the check, his phone began to ring, Voight’s name popping up across the screen as he pulled out his wallet.

“Uh oh,” Hailey said as he picked it up to answer. Jay spoke with their boss briefly, mainly nodding his head and muttering brief affirmations every few seconds.

“I think she’s out tonight, but I can call her and swing by to pick her up wherever she is,” Jay said, shooting Hailey a wide-eyed look as he quickly came up with an excuse as to why they’d be riding in together all dressed up.

“Alright hot stuff, as much as I’d like to keep this night going, it seems we caught a case,” he told her, as he stood from his chair. He took out his wallet, counting out enough money to cover the check and tip before resting the bills under his glass on the table.

“At least we made it through dessert,” she said, sending him a childlike smile.

“Oh, that was dessert? I had something else in mind for that,” he replied smugly, Hailey’s face turning bright red at his suggestive words.

“Oh really?” She questioned, taking a step towards him to close the gap between them. “You’d better clean up that mind before we get to the scene,” she whispered with a chuckle, twirling around swiftly and making her way towards the door as he shook his head at her tease. His hand found the small of her back as they made their way out the door, and he placed a kiss against her temple, knowing it would probably be the last display of affection he could show before they had to enter partner mode.

When they arrived at the house, Kevin and Voight were outside talking to a few patrol officers. Hailey’s mood had changed drastically upon arriving at the scene. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt uneasy as she jumped out of the truck and secured her badge and gun to her hip.

As they approached, Kevin pursed his lips together and let out a two-tone whistle as he caught sight of Hailey.

“Damn girl, sorry to pull you away from whatever had you all cleaned up,” he told her, cocking his head to the side as she shook her head at him with a smirk. Her eyes caught sight of Voight’s as they darted between her and Jay and she became nervous, imagining that he was putting two and two together. She decided to change the subject quickly before any further comments could ensue.

“Oh, shut up,” she told him. “What do we got?” She asked, spinning her head around the scene and taking in the myriad of patrol cars.

“I think it’s something you have to unfortunately see for yourself. I do have to say, you might want to brace yourself for this one,” he said, turning to lead them inside. Jay and Hailey met eyes, sharing a look of concern before turning and following Kevin and Voight inside.

Walking through the front door, they collectively grimaced at the overwhelming smell of blood that tinged their noses. They hesitantly made their way deeper into the house and Hailey’s heart dropped when she caught sight of a family of four, a couple and their two kids, all tied up and shot dead on the living room floor. That uneasy feeling from before suddenly made sense. She clenched her jaw, groaning at the sight as she looked away, recognizing the same unsettled look in the face of each of her fellow officers.

“What the hell happened here?” Jay asked, looking over at Kevin for the answer.

“This is the second home invasion robbery in this neighborhood this week. Robbery-homicide has been working these guys since the first one, but so far they’ve come up with no leads. Whoever these guys are, they’re professionals. It’s a two-man crew, they come in through the back, dressed head to toe in dark attire, get what they need, kill the family, and get out. They’re in and out in less than 10 minutes and they’ve got a getaway driver who knows how to avoid traffic cameras. Robbery-homicide tells me these guys killed a family of three earlier this week, and that the dad had bruises on his body in addition to the gunshot wound that killed him. Now, what’s interesting is in this case, the mom is the one with these bruises. These families were definitely targeted, we’re just not sure how or why,” he explained causing them each to frown.

While Kevin explained the case, Hailey fell silent as the details brought her back to a string of cases she had worked during her time in robbery-homicide. She spent weeks chasing after a crew targeting families who had shopped at a high-end jewelry store, only that connection was missed for the first half of the investigation. By the time she and her team had finally caught on to why the families were being targeted, four families had already been killed, five kids below the age of ten among the victims. Hailey beat herself up for months knowing if they had caught onto the pattern sooner, they could have saved more of the families - more of the kids. This case sounded eerily similar, and she was bound to not let history repeat itself.

“How’d we catch this if robbery-homicide was on it?” Jay asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as his gaze intentionally avoided the gruesome scene before them.

“Miller assigned it to us. She wanted a fresh pair of eyes. She’s getting a lot of heat from the press about there being no leads, especially since this is a high-end neighborhood. Plus, these guys have already killed three tender-aged kids. I want the animals on a stick,” Voight replied straightly.

“Do we know what they’re after?” Hailey asked, her brain already working to establish a connection.

“No, and that’s what’s given our robbery-homicide guys so much trouble. The only connection is that both families have had pretty high-tech safes somewhere in the house. Last house it was in a bedroom closet, but this one was in the basement. It seems like these guys make their way in, beat the location and combo of the safe out of one of the parents, get what they need, and off the entire family before hauling ass out,” Kevin told them.

“Well, I’ve worked cases like this one before. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to figure out what it was they wanted and how they knew about it. We’re on a time crunch now, because it’s only a matter of time before these guys strike again,” she said, turning and leaving the house without waiting for any of their responses.

After leaving the scene, they all made their way back to the district to go over the files robbery-homicide had sent over. They browsed over the files for a couple of hours before Voight sent them home, needing them to rest up and refresh before they dove completely into the case the next day. The familiarity of the case was itching at Hailey, but as much as she wanted to see something that everyone else was missing, she came up short in every place she looked.

The next morning, she and Jay got coffee together. She had been quiet since they caught the case. Jay picked up on her shift in mood that occurred from the restaurant to the scene, but he left it alone to give her the space she seemed to need. He eventually built up the nerve to ask what was wrong. She told him about her old case and how much it meant to catch the guys and quickly. He agreed, admitting to her how much seeing those dead kids struck a nerve. He reassured her they would catch them one way or another. As they walked out of the coffee shop, a call came over the radio:

Units over the city-wide, we got calls of a home invasion. 1433 N State Street

“Gold Coast, that’s the same neighborhood as the other home invasions, you think that’s our guys?” Jay asked looking over at Hailey as he held the radio up.

“Could be, let’s roll on it,” she told him, rushing towards his truck as he followed, telling dispatch they were taking the call.

They rolled up to the scene, carefully clearing the house together, but they arrived too late, and the offenders were gone. They found the couple who lived there in the same position as the last two families, only they still had a pulse. Hailey tried asking them what the offenders were after, but all she got were incoherent mutterings from each victim. They both died before ambulances could arrive, but just the same as the other cases, only the husband had signs of bruising in addition to the gunshot wound, and a safe was found in the back of a linen closet. While crime techs combed the house, Hailey made her way out to the back garden, finding a hose to rinse the victim’s blood from her hands. Her hands were shaking so much, she couldn’t quite scrub enough to get them clean. Jay caught sight of her through the window and wade his way out to her, grabbing her hands in his to steady them. She looked up at him as he nodded his head, taking the hose and helping her scrub her hands clean. Once they were clear, he held her hands in his for a minute longer, quickly releasing them when someone cleared their throat behind them. When they turned around Voight was standing there, his hands deep in his pockets, eyeing the two of them as they took a step back from one another. If he didn’t know about them before, he definitely did then.

“You get anything new on these guys?” He asked, a knowing look plastered across his face.

“No, Sarge. They were gone by the time we pulled up,” Jay told him, dropping the hose to the ground.

“Well, get back to it. We’ve wasted enough time as it is, we’ve got to catch these guys,” he said bluntly, turning and making his way back into the house. The two of them stayed there frozen, shaking their heads at how careless they had been to let him walk up on them like that.

Back at the district, they scrubbed the lives of all of the victims, still coming up with no connection between any of them. Nighttime arrived once again with no leads and no suspects, so they decided to call it and head home. That night, Hailey laid awake, tossing and turning for hours. She tried every method she knew to fight off the insomnia that had kept her restless, but nothing was able to lull her into a slumber. It was the case that was keeping her up, and her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling while a million theories circulated through her mind. Something about it just didn’t make sense, and she couldn’t shake the idea that they had been missing an obvious connection. The faces of the couple she tried to save earlier that day remained at the forefront of her mind, and after a while of fighting off the urge to get out of bed and chase that gut feeling, she finally slipped out from the grasp of Jay’s limp arm, carefully retreating from the bed as to not wake him. She made her way over to her closet, pulling on a pair of jeans and slipping a sweatshirt over her head before grabbing her badge and gun from the nightstand and sliding her phone into her back pocket. She made her way to her office, retrieving a sticky note and pen to write Jay a message letting him know where she was going.

Couldn’t sleep. Gone back to the district, needed to go over the case again. ♡

She tiptoed back into the bedroom and placed the note on her pillow where she knew he’d see if he happened to wake up. She grabbed her coat and opened the front door, slowly guiding it closed on her way out, still trying her best to be as quiet as possible. She wasn’t sure what she would be looking for when she arrived at the district, but she had hoped that studying it alone and in the quietness of the empty bullpen would provide her with a new perspective. She made herself a cup of coffee before walking over to her desk and opening up every file they had on the case. She paced the floor of the empty space, flipping through files and studying photos until she was sure there was nothing to see. Finally, she hoisted herself onto the top of her desk, pulling her knees into her chest and eyeing the board for something they may have been missing. Suddenly, she heard the beeping of the keypad and the clanging of the door opening and closing downstairs. She checked her phone to see the time. It was 4 am, and she couldn’t imagine who else would be up that early. She did a double-take as Jay made his way around the corner, a look of exhaustion on his face as he sent her a lazy smile.

“What are you doing here?” She asked him, unclasping her hands from around her knees and pulling herself to the edge of the desk.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said with a smirk, pulling his jacket from his shoulders and resting it on the back of her desk chair.

“I couldn’t sleep. Something about this case was keeping me up, so I figured instead of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours I would try and make myself useful. You didn’t have to come check on me. I’m fine,” she told him, the corners of her lips curling up into a reassuring smile as he came to stand over her.

“I couldn’t go back to sleep once I realized you were gone,” he told her softly with a slight pout before turning to lean on the desk beside her. “So, what have you figured out?” He asked, his attention turning to the board before them. She sighed, crossing her arms and staring at the crime scene photos as he waited for her response.

“I don’t know. I mean these families have no connections. The kids all go to different schools, they all work at completely different places, they don’t even shop at the same stores, I can’t seem to figure out where their lives intersect, so I just don’t understand why they’re being targeted,” she ran down, looking over at Jay whose eyes surveyed the information on the board.

“Maybe it’s about more than just the robbery. I mean they’re taking time to kill every member of the family, including the kids. Unless these guys are just straight-up psychopaths, it sounds like whatever is going on could be personal,” Jay suggested, looking over at his partner whose eyes were transfixed on one particular photo on the case board. His words sparked something in her, and she caught sight of the words Resurgence Tech written in bold font on a magnet on the refrigerator from the second crime scene. She knew the name was familiar, but she couldn’t remember how.

She pulled out the files from each of the cases and found what she was looking for. An email address registered in the husband’s name from the first robbery ending in resurgencetech.co. Looking at the other files, she was able to establish a connection between all of them leading back to a company previously known as Resurgence Tech. As she and Jay investigated through the night, they were able to figure out what was being stolen and why it was worth killing over. Resurgence Tech was a company co-founded by four individuals, Ryan Ethers, victim of the first robbery, Scarlett Jameson, victim of the second, Max Lin, victim from the third, and Lianne Meadows, who lived in a house in the Gold Coast District close to the previous victims. Five years prior, Resurgence Tech created a breakthrough idea for a high-tech medical device that had the potential to significantly change the practice of medicine. However, after hours of gathering information and records, the two detectives found out that the design was actually stolen from two brothers who had developed the original idea for a project they were working on in college. Resurgence used their power and influence to discredit the claims of the brothers, blacklisting them from the entire industry, and eventually pulling the design before it could ever meet the market. Not long after, Resurgence shut down for good, liquidating its assets and washing its hands of its shady actions for good. Digging deeper into the four co-founders of Resurgence and knowing more about where to look, Hailey and Jay were able to find email exchanges between them all discussing what to do with the patent plans for the stolen design in case there ever came a time to reintroduce the tech to the market. The strategy was to split the plans between the four of them, each keeping a piece locked up on a thumb drive hidden in a safe.

As soon as the sun rose that morning, Hailey called Voight and the rest of the team to come in. She explained the connection and identified the brothers as suspects, describing how the robberies must have been to obtain the thumb drives and get vengeance for the way Resurgence screwed them over. The situation had a significant impact on the brothers’ lives, leading them to turn to a life of crime, describing how they got connected with an armed robbery crew, and began pulling jobs across the city before getting caught only a year after Resurgence blacklisted them from the tech industry. They were released early due to overcrowding and good behavior, so they got out, hacked into the emails of the individuals that ruined their lives, and found out the design was out there, still viable to be profited from. Running on anger and revenge and using the skills they developed in their time with the robbery crew, they sought to take back what was theirs. They were operating under the theory that the two brothers were committing the crimes, and a guy that used to run with them in their old robbery crew was taking on the role as the getaway driver.

“Well, let’s go scoop ‘em up,” Voight said upon hearing the rundown of the case.

“Sarge, as much as I want to bring these guys in, we don’t have any evidence on them. There’s been no DNA, no prints, no witnesses tying these guys to these cases. There’s no way they’re going to talk, and if we bring them in, they’re just going to get released even if we keep them for the full 48 hours. By then they’ll have already made plans to run,” Jay said.

“These guys have killed nine people, three of those people being little kids. If we don’t act now, they’re going to strike again and that’s going to be blood on our hands. We bring them in, and we make them talk. I don’t care if we have to threaten them, or if we get ‘em to flip on each other. Either way, we’re not just going to sit around and wait for something to happen on this one. Not when we’ve got a pile of bodies growing the longer we sit here with our thumbs up our asses. So, Hailey, Jay, I want you two going to pick these guys up,” Voight bit back, a distinct annoyance in his voice. He had been on edge throughout the entirety of the case, but his temper seemed to have only increased after walking up on Jay and Hailey at the scene a day prior.

As much as Hailey wanted to side with Voight, she knew Jay was right. Bringing them in with no evidence and no witnesses placing them at any of the scenes would only guarantee them getting to walk, something she was determined to not let happen.

“Sarge, we can’t,” she muttered, swallowing what felt like a rock in her throat as his face fell with bitter surprise.

“What?” He challenged, his head dropping down as he cut his eyes at her.

“Jay is right. We can’t just jump on these guys with no evidence or else we risk losing them for good. I know you want to get these guys quick, but there’s got to be a better play,” she replied, taking note of the uncomfortable looks expressed by the other Intelligence members who quietly observed the interaction from the other side of the room. She watched as he pulled the inside of his cheek between his teeth.

“Remind me, who’s the sergeant of this unit?” The question carried a great deal of weight, and everyone in the room fell silent as his eyes travelled between each of the five intelligence members. “You don’t have to agree with what I say, but there’s a chain of command here and I expect you to listen to me. Now, unless there’s another sergeant in this unit I’m unaware of, I’m in charge. So, I’m only going to say this one last time. Jay, Hailey, go pick these guys up. I have to go update Miller on what’s going on. Those guys better be sitting in interrogation when I get back. End of,” he roared, making his way past the officers who remained frozen in place.

While Adam, Kevin, and Kim went back to work, Hailey grabbed her jacket, heading down the hallway out to the parking lot to follow the sergeant’s orders.

“Hailey, wait,” Jay called after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the observation room where he knew the others wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“What?” She questioned, a look of concern on her face as he silently thought through his words.

“I think I have another play,” he told her.

“Jay, he seemed- “she began before he cut her off.

“No, I know, but you know I’m right. We bring these guys in now and these families will never get the justice they deserve. We know there’s only one family left on their list, Lianne Meadows. The only move we have left is to catch these guys in the act. I say we sit on her house and wait for the robbery to go down, snatch them up, and then we have the guns tying them to the other cases and we have leverage to get them to flip if we need to,” Jay told her, the look in his eyes pleading with her to agree.

She knew Jay was right, but she also knew what going against Voight’s orders would mean. By that point, it was safe to assume he knew about their relationship. She knew that alone would be cause for him to assign them to different partners or even to different units. Teaming up and going against him would only increase the chances of him pulling the trigger on that. From the start of the case, she knew she wanted to catch the guys no matter what, but she never imagined it would involve making a decision that could possibly jeopardize her partnership with Jay. Every part of her knew his way was the only option that gave them a chance of making things right, yet she knew there would be a cost to them both going against Voight’s orders.

“You’re right… but let me do it alone,” she told him, causing him to frown at her words.

“What? No, I can’t let you go after these guys by yourself,” he argued, a combination of concern and annoyance in his voice.

“Jay, if we do this together it’s only going to give him reason to split us up. I have a feeling we’re already on his hit list after everything that has happened these past few days, and if he sees that we’re siding with each other… going rogue against his orders? He could reassign us partners, or worse, ship one of us off again. You, this partnership, our relationship, it all means too much to me to risk. If I go alone, only I take the fall, and he doesn’t have reason to use our relationship against us,” Hailey told him, moving a hand to his chest as she spoke.

Pushing him away and crossing that line by herself was the only way she knew how to protect both their relationship and their partnership. With her history of crossing lines, she had hoped it would just seem like another questionable decision she made all on her own, and he wouldn’t have reason to punish both of them by splitting them up.

“Hailey, I’m not just letting you go there without backup,” he finally said, his jaw set tightly as he peered into her eyes.

“I’ll have Trudy assign some patrol guys for backup. That way you and the others don’t take fall back from Voight, but I won’t be going in alone,” she replied, moving the hand from his chest to cup his face. “I’ll be fine,” she told him.

He nodded hesitantly before sliding his fingers down her arm and wrapping his hand around hers.

“Be careful,” he insisted, squeezing her hand lightly.

“Of course,” she nodded back before opening the door and disappearing down the hall.

She sat out front of the house, the patrol officers waiting a street over for her signal. It had been about an hour and she had already dodged two calls from Voight. Her patience was running thin with every minute that passed without a sign of the crew. Then, she spotted a dark van creeping down the street and she slumped down in her seat, trying to avoid being seen. As the van approached the house, two men rolled out of the back door as the van maintained a low speed before stopping down at the end of the street. The second the men made it around the back of the house, Hailey radioed the patrol guys, climbing out of her car and drawing her weapon as she followed the offenders around the back. When the patrol guys caught up, she nodded to one of them, signaling them to open the back door and enter the home. The second they made it through the doorway, they were catching fire. Hailey took cover behind a door frame, keying her radio attached to her vest.

“10-1, 10-1, shots fired at the police, 1327 N Dearborn Street. Be advised patrol and plainclothes officers on scene,” she yelled into the radio, securing her free hand back on her gun before motioning the officers to press forward. They made their way into the house, carefully clearing each room as they passed through. When they made it to the front of the house, she caught sight of one of the guys escaping out the front door.

“5021 Henry I’m in foot pursuit of a suspect in an alleyway going west across the street from the original location,” she called out into the radio as she pumped her legs with each step, trying to control her breath as she chased after the suspect. He rounded a corner and she slowed down, holding her gun out to peer around the corner before continuing the pursuit. The next thing she knew, her gun was being kicked out of her hands and she was being thrown against the wall, hitting the side of her head against brick and feeling blood trickle down her face. She brought a knee up into her attacker’s groin, giving her a brief opening to connect an elbow with the side of his head. Falling to the ground, the man grabbed at her ankle, bringing her down with him before grabbing hold of her vest and laying a fist into her jaw. The blow sent her backward, shooting pain into the side of her face. She caught sight of her gun on the ground a few feet away and went to crawl for it, but he grabbed at her leg, drawing her backward toward him as she stretched her fingertips towards the handle. He was stronger than her, and he managed to pull her back enough to regain hold of her vest, winding up to lay another fist into her face. Before he could, she wrapped a leg around his, twirling him over so she was hovering over him. She began laying fist after fist into his masked face until she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, sending her elbow backwards towards the person. It was grabbed instantly, and she wiggled in the grasp before turning around and taking in the familiar green eyes of her partner.

“Hailey, we got him,” he said, holstering his gun and grabbing her by each arm to pull her up from the ground. Kim came from behind him, removing the mask from the offender and rolling him over to place him in cuffs. Meanwhile, Jay wrapped Hailey in his arms, bringing his chin down to her head as they swayed together in an embrace. Her breath was heavy and shaky, and she felt tears pool at the corners of her eyes. She was overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, but his arms wound tightly around her helped steady her breathing.

“It’s okay Hailey, you’re safe. I’ve got you,” he reassured her through a whisper. She took comfort in his words, and despite the pain surging through her head, she buried it deeper into his chest.

Luckily, they had reached the target and her family in time before the offenders could do any harm. Hailey went to Med to get her head checked out. A few stitches and several scans later, she was cleared, making her way back to the district to take whatever repercussions Voight had in store for her. The second she made it up the stairs, everyone’s eyes fell on her and she just flashed them a gentle smile and nod, signaling to them she was okay. Voight came to the doorway of his office, and she didn’t miss a beat heading straight towards him. However, just before she reached the door, his attention shifted over towards Jay at his desk.

“You too, Jay,” was all the sergeant said before turning and moving back into his office. Jay stood, making his way over and closing the door behind him before coming to stand beside Hailey across from the Voight’s desk. He looked over at them silently for a moment, Hailey setting her jaw tightly as she braced for whatever was to come.

“Are we just making a habit out of disobeying me and questioning my orders? Is that what we’re doing now?” He asked them. They remained silent. “Because if that’s what we’re doing and you’ve got a problem with how I run things, there’s the door. You can get out right now,” he told them sternly.

“Sarge, we needed to get those guys. Catching them in the act was the only way. I did what I had to do to make sure those families got justice,” Hailey said, her eyes remaining fixed with his.

“I told you to pick them up, bring them in, and instead you went your own way, putting that family, yourself, and a couple of patrol officers at risk. I could suspend you over this,” he argued, a distinct tension building in his voice.

“Sarge, it was my idea. If anyone deserves punishment, it’s me,” Jay admitted, causing Hailey’s head to swivel his direction, a cross look on her face as the words left his mouth.

“No, that’s not… Look, I went there on my own. I’m the only one to blame here,” Hailey argued causing him to shake his head before them.

“Okay, look. I know there’s something going on between you two, I have known for a while,” the second the words left his mouth, their eyes met briefly, and they both swallowed hard before turning back to him. “I decided to turn a blind eye because you two were able to keep it strictly professional here at work as far as I was concerned. But what happened today, what’s happening right now… this lying to me and covering for each other is not welcome in my unit. This is your warning and it’s the only one you’re going to get. As long as I’m in charge of this unit, you listen to me. You don’t go off-book, you don’t go behind my back because you disagree with what I say, and you certainly don’t let whatever is going on between you two change the way you make decisions. I know you guys are going to have each other’s backs… as partners and as whatever else, but the second that trumps having my back and the team's back, the way it did today, it undermines my authority and puts all of us at risk. If anything happens again like what happened today, you’re both done, and I’ll make sure you never work in the same unit again. Is that clear?” He asked them.

“Understood,” Jay replied.

“Yes, Sarge,” Hailey uttered, her heart rate dropping significantly with relief.

They drove home that night in silence, partly from exhaustion and partly from trying to process everything that had happened in the past 72 hours. Three days ago, they were on their first official date, celebrating their relationship for what felt like the first time, and now they were coming down from what could have easily been the end of their job and their partnership. Even though she hated the way it had to go down, she stood by having Jay’s back and trying to protect their relationship, even if it meant muddying the waters between them and Voight. From the start of the case, she was determined to catch the guys, chasing a small sense of redemption she felt she needed for that case she worked so many years prior. She wasn’t happy about everything that happened, particularly everything that went wrong, but she was able to save a family and get some form of justice for the others, and she stood by that firmly. It wasn’t the first time she had challenged Voight or crossed lines, but it was the first time she was genuinely fearful of the consequences. She was just glad her fears didn’t come to fruition. She looked over at Jay in the driver’s seat, and she remembered the way he told her she was safe after pulling her from the attacker only hours prior. Safe wasn’t something she had felt often in her life, but she certainly felt it when she was with him. She smiled to herself in the dark, satisfied to know that at least for that day, despite everything that happened, their relationship and their partnership were two things she could still consider safe.

#upstead #jay x hailey #hailey x jay #chicago pd #hailey upton #jay halstead #upstead fic

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the-lady-writes-what · 3 years

Text

Cabin Fever, Part One

Yandere Prompt #3: I know they’re uncomfortable, but bare with it for a while. Please?

Requested by no one. I just wanted to write this myself.

Mirio Togata x Fem!Reader x Tamaki Amajiki

I was originally going to do this as a one-shot, but then my imagination got the better of me and it started to get too long. I don’t want to make you read through a mile of text before you get to the NSFW content, so I’ll write a second part featuring that. There’s some saucy stuff at the end with implications of dub con/non con, but the heavier stuff will come in the second part.

