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sinner-as-saint · 3 years

Text

The Unseen.

Hades!Bucky x Reader AU

Run-through: Your father is forcing a profitable marriage proposal upon you. Unwilling to endure such a thing, you run away from home and deep into some unknown woods. Naturally, your father sends his people to find you and bring you home, but this causes you to run deeper into the woods to a point where it feels like you’re not even in the same world anymore. Though fatigued; mentally, emotionally and physically, you manage to find shelter. You stumble upon a mysterious, handsome stranger. The God of the Underworld is baffled upon seeing you because it has been millennia since a mortal entered his dark, forlorn kingdom. And it’s been even longer since he felt something for someone…

Themes: hades!bucky, fluff, angst, smut,

You staggered through the woods.

Holding on to whatever you could find to help you keep your balance, and not fall flat on your face. You had been on the run for days now; running from your tyrant father and his people, running from a marriage proposal which was being forced upon you, running from the only place you called home. You wondered, was it really home?

You were currently deep into the woods. Famished, dehydrated, sleep deprived, your body covered in small cuts, bruises, insect bites and scratches. Your clothes were soiled. You could barely hold yourself up, but you had to get as far away as possible.

This part of the woods was so dense that the sunlight barely got through. There was more fog around you than sunlight. Actually, you could no longer tell what time it was. Perhaps it was not daytime.

Your throat burned, your tears had dried, your stomach rumbled in hunger; you were miserable. Your heart hurt at the thought of your mother; you had to leave her behind as well. You missed her, terribly.

You walked on, and a while later you felt the ground beneath your feet get more soft and damp. Your senses were alert. There must be a water body close by, you thought. You rushed forward, and let out a raspy sigh of relief when you saw the cool, slow-moving river which snaked around the large trees. You could just tell by the sight of it that it’s water must be ice cold. The thick fog condensed and danced above it. It looked mystical. Too good to be true.

You rushed to the river, kneeling by the side of it and picking up handfuls of water and drinking to satiate your thirst. You cleaned yourself as best you could - getting rid of all the dirt and muck from your face, and limbs and clothes.

You felt at ease for the first time in the past days. You got up and sat back down at the river bank for a while, feeling light and almost comfortable even though you were all alone inside a dense and cold, and dark forest. You chuckled at how much safer you felt here compared to back at your father’s house.

A minute later, you tensed up when you heard distant animal sounds. You panicked and took off running; deeper into the woods. You found yourself running alongside the river. You didn’t have a plan, you didn’t know where you were headed, but you knew you had to keep going. You couldn’t have your father finding you again and dragging you back home to marry whoever he chose for you just so he could profit off of it and expand his businesses; you refused to be a pawn in his games

You ran, stumbled, fell and stood up again. For hours. And just when you felt like you were about to pass out from fatigue again, you noticed a gate in front of you. It looked rusty and old, with dead vine all over it, surrounded in fog. You couldn’t see past it but something told you that once you’d get past it, everything would be alright.

So you did. You pushed open the gate and stepped into what seemed to be a poorly kept, dying garden. Though disorganized, and unkept; it felt almost familiar. It felt like coming home. You looked further and saw what seemed like an abandoned, dark manor, almost as grand as a castle. The whole thing looked like an old, forgotten private property.

“Help…” you called out with the little energy you had left. You doubted anyone lived here, but you called out anyways, just in case. “Help!” you called out again, falling to your knees on the rough ground.

And right before passing out, you heard something getting closer and closer. It sounded like it was galloping… several of them. Horses? In here?

Your eyes rolled back as you could no longer hold yourself up. You saw something approach you. Your blurry vision picked up on a tall, dark figure approaching. Whatever that was, it caught you right before your body fell to the ground.

It was a man. Even in your insensible state, you could feel the dominant, strong, virile aura surrounding him.

His low voice was the last thing you heard before you gave in to the darkness, “...I’ve got you, my love. You’re home now...”

---

The god stood at the entry of the spacious bedroom, in the middle of which was a large bed, upon which you laid; comfortable, but still unconscious.

Hands stuffed in his pockets as he leaned against the doorframe, he contemplated. Everything. He doesn’t remember the last time he had something so beautiful, and alive, inside the walls of his dark and dangerous kingdom.

He wondered where you come from. Who were you running from? Why did you cry for help? How did you find the Underworld? The moment he saw you first entering his kingdom, he thought that you might be a lost, wandering soul. But then when his hands touched you, he felt your warmth and realized that you were very much alive.

If you had made it through the entire woods to get here then you must be stronger and more courageous than you look, he thought.

He stepped closer so he could hear your soft breaths. So full of life… he thought. Whatever it was that you were running from, he made a decision to protect you from it. He felt the urge to wrap his arms around you and shelter you, keep you safe forever. Why so? He didn’t know. He had never been so attached to mortals before. He barely even met any of them.