More Prompts

Part Two

Your eyelids cracked open. You awoke in the back of a car, arms pinned behind your back. City lights all disappeared in favor of giants made of pine lit by moonlight and a huge scattering of stars. A thick woolen blanket was wrapped around you and an actual pillow was placed under your head. With the way you were positioned, you couldn’t see the driver except for the back of his seat. Despite the warmth of the blanket, your feet were cold. That was likely due to the fact that your kidnapper took off your shoes and left your feet bare.

Shuffling around in the backseat, you tried to squirm. You wanted to move your arms and pull the blanket off you, but you couldn’t. The blanket muffled a dull metal sound. As your senses slowly came back to you, you felt cold metal snapped around your wrists.

Panic set in quickly. You tried to sit up, however you were so wrapped up in the blanket that you couldn’t move. Like a human burrito. It might have been endearing if you weren’t stuck in the back of a car with your wrists handcuffed behind your back. You craned your neck this way and that to make out even the barest of glances at your captor to no avail. He was quite throughly protected by his large driver’s seat or being very lean and sneaky himself.

“Where are we going? Who the hell are you?”

Your captor made no response. He switched on the radio to tune you out. In your predicament, trying to fight would get you hurt or killed. The best way to survive now was to use your brains. Trapped as you were, you could take this time to come up with something. But first, you had to remember how you managed to get into this in the first place. You laid back down, half-listening to whatever happened to be on the radio, and racked your brain. The last thing you recalled was stepping into a parking garage. There was someone with you...who was it?

You couldn’t move your head high enough to even check the time on the dash. It must have been a while because you found yourself falling asleep again. You didn’t wake up until the vehicle came to stop. You only noticed because the trees stopped zooming past you and the radio turned off. The driver side door closing loudly startled you awake. Your blood was pumping. Your first instinct was to start kicking when your captor came to get you, but that would have only worked if he approached the other side. The door closest to your head was pulled open. A bright light stood overhead, blinding you. It didn’t help the fact that your captor wore a dark hood to prevent you from getting a good look at him.

With ease and the strength of ten men, you remained in your fuzzy woolen burrito as you were pulled out of the backseat. He heaved you unto his shoulder like a potato sack. You didn’t see much in the dark, however when you looked, your heart sank. Trees, even in the night, were all you could see. Looking up, the number of stars made you believe that you were far from the nearest town. There were too many of them in the sky for you to think you could hitch a ride somewhere and get a hold of the police. You were miles and miles away from civilization.

Gravel crunched underneath your captor’s feet as he hiked up a little hill. It gave way to carved stone path. It wound its way to a set of wooden stairs. It took those without ever losing his breath while carrying you. Keys jingled. He unlocked a door, which he swung open.

Cool night air gave way to stifling warmth. You watched as woodwork and rugs greeted you as your head helplessly dangled against his back. You could hear a crackling fire place. Somewhere in the house, someone was making dinner. You smelt the cooking of beef, spices, and bread overwhelm the air. You wriggled while still on top of your captor’s shoulder. He turned into what looked like a living room where he settled you on the couch. At last, he began to peel off the blanket that was slowly cooking you alive now that you were in such a warm room heated by an actual fire.

“Tamaki, is that you?” Footsteps.

Wait. You knew that voice. But more importantly...

You whipped your head behind you. Sure enough, Tamaki was there. He didn’t have the guts to turn away for shame or guilt. There was a bright red color to his cheeks, but he almost looked pleased with himself. You opened your mouth to speak but was cut short by the other person entering the room.

“I wasn’t expecting...what is y/n doing here?” Mirio stood there, dumbfounded. He looked like he was in the middle of making the dinner that smelled so lovely. The image was complete with the dish rag thrown over his shoulder and the smear on his cheek.

“I-I’m sorry, Mirio. I couldn’t...I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t wait,” answered Tamaki.

It came back to you. You had been walking to your car, alone at night. But the parking garage never had security issues nor would you be a target. Plus, a pro-hero agency was across the street. Blood drained from your face. The agency belonged to Mirio and Tamaki.

Mirio’s shifted between you and Tamaki. His face was drawn in what looked like disappointment. For a moment, you thought that you were about to see a fall out between friends because Tamaki had taken a joke too far or had gone off the deep end. You expected for Mirio to start a fight and take you to safety, but then he opened his mouth again.

“It was too soon to bring her here. I told you we needed more time. Now, her co-workers will think something terrible happened to her. Tamaki, what were you thinking?”

Too soon? More time? Just when you thought that you were saved, Mirio dashed your hope like fragile glass. He still looked disappointed but not because he friend did something highly immoral and illegal. You shuddered to think what they planned out if Tamaki had followed along with it instead of grabbing you prematurely. Mirio walked to the couch and knelt in front of you. The contrast of a man plotting to kidnap you and the image on his knees before you was almost too much for your mind to take.

"This wasn't quite what I imagined, Y/N, but..." Mirio rubbed circles in your knees. "We'll just have to make the best of it, won't we?"

You shrank out of his reach and pulled your legs up to your chest. You stared in shock at him, one of the top heroes. He graduated near the top of his class how could he consider kidnapping a choice he could make.

"You have to let me go. I won't say anything and we'll forget all about this, but you have to let me go. Now."

Mirio shook his head. "If we did that, you'd move far away and that would be too painful. That is if you don't lie and sneak off to the police. Or Deku. You'd tell him the moment you got the chance."

Your blood ran cold.

Mirio stood up. His smile no longer any kind of warmth or kindness for you. He turned to head back to the kitchen.

“I better get back to cooking. I’ll have to make another portion on the spot. I wasn’t expecting more than two plates,” said Mirio.

That left you alone with Tamaki. Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking to you. He wedged himself into the corner furthest away from you and stuck his head against the wall. This behavior of his would normally invoke pity in you. You hated to see him like that, so afraid to look another person in the face. You couldn’t feel such a way now, not with your hands handcuffed behind your back. Mirio didn’t return for a while to announce dinner. Only when you were at the dinner table did Tamaki gingerly uncuff one of your hands. He released your dominant hand so you could eat but cuffed the other end to the dining room chair’s arm. You pouted at the instrument of your imprisonment.

“I promise we’ll explain later,” said Mirio.

You almost didn’t want to eat. You could have thrown the plate in front of you across the table, then thought better of it. Two strong pro-heroes and you didn’t even a good quirk to beat them back. You didn’t have a quirk at all. You were a lamb in a lion’s den. Choosing the path of least resistance, you ate quietly. Tamaki reached over to the hand he cuffed to the chair. He was shaking and couldn’t be brave enough to look at your face. You felt his sweaty, clammy palm hold your hand in his shaky grip. All you could do was play along for now.

The minutes ticked by and slowly, so slowly, turned into hours. Immediately after dinner, Mirio and Tamaki were preparing to go to bed. You were still handcuffed to the dining room chair. You watched them tidy up and wash the dishes as if you weren't trapped in their house in the middle of the woods. But the time eventually came when Mirio uncuffed you and rubbed your wrists. He was smiling so genuinely, but it didn't escape your notice that he put the handcuffs in his back pocket.

Mirio gently took your hand guided you to the bedroom. He went to the dresser and pulled out a large flannel shirt.

Handing it to you, Mirio said, "I'll be right back. You can change in here. I promise I won't peak."

He turned, exited, and closed the door. You looked down at the shirt in your hands. You didn’t trust him, not with that quirk of his. To think once upon a time you were ecstatic that he was able to get his quirk back. Now, it only reminded you that he could take a peek if he really wanted to and might not even notice until it was too late. But you were shivering in your thin shirt and jeans. You ditched your clothes and put on the flannel shirt that reached to the top of your thigh. A few minutes later the bedroom door swung open again. Tamaki and Mirio had both changed as well. Tamaki wore a matching set of blue flannel pajamas while Mirio opted for dark gray sweatpants and no shirt.

Mirio was behind you in a second pulling your wrists together behind your back. You struggled for a minute before the cuffs were snapped right back on. He rubbed your arms as he guided you to the large bed big enough for a six-person orgy. Before you knew it, you were nestled between Tamaki against your back and Mirio pressed against your front. Mirio was the one who kept his arms around you while Tamaki buried his face in you shoulder. None of this stopped you from wriggling around and trying to snap the handcuffs.

“I-I know they’re uncomfortable,” Tamaki murmured against your skin. “J-just, just bare with it for a while. Please?”

That didn’t stop you from wriggling around. You brushed against Tamaki’s crotch, making him hiss. Then, something hard pushed against your lower back. Mirio’s hand snaked its way to the back of your head where his fingers gently coiled in your hair. He titled your head up to make you look him in the eyes. Your struggles ceased.

“Tamaki, I think we should do something to help Y/N simmer down and go to sleep. She won’t be wriggling around so much if she releases some of that pent up energy.”

“D-Do you think so?” Asked Tamaki.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try!” Mirio kissed you on the mouth, tongue brushing your lips before forcing its way past them.

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

57 sternclay nsfw? i can see stern complaining to a stranger that his ex complained about how weird his kinks were while dumping him

Here you go! 57: “we’re fighting over the last box of half-off valentine’s day chocolate and end up in a “who has it worse” battle.

For being in a mountain town in the slow season, the seasonal candy shelves of the Kepler Walgreens are bare. Were it 10 am on Valentines Day, Joseph would be in a panic. At 10 p.m, it feels like yet more proof this trip is utterly doomed.

But he didn’t become one of the top agents in the Department of Unexplained Phenomena by being unobservant. On the top shelf, pushed towards the back, is a bag of Reese's hearts and a bag of M&Ms. Thank you, years of training.

Being six feet tall helps too.

He’s so locked onto his target that he doesn’t notice the other person in the store until their hands smack into each other en route to the bags.

“Sorry, uh, lemme just get these and I’ll get out of your way.” A voice as deep and sweet as summer honey reaches his ears.

“I’m sorry, but I was going to buy these.” He starts pulling the bags towards him, only for the other guy to grab them. Joseph glares; the man trying to relieve him of his last solace looks like the kind of lumberjack you see in recordings titled things, “Log Pounders IV” or “Bear Hunting.”

“Look, buddy, I really need these so can you, like, find some other bags?”

“These are the last two. And I guarantee I need them more.” As long as he keeps a pleasant voice and gives no ground, this should go smoothly.

“Unless you got dumped this month, I don’t think you do.”

“I got dumped seven hours ago.” He says through an increasingly tight-lipped smile.

“At least your ex isn’t tagging you in a bunch of photos bragging about his new boyfriend.”

“He can’t, because he probably only just got back to his apartment in the rental car. The one I’m now stranded here without.”

“Pfft, just call an Uber or something.”

“It’ll cost several hundred dollars to get home!”

“You look like you can afford it.” Brown eyes flick from his hair down to his shoes, “some of us have to use half-price candy to soothe our wounds. You’re probably staying at the kind of fancy B&B where they have complimentary booze.”

“I would be, except their was a fuck-up with the reservation. Which my ex took as proof this was time to end things, and is the reason I’m dragging this all over town.” He kicks his ergonomically designed, rolling suitcase hard enough that it bumps into his adversary.

“Better he gave you some bullshit reason than the truth, which mine was all too happy to tell me. You can have these when someone you tried to make happy tells you he thinks you’re ‘too soft’ and that if only you’d manned up he woulda stayed, whatever the fuck that even means.”

Goddamnit, Joseph is not about to lose this argument--and his candy--on top of everything else.

“I’ll trade you that for being told you’re: too exacting, far more uncool than your job implies, too anxious, too invested in your work, that your whole personality is flawed and, just for extra fun, that your kinks are too weird and no one in their right mind would ever want to sleep with you if they knew them ahead of time.”

The other man’s hold on the bags loosens. Then it returns, stronger than before, as he grumbles, “Please, no one’s kinks are that weird.”

“You have no idea what mine are.”

“Then how about you give me a demonstration, huh?” Lumberjack snaps.

Joseph's common sense finally catches up with his thirst for comfort and, apparently, conflict.

“I, I’m sorry, did you just offer to fuck me in the middle of a fight over discount candy?”

“I....” the man lets go of the bags, chuckles, “yeah, I did. Fuck, I’m sorry, it’s been such a shitty day that my mouth decided it was gonna do whatever it took to stay in that fight.”

Joseph laughs a little, slumping against the shelf, “I guess it’s nice to know I’m not the only person in town whose Valentine’s Day didn’t go to plan.”

“No kidding. Though, uh, I didn’t get dumped this month. It was three months ago. He did tag me in all those photos today though.”

“That’s so rude.”

“Not as rude as leaving your boyfriend stranded in the mountains.”

B-grade pop hits fill the awkward silence between them.

“I, uh, this might be way outta line, but I got an idea; if you buy the candy, I can take us back to my place and bake something with it. That way we can both enjoy it, and you won’t be stuck wandering around in the cold.”

He runs a quick is-this-a-serial-killer scan of the man in front of him.

“Sure. But just so you know, I’m opening the Reeses in the car.”

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

“Feeling better?” Barclay, his host, wipes stray cupcake crumbs from his lips.

“Much.” He polishes off his second coffee-cocoa cupcake with M&Ms in the batter, lifts his coffee cup, “this place is lucky to have you.”

Barclay blushes the same way he has every time Joseph compliments his cooking, home, or taste in books. They’ve spent the last ninety minutes in the kitchen of Barclay’s small, A-Frame cabin, one of eight laid out in a half circle behind Amnesty Lodge. The cook explained that the cabins were for staff or long term residents, and that while the Lodge sometimes had vacancies, this week had seen them swamped.

The rain alternates between pleasant pitter-pats and drops that could kill a small bird, so Joseph is incredibly grateful to Barclay for giving him a place to shelter. When he thanks him, the cook shrugs with a little smile, “you shouldn’t leave nice things out in the rain.”

As they’re cleaning up the dishes, Barclay passes him a plate and says, “You can stay here tonight. If, uh, if you want. The couch isn’t much, but it’s dry and I’ve got a bunch of spare blankets.”

“That’d be great, thank you. And, um, thank you for being so nice to me, given how we met.”

“Eh, no one who’s in a Walgreens after ten is in a good mood. And, uh, it’s nice to have someone to talk with. I’m kinda the quiet one of my friends, and work is mostly calling orders and stuff.” He pulls the coffee pot from the heat, “can I top you off?”

“Yes, please.” His caffeine tolerance is so high a few cups late at night doesn’t mess with his sleep. Barclay is sticking with tea, something scented like cardamon and comfort.

They move to the couch that’s clearly been re-covered a dozen times, Barclay only getting up to turn on some music; delta blues, if Joseph’s ear is right. It’s not until the clock strikes one thirty that Joseph notices they’re sitting so close that their knees bump whenever one of them turns to talk.

“Okay, I gotta ask” Barclay’s brown eyes shine sweet and playful, “what exactly was so weird about your kinks that your dickhead ex went out of his way to mention them?”

He thinks a moment, scanning his body and noticing he’s more relaxed than he’s been in weeks, including all the times he spent with his ex. Something about the faint scent of dish-soap on Barclays hands, the gentle smile that makes Joseph certain that--for all his bulk--if Joseph told him to roll over and show his belly, he’d do it in an instant, the way he doesn’t rolls his eyes or shy away when Joseph talks, all of that makes him calm. Which makes him bold.

“Wait right here.” He hops up, grabs his bag from the door and pulls it over to the rug by the couch. All he has to do to reveal his secret is lift his pajamas.

“Holy fuck.” Barclay leans forward, “you really came prepared.”

“It was supposed to be a romantic getaway. I...we’d never used any of this together, but I hoped we might this time. It’s, it’s not his fault, I know my tastes aren’t for everyone, and we had plenty in common in bed. But he went through this whole thing where he said we should share our deepest fantasies. Apparently wanting to be choked is fine, but wanting to fuck Mothman is not.”

“That’s what this one is.” Barclay picks up one of the two dildos, black with lots of swirling ridges.

“That’s actually my dragon one. Um.” he holds up the ovipositor toy, “this one is supposed to be mothman.”

Barclay squishes one of the silicone eggs, “that feels kinda nice. What else did you bring?”

His genuine interest is not helping Joseph keep his hopes under control.

“The other toy is the ‘bigfoot’ model. And this is, um, this is my newest one, I was so excited I pre-ordered it. It acts like a cock-sleeve, but this part here is supposed to mimic a, um, a knot.”

“Like the idea of getting knotted, babe?” The cook’s voice is a little deeper than when he last spoke, and rather than pulling away he’s inching into Joseph’s space.

“Yes. I, um, I’m getting the sense” he shifts so his hands are on Barclay’s knees, “that we might have something in common besides our taste in leftover candy.”

“I packed all this so carefully” he brushes their lips together, “it’d be a shame to let it sit unused.”

Barclay scoops him into a kiss, growling happily when Joseph instantly parts his lips. His beard is soft and tickly under Joseph’s palms, and his mind takes the thought of getting beard-burn on his thighs and runs so far with it that he almost misses what Barclay says next.

“In that case, you better decide if you want me to open your ass up so I can fuck you with a knot, or if you wanna do it yourself.”

“I prefer to do it myself.”

A second kiss, a bit gentler this time, “bedroom’s at the end of the hall. Get naked and wait for me there?”

“Roger that, big guy.”

When Barclay growls this time it’s rougher, jumping out of his chest and seeming to surprise him.

Joseph undresses as Barclay stops off in the bathroom, rifling through the medicine cabinet while Joseph folds his clothes. He’s down to his boxers when he remembers there is a conversation he needed to have before it hit this point.

“You trying to get me to rip those off with my teeth?” Barclay grins as he sets some condoms and lube on the bed and starts taking off his pants.

“I, um, there’s something you should be aware of. We don’t have the same, um, set-up.”

Barclay furrows his brow, gets his meaning, then nods, “no problem. If you’re okay with that part of you being involved I, uh, I just got a really, really good idea for what to do.”

“It’s not always the case, but tonight I definitely want it involved. I want you inside me as many ways as possible.”

“Fuck yeah.” Barclay tosses his shirt into the laundry, “get your ass open enough to take that knot.”

He slips the condom on, douses it with lube, and presses the first finger in, discovering that he's unable to stop complimenting Barclay for even five seconds while he finishes disrobing. The flush under his dark chest hair is unendingly charming, as is the little whine he makes at Joseph telling him he likes how big he is.

“I, I’m serious, ahhn, it’s rare to find someone taller than me and I really like it.”

“Feeds into the monster thing?” Barclay crawls beside him, laying down so he can kiss him as he works the second finger in.

“In a way.”

A deep, rumbly chuckle that has Joseph fucking himself hurriedly, “Don’t be coy, babe. You like the thought of something big and hairy getting a hold of you and not letting you go until you’re dripping cum.”

“Holy shit, yes” he gets the third finger in, sighing as Barclay nuzzles his neck.

“Well, I’m not bigfoot, but I’m betting I’ll do just fine.”

“More than fine.” Joseph kisses him, feels him smile in a way that melts his heart like cheap chocolate.

“Got some other theories about you, babe, but you gotta wait until you’re on my dick to hear ‘em.” Barclay sits up, stroking his cock in time with Joseph’s hand, “fucking-A, can’t believe your ex didn’t wanna stick around for this. You look like a fucking porn star; we oughta record you getting fucked in your suit and sell if for big bucks.”

He moans, pulling his fingers free, “Fuck me now. Please.”

“Fuck that’s hot.” Barclay works the sleeve down over his cock, sits up against the wall, “come sit in my lap, facing away.”

Joseph straddles him, gasps when the head of his cock presses in. He prepped well, but all the same he has to take his time wiggling his way down. Barclay caresses him, grunting and whimpering whenever he moves, breath prickling the hairs at the base of his neck. It’s heavenly.

When he hits the knot, Barclay rubs more lube on it, but it stays outside of him as he grinds on it. Between moans, the cook manages to say, “want me to start the next part?”

“Yes, please.”

Barclay loads the ovipositor with the three eggs, praises Joseph for being a good boy when he spreads his legs to accommodate the head of the toy.

“I, I thought you had more you were going to tell me?” He tilts his head awkwardly to kiss Barclay’s shoulder.

“Uh huh.” Barclay slowly works the toy in and out, doing his best to sync it to the rolls of his hips, “I think you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t just want one monster; you want ‘em all.”

“Variety is, ohgod, part of a healthy sex life.”

“I don’t mean one monster on one day and a different one on another. I think you want them all at once.”

“Oh yes, oh! Ohohoh” he kicks his legs as the first egg pushes in, “fuck, Barclay, please keep going.”

“Whatever you want, babe.” He nuzzles Joseph’s hair, “that’s how I came up with this plan; seeing all those different dicks made me think you’d, fuck, you’d like me to pretend there was more than just me fucking you.”

Joseph nods, clinging to Barclays arm and bearing down on the knot.

“Can just see it now; you got yourself lost in the woods out here, go looking for help only to find a whole bunch of monsters waiting for you. Spend the rest of the night pressed into the dirt and leaves while every cryptid from, fuck” he bucks his hips, “from here to Canada had their turn.”

“Shit, shit” the knot starts pushing in, “y-you’ve got my number, big guy.”

“Yeah?” Barclay squeezes the base of the toy as he talks, causing the remaining two eggs to push their way in, Joseph’s body clenching around them, “you want a night where all your good for is being fucked, where if you beg for a break you get a bigfoot fucking your throat and werewolves cumming on your chest instead of them all mobbing you at once?”

“Shit, yes, YESohfuck” the knot enters him as Barclay shoves his hips down, “ohmygod that’s good, fuck, I feel so full, you’re so smart, this was genius, fuck you know how to treat meAHannnfuck, shit.” He holds on to Barclays arm’s as the other man fucks him with abandon.

“Oh I know, babe. Know I was fucking right. You wanna be claimed, wanna be owned, wanna be bred by a whole fuckin pack-”

“Jesuschrist” it’s hard to breathe at the pace Barclay sets, his body aching to cum but not quite able to get there. He squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing frantically at his dick as Barclay loses himself in the fantasy.

“You’d be so cute, leaves in your hair and cum on your chin, taking it all and begging for more. Good thing you’re so needy, you could tear a pack apart with folks fighting over who gets to fuck you, fuck, Joseph, baby, you’re so fucking good, gonna be so fucking good to you, fuck, fuck” he shoves as deep as he can while he cums, and in the haze of pleasure Joseph swears claws prick the skin of his chest. Just the thought of that sends his own orgasm coursing through him, his body tensing and twisting on Barclay’s cock, making them both moan from sudden overstimulation.

“S-sorry” Barclay pants.

“Nothing to apologize for, just physiology, here, let me ow, ow, okay maybe I should have relaxed more first.” He’s free of both toys, but that was right on the edge of too painful. He waits for Barclay to take off the sleeve, then rolls the bigger man so his head is on his chest.

“Your ex didn’t know how good they had it.”

“Thanks, babe.”

He smiles, “I like that. No one ever calls me something that informal.”

“Call you it whenever you want. Babe.” Barclay kisses his arm, “you can, uh, stay in bed if you want. We don’t have a ton of time together so I’d, uh, well, I’d like to spend as much of it with you as I can.”

For the first time, Joseph wishes his vacation would last longer.

“Agreed, big guy.”

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

“You said you had my new assignment, sir?”

“Yes. Agent Stern, you will be going to the town of Kepler to investigate the events described in this file.” Agent Hayes passses him the folder.

“Understood, sir.”

Joseph manages to keep his smile to himself all the way to his desk.

#sternclay #agent stern/ barclay #taz amnesty #reader request #meet ugly

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quazartranslates · 3 years

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH23

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 23: Star Death Reality Show (VI) {cw: discussion of menstruation}

Mark and He Yi were still here!　　

Lara's conclusion greatly surprised everyone, but what she said was justified. Everyone knew that she wasn’t talking nonsense. Even now they could go outside to check and compare the footprints one by one. But there were always people who didn't want to see Lara show off.

"You said they’re still in the house, but where are they?" Janet shot out. "This house is only so big. If they were still here, they should have heard our voices, but there’s no sign of them. Where are they?"

Lara chewed on her lip and whispered, "I don't know."

Janet smiled contemptuously with a look that seemed to say, "That’s all you are".

"Qi Leren, did you find anything before you left?" Xue Jiahui asked suspiciously.

As the last one to see these two people, Qi Leren was unfortunately surrounded by all the contestants. He shook his head solemnly: "Everything was normal at the time."

"Ah, it would be great if we could ask the audience watching from outside. Compared with us, they should already know the situation clearly." Xue Jiahui, a skeptic, smiled bitterly and showed concern. "Well, let's search Annie's house. This place isn’t big, we should find them quickly with so many people."

Annie, who had been silent, suddenly looked up: "Miss Xue, if you want to search my room, please come up with a search warrant. Or do you want to wantonly violate the legal rights of a citizen?"

Janet, like a shark smelling blood, quickly changed her target: "Why? Do you have something to hide here?"

Dr. Lu tugged at Qi Leren's sleeve, curled his lips at him, and mouthed, Look, a catfight!

At this scene, the four women fought for ten minutes around the topic of whether or not to search the room. Janet always stood on the front line of tearing at and quarreled with Annie, one attacking the other's religious beliefs, and the other arguing with her for civil rights; Lara insisted on searching the house to look for the people, and her position was consistent with Janet's, but Janet choked her back rather than helping her, which made her very helpless; Xue Jiahui was anxious to find the people, though she was willing to make peace. She said a few words but couldn't stand the argument when it rose to personal attacks. She closed his mouth silently and showed an anxious expression.

The men present were helpless, obviously not wanting to get involved. It always looked like a loss when you quarreled with women in front of hundreds of millions of spectators. It was expected that if you didn't win the fight, it meant "you can’t even beat a woman". It didn't taste right, so it was better not to go into this muddy water.

Qi Leren didn't try so hard. His ears had been trained by Chen Baiqi for so long. He was now more patient than before, and has learned to observe more and be less impulsive. At the end of the day, he discovered some secret relationships between the NPCs: aside from the obvious tit-for-tat between Lara and Janet, there was Xue Jiahui's vague love for He Yi, Janet's warming to Alex's attitude, the ambiguity between Lara and Francis, and even Mark's unexpected obedience to Annie. Many details weren’t easy to find if one wasn’t looking, but they were revealed by the NPCs’ words, facial expressions, and even body language.

Finally, Du Yue, the young man with a sense of justice, lost his cool: "Stop arguing! What’s important right now is to find them. What can we do without finding them? Qianbei, let's do it!"

With this said, Annie ignored everyone and went straight to search the house.

Qi Leren sighed. Young people nowadays... were really impulsive, but this wasn’t a good idea either.

Annie paused, just wanting to loudly reprimand them, only to suddenly be choked by the dust thrown up as Du Yue lifted a rug. She immediately covered her nose and mouth, coughed, and ran out of the room awkwardly. Janet couldn't stand it either and fled the dusty room again.

Dr. Lu laughed crookedly and gave Du Yue a thumbs up: "Nice work."

Realizing his mistake, Du Yue touched the back of his head, smiled stupidly, and continued to search.

"Are you looking for a basement?" Francis asked.

"Ah... Well, since they’re one in Jing Siyu’s house, maybe there’s one in Annie's house too?" Du Yue said.

"It makes sense. Let's pull up the rugs and look for one," Francis agreed.

"Would they have gone into a basement?" Alex shrugged. "Don't waste your time. Maybe Lara made a mistake."

After that, he went out of the room to see Janet, who was dusting her body and complaining loudly that she didn't have any clothes to change into. Unless she found some clothes hidden in the village, she would have to endure the mess. Alex talked with her about finding supplies later.

Francis and Qi Leren turned the house upside down, and Lara and Xue Jiahui joined in. After an hour passed, every corner of the house was turned over, including the walls, on the ground, and even under the bed. There were no signs of He Yi and Mark, and there was no indication of a basement or hidden room. They had disappeared from the house into thin air.

While turning over the bed, Qi Leren noticed some fresh blood on the pillow where Mark had been lying, and he estimated that it was from a scrape on Mark's injured forehead.

The only thing that made him feel strange was what Dr. Lu found. He found a bandage and bloody cloth in the trash can. The blood on it had dried up and hardened, but it could be seen that there was also relatively fresh blood on it. When he pointed this out, Annie showed a strange smile: "This is something for temporary emergency use."

"Are you injured?" Qi Leren stared at her and watched her expression.

There was a hint of ridicule on Annie's face, and there was a hint of mischief—like a secret pleasure: "No."

"Then where did this blood come from?" Francis asked.

"From me." Annie's mouth curved higher and she watched them with interest, looking malicious. "The endometrial wall sheds and is excreted through the vaginal canal. Usually we call this menstruation."

Dr. Lu shook his hand and bandages and cloth fell to the ground, the word “stunned” clearly written across his face.

Annie's smile became more and more cheerful: "Please don't litter everywhere, pick it up and throw it into the trash can, thank you."

　　……

The search ended in failure, and the group of people who found nothing left Annie's house to discuss what to do next. While they were talkative, this discussion was really useless. Annie refused to participate in the next activity on the grounds of period cramps and went back to her room to rest.

Because of Mark and He Yi's disappearance, this group didn’t act separately, but searched the village together in a circle. Dr. Lu also muttered to Qi Leren. He felt that Annie had a problem, and Qi Leren asked him why.

Dr. Lu's expression was strange. After a long time, he said, "...Because I suddenly remembered that period blood shouldn’t coagulate."

“…………”

"Because there are many active enzymes in period blood, it prevents coagulation, so looking back, that should not be from menstruation."

Qi Leren felt that he had gained new knowledge, and the same was true of Du Yue's expression.

However, this was only Dr. Lu's guess. He himself said that he was talking about healthy menstruation. If the endometrial wall sheds off, there would be blood clots and so on. Qi Leren felt that he didn't want to know so much, but he couldn't control Dr. Lu's chattering mouth.

He hoped the audience wouldn’t misunderstand Dr. Lu because of his "knowledge".

After this was said, the few people continued to look for supplies and really found some that were hidden.

Dr. Lu, the EX luck guy, also found two small bags, one of which was given to the Qi Leren, who put a bottle of water and some compressed food in it just in case. Although the item bar meant that he didn’t lack materials at all, it was difficult for him to explain the origin of these things to the ubiquitous cameras. Du Yue, who wasn’t given one of these bags, honestly carried the heaviest backpack, which contained the three’s personal belongings. He worked hard and was stupid, Dr. Lu whispered in Qi Leren’s ears, and he felt that Du Yue was born with a lack of brain cells.

In the afternoon, several people went to visit Jing Siyu again. She was still unconscious, but her breathing was gentle, her heart was beating was normal, and there was no bump on her head. Generally speaking, there shouldn’t be any serious problem, but to be on the safe side she was left in Jing Sixue's house—although it violated the game’s rules of one person:one house, she didn’t care much under the circumstances.

Looking for someone like this was fruitless. The snow on the ground was trampled dirty, and it was slippery and easy to fall. The group of people simply cleaned up, took snow shovels that were unknowably old to clean up the snow in front of their houses, and made several paths leading to the central church that were convenient for walking.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, Qi Leren turned off the floating micro-camera that followed him and walked to Dr. Lu's house. Du Yue had come earlier than him and affectionately called out "qianbei" as soon as he saw him.

"Are the cameras off?" Qi Leren confirmed again.

"Off, but those fixed cameras outside can't be turned off. They’ll be able to tell that you came to me," Dr. Lu said.

"It doesn't matter, as long as our conversation isn’t recorded. After all, what we say will expose the difference between us and the NPCs," Qi Leren said. "What do you think happened today? Where did He Yi and Mark go? "

"I don't know, I also find it very strange," Du Yue said.

"They turned into butterflies and flew away," Dr. Lu said with a lack of seriousness, giving a small laugh.

"Seriously." Qi Leren stared at Dr. Lu and said, "Let's start from the beginning. By now the story has progressed to the point where the monster in Pandora's Box has escaped. I don't know where it’s hidden, what kind of form it has, and what’s special about it. Speaking of this, let's go to the church later. We’ve been working with the others today, so I haven't found a chance to check the stone in the church."

"It doesn't matter if you don't check it. The task prompt said that it had cracked, indicating that it hatched before we could move freely." Dr. Lu was well aware of the nature of this game, and that it wouldn’t give players the chance to stop the plot from starting.

"Say, with your years of experience in playing games, what kind of monster do you think it is?" Qi Leren asked.

Dr. Lu snorted and proudly said: "There are three possibilities. The first one is that the monster is a type of psychological agent, which will make people become mad, hallucinate, and finally make us kill each other. It’s quite common in Japanese games. The second possibility is that the monsters are physical attack types, and they will eat people. The more they eat, the more they need to eat, and then they’ll eat us up one by one. The third possibility is that this monster is parasitic, similar to the monsters in the Alien series. This routine is that it will constantly look for a host, and we still have to die."

Du Yue's handsome face wrinkled as if he had eaten something bitter and he looked hopefully at Qi Leren: "Qianbei, I don't want to die..."

Qi Leren's heart said: ...It's no use looking at me, I'm only a little better than you.

However, he had to keep a mentor-like expression on his face: "Don't worry, this task only has a C-level difficulty, it won't be too hard."

-----

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#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

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wickedpact · 3 years

Note

Idea for a JoexNicky fic!! (anon here)- piggybacking off the other anon's nicky's mom idea, what if for an anniversary present, Joe sketches a portrait of Nicky's mother? (obviously she'd look like a beautiful warm goddess of kindness) Like maybe he has a dream of one of Nicky's most vivid memories ;-; I would literally die

so uh. this bloomed wildly out of my control

this ficlet is 5k words long so dont open that read more unless youre willing to commit to it

warnings: brief discussions of violence, extremely brief mention of sex, me not knowing how the FUCK one becomes a priest in Ye Olde 1000′s, and probably a criminal lack of historical accuracy as well as a criminal lack of the accented o in ‘nicolo’

yeehaw.

It starts with one of Andromache’s sparring sessions, and of course by ‘sparring’ session Nicolo means a session in which Andromache was in a piss poor mood for no obvious reason, and decided to take it out on the rest of them.

These sessions tend to start with Andromache coming hurtling into their camp with a dark expression on her face, and end with Yusuf and Nicolo sprawled on the ground, bruised and exhausted, while Andromache and Quynh beat the ever-loving hell out of each other nearby. (Yusuf has been convinced for a long time that it's some sort of mating ritual; Nicolo... doubts it.)

This time around, they are at some point after Nicolo has given up, and some point before Yusuf has joined him; Nicolo lies on the sand, starfished, while Quynh and Yusuf attempt to tag team Andromache with an abundance of vigor and middling results. Nicolo cranes his neck to watch the spectacle, catching a glimpse of Andromache flipping Quynh straight over her shoulder before twisting around and kicking Yusuf dangerously close to the groin. Yusuf stumbles, and Andromache grabs him by the shoulder, shoving his considerable weight off of his feet and towards Nicolo’s resting spot.

Yusuf, stumbling, manages to not trip over Nicolo by inches, and falls face-first onto the ground beside him with a groan. Meanwhile, Quynh has recovered and charges at Andy again, beginning their age-old dance yet again.

Yusuf grumbles at Nicolo’s side and peels himself off the ground, leveraging onto a knee. Nicolo drops his head back down to look at him, smiling when he swipes a hand across his beard to dislodge the sand accumulating there. Having been roasting under the midday sun and the excursion of the fight for hours now, Yusuf is layered in sweat and breathing heavily but evenly, chest and shoulders heaving slowly with each breath. Nicolo’s mouth goes crooked watching him.

“She doesn’t attack still targets,” he advises, amused, lying still atop the sand.

“Like a lioness!” Yusuf agrees with a zest Nicolo lost about thirteen minutes ago. He pulls himself onto both knees and balances on them, wavering in a way that makes Nicolo want to give him a steadying hand. “Hm.” Yusuf braces a hand on his thigh, face scrunching up in consideration. “No. I don’t think so.”

And then he plops, face first, back to the sand. Nicolo gives him an encouraging pat on the back with his knuckles.

“Are you two giving up?” Andromache calls over. Nicolo cranes his head up again to see that Quynh is on the ground yet again, slowly stumbling to her feet, and Andromache stands with her back to her, facing them. Her hands are on her hips.

“Yes. Thank you for checking in!” Nicolo confirms, lifting a hand to give her a thumbs up. Andromache responds to the sass with a raised eyebrow before whirling around and punching Quynh in the stomach before the younger immortal could sneak up on her.

Quynh goes down for the-- who knows how many times now, and Nicolo drops his head. He squints up at the wavering blue lines of the sky until Andromache’s white robes cross his vision, casting a shadow over his and Yusuf’s resting forms.

“Get up,” Andromache insists, nudging Nicolo with her boot. “I’m not done with you two yet.”

“You can’t make us,” Yusuf grumbles into the sand.

“You bet I can’t?” Andromache threatens, more a tease than a promise. When neither of them reply, she rolls her eyes and says, with a less than gentle kick to Yusuf’s side, “You babies are so soft.”

Yusuf hisses, rolling away from Andromache’s boot, into Nicolo’s side. “Son of a whore, Andromache, knock it off,” he grouches, dropping his shoulder atop Nicolo’s. Nicolo grunts with the weight of it. “Or daughter of a whore, that is,” he corrects himself, then adds thoughtfully, “No offense to your mother, if she were a woman of the night. What did your mother do, Andromache?”

Andromache laughs at Yusuf’s meandering insult-- a posturing bluster of a laugh that makes Nicolo blink, wondering if Yusuf’s actually offended her somehow. If so this would be the first time; Nicolo has always known Andromache to be thicker skinned than a mule.

But then she says, “I don’t remember my mother. Who knows,” and turns and heads back over to Quynh, who’s only just recovered from before. They resume sparring, Nicolo watching them with mild confusion.

Nicolo turns to look at Yusuf, wondering if he’d caught onto Andromache’s discomfort, but when Nicolo catches his eye, he just shrugs his shoulder against the sand and says, “Well, that’s a line that’ll end an argument every time, eh?”

Later on, Nicolo is still considering it, sprawled in front of the fire --that Quynh had constructed a couple hours prior-- with Yusuf, Nicolo slouched against his chest and bracketed by his bent knees. Andromache and Quynh are arguing over the linen tent a little ways off, and Nicolo watches Andromache carefully, the lines on her face and the muscles in her arms, the working parts of her that have existed on this earth for thousands of years. The things her hands have done; the things her eyes have seen.

The things her heart has forgotten.

“You are thinking very loudly over there,” Yusuf says from somewhere over Nicolo’s head. Nicolo shifts his eyes from Andromache and Qyunh, to the fire, to his and Yusuf’s legs stretched out before it. He tilts his head back, the top of his head against Yusuf’s sternum, but all he can see from that angle is Yusuf’s beard, so he drops his head back down with a little amused huff.

“Andromache is very old,” Nicolo says slowly.

“Ah, yes,” Yusuf agrees, amiable. “Also: water is very wet, and the desert is very hot.”

“S’cold at night,” Nicolo grumbles, just to be contrary, and is rewarded by Yusuf slipping his arms under Nicolo’s, bundling him closer to his chest and notching his chin over his head.

“What’s wrong, Nico?”

Nicolo requires no further prompting, not from Yusuf at least. The words come tumbling out of his mouth, one at a time. “She doesn’t remember her mother.”

There’s little more that needs to be said there. The immortal life is one that comes with many downsides, and the nature of it is that sometimes one discovers these downsides centuries later than expected. This isn’t the first time an unexpected side-effect of their unending lives has been thrust upon him and Yusuf, and likely won’t be the last.

Nicolo had never really thought he might one day forget his mother.

Yusuf hums thoughtfully in response, a non-answer that does little to soothe Nicolo. “That she doesn’t,” he adds after a moment. “What was your mother like?”

“I don’t--” Nicolo starts, and then, with an odd curiosity, realizes he’s having difficulty continuing. “I... didn’t know her very long. I was given to the church… very young. I don’t remember much of what she was like, other than that she was my mother.”

“Do you remember what she looked like?”

“Well…”

Nicolo remembers little of his life before the clergy. Two brothers. A sister. His father’s stern brow, and the calluses on his mother’s hand as she took his little fingers in hers, leading him down the dirt paths back in Genova. Her smile, silhouetted by the heady red glow of the afternoon sun.

“Brown hair,” Nicolo eventually answers. “Dark eyebrows. High cheekbones, too, and… and kind eyes.”

“What I’m hearing is you took after her very strongly.”

Nicolo smiles. “I do remember being told something of the sort before.”

“Her eyes?” Joe rests one of his palms flat against Nicolo’s stomach.

“Green, I’m pretty sure.”

“So you took after her very strongly, then,” Joe concludes.

Nicolo looks down, fiddling with the fingers of Joe’s free hand. “She used to take me to the shore. We’d gather seashells together.”

That he remembers well, plucking seashells and bits of coral out from dried seafoam after the tide had gone out near the end of the day, one arm bundling conch and clam shells against his chest, the other prying washed-up shells from the still wet sand. The sun would be low, but not low enough that they would feel the need to rush, and it would cast their shadows in long, blue lines across the beach. Time was an endless thing there, where the sun glowed red and bright, and there was always another conch shell wedged in the damp earth to dig up.

“She sounds lovely,” Yusuf hums. Nicolo pauses, tracing Yusuf’s index finger with his own. Yusuf almost never talks about his family. They have known each other for nearly three hundred years now, and yet Nicolo could store all the things he knows of Yusuf's family in a basket. Over the years he’s been able to piece together that both of Yusuf’s parents were dead before the Crusades began. And that they both died when Yusuf was fairly young. Beyond that… he knows little.

“Yusuf…” Nicolo starts, uncertain and fidgeting. “What about your mother?”

“My mother?” Yusuf repeats, as if Nicolo has somehow strung together two incomprehensible words.

“Yes.” When a pause stretches between them, Nicolo sighs and laces his fingers between Yusuf’s. “You don’t need to tell me.”

“No, no,” Yusuf insists before Nicolo can change the topic. He returns Nicolo’s grip on his hands, smoothing his thumb over the knuckle of Nicolo’s pointer finger. “I want to. My mother…” He sighs. “She was very anxious. Always fretting. She was a weaver; she liked making rugs.”

Yusuf’s thumb stills over Nicolo’s knuckle. Nicolo tilts his head. “Your prayer mat. Did she--?

“Yeah, she made it.” Yusuf pauses again. “Weaving calmed her down when she was nervous. My father and I, we would travel often-- business, you know. Trade deals and things. Mother always worried when we were gone.”

They both pause when Quynh yells something particularly loud at Andromache, breaking the moment for a split second. Andromache hollers something back, and the two women break out into abrupt laughter.

“Are you worried you’ll forget her?” Nicolo asks when they've settled again. “Your mother?”

“No,” Yusuf replies, though he trails off halfway through the word. “In part, I suppose… but there are many things I’d like to forget, I think.”

Nicolo peels himself out of Yusuf’s arms in response to that, twisting around to look at his companion. Yusuf’s brows are pressed together, the tilt of his mouth sad. Nicolo places a hand to his chest, fingers against Yusuf’s collar. “Yusuf?”

Yusuf sucks the inside of his cheek, looking far away before directing a sad smile at Nicolo. “She came with us, once. On a trip. Of course the one time Father allowed her to come was the time that it went wrong.” At Nicolo’s questioning look, Yusuf elaborates, “Bandits.”

“Yusuf...”

“I hadn’t really known how to fight, then, so it didn’t… really matter, either way-- but I got knocked out in the fight, and by the time I woke up again, it was all over.” With a slow breath, Yusuf looks down at their interwoven fingers. “I would like to forget some things. Not her, but…”

It takes Yusuf a long moment to continue. He looks up, towards the stars, lips pursed with thought, before eventually ducking his head again. Nicolo waits quietly.

“It is hard to remember them,” Yusuf says eventually, to their hands, “without remembering them in death. I had to bury them both.”

With a soft noise, Nicolo reaches forward and pulls Yusuf into a hug, arms wrapping about his shoulders; Yusuf responds in chorus and reaches for Nicolo back, his embrace tight enough to grind bone.

Nicolo rubs a hand up and down Yusuf’s back, his face tucked into Nicolo’s shoulder. Perturbed, Nicolo can’t imagine it- the comforting memory of his own mother, crossed and tainted by violence so cruelly. To lose her was enough. To lose the comfort of remembering her as well would be harrowing.

Yusuf pulls away first after some time, eyes red but dry, mouth turned down. Nicolo reaches up and thumbs at the crease between his brows, which quirks Yusuf’s lips ever so slightly.

“How old were you?” Nicolo asks.

Yusuf reaches up and takes Nicolo’s hand from his face, wrapping his fingers around his. “Twenty one.”

“A child.”

“Hardly, Nico,” Yusuf snorts softly. Nicolo disagrees, but he’s not going to start an argument over it. Not now.

With a sigh, Yusuf leans back against the rock formation behind them, wrapping an arm around Nicolo and tugging him sideways against his chest. Nicolo rests his head against Yusuf's shoulder.

“It’s not that I wish to forget her. Or my father. But I… would rather fondly remember the idea of them, the fragments, then remember them perfectly in death. That might make me selfish.”

“It does not,” Nicolo replies sternly. “It makes perfect sense to feel that way, Yusuf.” And then, “I’m sorry.” Yusuf only hums in response. It is, admittedly, a frail sentiment, so Nicolo adds, “I love you. In case you’ve forgotten.”

This earns him a huff against the top of his head. “I love you too,” Yusuf responds, and they fall into an easy silence.

After a few minutes, and with a great sigh, Yusuf tilts his head so that his cheek presses against Nicolo’s hair. “Nicolo…” he mumbles, hesitant, “I don’t mean to ruin the moment, but... I think we’re sleeping under the stars tonight.”

Nicolo lifts his head and twists around to find the half-assembled and frankly pathetic looking tent swaying off in the distance alone, with both Andromache and Quynh nowhere in sight.

“The consolidated wisdom of millenia,” Nicolo grumbles, dropping his head back against Yusuf. “And they still can’t assemble a tent.”

Yusuf laughs; Nicolo is by far more warmed by that than any comfort the damned tent could have offered.

Quynh has the little joke of hers whenever they go drinking. She’ll tell Yusuf, giggling into her tankard, “I miss when you didn’t drink!”

This is a joke because Yusuf gave up his abstinence of alcohol only a few months after he and Nicolo had met Quynh and Andromache, nearly two hundred years ago now, and when he’d announced his decision to do so to the two warrior women, they’d both admitted they didn’t even realize that he didn’t drink in the first place.

Nearly two hundred years later, Quynh continues to make this joke. Nicolo has yet to find it funny, but Yusuf laughs every time.

“It’s our anniversary, Quynh, you must be nice to us!” Yusuf insists in response to said joke. He is, as Andromache might say, drunk off his ass, swaying happily in his seat at the musty bar they’ve settled in for the night to celebrate. Despite how loudly he’s speaking, Nicolo can barely hear him over the clatter and bustle and chatter of the other, varyingly drunk, patrons at the bar.

“Three hundred years is nothing, Yusuf. You’re still babies,” Andromache replies, equally smashed yet bearing it more stoically, pitched against Quynh’s shoulder. One of her hands is still curled loosely around her tankard, unwilling to give it up just yet, probably.

Nicolo leans back against his rickety chair. “Do you two remember when you only knew each other for three hundred years?”

In response to this, Andromache pulls back from Quynh’s shoulder, propping herself up on the edge of a table with her free hand. She tilts her head, staring silently at Quynh with a quirked mouth, and Quynh stares back, eyebrows raised high. Nicolo’s gaze flicks between the two warrior women, eyeing them both, studying the emotion in their eyes and their mouths and their brows.

For nearly an entire minute they say nothing. They have no need to. The charged gaze between them could write entire epics; legions of words pass between them and neither woman even opens her mouth.

Nicolo finds himself slightly jealous. He wonders if he and Yusuf will ever hit a point such as this, where they could communicate without words, know each other so well that even a twitch of the brow or a press of lips could mean so much-- that words become irrelevant. Become small and useless compared to the years of their bond.

“It was a time,” Quynh answers at last, smiling a far away smile.

“That’s different,” Yusuf interrupts, slurring slightly and grinning widely. “because, this isn’t about how long you two have known each other, but how long I’ve known Nicolo,” here, he gestures broadly at Nicolo, sitting at his side, “and when you two will have known Nicolo for three hundred years, and-- and want to celebrate, I will not laugh at your paltry few years spent with him, in comparison to my many centuries! And you may-- may thank me for my generosity and kindness-- then.”

Quynh snorts. “That was very poetic of you, Yusuf.”

“Thank you.” Yusuf places a calloused hand atop Nicolo’s head. “I love him very much,” he states, very sincerely, if a little slurred.

Andromache, as always, seems to feel a compulsion to try and ruin the moment. Their Andromache, old and wise as she is, is a great many things: an elegant warrior, a stern protector, and a graceful leader-- however, a kind drunk she is not. “You know, you’ll get tired of each other eventually,” she points out, gesturing between the two of them. Yusuf rolls his eyes, his hand slipping from Nicolo’s head. “Quynh and I usually separate every couple hundred years for a time. It’s normal.”

“Bah,” Yusuf grumbles. “Andromache, you do not have a romantic bone in your body.”

“I do!” Andromache insists. Quynh sends her a sharp look that she doesn’t see because she’s too busy waving her hand widely. “I have been with, and wooed, and have been wooed by-- by more men and women than you’ve ever even set eyes on.”

Yusuf copies Andromache’s grand gesture, cheery and mocking. “That, what you’ve just described, is the opposite of romance, boss.”

“Whatever,” Andromache concedes with middling grace. “I’m happy for you two, either way.”

“Thank you,” Nicolo says, so that Yusuf won't say anything else. “Another round?”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Yusuf says to Nicolo an hour or so later, as Nicolo is trying to haul the damned drunk up the stairs without sending them both sprawling down to their temporary deaths.

Funnily enough, around the time Yusuf began drinking, Nicolo stopped-- not out of any particular thoughts on alcohol itself, but because someone had to remain sober in order to drag Yusuf’s drunken ass back to their room at the end of the night, and the responsibility fell to Nicolo for all of the obvious reasons, and also because he was happy to do it.

“Who?” Nicolo asks, steadying a hand on Yusuf’s shoulder when he sways at the top dangerously.

“Andromache,” Yusuf replies. Nicolo’s not sure what exactly Yusuf thinks she was wrong about-- they’d discussed many topics at the bar downstairs-- but he might succeed in having this conversation more so if Andromache and Quynh weren’t standing no less than five feet away, hovering just inside their room’s open door down the hall, stripping down to their tunics and trousers.

Probably standing by in case Nicolo and Yusuf took an unfortunate tumble down the stairs. Nicolo is warmed by their concern, but Yusuf is too busy being drunkenly confused by Andromache’s presence after she calls over an “about what?” to think of such things.

“Where did you come from?” Yusuf asks Andromache, only going half willingly when Nicolo rolls his eyes and drags him down the hall.

“Thank you, good night,” Nicolo tells the two women as they pass their door and head down the hall to theirs, floorboards creaking under their boots.

“Have a nice anniversary, infants!” Andromach calls after they manage to stumble to their door, sticking her head out of theirs.

Nicolo fiddles with the key the barkeep gave him, trying desperately to ignore Yusuf when he yells back, “Us infants will try not to fuck so loud you can hear it all the way down there!” probably scarring some of the tenants.

“I bet you can’t!” Andromache responds, gleeful, and ducks back inside to slam the door shut.

“Is that a fucking challenge?” Yusuf asks the empty hallway, going easily when Nicolo drags him inside.

It’s a humble room, but the presence of four walls and a floor makes it good enough for Nicolo, and the bed is only an added bonus. He leaves Yusuf to his own devices as he lights the lantern set in the corner, double checking that their bags --that they’d tossed in the room earlier-- haven’t been stolen. He nudges the bags with a toe as he unlatches his longsword from his belt, propping the sheath up carefully by the little table with the lantern.

Yusuf is being oddly quiet; Nicolo turns to find the love of his life lying starfished on the little bed, peering up at the wood ceiling as if the secrets of the universe are engraved on it.

“I am so tired, Nicolo,” Yusuf mumbles, mournful. “Why did you make me go up all those stairs?”

“I am infamously known to be cruel and unfair,” Nicolo replies dryly, crossing over and sitting next to Yusuf. He unbuckles the straps around Yusuf’s shoulders that keep his scimitar attached to his back while Yusuf lies still. When the task is done, he looks up to find Yusuf staring at him, brows drawn together. “Lean up,” Nicolo orders softly, and Yusuf complies without complaint, shifting his shoulders off the bed just enough that Nicolo can pull his sheath off.

He stands to go retrieve his own sword, so that both can be placed at their bedside, within reach, shucking off his boots as he goes.

“Can you grab my bag for me?” Yusuf asks from the bed while Nicolo is doing so, so Nicolo does, balancing the two sheathed swords under one arm and holding Yusuf’s rucksack in the other.

He drops the bag at Yusuf's side and sits beside it, setting both swords at his feet, on the left side of the bed. Usually Yusuf’s scimitar goes on the other side, but Nicolo does not trust him with access to a sharp object in this state.

Yusuf sits up to shuffle through his bag. “I got you something,” he tells Nicolo when he straightens. Nicolo frowns at him.

“You got me something?” he repeats.

“Yeah.” Yusuf pulls out his sketchbook, though he doesn't grab his bag of charcoals.

But I didn’t get you anything, is something Nicolo almost wants to say, but honestly, three hundred years into a relationship, you stop keeping track of how many gifts have been exchanged and when. Especially when their finances are so intertwined. Nicolo and Yusuf simply buy each other things whenever the urge arises, and they’re both such men that these gifts are usually just practical items: new boots, a thicker cloak, and so on.

But now Yusuf passes Nicolo his sketchbook, turning back to the bag to buckle it closed again.

“A sketchbook,” Nicolo muses with a smile, rubbing a thumb over the bound leather cover. “You shouldn't have.”

“Oh, stop,” Yusuf grumbles, snatching the book back once his bag is closed. He shoves it off the bed with a mildly worrying clank and sits in its vacated spot, next to Nicolo. “Your jokes will make you look a fool when you are crying tears of gratitude on me.”

Nicolo smiles. Yusuf’s thigh, pressed against Nicolo’s, is warm, and his shoulder knocks against Nicolo’s with such familiarity Nicolo wonders if he could identify Yusuf from that alone; without sight, without hearing. He thinks he could, given the opportunity.

Yusuf flips through his sketchbook quickly, scanning past images of landscapes and crowded marketplaces and Nicolo’s own smiling face until he stops at a certain page, angling the book away so that Nicolo cannot see. He peers sideways at him, suspicious or maybe anticipatory.

“Do you expect me to start the tears of gratitude now, or…?” Nicolo asks, grinning at Yusuf’s unamused stare before Yusuf shoves the book into Nicolo’s open hands.

Nicolo doesn’t understand what he’s looking at, at first. Not that he doesn’t recognize the image; he does, he just doesn’t... understand.

“How…?” Nicolo asks, trailing off in wonder. He lifts a hand to touch the image, then snatches his hand away, afraid he’ll smear it.

It’s his mother.

He doesn’t understand how Yusuf could do this; drawing his mother is one thing, but the accuracy of the drawing to Nicolo’s memory is astounding. The line of her cheekbones and the crinkles of her crows feet, the shape of her eyes set by happiness. The drift of hair over her shoulder is a little longer than his mother had it, and a little straighter, but other than that it is an almost perfect recreation. Down to the curl of her mouth, the small flash of teeth. Nicolo can practically hear her in the image, her eyebrows raised and surprised joy flashing in her eyes, as she says, “That’s a big one, Nicolo, good job!”

“How did you do this?” Nicolo asks, voice small.

“Do you remember when you told me what she looked like?” Yusuf asks. “When we were talking about Andromache’s mother?”

“Yes, I remember,” Nicolo replies, frustrated. “I told you she had brown hair and green eyes. Yusuf, how did you--” He peels his eyes off of the drawing that sends him straight to his childhood. “You even got her smile right.”

Yusuf presses his lips together in a fond little smirk. “I will tell you, but you must agree not to share my secret.”

“Yusuf.”

Yusuf scoots that much closer, tucking a hand under Nicolo’s jaw, thumb smoothing over his cheek. “I know how she smiles because I know how you smile. Because she’s your mother. And she lives in you, even if she’s been dead three hundred years. Even if you forget her to some small degree, she will stay with you. Here--” Yusuf touches the corner of Nicolo’s mouth. “And here--” His pointer swipes over Nicolo’s cheekbone. “And here.” He presses a thumb under Nicolo’s eye, and it comes away wet. He makes a small noise. “I was kidding about the tears of gratitude, Nico.”

The sketchbook almost falls off of Nicolo’s thighs in his urgency to pull Yusuf into a hug.

Yusuf returns the embrace with a huffing little laugh, arms wrapping around Nicolo’s waist and hauling him in close, the sketchbook folding closed between the press of their bodies, the beat of their hearts against each other.

“Thank you, Yusuf,” Nicolo murmurs into the crook of Yusuf’s neck, endlessly sincere. His fingers hook into Yusuf’s tunic, over his back, already pulled tight by the muscles there.

“Happy anniversary,” Yusuf responds cheerily. “To three hundred years, eh?”

“And three hundred more,” Nicolo reminds him.

“Fuck, Nicolo.” Yusuf leans back, hands lingering at his waist. He catches Nicolo’s eyes, his brows pulled together. “To three thousand more; Andromache doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Nicolo frowns, recalling Yusuf saying something of the sort in the hall. “What did she say?”

“What did she say?” Yusuf repeats thoughtfully. “I don’t remember-- some nonsense about us getting tired of each other.”

“Oh.” Nicolo does remember that. “I don’t think she meant it like that, Yusuf. And after all, she is rather the authority on how the relationships of immortals work.”

“The authority!” Yusuf repeats, mocking. “When Andromache kills a man with her bare hands and comes out the other side of the experience loving him, I will give her credence to the idea that she’s an authority over our relationship.”

“I didn’t say she was an authority over us. Just that she may understand better.”

“What, do you think she’s right?” Yusuf’s brow furrows, voice lowering. “That we shall grow tired of each other?”

“No,” Nicolo immediately insists, his desire to assure Yusuf strong and instinctual. He lets his hand slide to his shoulder, gripping there. “At least,” he admits on second thought, “I’ve never once felt anything to give me the impression that I will. But it may happen, Yusuf.”

To be completely honest, Nicolo can’t imagine such a thing. He’s woken up every morning for the past three hundred years of his life at Yusuf’s side, and he can’t even begin to understand what kind of drastic shift in his heart would inspire him to grow tired or restless of doing so. Of Yusuf’s hands, of his voice, of his glittering eyes and his loud, joyful laugh-- and the way he furrows his brow when he’s thoughtful, like he’s doing at Nicolo right now.

“Because Andromache says so? I think not,” Yusuf argues. “Andromache is wise, but she’s known us barely more than a hundred years. Her experience does not allow her to see to your heart, or to mine. I will love you forever, Nicolo.”

“Forever is a long time, Yusuf,” Nicolo responds, smiling.

“Well, I will,” Yusuf insists. “When we are twice as old as Andromache is today, and the memories of our childhoods, and our warring, and even our three hundred year anniversary will be nothing but dust, I will remember loving you with certainty-- and that will be because I’ll have done it every day of my life.”

Yusuf shrugs and presses closer, bowing his forehead to Nicolo’s. “And if we forget every bad time and every good time with it,” he murmurs, looking down, “I will not care; it will all wash away in the sands of time eventually, but I have no intent to be separated from you. I won't let memory or time or violence take you from me. I don’t care what Andromache says. The only thing that will end us is your word, Nicolo.”

Amused, Nicolo lets out a throaty little huh. “You will be waiting a long time for that, Yusuf. Maybe even forever.”

Yusuf grins at that, eyes flicking up, and Nicolo has that split second thought he always has --you’re hiding dimples under all that beard-- before Yusuf tilts his head up and kisses him, leaning forward with all the drunken weight of his body.

Nicolo catches Yusuf’s jaw in his hand, shoulders bunching up as he shifts so that Yusuf doesn't topple them both; tilts his head and grips Yusuf’s shoulder and kisses him back.

It is not, admittedly, their best kiss. But Nicolo’s found over the years that a kiss with Yusuf is a kiss with Yusuf, which is to say no matter how much their teeth clack or their mouths miss their mark, it is still Yusuf, so none of them are actually bad.

And Nicolo is distracted. Yusuf is one to spew pretty words whenever the mood takes him, but his aptitude for the spoken word even in the worst --or most drunken-- of times always catches Nicolo off guard; even three hundred years into their relationship.

Every day of my life, Yusuf had said, and Nicolo finds himself giddy and weightless at the idea. Every day of our lives, Nicolo thinks to himself, unable to fight off a smile as Yusuf pulls him in closer, a hand at his neck. Every day.

It is a fair while later --after Nicolo has pried Yusuf’s boots off, after the lantern light was blown out, and after they are both under the admittedly threadbare blanket-- that Nicolo lies propped up on his elbows on his side of the bed, admiring the drawing of his mother by moonlight. Yusuf lies on his back beside Nicolo, either asleep or drifting, arm thrown over his eyes and mouth pulled into a frown.

“Are you going to sleep tonight?” Yusuf asks groggily after some time, revealing himself to be awake. “Or must I compete with my own drawing for your attention?”

“You made a mistake giving me this,” Nicolo replies, closing the sketchbook and leaning over to set it carefully on the floor. “I will do nothing but admire it for eternity.”

With a huff, he settles under the blanket, facing Yusuf, crossing his arms to his chest. Yusuf responds with only a smile, and after the silence stretches for a moment, Nicolo adds, “I wish I could give you such peace in regards to your own mother.”

Yusuf drops the arm from his face, squinting sideways at Nicolo. “Pfft. You have already brought me more peace than any other living being on this earth. Give making me the happiest man alive a rest for a few minutes, Nicolo; you’ll give yourself a complex.” He rolls onto his side. “But also roll over. What are you doing lying all the way over there, anyways?”

“Giving myself a complex, apparently,” Nicolo grumbles, doing as he’s told and shuffling onto his side. Yusuf throws an arm over him from behind, snuggling forward and pulling Nicolo back in unison until they are pressed against each other, shoulders to thighs.

“I am being truthful,” Yusuf murmurs after a moment, low and intimate and close, tired words slurring into each other. He yawns before butting his forehead gently against the back of Nicolo’s neck. “My mother-- I have many good memories of her, and some bad. I would like to forget some and cherish others, but in the end I will likely lose all or most of ‘em, as Andromache has. That’s just the truth of it all.” He yawns again, shifting his grip on Nicolo. “I could draw her if I wish, but I don’t know if even a thousand drawings will ease her memory. And losing memories is a simple trade-off of the life we live, even if we didn’t choose it. I may not keep my memories, but as long as I can keep you, I am at peace with it all.”

Nicolo considers that, tucking his own hands into his sides. As much as their immortality was not a choice-- it was nothing either Nicolo or Yusuf asked for or even really wanted, three hundred years ago, but it was gifted to them anyway. They didn’t ask for each other either, and yet Yusuf was given to Nicolo and vice versa in the same breath that their immortality was thrust upon them.

But of course, unlike the immortality, and unlike all the other positives and negative consequences that came with it, they did choose each other. They chose to put down their weapons. They chose to stay at each other’s side. They’ve chosen that every single day of the last three hundred years. Hopefully they will do so for the next three hundred -- thousand-- years.

He will lose his memories eventually, one day, one way or another. It is like Yusuf said: it is a simple trade-off of the life they live.

But if it had been a choice-- well. Even the innocent comfort of his mother’s memory, of those late afternoons picking seashells-- those memories are not nothing to him, but if it ever came between keeping them and keeping Yusuf… the choice is obvious.

But there is no choice. The memories will fade one day whether he wants them to or not, whether Yusuf draws a thousand portraits of his mother or not.

Yusuf will not fade. Yusuf will be here. Yusuf has been here, for three hundred years.

Every day of our lives, Nicolo thinks, and smiles.

“You know,” he says quietly into the dark room. “You are a very wise man, Yusuf.”

“Don’t tell Quynh and Andromache,” Yusuf mumbles into Nicolo’s nape. “It will ruin my image.”

Nicolo snorts, smiles, and, eventually, falls asleep in Yusuf’s arms.

#Anonymous #joe x nicky

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honeywithblueberries · 3 years

Text

The Perks- Face to Face

I told you I was writing another one. It’s a bit meh, but I hope you like it! And there’s some light smut in it too :).

…………………….

Jack sat at the table across from the small ewe and glowered, the badge around her neck displaying her name.

Even her fucking name is annoying, the buck thought. Dawn Bellwether… Phft! Dawn! This bitch ain’t aptly named.

Skye had been initially excused from the meeting, though she took it as recommendation rather than an order. Her arms were crossed as she stood behind Jack. Her blue eyes were afire with rage but for all the good it did, she may as well have been in the kitchen. Still, the rabbit buck was comforted by her presence. The ewe simply sat calmly in front of them, unfazed by the angry predator.

Bellwether clacked away at the bulky laptop, a smug grin on her face as she did.

“Such a disgusting little shop,” she said, her eyes flicking up at the audible grind of Jack’s teeth. “My sister was here last week. Told me all about the filth and muck that was lurking here.“ The ewe tsked and paused her typing. “Can’t say I’m surprised. An owner that lets their morals fly as loose as yours? No wonder this place is a garbage heap.”

“Yeah, fresh sani buckets, sanitized sinks, up to code refrigerators and freezers with everything in them labeled and dated, and all of my employees have their food handler’s cards. Not to mention my grease trap and kitchen have been recently inspected and the fire department has already given their ‘OK’ after our last inspection.” Jack gave the inspector an almost friendly smile. “But you’re right! Such a filthy dump of free love and expression. Stick around long enough and you may get invited upstairs for our… What would you call it, Skye?” The buck gave a mockingly confused look over his shoulder at the vixen, who shot the ewe a toothy grin.

Her paws went to his shoulders as she leaned over him. “I thought we were good with calling it an orgy, handsome.” She maintained eye contact as she grinned, showing off every pearly white tooth, and lightly nipped Jack’s ear.

The buck grinned at the look of horror on Bellwether’s face, trying not to shiver when she hit a sensitive spot. His paw rose to cover Skye’s and gave it a small squeeze. With a shake of her head, her jaw obviously, painfully clenched, Bellwether tapped away at her computer.

“Fortunately for you,” she began, her eyes focused on the screen, “the law prohibits me from inspecting a private residence.”

“Yes, I feel myself drowning in fortune,” Jack remarked with a sarcastic smile. Bellwether merely huffed at him and continued to type.

“But be that as it may,” the ewe continued, “there’s still enough around this hovel to fail you. Or at least not give you the A you think you deserve.”

For the first time since they sat down, Jack let his temper rise out of his control. A bolt of righteous anger shot down his spine and he shot to his feet. His fur fluffed out and his ears were stiff as boards on his head.

“Like what?” he demanded. “The only thing you have on us is a grudge. The last three health inspectors have always rated us as one of the cleanest restaurants in the city and we've followed every code down to the letter. My mammals called me the Striped Dictator for the first six months we were in business!”

Skye looked at him in surprise before her ears picked up the sound of light laughter. Sandra, Bobby, and Kari were trying to hide their amusement by the register. Sandra caught Skye’s eye and nodded.

“It’s true,” she confirmed. “That was the nicest name we had for him.” Skye bit the inside of her cheek before turning her attention back to the ewe.

“So?” demanded Jack as he crossed his arms and looked at the ewe expectantly. “What possible reason could you have for giving us a less than perfect score? Or do I need to file a complaint with the health board and alert them of our previous exchange.”

With a falsely sweet smile, Bellwether stood and closed her laptop. Facing the buck fully, she gave him a look so cocky, Skye automatically put her paws on his shoulders to keep him from punching her.

“Minors under the age of fifteen can’t get their food safety cards in Zootopia.” Bellwether turned her smile towards Nick, Judy, and Gideon, who could be seen peeking out from the kitchen. Facing Jack once more, she handed him the inspection slip and gathered her things. “C minus. Tsk! Such a shame. Maybe next time we can bump it up to a C plus." Pulling her laptop case behind her, Bellwether marched towards the door. “Toodaloo!”

Both Jack and Skye glared after her, Skye more composed than her boss, who was practically quivering with rage.

“I will snap her,” he growled, his bright blue eyes still narrowed on the closed cafe door. “I will snap her like a fucking twig.”

Skye ran her paws up his arms to his shoulders, giving the tense muscles a reassuring squeeze.

“We can contest the grade, can’t we?” she asked him. Jack looked over his shoulder at her. “I mean, we can go to the board and file a complaint still. And challenge the grade she gave us. Clearly it was motivated by a personal vendetta and was undeserved.”

“We could, but that doesn’t rule out the fact that she’s right. The kits are too young to get their food safety cards so we’ll have to go through our parents.” Jack sighed and rubbed his muzzle tiredly. “We're going to have to get documentation."

Skye cocked her head at him. “So what’s the issue?”

“It’s not really an issue. Just annoying.” The buck shook his head and stood. “I can bet she’s going to use that against us. If she won’t change our grade after the extra legwork, then we’ll go big.”

Sandra blinked at him before looking at the todd in question. Nick just shrugged at her before the doe turned back to her boss.

“How could you, Mr. Nit Pick, overlook those details? It’s not like you at all.” All eyes turned to the astounded buck. Sandra let a small smirk cross her face before flicking her eyes over to Skye. “Distracted much?”

Jack frowned at her, his crimson ears falling to his back as the fur of his cheeks tinted pink. He opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the sounds of angry yelling. Screeching, more like. Very familiar screeching. Jack, Skye, and everyone else present rushed to the windows to see what the commotion was. A snort escaped him when he saw the ewe rush out of the shop across the street, chased by a predator less than half Skye’s size.

“Cami,” Jack and Sandra said together, laughter in their voices.

“Who?” Skye, Gid, and Nick looked at them curiously as Judy giggled.

“Did someone let Cami out?” Jon asked from the kitchen, excitement in his voice as he rushed to see the spectacle.

All eyes turned back to the window as a vixen only a few inches taller than Finnick chased the ewe down the sidewalk. A broom was waved at her in a threatening manner, her angry tirade audible even from a distance.

“You get out here, you horrible, awful, dirty little creature!” Cami shrieked. "Get out before I shove this broom where the sun don't shine! I deny your entry to my business!"

“It’s a routine health inspection! It's required by law!” Argued Bellwether as she tried to re-approach only for the kit fox to wave her broom and gnash her teeth.

“Get her, Cami,” mumbled Jon, his fists closed in excitement. The mammals in the shop all looked at him. “Get her, get her!”

“Routine inspection! Ha!” Cami scoffed. “Routine inspection, my sweet, little tail! You’re targeting predator friendly shops and I WON’T STAND FOR IT! Hi-ya!” The broom was swiped at her and Bellwether leapt back to avoid getting hit. "That's what I think of your silly law!"

That set off another round of giggles from the occupants of the Perk. Trying to push down his amusement, Jack remembered he actually liked Cami and her being arrested for assault would do no one any favors. Least of all, the family waiting for her inside.

“I’ll be back,” Jack laughed as he headed for the door. Skye watched with interest as the buck raced over and stepped between the two, his paws raised in a soothing manner towards the vixen.

Her furious eyes were still ablaze as she tried to duck around the buck. Skye snorted with laughter as Jack succeeded in scooping up the pygmy fox and sling her over his shoulder. He spun to face Bellwether and address her. Though his words were drowned out by Cami's shrieks of rage and indignation.

“You will put me down right, Hopps, or I’ll yank that sad excuse for a tail out! Put me down!” She thrashed about, Jack nearly losing his hold on her. "I WON'T STAND FOR THIS! AFTER I'M DONE WITH THIS BITCH, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!"

A round of laughter erupted from the cafe. Skye was impressed at how well Jack was handling it. She was way bigger than the kit fox, but had no doubt Cami could lay her out like a rug.

“Give her a minute,” Jon commented, taking a sip of his coffee. Sandra nodded in agreement next to him. Kari and Bobby simply shook their heads and returned to work.

“She’ll tire herself out and crash,” Sandra chuckled and shook her head one more time before heading back to the register. "This isn't the first time something like this has happened."

And sure enough, as the ewe decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation and stormed off with a final glare, the vixen slumped over his shoulder in defeat. Jack wagged his fingers after Bellwether, his “Toodaloo!” audible as his fingers dropped to flip her back off.

“I’m putting you down now,” he warned, as Cami took deep breaths to cool down. “Are you calm?”

“I’m cool, I'm good,” she assured, smiling brightly over her shoulder at him. He nodded and crouched to let her hop off. Only to snatch her by the back of her shirt when she lunged in the direction of the vanishing ewe. “I WILL CUT HER!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you will, killer.” He jerked her back and cautiously released her when she stopped struggling.

She gave up and settled for giving the sidewalk an angry kick before turning to storm off. Curses were muttered under her breath as Jack sighed in relief before looking into the window of the Perk and giving Skye a smile and wave. She wasn’t exactly sure why that made him so sexy, but it did.

“I’m so locking that down,” she murmured to herself with a smile and waved back. The warmth that spread through her tickled and she chuckled a little to herself before turning around. And she nearly ran into Judy. The little bunny giggled and allowed the vixen to put an arm around her shoulders.

“Sorry about that, Bun-Bun,” the vixen joked, giving her a small squeeze and walking towards the coffee bar.

“Jack’s thinking the same thing, if it makes you feel any better. You don't need it, but you have my blessing," Judy grinned then skipped away.

Skye smiled after her, her ears twitching at the sound of the door opening. She turned to greet the buck, leaning against the bar and crossing her arms, her eyes silently inviting him to join her. He returned her grin with one of his own, leaning next to her once he approached.

"So…." She began with a smile. "Cami?"

He huffed and rolled his eyes. But they did light up a bit with humor when the kit fox was brought up.

"She owns the little bistro across the street.” Jack leaned into her space, her muzzle moving in, nearly touching his. “Mostly caters to predators, but she has an amazing black bean burger. She's a little…."

"Perfect," sighed Jon from the coffee maker, breaking whatever trance they were under. They blushed and looked over to him. .

"Bonkers,” Sandra gave the raccoon a droll glare which he ignored while he refilled his coffee. He was obviously day dreaming about whatever a guy like him dreamed of. “Bonkers, is the correct adjective. She’s nice and fun, but balls to the wall insane. Jon has a little crush, " the bunny added with a small smile. “Nevermind Cami’s like ten years older than he is and married.”

The vixen gave a light chuckle, before turning to Jack with a mischievous smile. “Whatever gets him going. Jack, can I talk to you in private? We really should go over that… meeting.”

Sandra nearly choked on her drink. Jon ducked his head to hide his smile and reached for the kits to herd them into the kitchen. Nick and Judy looked back towards their siblings and rolled their eyes but complied. Gideon paid no one any mind as he went right back to making his cookie list.

Jack- being a red blooded male and very good at reading between her lines- got it. His blue eyes became wide when Skye gave him a final, lingering look and moved to the stairs. He was so stunned that for a moment he could only watch her walk away from him, that lucious tail giving a far too appealing flick. She was halfway up the stairs before he came to his senses and tried to not make his haste too obvious.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered, smiling as he gave a distracted wave towards the remaining employees and rushed after her. “Totally! We gotta lot to talk about after that visit. We gotta stay…” his mouth went dry when she turned to face him at the apartment door, completely out of sight of the main lobby. One white paw undid the top few buttons of her shirt and Jack’s train of thought was completely derailed. “...on top of…” He swallowed when another button came undone and the edge of her bra was revealed, “...of the…. thing....”

The giggles and scoffs from down below were ignored. Easily, in fact. Even Sandra’s offer to start making the appropriate phone calls fell on deaf ears. Skye opened the unlocked door with one paw, the other snatching him by the collar and crushing her lips to his. They stumbled over the threshold. Jack’s paws went to her hips and the door was kicked shut. Her paws stripped him of his shirt just as her ass found the dining room table. He helped her onto it as he finished unbuttoning her shirt and tossed it over his shoulder. Once it was out of the way, his paws went to her jaw to continue their kiss.

“I’ve been dreaming of this since I first saw you,” he mumbled as his mouth and paws began to explore. Jack dragged his lips down her throat making her groan and clutch at his shoulders. Her knees went to his hips trying to drag him closer and properly wrap her legs around him. His paws moved over her body, thumbs slipping under her bra strap but pausing until he got permission. She dropped her own to his belt buckle, feeling him pause and huff into her fur, inhaling her scent as deeply as he could.

Jack pulled back, panting heavily, and both sets of eyes dropped to her paws before meeting again. Her shifting hips put enough pressure on her target that he had to bite his lip to stifle his groan. A paw left to cup his jaw and brought his gaze back to hers. Blue met blue while Jack composed himself enough to focus.

“What do you want from me, Jack?” Skye asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. Jack smiled at her as if it was obvious.

“Forever,” he answered. “I want forever.”

Again, his collar was grabbed and their lips crashed together.

“I need you,” she muttered against his lips. “All of you…”

“I’m yours…” Was the passionate response.

Both sets of paws moved to the other's pants, frantically unbuttoning. Skye had his belt undone and was ready to shove them to the ground just as he managed to slip hers away from her hips. She pressed herself close against him, lifting and shifting to get them off and onto the floor. All she wanted now was to strip him naked as fast as she could.

And she would have…. if the door hadn’t banged open.

…………

“They’re going to do it somewhere gross,” Bobby muttered. Nick, who had grabbed a bus tub, pulled a face of disgust.

"Bobby!" He protested. Judy had begun to help Kari pull orders together and shared a short giggle with her. Nick caught her eye. "Why aren't you more grossed out by this?"

Judy shrugged and gave him a smile.

"I'm a bunny," she explained, boxing up cookies. "Some of the things I've walked in on still give me nightmares." The doe shuddered and earned a laugh from the young todd. "There's a reason some stereotypes exist. Jack isn't nearly as bad as some of my other brothers and sisters. At least, not while I'm here."

"Not while you're away, either," Sandra confirmed. "The last doe I saw him with was when Adrian Bogo got married last year. They were only together for a few weeks but we didn’t really see her at all. She cheated on him to try to make him jealous because he was so focused on work. I don’t think he ever noticed she stopped coming around." She winked at Nick who was listening in curiosity. “It takes a lot for Jack to notice someone. And Skye is something else.”

Her comment brought a smile to Nick’s lips. All he wanted was what was best for Skye, being his sister and all, and he wanted to make sure any future brother-in-law was worthy of her. Being related to Judy was a huge point in the plus column, but he owed it to his big sister to keep his eyes and ears open. She had such rotten luck with todds and dates in general.

"Your sister picked a good one,” Sandra stacked the orders together and passed the slips to Judy for double checking. Taking another tray of fresh cookies from Gideon she headed out to the display counter.

“The best one,” Judy assured. She also took up a tray as she and Nick exchanged one last smile before he got back to his task. Though she almost ran into Sandra who was paused in the doorway, staring intently out the window. Kari was also frozen, her brow furrowed and ears alert, staring intently at the car that parked in front.

“Isn’t that your brother?” the corasc asked.

Nick and Judy looked past the older mammals, the doe recognizing the beat up SUV. Tom had it since high school and the thing ran on prayers and stubbornness. Nothing anyone could say would make him give that hunk of junk up and he avoided driving long distances specifically so his ride would last longer.

“What’s Tom doing here?” Judy asked to no one in particular. Tom’s dark brown ears were straight as rods, his brows furrowed as he strode to the door of the cafe and marched up to the register.

Judy maneuvered around the adults to speak with him. But he cut her off before she could open her mouth.

“Where’s Jack?” he demanded.

“Uhhh….” Her eyes involuntarily looked towards the stairs, his following before he made towards them. Panic filled her, darting around the bar to try to stop him. “Tom! Wait! You can’t go up there!”

Tom ignored his little sister and took the stairs two at a time. Judy was almost caught up when he banged the door open. The sight of his brother half dressed between the legs of a mostly nude predator had him backing up in shock, his nose twitching like mad as he took in the scene. The amorous couple gasped and Jack spun around trying to use his body to keep Skye out of view. His paws snatched up his shirt, which Skye had dropped next to the table after relieving him of it, and passed it to her. She accepted it gratefully with a blush spreading over her ears and cheeks.

“Tom?” Jack gasped out, frantically trying to redo his belt and pants. Noticing his little sister behind him (along with over half of Perks staff) only made his fluster worse. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you working the market today?”

“Mom and Dad gave me the day off because I told them I had to see you right away.” His brown eyes were focused on the vixen behind his brother, watching her slip the tee-shirt on before hopping off the table to fetch her pants. Jack didn’t care for the appreciative gleam in his brother’s eye. “Maple’s been ranting and raving since she came home this morning about how unbalanced you are.” He met Jack’s gaze, his eyes full of humor with a touch of disbelief. “I’m guessing this is what she was talking about.”

Skye, now fully dressed, turned to face the newcomer with a nervous smile on her muzzle.

"Hi, I'm Skye. I'm Jack's new… GM…" her blush intensified, realizing how their situation must have seemed to his brother.

Tom bit his lip and pulled an expression that had her confused. Like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Skye," he croaked out. His throat was cleared before he continued. "I'm guessing you're the reason our sister is screaming the burrow down."

Skye narrowed her eyebrows in confusion. She turned to Jack, who was rubbing his temples with his back to their audience. Realizing he now had everyone's attention, the stripped buck tried to furtively adjust his pants. He turned to make eye contact with her.

"What's he talking about?" She demanded.

"I didn't want to upset you," Jack took a breath and braced himself when Skye's expression became stormy and suspicious. "My sister had stopped by and saw us at the bar the other night. She came to the shop on your day off, we got in a fight, and she stormed out. I didn't tell you because she's a major speciest bitch, Skye, you didn't deserve to be subjected to it."

She didn't hesitate to stride to him, pulling him back into her arms with another kiss.

"I don't want this to come between you and your family," Skye said as soon as they pulled apart. "This can't destroy everything you worked for."

"Everything I worked for is here in this room." Jack smiled and kissed her again. Pulling back, he gave her a satisfied grin before scowling over her shoulder. "And I would appreciate some boundaries not being broken, thank you very much. "

Tom had been choking on his laughter, leaning on the door frame with Judy patting his back with concern. Nick, Sandra, Kari, Bobbie, and Jon looked between the two brothers. From the bottom of the stairs, Gideon's tentative "Hello?" had them snapping out of it.

Sandra looked horrified once she remembered the young todd was left alone downstairs. "Be right there Gid!"

Everyone but Nick followed her to rejoin Gideon downstairs. Nick's eyes were filled with suspicion and narrowed in on Tom. The brown buck was starting to compose himself and straighten up, putting his arm around Judy while turning to face their still shirtless brother.

“Sorry!” He said before pressing a kiss to his baby sister’s head. “Judy, why don’t you and your friend head down stairs? I'll be down in a bit.”

Skye felt a bit of protective annoyance sneak down her spine at the action. Her intelectual side knew this mammal was closer to the doe than she was, but close proximity with her made Skye’s sisterly instinct kick in. She must have growled because Jack turned to smile reassuringly at her. Once the door closed, he led Skye to the couch and took a seat next to her. Tom was waved towards the chair and Jack to a breath in anticipation for all the questions. From Tom AND Skye.

“So,” Tom cleared his throat and studied his paws, “How long has this been going on?”

The couple gave each other curious looks.

“I think since day one for me…” Jack answered with a smile.

“Sounds about right.” Skye grinned back and pulled him in for a kiss he happily returned. They shocked Tom more by getting a bit carried away. His shock wore off just as his brother’s paws went up the back of her shirt and he cleared his throat.

“Okay, but what’s the time frame?” He had a bit of an edge to his voice when they parted with embarrassed expressions and even more reluctance.

“Two week-mfpt!” came Judy’s voice before it was muffled with a giggle and soft “Shhh….!”

“Nick!”

“Judy!”

“Down stairs, please!” the trio ordered together. The pair on the other side of the door giggled louder and rushed down the stairs.

Tom was half turned in his chair facing the door when he began to shake his head. “I heard from Quentin that she was talking to a fox in the city. I’m guessing that’s him?” Jack nodded with a laugh. The situation was really quite ridiculous, but at least Skye was laughing with him. And he was very aware that she was wearing his shirt; it was really doing something to him. Really, REALLY doing something to him.

“Yeah, that’s my brother,” the vixen slumped back into the couch.

Close enough to Jack so he could pull her into him. It was bizarre for Tom to see his normally uptight brother so infatuated with something other than work. SO bizarre, he had to stand up and shake off the chills he got from the constant state of shock. When he returned to his seat, he took a breath and made his request.

“Okay, I’m just going to ask you both to go back and just catch me up on what’s going on.”

Jack grinned at his brother and got up to head for the kitchen. Shooting a quick text to Sandra updating her on the situation, he pulled open the fridge and grabbed three beers.

“I hope your meter’s paid up,” he said, passing him and Skye a beer each before settling back down with his own. “It’s a long story.”

…………

Greg was hunched over in his tent with every article of clothing he had pulled on. On occasion a drop of water would drip onto his nose, courtesy of the many holes in the roof of his tent. His sleeping bag was drenched but fortunately his clothing was waterproof.

It had been raining non-stop since they had set up camp. They hadn’t even been able to start a fire, getting only as far as setting up shelter before the area was flooded with a late spring storm. Fortunately, they had all been scouts together, and thought to bring rations that didn’t need to be heated.

But that was a small comfort as they gazed miserably out at the pouring rain.

“This sucks.” Greg smiled at the sound of Marco’s voice. The badger’s eyes could be seen glowering at the rain from his own tent.

“Yeah,” agreed Andrew, the meerkat, as Victor (the ferret) laughed next to him. “Whose bright idea was this?”

“Wilde’s,” Victor supplied.

“Said the group of males who claimed camping would help them get in touch with inner predators.” The todd shuddered as a particularly large drop of rain water landed on his nose. Looking up, he groaned as the once invisible tear in the seam now showed a small glimpse on the soggy canopy above them. “Though I’m willing to call a truce in this episode of Male Vs Wild. I mean, if anyone else is interested.”

There was a brief pause before his friends scrambled to their feet to pack up their things. With much slipping and sliding, tents, coolers, and sleeping bags were broken down and tossed in a muddy heap in the car.

“All right,” groaned Marco as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “let’s get the hell out of here. And you animals are cleaning my car when we get back.”

Sighs echoed around the vehicle when the air vent warmed up. They pulled out of the camp site towards the highway, Greg stretching as much as he could in the back and relaxing. Part of him was excited to be going home early. As much as he loved his friends, he found himself wanting a bit more curvier companionship. He couldn’t go back to the bar, on the off chance Duke was there, but he had a few places in mind that wouldn’t look too closely at his fake.

But there was something to be said about vixen he saw at the gas station. She was just the sort of companionship he needed right now. And the fact that she didn’t seem the least bit charmed by him made him pant harder.

Way to be a cliche, Wilde, he thought with a smile as he dozed.

The trip back home seemed to take no time at all. Before they knew it, the wild outskirts of Meadowland became more rural and cultivated before turning into the more familiar streets Savana Central. With rain left behind, the dreary twilight they left behind was now clear and (mostly) dry city nightlife.

After being dropped off in front of his building, Greg lugged his gear up and into the apartment. It was left in a damp heap by the door as the todd savored the silence for a moment before heading towards the bathroom. He sighed in relief when the hot water hit him, soaking into his fur, taking the dirt and grime with it down the drain. Suddenly he felt very tired. The idea of going out and finding some company lost its appeal and a new idea took form. Once he was clean and dry, he fell into his bed and opened his laptop. He scrolled a bit and found what he was looking for; he leaned back and pressed play on his favorite video.

“Okay, Greg!” His dad’s voice came from behind the camera as he focused on his nine year old son in the hospital bed. “How ya feelin’, buddy?”

“Really great, Dad,” he answered, looking exhaustedly into the camera. “Nothing like having your appendix taken out to make a mammal feel alive.”

The camera shook as Matthew laughed.

“Trust me, bud!” his dad’s voice assured cheerfully. “Someday you're going to watch this and thank me for making it.”

“Oh, honey,” his mother laughed when Matty swung the camera to her. She carried a bag of Greg’s favorite fast food for dinner and set it on his bedside. “Please give it a rest with that thing and help your daughter with your son.”

On his bed, Greg laughed with tears in his eyes when his father zoomed in on his mother’s rump and whistled. Vivian swished her tail in irritation but there was humor in her voice when she addressed him again.

“Matty, you’re going to scar our children for life.”

“Too late,” Skye chirped from somewhere off screen.

He could hear himself laughing off camera and the screen zoomed out again and focused on the bedridden kit. This time, Skye had come to stand on the other side of the bed and settled their little brother on the bed with him. The youngest Wilde snuggled next to his big brother and took a burger from his mom.

“I’m just making sure everyone knows who the world’s greatest family is.” The camera was flipped around and showed a close up of Matty’s nose before he adjusted it. The familiar green eyes were as bright as they had been the last time he saw him alive. “I have the world’s greatest family,” he declared. “That’s me, Matthew Wilde.” The camera went back to the Wilde’s eating their food while their patriarch amused himself.

Greg cried but was smiling as he clicked through his saved videos. But in the end it was just salt on his wounds. He felt a tug of loneliness and curled up and closed his eyes. His mind wandered to the vixen in the gas station. She was something else and if he had been in a better mood he would have gone out to find her or a vixen who looked like her. Falling into a fitful sleep, the todd dreamed about his father and their life before that horrible day.

And part of him desperately hoped he would find what the rest of his family was finding: Peace.

…………..

It was an interesting day for Tom. A whole new world of firsts that had been busted wide open and it was (if he was being honest with himself) a lot to take in at once. He knew there was a reason why Jack and Judy were so close. Ever since she was small, she and Jack had been like carbon copies of each other. Though she noticeably lacked his skills in the kitchen. But neither of them seem to fit the majority of the stereotypes for rabbits. Jack hated carrots and Judy had less interest in dating than her big brother.

But seeing the two oddballs in the family go ga-ga over foxes was rather… disconcerting. Almost as much as seeing the foxes go ga-ga over them. And even more crazy was Tom could see exactly what Jack saw in Skye. At least, physically. Tom was a normal rabbit in almost every regard and his own pants grew tight at the sight of the beautiful vixen in just her underwear. He wasn’t proud of his reaction, but what’s a guy to do? The vixen was hot! She and Jack made sense.

It was almost three by the time the trio had finished talking and made their way back down stairs. Skye was still wearing his shirt, something Jack was still very aware of. Turning back into the lobby, Kari and Bobby both snorted and giggled behind their paws as they left for the day. Sandra gave them a knowing smirk while Jon was showing Gid how to make different decorations with a piping bag. Nick and Judy were back by the sinks, giggling and washing dishes.

“Sandra!” greeted Tom as he held out a paw to her. “Always a pleasure to see you again.” She nodded and accepted a pawshake as he looked over her shoulder into the kitchen. “Judy? I’m leaving now!”

The doe looked over before dashing towards him to say goodbye. Tom noted the look of disappointment on Nick’s face when she did, but he carried on with his work without complaint. Judy gave her big brother a quick hug and kiss, bouncing back to her friend within seconds of leaving him.

“I’ll miss you, too,” the brown buck mumbled, feeling hurt that she didn’t pay much attention to her big brother. Jack looked over at their sister and shook his head with a smile.

“She’s smitten,” he explained. Tom’s eyebrows went up.

“It seems she’s not the only one smitten.” The brother’s shared a laugh as Skye joined them. Tom smiled at her. “Take care of my brother and sister, okay?”

Skye grinned and stuck out her paw. “Deal.” To her surprise, he batted her paw away and pulled her into a hug.

“Welcome to the family,” he whispered so low, only she could hear. Not even Jack picked it up, though he did see the happy smile on her face when she looked over at him. He was almost out the door when Jack called back to him.

"Hey, Tom? Let's keep this between us, okay?" Tom and Skye looked at him in confusion. "I want to tell Mom and Dad myself, face to face. With Skye next to me. Soon," he added with a reassuring smile at the vixen.

The brown buck grinned at the pair and nodded. Giving a final wave, he left for his car. Skye gave Jack a kiss on the cheek, relishing how he pulled her close and nuzzled into her neck. They pulled away from each other to give Tom a final wave though the window as he drove away. Just as they had turned to restart their day, when Brook and David appeared, walking and chatting as they reached the door. Both teens smiled at the couple when they entered.

“Hello, Mr. Hopps,” greeted Brook politely, looking from one to the other. “Hi, Skye. Are Nick and Judy around? We were hoping they might be able to come with us to the Canal district. There’s a boat parade and festival going on.”

The pair in question had spotted their friends not long after they had entered and rushed out to greet them.

“What are you guys doing here!” asked Judy, her voice filled with excitement.

“Boat Parade in the Canal District.” David answered, winking at Nick. “There’s a really good ice cream place nearby. Are you in the mood for some ice cream, Nick?”

The young todd grinned and looked down at the doe. “I think I can go for a scoop.”

Judy rolled her eyes, but smiled and looked over at Jack.

“Can we go? Gideon will love it and it gets us out of your fur for a few hours.” Judy looked over to Gideon through the window, returning the thumbs up he gave her.

“Imma call my sister and ask her now!” Gideon called out.

“And afterwards,” Brook chimed in, “I was hoping you could sleep over tonight, Judy.”

“And my parents said you can stay the night at my place!” Dave added with a grin. ”Gideon can join, if he wants and his sister’s okay with it.”

“We’re going to have to check with your parents, but I’m fine with it,” Skye said with a suggestive smile to Jack on her muzzle. He, however, looked concerned and opened his mouth to protest only to get an elbow to the ribs from her. She gave him a look until he realized what she was insinuating.

A night to themselves, no kits, completely uninterrupted and focused on just each other.

“Yup!” He agreed eagerly. “You can go! Have fun, be safe, have fun!”

Jack double checked Gideon’s work and spoke to both Daisy and Brook’s mother before allowing the kits to leave for the day. There was electricity in the air as they completed the work day and closed up, broken briefly by Cami when she barged into the cafe, shrieking about her master plan to get rid of Bellwether for good. She didn’t elaborate beyond a cackle and victory dance, her patient husband waiting outside the cafe doors, shaking his head with amusement. Michael gave Jack and Skye a small wave and smile before dutifully following his wife back to their restaurant. Once they were out of sight, their heated gazes allowed them to go on auto mode as their employees bid them good night. Now, with the lights off in the cafe and darkness surrounding them, they calmly took the stairs up to the apartment.

But all sense of restraint and decorum flew out the window before they had crossed the threshold.

……………………….

Maple was still fuming. Pacing the house, half completing tasks, slamming things around, and snapping at anyone who came near her. Including her parents. Bonnie Hopps was massaging her temples at the kitchen table as she tried to figure out how to handle her daughter. One of her other daughters who was helping with dinner put a glass of water in front of her with cucumber and mint added to it.

“Here you go, Mama,” she said with a kiss to her head.

“Thank you, baby.” The matriarch reached for glass and smiled at her husband entering from outside, Ben following closely behind him.

“Look who just pulled up,” Stu greeted happily. Bonnie smiled and stood to greet her son, when she was stopped by the cold, hard voice of Maple.

“Where the hell have you been?” Maple stomped into the kitchen and glared at her brother. Her siblings in the kitchen paused to gaze at her in amazement. Swearing was forbidden in the warren; both Bonnie and Stu were very militant about it. But neither had the opportunity to reprimand her before she plowed on, unbothered by her words. “Why do all the bucks in this warren think they can just run off and do whatever they want? What the fuck is the matter with you?! You’re just like Jack and, if you’re not careful, you’re going to end up just like him! A pathetic loser who can only find other bits of trash to tolerate him! Do you want to be trash like he is, Tom? Should I just drag you out to the curb and wait for pick up?”

It was well known in Bunnyburrow that Tom Hopps was the most even tempered rabbit in the area. No one, not even his parents, knew of a time he had lost his temper. He frustrated most bullies because they couldn’t get a rise out of him and it was usually he who stepped up to calm any squabbling within the family. The buck was just so damn calm and likable. When Maple wasn’t breathing fire, even she got along with him. And she was his opposite in nearly every regard.

But Tom was only mammal. And he wasn’t sure why he became enraged, but he did. Like everyone else at the Perks, he had recognized how good Skye was Jack. Even if it was just an infatuation destined to sizzle out. The two were consenting adults who were enjoying each other's company. Jack had seemed to skip over the doe crazy faze of his adolescence and dived right into workaholic. Up until his first visit home from college, Tom thought he was still a virgin. Walking in on him and a neighbor doe was shocking. But what he had now made that seem vanilla in comparison.

That reaction from Maple was the limit for him. Tom was not going to sit back and listen to her insult his brother and the perfectly lovely vixen he had chosen to be his mate.

“You need to shut the fuck up, Maple!” That earned an audible gasp from the kitchen. “Just because you’re bitter no one wants to touch your fun parts doesn’t mean you can rag on him for finding someone that’s willing to touch his. Even if she is a-” The horror Tom felt at his inability to keep in the next word was palatable. “-fox!”

Bonnie and Stu stood staring at him with their jaws dropped. Maple looked equal parts furious and smug. Everyone else took one look at their parents and filed out of the kitchen. Most pulled out their cell phones and started taping away. Tom knew within minutes, everyone in Bunnyburrow would know about this. He buried his face in his paws, hoping he was in a bad dream and trying to keep his tears to himself. Jack had asked him for only one thing in their entire history as brothers and Tom failed him.

“What do you mean she’s a fox?” Bonnie’s voice was deadly quiet.

Maple chimed in, in her most viciously smug voice. “She’s a smelly, evil, horrible-”

“I don’t remember asking you a godsdamn thing, young lady!” Maple was shocked into silence by the harsh comment. Her mother’s eyes flashed angrily at her. “Leave the kitchen.” The younger doe gulped but didn’t move.

“NOW!” Stu’s voice made her jump and dash for the door. He strode over to the kitchen table and yanked out a chair. “Sit!” he ordered.

Tom didn’t think to disobey. Once he was sat and joined by his parents, he braced himself for their questions. And question him they did. He wasn’t sure what happened to his resolve and backbone as he answered every question without resistance. After they had interrogated him, they sat in stunned silence before turning to each other.

“You have to call him,” Stu decided to his wife. “If I do, I’m going to scream at him and drag him AND Judy home by their ears.”

Bonnie nodded and pulled out her phone.

“Wait!” Tom begged. His mother paused to give him a very nerve wracking glare. “Please, just wait until morning. Give yourself time to cool off and at least meet her! She’s really great and has this adorable little brother who Judy has a huge crush on! It’s really, really sweet-”

“She’s bringing more foxes around our baby?” Bonnie practically screamed. She stood from her seat, trembling in fury and panting in nearly uncontrolled rage and pulled her phone from her apron pocket. “And you want us to wait UNTIL MORNING to call him? Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

This time, some tears did escape his eyes. “Please….” he begged, hoping to reach them. “Just wait. You know how Jack is if you try to strong arm him with anything. If you don’t want to lose your son, please just sleep on it.”

Stu and Bonnie glared at Tom, both standing now, Bonnie’s thumb poised over Jack’s number.

“Fine,” she decided. She navigated away from the call screen and turned abruptly to leave the kitchen. “Stu, deal with him, please.”

Their son watched her stride away from him before he focused on his equally furious father.

“You need to find somewhere else to stay,” the patriarch ordered with ice in his tone. “If you’re going to support this type of behavior, you’re not going to do it under my roof. Get out.”

Brown met brown as both bucks marinated in silence. Tom felt a numbness seep into him as he stood from his seat and walked back to the kitchen door. His paw fished his phone out as he turned the knob. He needed to warn his brother so he can at least be prepared for the fallout about to come his way.

“Leave your phone.” The younger buck stumbled in shock and looked back at Stu. “Your mother and I paid for it. We would like it back. Now.”

His eyes looked down at his brother’s number and contact picture and he swallowed. With a sullen nod, he turned and set the phone on the table before turning to leave again. Trudging to his car, he climbed behind the wheel and broke down. There was no way Jack or Judy would ever forgive him for this.

…………………..

Skye smiled down at Jack underneath her. His paws travelled up her thighs, sitting up once he got to her hips and kissing her. Pleasure, centered in the apex of her legs, ignited and warmth flowed through her, one of his thumbs moving gently, yet firmly, in place. Her paws cupped his face to deepen their kiss.

“You feel so good,” she whimpered when they parted. He thrust slowly and kissed down her neck while cupping her breast.

“Gods, you’re so beautiful.” Jack slid his paws to her cheeks, wanting to see her pleasure drunk expression as he moved with her.

He had always enjoyed sex, but truth be told, he could either take it or leave. With Skye, however, he had no idea how he lived without it. Without her. He felt he had been waiting his entire life to find her and now that she was in his arms, his world finally made sense. HE finally made sense. This realization had his passion overflowing, causing him to roll until he rested in the valley of her legs and showed her how much he wanted her.

And her moans and begs for more drowned out the constant pinging and ringing of the cell phone still stuck in his pants pocket by the front door.

#zootopia #wildehopps #savageskye #jacksavage #skyefrost #alternate universe #cafelife

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missytearex · 4 years

Photo

Here are the fics that kept me entertained this month. Remember to leave kudos/comments if you choose to check them out. Under 10k fics are under the cut.

🌊 Follow Your Arrow by @bitter-leaf --- [fic post]

larry | 78k | explicit

Harry was the golden child, blessed in every way; Niall was the charming miscreant, a bad boy; Liam was the future-son-in-law parents of daughters dreamt of, and Zayn was the kid parents wished was their son. But Louis, Harry thought, Louis was the special one.

It's senior year and everything is about to change.

🌊 Caves End by @jacaranda-bloom --- [fic post]

larry | 39k | explicit

When a recurring injury cuts short Harry’s time as the Captain of the English Football Team, he needs to rethink his career and his future. His best mate and manager, Niall, decides that what Harry really needs is a change of scenery, time to relax, and to get some perspective on his life. What Harry doesn’t expect is for them to end up in Australia, on a farm, with the most gorgeous man he’s ever laid eyes on.

OR the one where Harry has lost his future, Louis has lost his past, but maybe together, they can find a way through the dark.

🌊 What You're Signing On For by @a-brighter-yellow --- [fic post]

larry | 29k | mature

Back at home in London after a whirlwind romance, Louis wants nothing more than to break ties completely with the sophisticated Frenchman who swept him off his feet. In order to do that, he needs the help of Harry Styles: former town bad boy and adopted brother of Louis' flatmate.

An O.C. AU about flawed first impressions, the seductive power of French pastries, bad romance novelists, and getting on the same page.

🌊 Home (It's You) by Anonymous --- [fic post]

larry | 28k | mature

When Louis left his high-powered life in the city to settle down in the suburbs, he had hoped to one day fall in love and start a family. He certainly didn’t expect to meet the omega of his dreams within five minutes of moving in.

He also didn’t expect the love of his life to hate him so much.

Or, Louis and Harry are neighbors who can't seem to get along...until they fall in love.

🌊 driving down a one way road (to something better) by @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed --- [fic post]

zouis | 26k | teen and up

“I’m at the airport.” It’s followed by a bitter laugh. “I’m - I’m literally at the airport, hiding away in the toilets to make a phone call. They’re probably going to barge in here in a minute, thinking I’m doing something illegal, but I didn’t know what else to do Lou.” He sounds desperate, wild, nothing that Louis is used to associating with Zayn. “My flight leaves in an hour, and I wasn’t gonna do this, but, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Louis frowns. “What do you mean, love?”

“Can I - Can I please come and stay with you?” It’s barely more than a whisper, and Louis honestly isn’t sure if he’s heard it right, but the lack of an immediate response on his part makes Zayn’s breath come out all shaky and Louis won’t stand for that.

“Yes,” he decides, repeats it, in a softer but no less certain voice, when he knows Zayn is about to protest. “Yes. Of course. I’ll be there, yeah? I’ll come pick you up. When will you get here? What airport?”

---

When Zayn breaks up with his boyfriend, he needs a place to stay. Louis wouldn't be Louis if he didn't immediately open his doors to him. Never mind the fact that he's been in love with him for two years. That's not important, right?

🌊 A Road To Something Better by @taggiecb --- [fic post]

larry | 25k | explicit

Louis Tomlinson, famous romance novelist, has just had the rug pulled out from under his feet when his boyfriend leaves him without notice. What's the most appropriate response to this? Move a thousand miles away and seclude himself in a tiny lake town, of course. But nothing is as he expects it to be in the very best way, especially not the handsome mayor of McAll, Idaho.

🌊 When Tomorrow Comes by Anonymous --- [fic post]

larry | 11k | explicit

When Louis and Niall are partnered up to complete a project on Omega scents and how they effect the nesting behaviours of Alphas, little does Louis know that the course of his life is about to be forever altered.

OR the one where Louis is an Omega who has been keeping himself pure for his Alpha, Harry is a traditional Alpha focusing on his studies while he waits to find his bondmate, and Niall is a sneaky bastard who keeps borrowing Louis’ clothes and never returning them.

🌊 I can’t do this alone (sometimes I just need a light) by @beau-soleil-louis --- [fic post]

larry | 7k | not rated

“Harry,” he says after another contemplative moment, “can I hug you?”

It’s been...well, Harry doesn’t actually know how long it’s been. Less than an hour, probably, but already Louis says his name like it’s safe in his mouth, and now he’s opening his arms like Harry could be safe there too.

“Please,” Harry nearly sobs, and sinks into him the way butter melts on toast. It’s an apt metaphor, really, because what Louis is giving him is as essential and sustaining as a loaf of bread to a starving man. His basic need for physical affection is as vital as his need for sustenance, for sleep, and he can’t believe he’s allowed himself to ignore it for so long.

Or: Harry is having a rough time. Louis is the kind stranger who makes him smile again.

🌊 Nailed By Louis by @haztobegood --- [fic post]

larry | 6k | explicit

It had started as a joke, just two months earlier. Louis had tried to make recipe from HarrySizzles Instagram account. It looked doable: no strange ingredients, no scary kitchen machinery. Just a simple layered lettuce salad. The result had been catastrophic. His friends had laughed so hard at the disgusting appearance of his salad, and after a few drinks, Louis had been convinced to start his own Instagram to track his food failures.

🌊 You Drive Me Wild by @jacaranda-bloom --- [fic post]

larry | 5k | explicit

Most people would think that keeping a tube of lube hidden behind the driver’s side visor of their car is foolish and completely unnecessary, but then most people don’t have to chauffeur Louis Tomlinson around for a living.

OR the one where Harry has a brilliant idea to while away the time as he waits around for his boss but fate decides to rain on his parade... or maybe it’s the universe answering his prayers.

🌊 You're A (Total) Distraction by @lululawrence --- [fic post]

larry | 4k | not rated

Harry’s hand sprang out and took the arrow back in her grasp, Louis’ entire face having lit up when Harry spoke. “Thank you for returning this to me.”

“Well, it was my fault, right?” Louis gave her a big smile before glancing up at Harry’s ears and then over towards her target. “Fuck, are those all bullseyes?”

Harry shrugged. “I haven’t checked on them yet, but maybe.”

Louis’ eyebrows were raised. “I didn’t realize archery was such a big thing for deer hybrids.”

Pursing her lips, Harry tried to figure out how much to say. Why was Louis talking to her? Why had she called out in the first place? Was it because she thought Harry was a freak, like so many other humans?

“It isn’t for everyone,” Harry finally settled on.

Or the one where Harry is a deer hybrid trying to prove to her clan she's more than what's expected. When she meets Louis, a human, she thinks it's just a one time thing. It's not.

🌊 Raise My Body Back To Life by @fallinglikethis --- [fic post]

larry | 1k | mature

“You sure about this?” Harry asks one last time, looking over his shoulder at the young blonde standing there. She’d come to his office earlier in the night and nearly interrupted Harry’s meeting about a case he’s working on with the Chief of Police in her haste to get her brother back. Luckily, his assistant, Niall had held her off until he was done. “Death changes people sometimes. He’ll remember it. All of it. Dying, how it felt. If it hurt. You’re positive you want to put him through that?”

“I don’t,” she says, wringing her hands and biting her lip to stop it trembling, “but I have to.”

Harry stares, taking her in. Her eyes shine with unshed tears but she’s standing tall, certain. Harry nods once and turns back around to face the body lying on the metal slab before him. His name is Louis Tomlinson and, as he rolls up his sleeves, Harry Idly notices how gorgeous he was. Is. He hopes this isn’t going to traumatize Louis.

Inspired by Kill My Mind.

🌊 Devil in my Brain by @bitter-leaf

larry | 1k | general audiences

Louis’ pissed; pissed drunk, pissed off, seething as he eyes Harry in the club, waving his arms and shaking his hips like he couldn’t care less about how stupid he looks.

Louis might be going a little crazy.

🌊 Demarcation by @musiclily

larry | 1k | not rated

Walls

#june 2020 #28th appreciation #fic rec #my recs #my lists

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Gaps in His Files (Epilogue) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

Okay, so Virgil is a little dumb in this, but just enjoy the hilarity.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

Virgil had been living with Patton and Logan for over a year and the papers that would change their status from foster parents to actual parents were already filed and being processed. In the past year, Virgil had gotten more comfortable in their house. He wasn’t worried about getting into trouble for little things like making small messes and being caught in the wrong place anymore. So, today, since it was the weekend and he had little to do, he’d decided to go investigate the house again.

This was not nearly the first time he’d crept around their house, though his reasons for doing so had shifted. It had gone from a need to find hiding places and emergency exists to being more of a function of curiosity and boredom. He wondered if he was just a naturally nosy person.

Over his time living here, he’d found many things in their house. There were closets that were comfy to sleep in… too comfy sometimes because he’d almost given Patton a heart attack when he couldn’t find him for hours once. He’d found holes in the walls for hiding small things and learned that Missy hid her toys in a small space under the back-porch staircase (to her utmost annoyance). He’d even found a back entrance to Logan’s underground superhero liar under the house which had resulted in Logan screaming in surprise because he’d all but forgotten he even had that entrance before Virgil came tumbling through it with spider webs in his hair. Logan had laughed about it afterwards and affectionately called him a ‘little termite.’

Today, he was looking for a couple of good loose floorboards. They were great places to hide things in. He hadn’t really felt a need to hide much food for a while now, so he didn’t know what he planned to use them for. Maybe places to hide Christmas presents?

Logan wasn’t in his office because it was Saturday which meant he was probably off being gross with Patton somewhere. So, Virgil decided to poke around in there first. He started carefully pacing back and forth across the floor, feeling for any give and listening for sounds. After a few minutes, he found what he was looking for in one of the boards usually covered by a rug (likely because it made noise when you stepped on it otherwise).

He pushed the rug out of his way and grabbed the old fork he’d snatched for this purpose to pull at the edges of the board. It popped up easier than he’d thought it would, but that wasn’t the only surprise. The bigger shock was that there was something already under it. It was a light blue binder: its sides chipped and bent a bit with age. He wondered how long it had been there and figured it had been put there by someone who owned the house before Patton and Logan.

Curious, he reached for it. Gee, it was heavy. It wasn’t a standard inch or two one he might grab for school; it was much bigger. It must be a 5-inch binder at least, he decided when he pulled the hefty thing out and looked at the spine, and it was stuffed to the brim. The thing might as well have been for weightlifting. After putting the board back in place, he opened the cover and flipped through a bit idly. The beginning of the book was filled with different colored paper. Some red, some green, and some just plain white and clearly having been torn out of a notebook. However, the paper used eventually became uniform and all a light shade of blue to match the binder’s cover.

He glanced through a few of the earlier pages. There was a pressed flower attached to a piece of green paper and a napkin with a doodled dog and a coffee stain on it pinned to a thicker piece of white paper with a scribbled date from a few decades ago next to it. He paused when he scanned a couple of pages of writing. Oh, this was some kind of love journal. Whoever had written this stuff was clearly totally gone for someone based on the couple of sentences he read. He turned to where the pages changed to the light blue color. The first page of this section was a table of contents. A weird ass love journal then.

Table of Contents:

Likes/Dislikes

Sight

Décor

Landscape

Smell

Toiletries

For himself

On me

Household

Cleaning Supplies

Candles

Air fresheners

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Holidays

Gifts

Touch

Textures

Human Contact

Taste

Candy

Meals

Other

Sound

Musical Tastes

Background

Environmental

Emotion Expression

When Upset

Physical

Verbal

Gestures

When Not Upset

Physical

Verbal

Gestures

At Any Time

Physical

Verbal

Gestures

Romance

Sex

Sentimentality

Lunch Notes

Keepsakes

Drawings

Receipts/Pamphlets

Other

Planning

Date Inquiry

Europe Trip

Engagement planning

Wedding planning

10 Year

20 Year

Musings

Journaling

Poetry

Sketches

Okay, Virgil thought once he finished reading the first few pages that made up the table of contents. That was adorable. A bit weird, but adorable. What type of person…? He had to know. He flipped back to the beginning of the binder. The first page was one of the red ones (those colored pages seemed to be more concentrated toward the beginning of the first section than the other colors.) The title of the page was “Incident Report.” Weird. He scanned the page, skipping over the official looking fill in the blank part to get to the box labeled “Incident Description.” His eyes scanned over the words there.

“A man dropped coffee on me. On instinct, I stopped the liquid from hitting me and righted the coffee cup with my powers. He appeared disoriented. His actions afterwards indicated he did not notice the usage of my powers. Subject name: Patton Sanders.”

Virgil slammed the binder shut. “Oh fuck!”

“Language, young man,” Patton chided, wandering into the room. He raised an eyebrow at the huge binder in Virgil’s lap. “What’s that?”

“Nothing!”

He blinked and tilted his head to the side. “It doesn’t look like nothing kiddo.”

“Um… it’s, uh, it’s, um… nothing?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Should I be worried.”

“No! It’s not mine! I’m holding it for a friend!”

“…Now I am worried.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Virgil, what’s in the binder?”

“What binder?” he waved his hands to cover it in shadows so Patton couldn’t see it anymore.

“Virgil!”

“Uh. This is not the binder you are looking for,” he said with a hand motion.

“Logan!” Patton called.

“No! Don’t call Logan.”

Patton eyed him for a moment. “Logan, come here now!”

Logan heard Patton’s call from the other room and dumped a disgruntled Missy off of his lap to quickly make his way to the source of the commotion. Patton was standing at the door to his office with his face pinched in worry and Virgil was kneeling on the floor with a mass of crawling shadows covering his arms. That was worrying.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“He has something. He won’t let me see or explain, and I’m worried.”

Logan raised an eyebrow at the boy and crossed his arms. “Let Patton see whatever it is.” Virgil shook his head wildly, staring at Logan intently as though trying to bore a message into his skull through shear will power. “Is there a reason?” Virgil nodded. “Why?”

“Uh. I’m willing to give it to you. Just not… not to Patton.”

Logan shared a look with Patton. “Very well,” he conceded. He walked over to kneel in front of the boy and held out his hands. Virgil pushed the bundle of shadows in his arms into Logan’s and then vanished the shadows. Logan felt heat spread immediately up his neck all the way to his hairline.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“How much did you?” he asked.

“Just enough to figure out what it was.”

“What is it?” Patton asked behind him.

“Drugs,” Virgil blurted.

“Huh?”

“I appreciate your loyalty,” Logan told him. “How did you manage to keep a secret identity for over a year?”

Virgil glared at him in answer.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he assured Patton. “Virgil was simply being an exasperating little termite again and managed to peel apart our flooring and dig up something that he wasn’t supposed to find.” He gave the boy a gentle hair ruffle to make sure he knew Logan wasn’t truly mad at him.

“What?” Patton asked, now more amused than anything since he’d been assured there was nothing wrong with their child.

Logan stood to face him, holding the binder. “This is mine,” Logan admitted, rubbing a thumb over the cover. “It had been hidden under the floorboards.” Patton just blinked at him.

“I’ll, uh, go,” Virgil said and dashed out of the room. Patton watched him go with a raised eyebrow which he then turned back onto Logan.

Logan tapped a pattern onto the binder cover. “You know of my organizational system for files, correct?”

“Green for personal, blue for work, red for superhero stuff, Patton if you put one more dry-cleaners receipt in a blue folder, I will divorce you. That organizational system?” Patton asked wryly.

Logan quirked a small smile, fingers continuing to trace over the binder. “Yes, that one,” he confirmed. “I assign different colors to the most important parts of my life. This,” Patton’s hands came up automatically to accept the binder when Logan offered it, “is yours.”

“Mine?” he asked.

Logan pulled his hands away from the binder and fisted them by his sides. “I…” he said. “I am not proud of every entry,” he warned. “I was still learning in the beginning, but I wasn’t going to throw any of it away.”

“You… you kept files about me?” he asked.

“Yes,” he admitted. “As you know, I am not the best at empathetic ventures, but I was quite invested in you. I wrote down observations that would help me plan how to make you the happiest as well as my own frankly rather embarrassing romantic musings. I also kept keep sakes such as small things you have given me and receipts from dates. I have a 78-page section dedicated to the sticky notes you’ve left me over the years.”

His eyes went a little watery as he looked down at the huge binder in his arms. “You made a file designation for me,” he stated. “You… you… when…?”

“The first thing in it is from the day we met,” he answered, “it’s a rather clinical observation that had originally been in my red files. I transferred it when I decided on a color for you. It’s your favorite and one day I saw a light blue binder in the bookstore and bought it. It wasn’t this binder. It was a much smaller one, only half an inch; I vastly underestimated my needs. The first thing I specifically made for these files was the plan I had for asking you on a date. I was quite proud of it at the time though it now seems rather silly. It was a whole 25 step plan to woo you. Of course, you ended up asking me on a date before I could completely implement the third step and ruined my entire plan, but the ideas about where to take you if you said yes were certainly beneficial to have written down then. Else, I fear I would have made even more the fool out of myself than I ultimately did.

“Oh my god. Logan sweetie,” he started bawling. “Did you just hand me your heart?”

“Of course not. You already had that.”

He sobbed harder. “You can’t just say things like that. I’m already crying.”

Logan leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead. “I never expected you to see this,” he admitted, his face coloring again as he remembered some of the mortifying things between those pages. “But if you’d like to read it, you may.”

“Really?” he asked, eyes sparkling.

“Really,” Logan confirmed.

Patton shot him a huge smile. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“How much of this is porn?” Logan’s face heated up and he was sure he was absolutely scarlet which was ridiculous considering he’d been married to the man for over two decades. Patton snorted. “Oh my god, sweetie. I was joking.”

He tried to snatch it back from him, but Patton adamantly refused to return it. “Most of it is a relic from my mid-20s. What did you expect?”

“Goodness, I hope Virgil didn’t see any of that,” Patton laughed. Logan groaned and Patton grabbed his hand. “I love you,” he said.

“And I love you.” He gestured at the monstrosity in the other man’s arms. “Clearly.”

Patton smiled at him. “I know.”

Want to read more? Click below!

Labeled Master Post.

My Masterpost.

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logicality #tsss #superhero au #memory loss #past child abuse #past child neglect #emotional suppression #self deprecation #gaps in his files #labeled universe #relabeled; refiled #adriana writes

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bush-viper-cutie · 4 years

Text

Love Me Roughly: Risking It All

Pairing: Snape x fem!reader

Word Count: 2,080

Rating: M for Mature

Plot: Severus must come clean and risk everything he has with the woman he loves. He tells her every horrifying and awful event from his past, expecting her to leave him and hate him forever.

A/N: This is part 6 of 7 for the Schedule 1 week 1: Snape Lives AU for Snape Appreciation Month 2020! @snapeloveposts

DISCLAIMER: I have edited (drawn over the original) the artwork (taken from a 80′s bodice ripper novel) for the purpose of this short series and will post more information about the original work here.

Posted: 6/6/20

Chapter List

<– Last Chapter Next Chapter –>

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

Severus was out of the cabin, walking Jiggy in his white shirt and thinking through a great many things. First, he needed to tell her everything about himself. He couldn’t bare losing her, but he couldn’t take the guilt of knowing he was keeping everything from her.

She had been asking him questions about his life and he had told her basically nothing because he had been dancing around the fact he served a vile and hideous master for years and on two occasions, and that he had been working at Hogwarts for all of his adult life and technically murdered his employer.

By some miracle the more she has gotten to know him the more in love she has fallen, which was perfect considering he was as much in love with her. Too much actually. His heart ached for her and the guilt made it so much worse.

Second… He was growing sadder at the realization he had lost all his friends… well colleagues are what he would have called them then, but now he sees they were indeed his friends. He missed talking to Minerva every morning before breakfast, drinking coffee and complaining mostly.

He missed hearing the baffling stories Poppy would tell him every month about what annoying injuries students were coming to her with. Pomona was the only one who knew all the gossip and rumors going around school and Hagrid always offered to have him over for tea, though he refused every time.

If Hogwarts hadn’t been invaded, attacked, and burned, students would be packing their things and getting ready to get on the Hogwarts Express back to London by now. He sighed and shook his head, forcing all his memories out of his head. They were useless now.

Jiggy came running up to him indicating it was time to head inside for breakfast.

“How was the walk?” she hugged him tight, waiting for an answer.

He gave a weak smile and nodded, “As expected.”

The kitchen now looked like one that was in constant use. She had given him many of her pans and pots, ladles and spoons, jars and bottles which now filled the cabinets and counter. The table had placemats and a nice center candle that matched the color of the cushions on the chairs.

She had brought over her plants and flowers to fill the living room with life – though she claimed it was so she wouldn’t worry about watering them. There was also a rug and another reading chair in the living room with small bookshelves behind it. This was now a room where they both enjoyed sitting and reading together instead of an awkward empty place for Jiggy to lick his privates in.

They finished their breakfast and Severus headed upstairs to finish thinking through his decision. He came back down and cleared his throat. She looked up from Love Me Roughly – she had started reading it now after him – and closed it.

“Yes?”

Severus crossed the room and sat in his chair next to hers and closed his eyes shut, “I need to tell you about my life.”

He heard her shift in her seat, “I’m all ears.”

“No, you don’t understand… It’ll change the way you view me,” he sighed heavily and paused for a minute to center himself, “I need to tell you because there are things I’m feeling for you and I can’t allow this to go on without knowing that you understand exactly who I am.”

“Severus, I know who you are. I may not know your past but it’s not like you’re pretending to be someone you’re not…”

Severus nodded, “But there are some things I’ve done that you might not forgive me for…” He opened his eyes and turned to her. “If you’re going to hate me I’d rather it happened now than – ” his words caught on his throat and he swallowed his emotions down, “So let me explain myself.”

He stood up and placed his hands behind his back. He started pacing and began the story of his years after losing his best friend, joining the Death Eaters, and handing the Dark Lord the prophecy that would ruin his life and the lives of others.

He watched her eyes carefully, going from amusement to shock to anger, tears rolling down her cheeks, but she said nothing and made no motion to leave. He felt her hatred for him as he went on about finding out his oldest and only true friend he ever had was being targeted, and about how it was his fault she died.

He held back tears and kept his emotions in check as he went on about caring for the boy of his childhood bully, about being sent back to serve his old Master, and about murdering the only person who knew who he really was, good or bad.

She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms and wiping away tears as he spoke. He couldn’t bare to look at her as he continued with all he had to do among the Death Eaters, even sitting there to watch as a colleague died before his eyes.

He sat back down on his chair and wiped a single tear as he explained his appointment as Headmaster and all that went on at Hogwarts, and the battle between Minerva and himself before he ran from the castle. He ended the story by recounting the events of the battle at Hogwarts and how he was attacked by the Dark Lord’s snake and how after curing himself and realizing it was all over, he had ran away and left the world behind.

“By now I’m sure they suspect I am alive or that one of the Death Eaters took my dead body. Though I don’t think anyone cares and would prefer it if I were dead,” Severus finally looked over at her.

She was wiping her tears and sniffling but did not meet his eyes, instead focusing on the book she held in her hands. She nodded and he took that as a que to leave the room to let her process all he had said. He headed upstairs and lay in bed where he let all his feelings come forward. He wept silently until his eyelids became too heavy to keep open.

. . .

Severus opened his eyes and squinted, unable to see in the darkness. He sat up and felt a hand slide down his chest and onto the bed. She had crawled into bed at some point and wrapped her arms over him. He turned and swept hair from her face.

Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up as well, “Severus… I’m sorry you went through all that.”

She pulled him into her and held him tight, stroking his hair and hugging him as close to herself as possible. He started sobbing quietly, relieved that she was still treating him with love and care. He was sure that when he woke, she would be gone for good out of his life.

“They’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done,” he choked, “I’ll be hated ‘till the day I die.”

She pressed her lips to the top of his head and sniffed, “You can explain everything to them as you did me – ”

“And risk them hating me even more for not staying dead? No. Never,” he pushed away from her, “(Y/n)… You don’t understand. They will NEVER accept me back. When I-I started teaching there, I was so young and they forgave my mistake. Minerva took a while to come around but they accepted I had changed and learned from it… How could they possibly excuse my actions as an adult?” He started sobbing into his hands and was pulled back into her arms.

“You said he forced you, commanded you, to do all those things. They knew you were a spy – you can tell her – ”

“My only proof was murdered by my hand and they’ll accuse me of falsifying my memories…”

“What about the boy? Ha – ”

“Don’t. Speak his name.” Severus didn’t want to be reminded of him. He didn’t want to be reminded about anything to do with him. He knew he could never apologize for the things he had done, to his mother, to him… The boy knew everything now and all he could hope was for him to understand why things had happened the way they did… and how very sorry he was.

“I’m sorry, Severus… The reason I was in London was because of the battle. I was taking care of my nephew while his mother did her Auror duties for the Ministry… Not at the school but I still heard about how awful it had all been… I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

After several more minutes of crying, Severus was helped to his feet and out of his day clothes. She pulled his nightshirt down as he dropped his head on her shoulders and hugged her tight, unable to focus on anything. She pushed him into the bed and hugged him tight for hours until he fell asleep once more.

. . .

After hours of sleeping Severus was able to push everything back once more, using the rhythm of the warm water in the shower and the soft humming he heard coming from downstairs. He dressed and headed down, expecting a small breakfast but instead receiving what looked like a feast.

There were plates of bacon, sausages, eggs, pancakes, and waffles. There was a glass pitcher of orange juice and one of milk out on the table. He sat down and laughed.

“You realize I barely eat what you serve me normally, right?”

She laughed, “What you don’t eat put in the fridge because I won’t be here for three days, I’ve been called in to relocate another Wizard at five today,” she sat down and started filling her plate.

He arched an eye, “For a second I thought you had quit… You haven’t done that since… well me.”

She smiled and nodded, “Well I’ve been turning them down but I know this one will be a big commission so I feel I must take it.”

“Was it written in your tea yesterday?” he smirked, knowing she hated how he teased her about being a seer.

“As a matter of fact,” she took the last waffle from under his fork, “It was.”

He reached for the last sausage quickly and poured out juice, “Are you taking Jiggy?”

She hid her face behind her hands.

Severus put down his fork and sighed, “Must he always jump on my legs with dirty paws? How can I walk him when he finds me more interesting than the bushes and trees outside?”

“It’s only for three days, and if you put the leash on he can go by himself. He hates it and comes right back demanding for it to be taken off, happy?”

“Well I’m not pleased.” Severus took the empty plates and charmed them into washing themselves. “I need to get started on some potions anyways, so I suppose it’s best. They’re rather fowl smelling.”

“Please keep the windows open then,” she headed upstairs and left him to clean up the rest of the things.

Severus smiled. He was glad to have gotten everything off his chest yesterday. Nothing could possibly upset him after learning that such a unique and amazing woman could look passed all his flaws and accept it all willingly.

He wiped powder off the counter and placed everything in a jar and in the fridge for breakfast the next day. He cleared the table of the candle and pulled the chairs up against the back wall readying the space for his potion. He set out his jars and cauldron on the table and personally washed his stirring rod, making sure not a single smudge of anything was left on.

She came back downstairs with packed luggage, “I’m heading out now. My portkey leaves at four, but I need to go over some things at the office.”

Severus kissed her goodbye and stood back as she apparated out of his house. In the back of his head he heard a voice tell him she’d just left and would never be back, but the loud bark of her dog told him otherwise.

He chuckled, wondering if that was why she had left him. To keep him company and to assure him of her return.

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

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#pro snape #snapeloveposts #severus snape x reader #severus snape x you #severus x reader #severus x you #snape x reader #snape x you #severus snape #severus #snape #snapedom #snape fanfic #snape fanfiction #snape appreciation month #snape appreciation month 2020 #snape x fem!reader

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luana-writes · 3 years

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chapter one

THERE WERE TWO UNSPOKEN rules Arlence Academy's fourth years abided by when dusk settled, wands cooled down and school hallways closed. Everything went, even if it usually didn't. And you never saw anything, even if you were sure you did.

Those rules did not apply to Sage.

A cool night breeze rushed past the center courtyard's trees, their leaves in orange to dark red tones twirling over the fences caging them away from the surrounding school corridors. Their edges were frayed and delicate. The type that cracked away from the rest of its body and crumbled with the slight push from Sage's shoe in an effort to clear the hallway path. Each crunch under her weight made the beat in her heart pound harder, echoing over and over again in her ears, but she kept her gaze focused. She couldn't afford to get caught today, not on her last run before winter break. She snuck past the corner, into a smaller hallway then another, turning right, left, moving past the staircase...

The girl hummed lowly to herself, dark eyes brushing past the clock hanging over the 3rd archway in her path. Its longest handle inched slightly closer to timepeace's top. 10 minutes until new guard rotations.

It'd leave ample time for her to find Auri's book and return the old one. She held the 800 page monstrosity before her as she walked, running her hand along its plain cover. "From Mana to Magic: The Art of Application '' was a supposedly complex magical theory study. The kind so long that it made her headache just at the thought of needing to remember, the strange tang of bile rising to her throat with every lingering glance at its dense page block. She turned it over to read the back. Auri liked those kinds of long, drawn out books for whatever reason. Sage herself wasn't entirely sure. The materials weren't relevant to classes, or anything incredibly new. Just regurgitated research. The same spiel on how, magic was the application of an inner spiritual force into the physical. Or how mana, the spiritual force in question, supposedly resided in all earthly elements. Emphasis on the "supposedly" part in Sage's case. Studies of that sort had never been interesting, and no matter how little personal interactions Sage had with the girl, she knew Auri wasn't reading them for fun. She didn't do fun in the first place. Just sitting in her room all-day, frowning, grunting lowly at things or spouting out orders.

Like that earlier morning, when Auri shoved the book into Sage's hands upon leaving her room. Hands that'd been holding a freshly brewed cup of dormitory cocoa milk. "Return it. I need Rituals in Magic." She'd pushed her golden spectacles over her straight, tan nose before walking off, leaving Sage standing in the hallway with a three pound packet of pages. And milk all over her uniform skirt. She smelled of cocoa beans for the rest of the day, and the worst part was that all she could do was politely smile and laugh about her "little accident". Accident her blotchy, brown-stained boot.

She raised her head from the book between her hands. The Main Library's doors were imported from some distant faraway Kingdom she wouldn't even dare try to remember, carved by renowned sculptor Elin Garnas. He was said to have spent 74 days and 75 nights bringing to life the essence of their school emblem; The Dragon. Vines wrapped around each door's frame slowly closing into the middle, encircling the mythical creature. Its mouth was held open, tongue halfway out ready to breathe fire and cause devastation to everything in his path. Dark, beady eyes casted downward, as if he were focused on his snout. Though it didn't really feel that way.

"Don't look at me like that," The girl muttered lowly as she pulled an extra pin out of her tightly coiled hair. She stuck it into the lock, twisting to the right until she heard a loud click. The door to the library opened slightly ajar.

Her eyebrows drew together the second she stepped in, the strong scent of paper invading her nostrils. She hated the smell of books, distant reminders of her childhood, simultaneously too long and too short. Yet despite it, it was where she spent the most of her time.

Sage ran her hand along shelves as she reached the center of the room, plopping the heavy book onto the librarian's desk. A small layer of dust lifted along with it causing her to scrunch her nose. She slid the volume to the other end of the table, well aware of the occasional shuffling noises outside the biggest window. She wasn't the only fourth year who profited from the 10 minute break between teacher shifts to break rules. Just to use it to trespass into old, boring libraries instead of play pranks or games with friends.

And she was completely fine with being in her own corner, really. Because unlike the rest, getting caught by classmates wouldn't end with a simple wry smile and shushing motion in the dead of night. No, it'd crumble the entire reputation she worked so hard to build. Careful years of planning, hard-work and an unsupportable amount of sucking up.

Sage hid the book under the return pile, raising to see the overhead clock. 7 more minutes. She had enough time to get Rituals in Magic, then dip out before more students passed by. There were the usual rebellious wall-artists, romantic couples, gossipers, pranksters.... or, sometimes him. The bastard with freakishly strong senses who plagued her during the day, and at night wooshed past that same window exactly 2 minutes before teachers returned to their posts. Who's eyes always lingered on her for a little too long when she lied, followed after her whenever she tried to sneak away, somehow always found her before she found him. He was the man who kept her from reaching the topmost spot in Arlence Academy. The one she deserved.

Her feet treaded up the grand staircase leading to the second storey, the area for final years. Her favorite. Though Sage hated the smell of books, she couldn't say the same for their contents. Volumes packed to the brim with information taught her everything she knew. From the art of paint, to swimming to more obscure skills such as, uh, lock picking. Her mind flashed back to brief memories of pouring over manuals in the dead of the night with only a dim oil lamp to illuminate their words. Piles of paper. Pens without ink. Bloodied needle pins. Red-stained napkins.

She stopped, almost bumping into a cartful of books. She didn't notice at first, but they littered the corridors of shelves. She picked up one that fell, narrowing her eyes. The title read something along the lines of "History of the Continent". Finals ended last week so an influx of returns wasn't uncommon but they were usually all sorted over during the weekend. She checked the shelves, the book still in hand. Wait. She was in the Economics and Trade area of the library, not history. Her eyes scoured the floor, a curse escaping from her lips.

"Smokes," she put it back into the cart. Everything was a mess. She wouldn't be able to find Auri's book. The heavy heartbeat returned as she hurried to the Magic Theory section, her worse thoughts confirmed. Even more carts were shuffled in this corner of the library, a few lining the staircase to the third storey -- restricted to teachers. At least a minute had passed since she saw the clock, meaning she only had 6 left.

Sage's heart pounded in her chest as she shuffled through piles, ignoring the small cut lining her index from a particularly sharp paperback. Everything would be over if she messed up. Auri would tell her father. The Duke would get her taken out of Arlence. She'd be without credentials. A drop-out. The beat got stronger the more seconds passed, drowning out the occasional sounds of grouped fourth years giggling as they broke curfew rules outside the window. She shifted easily past those she recalled reading, that being nearly all of them. Rituals in Magic had to be amongst them. It was one of the few books she read out of pure interest about a month back. Not because it was for a class, or skill she needed to beat everyone else in. Just because it was there. And fun.

She reached the bottom of the third cart, all books she knew she read save for one. "Runes in Magic." She turned it over. This one, at the very least, with an r and ended the same way her target did. It would be close enough. It had to be. Spending too much time searching would get her caught. By him, or the teachers. Her hands shook as she put it aside, placing all other books back. Auri always needed to get exactly what she asked for. And Sage had never disappointed before, no matter how difficult the task was. Until now.

She picked up the book, putting the cart back in its place next to the staircase. She hastened to the other end of the shelf. She just had to leave and.. God she forgot. Lekha would need a book from the romance section too. Sage dashed past the shelves, ready to turn the corner then stopped. She retracted her steps. Right at the end of the shelf, stacked neatly as if it were always there sat Rituals In Magic. Maybe it was because it was always there. The girl stood planted. Rituals In Magic was a personal read for her back then. It had nothing to do with school material, or the finals. No one had touched it. She barely had the time to register her stupidity. Or the shame from almost messing it all up. From forgetting to remember. Again.

Books held close to her chest, she rushed to the bottom of the grand staircase. Sage's head swiveled to the clock, indicating 3 minutes left then to the romance section. Auri didn't like frilly literature, but her sister did. And Lekha always needed to be brought back something.

She combed through titles, the kinds with covers that'd make even battle-torn mercenaries blush, her back against the main window. Lekha was the adventurous type. She didn't care for simple princes. Give her servant girls whisked away by rugged princesses instead, loner mages, gentle assassins, battle-torn warriors... half-wolf men. No matter how hard she tried to forget the horror of that one.

Sage's eye wandered to the clock and she cursed under her breath. She had two minutes left until teachers were due, but about 3 seconds until him. The man who always flew by the window at the exact same time. There wasn't a moment to waste as she dropped the books, immediately rushing to slide behind a bookcase knowing full well it would offer little protection against his ability. Forget getting the wrong book, being caught and exposed by him would truly ruin her. Not only would she become an outcast once more but she would need to leave Arlence. And let him win once-and-for-all.

If he found her she'd kill him. She decided. Then what? She didn't have her sword with her. Her mind combed through plans at an unimaginable rate. He wasn't the type to give into bribery. No, the greatest present one could give him would be the sight of their life crumbling before his eyes as they descended into madness and failure, to never see the light of day again. She paused. That wasn't fully right either. No, he seemed more like a type who took pleasure in getting those results himself instead of handed to him. He'd frown. Not from pity or realizing the gravity of his actions, but dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction that he didn't contribute to mankind's descent to depravity. Her rapidly escalating thoughts were interrupted by a red flash from the window. The manifestation of nearly neon, vivid energy. Such a colour that only he could possess.

Then nothing else.

The girl raised her head, basically pounding from stress. Sage peeked from the shelf, gripping the sharp pin in her uniform pocket. Just in case. No one was there. He passed just like that. A look of puzzlement crossed her face as she stepped out fully. He was more than strong enough to sense her presence. But didn't.

This only meant one thing. Sage looked above and nodded her head in reverence. The Heavens took pity on her. And she wouldn't be dumb enough to let such a sacred opportunity pass.

She swiped the books dropped before the big window, then a short series about some runaway princess and her royal guard for Lekha, then booked it out of the library.

Her low-heels clicked against the hallway, this time ignoring the leaves littering its floors. She ducked under the staircase, praying there weren't any Fourth Years loitering in the passage. Sage avoided the secret ways around the school during her nights out like this because they were too commonly used. But the Sky seemed to have taken pity on her again, for they were empty. She wouldn't have to risk running into teachers entering patrol tonight.

Arlence Academy's secret passages dug under the school, connecting the main building with outbuildings and dormitories in a complicated labyrinth. It took her 2 years to remember them properly, and even now she was only familiar with the route to her own dorm and the training area. Usually she'd do a little detour to the swordsmens' building. Check up on her baby, Pheni, maybe organize a few other weapons to take a step back from the whole "serving Auri and Lekha" thing she had going on. Key word being usually. Tonight, her route was straight for her dorm. She couldn't waste a single other second outside her room.

The heavy humid air got lighter as she reached the dorm building, rushing up steps as quickly as possible. Her feet lightened too as she reached the trap door. Sage paused, listening for anyone above. There was occasional noise from other bedrooms, but otherwise nothing major. Not that anyone would care to check if she made any noise anyways. She took a big breath of fresh air as she pushed the door open, placing the stack of books onto the floor first before hoisting herself up with the help of a small pile of stones stacked one on top of the other. She pushed it close behind her.

The rest was basically a blur. She dropped off "Rituals In Magic" on the corner of Auri's door frame then shuffled her feet up the stairs. The steps to the top floor were winding, and creaked whenever someone walked up the left side instead of the right. The other extreme was lined with windows, who's view she practically memorized. It showcased the main building in all its wondrous splendour, built exactly how one would imagine an old castle despite not having reached a century of education yet. Towers littered each corner but the highest of them all was the only one situated in the middle of the school. Middle back to be more precise, between North and West. They nicknamed it Esoteric; the only magic tower that no student had ever entered before. Graduating classes took their final magic examination inside once a year, then left. No one ever spoke of what happened in that tower, or wanted to, which is exactly what made it catch Sage's attention more than ever.

She reached the top, a weird sense of relief invading her body at the warm sight of her bedroom door. Just a few steps away. She was almost there.

The door right next to Sage suddenly swung open, bathing the dark hall with light. Or not.

"Sage." Lekha spoke. Auri's twin sister looked vastly different from her, despite sharing the same face. For once her hair was longer, down to the small of her back. There was a small ring in her nose, and her thin lips were never without at least a tint of rouge. Same for her cheeks and neck always adjourned in jewels. Even in the dead of night, when she was supposed to sleep. The golden bangles along her wrist clinked together as leaned against her door frame. "Young Miss Nochad," Sage smiled, focusing on the girl's face in a desperate attempt to ignore a reflective diamond threatening to permanently blind her, "I went to catch some stuff for Auri and thought of you, I found a few novels."

Her eyes sparkled slightly, a smile forming at her lips, "Goodness, you didn't need to do that."

She did.

"Hand them over," She reached over to grab the books from Sage, practically snatching the entire stack from her hands. A long nail scratched against the back of the girl's palm, but she was too numb with adrenaline to even feel pain. Nevertheless, do something about it.

Sage tucked the hand behind her back instead as Lekha shuffled through 3 books. "Father will hate this." She turned the book over to look at its scandalous cover, "This'll do perfect for the break month."

"Glad you enjoy it-"

"But, I don't need this." She pulled the last book in the stack out, giving it back to Sage. The girl's lip twitched. "Runes in Magic." She'd brought that damned book back too in her rush to escape. "Ah, that must be for your sister, my mistake. I was in a bit of a rush"

"You do look quite disheveled." She replied, though she looked a lot more preoccupied with the scandalous cover in her hands than Sage's appearance, "You're really one of the good ones. No mana but not useless. Still so helpful and trustworthy."

Sage smiled tightly, but didn't answer.

"Don't forget to have some sleep."

"Of course," She kept the smile, nodding her head in reverence, "Please sleep well, Miss. Nochad."

"You too." The door shut, plunging the corridor back into the darkness. Sage contained the sigh on her lips until she fiddled open her front door handle. She closed it behind her, leaning her back against the door. Finally, she was done.

No, almost. She still had to endure tomorrow. They'd announce the leaderboard results from the finals, then everyone would get packing and leave. Leave her alone in the dormitory for the next month whilst they celebrated the winter break with family. Sage tossed the book onto her desk, stacked with scrunched up papers and capless pens. A few notes littered the surface too, papers that fell off the huge board lined over her desk full of nothing but tiny notes. They listed small useless pieces of information and dates. Reminders.

She was 90% sure something clanked somewhere amongst the mess, but she was too tired to care. She placed her shoes under the table, picking up a paper that fell from her wall along with it. Her eyes widened as she read the note. Right, she had forgotten. The girl had plans to borrow a few more books from the library this week. She changed her clothing, pulling out a hair pick and scarf. Lekha had already started to order dresses for the Finals Ball despite it being months away, meaning Sage had to brush up on her dressmaking skills. Something she hadn't touched since she was 10. Or 8. Or 13, she really couldn't remember. Either way, it was best to be prepped for anything. Whether it be fixing a seam, button pulled out of anger or making an entirely new garment last minute. She had to prove herself useful. She paused, reciting it to herself a few more items. Yeah, that was it.

The girl stepped closer to her window as she wrapped up her hair. It provided a perfect view of the outbuildings. Properties that littered her little corner of campus, housing specialized hobbies that wouldn't fit into the core magic classes of the main building. The biggest and farthest amongst them all was the sword building, her beautiful sword, Pheni's home. And hers too for the next 4 weeks when everyone would be away. She couldn't wait.

Sage narrowed her eyes. There was something entering the swords building. A faint blob of almost neon red. It was unmistakably, well him, but something was off. His friends weren't with him. He was alone. Which was weird. He was weird. There wasn't much she could see clearly considering he was hundreds of feet away, but the unmistakable blond dreads that contrasted with his skin a few shades darker than hers were still very much there. Overflowing spiritual energy and all that... as far as she could tell he didn't look weird physically. At all. But still, something ticked at the back of her mind. He entered the building and Sage shook her head as if to ignore her thoughts. She was tired. She just needed to go to sleep.

She didn't.

A few seconds later a boom echoed into the night. She jumped back, her hair scarf falling onto her shoulders. A bright red light faded into nothingness as quickly as it appeared, but its effects didn't. She rubbed her eyes, unable to believe the sight before her. Right on the far-end of the Campus, there was a hole in the earth.

Goodness. The bastard put a damned hole in the earth.

A/N ⭲ This chapter is so unbelievably long, probably the longest I've ever written in my life but we have yet to see if nearly 4k word chapters be a usually occurence or not. On the other hand, something I've just discovered came with the whole "magic academy" writing thing is that I can make the uniforms be whatever I want. And when I tell you guys I have the most genius, cutest ensemble ideas I mean it. Only issue is that I can't draw to save my life, and don't know any apps where they do it for me. If anyone's interested I might put together a pinterest moodboard or smth, then post the aesthetics on my tumblr spam. We'll see. Until then, I'll see you next chapter! Let me know your predictions x.

word count: 3.5k (3588)

date: 2021-07-20

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#writeblr #fantasy #ya #romance #original story #luanawrites #thecontractess

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sweetdonutwolf · 4 years

Text

R6S How You Met (SPETSNAZ)

I tried my best writing these staying as true to their characters as possible. This is for the Spetsnaz operators onlyKapkan, Tachanka, Glaz and Fuze

Warnings: Hunting and killing of animals, death of an animal. Very mild and I mean MILD smut in the form a quick kiss

Y/n= Your name

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spetsnaz

Kapkan:

While out hunting you spotted a deer, it was a nice big buck, a 10 point by the looks of it.You pulled back on your bow steadying your aim. Letting the arrow go you watched as it headed for the target. A gunshot rung out in the distance, startled you looked away from the deer for a moment, it must have been another hunter close by. You headed towards the buck now dead on the ground.

As you walked over another figure appeared, a man walked up to the buck and started to pick it up.

“Hands off my deer dude” You were stern with your voice.

“Your deer?” The man had a just as stern voice.

“The deer with the arrow sticking out of its side, yeah its mine.” You flipped the animal over revealing the broken arrow sticking out from its heart. “See”

“You see this?” He turned the deer back over pushing its leg forward. He looked up at you, a bullet wound was clearly visible. “I got the shot off first therefor it’s my kill” he began picking the deer up. “Now I’ll take my deer and be on my way, better luck next time.”

“Wait lets talk about this.” It was a decent sized 10 point buck, the biggest you’ve ever shot and you weren’t going to let it go that easily.

You guys began going over proof as to why it was your kill arguing back and fourth. After about 30 minutes of trying to figure it and not knowing who actually shot it first you guys decided to talk it over at a local bar.

At the bar you and him completely got side tracked with other conversations laughing your asses of completely forgetting about the damn deer, which by the way was in the back of his truck.

“So you’re telling me that you hid so well during hide and seek as a kid that they called search and rescue on you?” You began laughing.

“ It was a proud moment from my childhood” He laughed and took a sip of his drink. “Even search and rescue couldn’t find me till I came back out and greeted them.”

You raised your glass up. “That’s impressive, it explains your hunting skills”

“What about you how did you get so good at hunting?” He put his glass back down.

You looked him dead in the eye. “I hunted down all my Ex’s who wronged me.” You tried not to smile when you saw his expression change. You gave him a quick nudge on the shoulder laughing. “I’m kidding of course”.

“ I thought so” He looked relieved as if he actually believed you. “Plus with your hunting skill I’m surprised they haven’t found any bodies”. He gave you a nudge back.

“Ha-ha very funny but probably true”.You both had a little laugh.

The night went on and after another round of drinks he drunkenly gave you the buck saying it was gift to you for being so beautiful. You blushed which made him smile.

You guys had to be kicked out of the bar once it closed, neither one of you wanted to leave, you haven’t had this much for a while. Before parting ways he helped you haul it into your truck and you gave him your number as a thank you after all you guys seem to hit it off pretty well.

You fumbled for your keys and you soon realized none of you were in the condition to drive.

You both called a cab and with very good persuasion he got your cab driver to agree to you letting the dead buck in the car with you as long as you kept it covered of course.

“I had a very fun time, I never got your name though.” He asked as he kindly opened the cab door for you.

“Oh right, it’s y/n” you sat down in the cab and looked up at him. “And yours?”

“Maxim Basuda” He held his hand out.

“Nice to meet you Maxim, thank you for the wonderful time.” Your hand met his and you gave it a friendly shake.” Next time I’ll teach you the proper way to hunt”. You let a little smile appear on your face.

“And I’ll teach the proper way to wrap a dead deer” He smiled and pointed to the dead animal next you in the car with its hoof hanging out.

You let out a little laugh. “Deal, goodnight Maxim, we’ll have to do this again soon”

“Till next time” He gently closed the door and the cab pulled away.

You went home that night feeling happier than you have in ages. Who knew from an argument that so much laughter could follow. Maxim called you the next day and planned your next outing together.

Tachanka:

Sitting at the reception desk bored out of your mind you checked the schedule for today, it was fully booked. The door opened looking up the man caught you eye almost immediately. A big burly looking man came towering in, his presence alone shifted the feel of the room for you. You sat at the reception desk not knowing you were staring at him as he approached. He waved his hand in front of your face.

“Are you blind?” he continued to wave his hand in front of you. “Deaf too i see.”

“I’m so sorry, I---I was just lost in thought sir, how can I help you?”. You perked back up embarrassed by what just happened.

“I have an appointment for Alexsandr Senaviev, it’s for 11:30″ He let out a grin. You realized you were blushing and now thinking about it made you blush even more.

You quickly checked for his appointment, your cheeks still flushed from before. What was this man doing to you? You have only known him for less than 5 seconds and he’s already made you all flustered.

“I’m sorry, What time was the appointment?” You realized you got lost in your own thoughts thinking about him. His charm was something else you thought.

“So you are deaf” He said back in a joking tone. “It’s for 11:30″.

You finally confirmed his appointment and asked him if he could wait in the waiting room.

You kept telling yourself not to stare but you found yourself looking up at him on more than one occasion. Luckily you never caught eyes with him. You just couldn’t get over this gut feeling you had about him, he held himself so confidently. He was a big man after all but you felt a gentleness to him like underneath his rugged exterior was a soft hearted man and that kept drawing you closer to him and made you even more curious.

He finally got called back after what seemed like for ever. He walked by you and you looked at him once more. His eyes meet yours, you began to feel your cheeks go red again and quickly looked away. You were in love. I can’t be you kept telling yourself, it was foolish to feel this way about a stranger.

About an hour passed and Alexsandr came walking back out and stopped at your desk for a brief moment.

“We already have your next appointments planned out for the next couple of months sir” You looked up at him.

“I wanted to give you my number” He slid you a piece of paper.

“W-We already have that Sir” confusion filled your voice.

“I know but this one is my personal number” A grin grew on his face again making you blush for who knows how many times in a row now.”I’d like to take you out for dinner sometime, if that’s okay.”

“I-I-----” You were at a loss for words.

“ I’ll take that as a yes then.” He left the paper on your desk and began to turn around to leave.

“Yes!” You don’t even know where that word came from, you just said it without even thinking. “I’d love to”. You began to smile as well.

Alexsandr gave you a nod and headed out the building. Of course you watched him till the last second.

Your whole work day from then was spent daydreaming about the perfect date you’d have with him. You went home that night with butterflies in your stomach anxiously waiting for him to reach out to you.

You guys went on your first date a week later. It was better than you expected way better, you had a feeling he was with his boisterous humor and booming laugh. You guys hit it off right away as if you were old friends and the rest is history.

Glaz:

Wondering the exhibits of the art museum always had a way of calming you. You felt connected to the pieces as if each one would take you to a whole different world, each piece had a painter and each painter had a story to tell through their work.

You finally reached the last room where your favorite painting hung alone in the back. Often overlooked, the painting of a lone bird perch on a tree branch spoke to you more than any other painting did. You stood looking at the delicately painted bird thinking how he resembled you in a way, all alone with people right next to you and in his case birds flying high in the background.

You felt the birds pain of being left behind by others, you were always a loner people judged you for being different and teased you for always having you face buried in an art book. You stood there taking in all the detail of the painting every brush stroke had a purpose, it was almost like a story to you. Each stroke added a new part and you couldn’t see the full story for what it was till the painting was finished and the last brush stroke was painted.

.Losing track of time you quickly checked your phone for the time not realizing how late it had gotten.

“Damn it.” You said under your breath.You had a date in less than 20 minutes at the other end of town and there was almost no way you’d make it on time.You had to rush out of there. As you took a step back you bumped right into someone, the impact making you fall back a bit, your bag fell to the ground.

“I’m so sorry, I can be a klutz sometimes.” You said embarrassed about the whole situation. You looked at the man and noticed a scar on his left eye.

“You’re okay, it’s no big deal.” He had a rich Russian accent to his voice it was almost scary in a way.

“I really didn’t see you there.” You brushed your hair away from your face as you went to retrieve your bag from the ground. Before you even crouched all the way down he reached down and picked it up and handing it back to you.

”No harm done.” He held out the bag and you took it from his grasp.

“Thank you” You began hurrying out the building.

The date went horribly. It wasn’t because you were five minutes late, that didn’t bother them at all. It was the fact that you spoke about art too much apparently. You weren’t surprised though everyone lost interest the moment you starting talking about it. They all gave you the typical glazed over look as they nodded randomly as if they had any interest at all.

This date was worse though. They ridiculed you for liking something so mundane saying you must be wrong in the head if you believed they talked to you. You had to hold back tears before you decided to get up and storm off.

Furious and heartbroken yet again you went back to the one place that brought you some comfort, the art museum.

You wondered back to your favorite painting tears began to gather in your eyes. You kept thinking you were unlovable and that no one would love you for who you are. You sat down on the bench in front of the painting and stared at the little blue bird who you related to so much.

“You’re a lot like me little bird” You whispered under breath, a tear began to roll down your cheek. You quickly whipped it away.

“Rough night?” You knew that voice, looking up you saw the man you had bumped into earlier.

“You can say that.” You whipped away the rest of your tears as he sat down beside you.

“I’m Timur by they way”.

“ Y/n”. You replied back

“This is my favorite painting too” He pointed at the little bird painting. “ I like it because all though the bird is alone he’s the star of the show, everyone takes notice to him first.” He began pointing to the flock of birds painted above. “Those guys are noticed last, they’re painted too similar to each other that they almost just fade away all together.”

You sat there taking in his words for a moment, the two of you just sat there and took in the work. It was nice hearing someone talk about art the way you did it was a rare encounter to experience it seemed.

“I always saw him as lonely” You turned towards the man. “But now i see it, if everyone was the same like the birds leaving the other one the world would be boring, there wouldn’t be art with its own story to tell like this one.” He looked at you. “I mean that’s not a world I’d want to live in.” You noticed you were rambling on again like you did on your date. “I’m sorry, I can get kinda side tracked with this stuff, you don’t have to sit here listen to me ramble on” You locked eyes.

“I find it very interesting actually, it’s funny how things can represent and be seen in so many different lights”. He looked back at the painting.

You guys continued to talk about it before he asked you if you’d like to go around the museum with him. Gladly accepting his invite you spent the next couple of hours walking around talking about the other art works you felt connected to.

The sky grew darker and the museum was about to close. You started growing tired. Noticing this may be his only chance Timur asked for your number. You gladly gave to him planning out your next outing together in the process.

Fuze:

Your friend Eliza always tried to set you up with men before all of which never worked out in the long run. You wanted a guy who could stay level headed in any situation, one that knew what they wanted in a relation ship instead of beating around the bush for it.

Eliza reassured you that this time she got the perfect guy for you. You felt like an idiot for ever agreeing to it in the first place. Another night of torture and complete bullshit conversations, you thought to yourself as you got your last shoe on. It was supposed to be casual but you did add a little extra with a nice necklace that your grandmother gave you. It was a dainty little diamond necklace that your grandfather bought before they moved out of Russia.

Arriving at the restaurant you could see Shuhrat through the window already seated. You had to do a double check at your phone to make sure you weren’t late. Just as you thought you were right on time as you walked through the door. Eliza had exchanged photos of you two prior to meeting so you knew what each other looked like.

Seeing you Shuhrat stood up and pulled out your chair. Water was already at the table, you saw it as a kind gesture.

“ Thank you” You sat down across from him. “ I hope I didn’t make you wait to long you must have gotten here really early.”

He took a seat. “It’s how I make sure who ever I meet is timely, if so it shows they’re serious about it all, I do like my partner serious.” He gave you a little smile.

“And I like men who know exactly what they want from a relationship” you returned a smile.

“Looks like its already working out, Eliza may have finally gotten it right for once.” He took a sip of his water.”She told me how she failed in the past on numerous occasions and that I couldn’t fuck this one up either, and as far as I can say I hope I don’t fuck it up either.”

“I won’t blame you if it doesn’t don’t worry, Eliza on the other hand won’t hear the end of it.” You laughed, Shuhrat joined in with you letting out a chuckle.

The waiter came by and you ordered your food. Shuhrat order some fancy Fish dish that you couldn’t pronounce and you ordered the steak. You guys continued talking about what you looked for in a partner and a relationship. You enjoyed getting it all out of they way so you both could see if you were on the same page.

“I have to say it’s a breath of fresh air to meet someone so sure of themselves as you are, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.” His voice was smooth with a lick of a Russian accent.

“I just like skipping the bullshit that’s all.” You took another sip of your water.”I don’t like wasting my time on someone for it not to work out in the end.”He nodded in agreement.

The food arrived and you guys finally moved on to other conversations. He talked about his time in the Spetsnaz, well as much as he could legally tell. He told his stories with so much passion. You could feel yourself falling for him. You guys continued to eat discussing various topics from the best movie ever made, which you guys had a civilized argument about, to what your future plans were. He told you that with his line of work he was never guaranteed that he’d make it back alive, his work was risky and he made sure you knew that.

“Everything we do is risky, I could choke on this last bite of steak and die right here.” You put the last bite in your mouth. “ See i just took a risk.” He laughed securing that he enjoyed dark humor which was another plus in your book.

He gazed at your neck “That’s a very nice necklace, it suits you nicely.”

“Thank you.” You began twirling it around in your fingers.”My grandpa got if for my grandma before the moved”.

“So you have some Russian blood?” He smirked picking up his glass.”Just when I thought i couldn’t like you anymore.”

You blushed. It looks like you cracked his hard outer shell Eliza was talking about after all. Speaking of you knew she’d never let this down, the fact that you finally had a good time on one of her set up dates was going up there with her personal list of accomplishments.

You two sat a bit longer after finishing your meals this time you were talking about your memories of Russia from when you were a kid. Shuhrat finally had to go he had some training in the morning he couldn’t miss.

“I had a really great night, Thank you y/n”. He pulled your chair out once you stood up. “I can’t remember a time where I talked so freely to someone in a long time.” A smile was plastered on his face.

“Same to you, I’m not looking forwards to hearing Eliza brag about us though.” You laughed, together you two made your way outside. Shuhrat walked you to your car and opened the door for you, a true gentleman you thought. Before you got in your car you looked up at him and went in for a kiss. Shuhrat seems surprised at first but changed his mind quickly and kissed back.

“Till next time.” You left his lips lingering for more and got into your car.”

Shuhrat gave you a final wave goodbye before turning before his car. You made it home and instantly got a call from Eliza asking how it went. Tired though you fell asleep on the phone mid call.

#rainbow six siege #siege #rainbowsix #imagine #r6s

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ourladytamara · 3 years

Text

Huntress

by tamara - 2020

Content warnings: drugs, kidnapping, abuse, implied serial rape

---

Crickets.

A diesel engine roars to life, the driver’s side door slamming shut. Insects scatter.

In the plastic light sits a woman draped from head to toe in black wool and kevlar, boots and gloves slick with something dark as the rest of her. Barely visible through the miniscule eye holes in her knit ski mask are a pair of verdant eyes that turn brown beneath the sun-bleached overhead lamp. They meet the gaze of the hogtied woman in the back seat; perhaps if the gag hadn’t filled her mouth so totally they could’ve shared a smile. Beside her sits a distended leather bag, glistering wetly in the poor light.

“You probably can’t understand me right now, but that’s okay. You’ve got a big job ahead of you, girlie!” says the obscured figure, deep red enthusiasm dripping from her barred teeth.

The other woman’s eyes were like rear-view mirrors, a dark silhouette reflecting in her beady blue window panes beneath the glow of headlights. A muffled scream ripples through the pine-fresh air.

A laugh as a hand grips the stick shift and forces it into reverse. The poor fawn - Artemis could scarcely remember her name - made it quite a ways before the effects of the drugs really started to kick in; datura wasn’t particularly easy to source in this part of the country, and figuring out how to infuse it into a packet of hot cocoa was even harder, but the face of the poor girl as she lay belly-up in the dirt like a prize doe made it worth it in the end.

Of course, the poor thing wasn’t her target. No, Artemis’s true prize lay asleep in a weekend rental cabin some three miles south of the two. She’d owed something far beyond any monetary value to a scorned ex-partner; like many other stories just like this one, it began with an advertisement somewhere on the bowels of the internet, and ended with a sizable sum of cryptocurrency. But for now, there was a cabin to break into.

And only one key, which happened to be inside, sleeping alongside its temporary owner. Tricky thing.

The truck accelerates backwards along the rugged deer trails for as long as it takes before the first hint of human habitation - a road sign, visible after some ten minutes or so, advising Artemis to turn right. With a sudden slam on the brake and an impressive two-point turn, her gloved hands turn the car around, starting down the marked path. In the back, the hogtied woman slams against leather seats, invisible insects crawling all over her skin and screaming at her, biting her for her indignation. Every passing moment of time is like being sent to Hell and back again, as bands of white-hot anxiety straddle the poor girl’s brain. Human minds were scarcely capable of these depths; yet loosening her up like this was a critical part of the process. When they get to the cabin, Artemis needs cooperation - or as close to it as the addled girl is capable of.

“Relax, yeah? In and out. Few more minutes. All you gotta do is,” Artie begins, grunting as she punches the vehicle into third gear, “get your nice lil’ girlfriend to open a fuckin’ door for me! Easy, right?”

From the muffled form comes no response, save another muffled yelp of horror. A good sign, generally speaking. That means she was marinating in it, allowing it to truly saturate every fiber of muscle and frayed neuron the girl had to offer. Fear, like all delicious seasonings, was best stewed as long as possible before final preparation, and this dish had the potential to be one of her most decadent.

“I like your moxie!”

With a fiery gasp the truck accelerates into high gear, engine roaring like the mechanical throb of Artemis’s heart. This wouldn’t be the first time she’s used that little datura trick; indeed, the poor doe in the back seat would be the fourth to fall victim to it. The stuff was mostly undetectable in the blood, and the majority of investigators would be unaccustomed to its effects and overlook it.

Pride, however, was a trait Artemis particularly despised, and she found it unbecoming to speak so highly of herself. Sure, as her mind wandered beneath the din of the engine and the glow of the vibrant stars above, Artemis could consider herself damn good at her job; this contract alone would pay her out over $18,000 in various cryptocurrencies, not to mention another positive mark upon her already-spotless record. It was a decent living and then some, and for a woman with modest tastes, (save a penchant for expensive ski trips every few years,) it was more than enough to live on. She’d be paid to travel the country, meeting so many interesting people - and hurting every single last one of them well beyond the point of human capacity. No, the perks were nice, for sure - but Artemis did what she did for the love of the sport. Money and recognition alike were simply means to her carnal end.

Who was this mark, anyways? Artemis scarcely remembered who she was hired to deal with, or why, but the name Beatrice stuck out in her mind. Some college girl, around twenty or twenty one; it was a stupid little disagreement, presumably. Love triangles got tangled, words got spat, and bridges fell as smouldering ashes to waters below. Of course, they, like most of Artemis’s clients, would be shocked to find how very seriously she took her job. Indeed, they’d hoped to scare her, and in a way they would - permanently, perhaps, especially if you count child support.

Beneath the tires, something snaps, startling the slut in the back into a fit of panicked breathing. It reminded Artie of a dog, one suffocated beneath layers of loose skin and irresponsible breeding; she, like any runt, could do little more than kick and spasm thoughtlessly in a mind unaware of how addled it really was. Chains in the trunk stir audibly, clinking as she moves and expose exactly what it is she’s brought with her.

“Quiet! Fuckin’ Christ, it’s like this is your first datura trip!” Artemis hisses in her disquietingly-springy voice. “You’re dying and you’re going to go to Hell, bitch! Run! Run! Aaah!!”

The screaming accomplished little beyond getting some of the residual energy out of herself, but Artie enjoyed it nonetheless. A particularly violent spasm from the trembling figure let her captor know she was really marinating in it, chemically-induced psychosis tenderizing her brain like sauced beef. Poor thing, Artie thought as she watched the twitching form in the rear-view mirror. The client hadn’t left a pamphlet of information on her, unlike her primary target; as far as she knew, this girl was completely innocent. None of what she’d inflicted on her in the last few hours was deserved, warranted, or even understood on her part. Artemis rubbed her denim-clad legs together and smiled to no one.

By now, they were getting close. Artemis bites her tongue. This was a simple, in-and-out job, the kind she’d pick up to fill an empty evening; her elation only increases as more of the cabin is illuminated by the headlights. Thick foliage and tree cover run alongside the muddy driveway, the whole air of the place heavy with sleep and moisture. It sits isolated in a small, overgrown clearing, the lawn mostly neglected or perhaps left to fallow. The grass and flowers give way to a gravel lot, and space for two cars, upon which sat the mark’s old beater sedan. Above it, a small window, white curtains flapping in the cool wind; it wasn't two-storey, but contained a separate loft with a bed, where Beatrice likely lay now.

Stillness. For a moment, nothing happens beneath the hum of the diesel engine, save the quiet, panicked breaths of a woman far beyond psychosis. If one trains their ear, crickets hum beyond the blanket of pine; none do, leaving them unheard. There’s work to do.

She pulls up quietly, beneath the cover of the dark. Just enough noise to needed to stir the target from sleep, but not enough to startle her; it was important that Artemis maintain the illusion of being alone and undetected. After all, it was only five hours since the drugged-out girl had gone missing, and the sudden chaotic turn this idyllic camping trip had taken was grating on her. Poor little Beatrice had likely fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, too worried about her friend lost in the woods to keep her energy.

With a huff she shoves the driver-side door open, yet makes no further motion. This was now a job for her little assistant. The bedside lamp clicks on and floods the gravel with its dim, curtained glow, enough to allow Beatrice sight outside yet falling short of illuminating Artemis’s black-clad body. If the bulb had been replaced a mere two days or so earlier, it could’ve been bright enough to shine against her silver belt buckle…

“...Sasha?”

But it didn’t. A voice from the window, just like the one in the phonecalls Artie tapped in the previous weeks, calls to the truck with sleep-addled concern in her voice. “BEATRICE!?”

With a sudden heave the woman in the back roars into motion, suddenly lapsing into a fit of screams and muffling her captor’s motions as she slithers into the back seats, drawing the dagger she’s clipped to her belt. Her goal’s not her throat - well, not this time, at least - but the zipties holding the mass of trembling limbs together. Beatrice needed to remain under the impression that Sasha had come back for her, come back for all of them. Maybe they’d be able to recover their little birthday bash after all?

“W-What the fuck!? Sasha, where have you BEEN!? Oh, my God!” the mark yells, voice caught and stifled by the firs. “We called everyone! W-Where were you!?”

Cold blood runs through Beatrice’s veins in the delirious second before Sasha replies. Wind chills her to the bone through her tear-soaked ACDC shirt, her nipples stiff and frigid. Natural deliriants were certainly potent, but the draught of exhaustion and fear being mixed beneath the mark’s was a concoction of a similar caliber.

“BEATRICE THEY’RE STABBING AND EATING ME.” Sasha howls, the haunting tone of absolute conviction in her.

Voice wavering, Beatrice chokes a reply above the brisk wind. “What!?”

Teeth beneath a veil of black bare themselves in a smile far beyond cruel. These precious moments of sadistic bliss were, of course, well-charted in her grand strategy, and shouldn’t last more than a few seconds; your first datura trip should be something to remember, especially for the people unlucky enough to interact with you when you’re peaking. Had Beatrice any idea what to do, mind without the soggy weight of sleep, she’d be calling the police, asking exactly why her friend had returned suddenly and inexplicably, alone, but she’s instead throwing her Ugg’s and flannel on and stumbling half-blind by the light down the inadequate loft staircase.

Artie could practically cum. Two strong wrists force Sasha out of the door and onto the cold gravel parkway, face-first, and wait for the screams to begin.

“AH!”

Less than a second, which meant Sasha’s reaction time wasn’t completely fried. Good, good - the risk of dying from datura was a whole lot lower if she was still able to feel. Her wincing gives way into a stumbling, scratching mount, limbs heavy with the weight of sixty seeds upon them as they begin to hurl themselves towards the cabin. Her captive coordinator’s doing an excellent job so far, Artemis thought with a satisfied grin as she crept into action.

With Beatrice inside somewhere between the loft and the den, Artie had ample darkness. Flexibility on her side, she deftly reaches behind the small cabin compartment behind the row of back seats, grabbing the small duffel bag of work-related implements. Its contents varied from job to job; on this particular outing she’d brought the chains, shackles, an electric drill and screws, and several gnarly pieces of rusted rebar that would be particularly unpleasant to contort one’s limbs around - which is why she brought them, of course. Hand round the bag she slithers out the open door, hidden in the darkness beneath it before lunging at the closest wall. Hugging it, she shimmies to the corner and awaits the sweet, tinny click of a brass door lock.

Bare skin clatters against wood, lights in the cabin switching on to the rhythm of inner footsteps. Sasha’s on the patio steps, now, screaming like she’s on fire in the otherwise-still night air. Artie’s mind buzzes happily as the green digital screen of the truck’s clock reads out three thirty-two AM. Crickets. The trees don’t impede their song.

And with a metallic click, a woosh of air and a gust of cold, the front door swung open. Yellow incandescent light spills onto the patio and into the dark night - across beady, dilated eyes, writhing on the wooden floor.

“Jesus, Sasha! What’s fucking happening to you!?” she screams, bathrobe waving as she jogs anxiously in place. “I - oh, my God, I need to - fuck, fuck!” “BEATRICE HE’S CUTTING YOUR NECK AND YOU’RE GROWING MORE HEADS --”

“SASHA STOP FUCKING TALKING -- “

“Good evening, girls!”

Boots clack against the patio. A black figure, duffel bag in hand, skips into the light.

“WHO ARE YOU!? WHAT THE FUCK!?” Beatrice screams, dropping her phone in the midst of her emergency dial. Little of Artemis was illuminated beyond her eyes, sunken beneath her matte black figure that ate the light whole.

“I’m Artemis, but you can call me Artie. Sasha opened the door for me because I told her to,” she begins, voice beneath the chaos as calm and chipper as it had ever been. “And I’m going to ruin your fucking life.”

Crickets. A still, silent forest, its insect denizens undisturbed. Through the trees one can scarcely make out the thump of skin and the bending of steel.

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