But you… you walked right into his kingdom, and now you were making him feel things he had never felt before.

The god had always been alone. He never quite had company, and he stayed as far away as possible from his dysfunctional family. So having you here was new, but also something he didn’t know he needed so badly.

“Who are you, pretty human?” he whispered as he lovingly caressed your cheek while you slept. He had healed all your cuts and bruises the moment he picked you up in his arms, and placed you in his chariot. Now he was just waiting for you to wake up so he could talk to you.

He couldn’t wait to meet you.

---

You woke up to loud, warm puffs of air fanning your face. You peeled your eyes open, expecting a headache but there wasn’t one, what you did find though was a fairly large, mean and dangerous looking three-headed dog with shiny black fur standing beside you, on the bed, looking down at you with tongues hanging out of each of its mouths and wagging its tail so hard that its body moved side to side along with it in excitement.

Your eyes widened even in the slightly hazy headspace, you almost took off running again but your body refused to get up from the comfy bed and then you saw the playful look in all three pairs of eyes and you immediately calmed down.

“Hello there...” You whispered as you squinted and reached out to pet it. You gave it soft scratches behind the ears and under the chins and it immediately tackled you with wet kisses. You squealed and chuckled as you sat up, trying to escape the adorable monster.

Maybe you had died? You thought to yourself as you kept petting the dog once it calmed down. Perhaps you were in some sort of after life, hallucinating about a three-headed while wearing a very vintage-y black gown with long, puffy sleeves; and sat in the middle of the softest bed ever inside what seemed to be a chamber fit for a Queen.

“Am I dead?” You asked the three-headed animal. It didn’t answer, obviously so you tried to dig your memory to find something which would explain how you ended up where you are right now. All three heads laid on your lap, as you lazily pet them while thinking; you remembered running… deep, deep into the forest… you remember being tired, so tired you felt like you were about to pass out… wait you did pass out! In the garden. The dark garden, with the horses and the tall man.

You gasped as you heard a voice, not far from you, answering your previously asked question. “No you’re not. Surprisingly.”

Upon hearing the voice, the dog got up from the bed and immediately ran to the man who had just spoken. You got up from the bed too confused and nervous, standing and watching him cautiously as you took in the man’s appearance. Your heart raced the more he stared into your eyes with his deep, stormy ocean blue ones.

He could easily be classified as one of the most handsome men you had ever seen. Tall, dark and dangerous; dark hair, dark suit, dark shoes, dark rings on his fingers. He looked like dominance and power personified. A rugged, intimidating alpha male with sophisticated charm. Icy eyes with a fiery look in them.

He looked like a god.

When you finally got over the beautiful man, you realized what he had just said. “What do you mean, surprisingly?” you were aware that this was the same man who had answered to your cry for help earlier so you were trying your best to be polite.

The sound of your voice made his cold, frozen heart race. “You’re not dead. Just in the realm of it.” He spoke, confusing you even more. “You’re in the Underworld. My Kingdom.”

You frowned, thinking hard on what he had just said. Wait a minute… you looked down and saw the three-headed dog sitting obediently at his feet, very much well-behaved. You looked back up at the handsome stranger and stuttered while getting your words out. “You can’t… you can’t be real.” This wasn’t a dream?

He flashed you a lovely smile. “Really? Why not?”

You looked around, panicking again. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. “Because you’re a myth. You… you don’t exist. You’re not supposed to.”

He almost chuckled. “And yet, here I am. Forgotten by most mortals, yes. But still very much real.” He took small steps forward as he spoke. You found his voice to be calming, soothing.

“Hades?” you couldn’t believe it. You had heard stories about him at school, read about him in books but never in a million years would you have even for a moment considered that he could be real.

“The one and only.” He answered, looking down at his feet to find his beloved dog looking up at him. “You’ve met Cerberus already.”

Hades. God of the Underworld. That sitting at his feet was the Guardian, the ultimate Hellhound. How can this be real life? Anyone else would’ve freaked out upon finding all this out, but you remained surprisingly calm. “You look… I mean, aren’t you supposed to be… you know-,”

He finished your sentence with an amused look on his face. “Bearded? Crowned? Carrying a pitchfork? Riding in a chariot?”

You nodded.

“Well, you mortals aren’t the only ones who evolve every now and then. Us gods, although more or less forgotten, have to keep up as well, don’t we?”

You smiled faintly but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

You were still a little anxious, and you fidgeted with your fingers. He noticed and walked up to you. Without a word said, he reached out and gently held both your hands in his large ones. He spoke up again, “I know you’re a little nervous. I expect you to be, given the circumstances but I assure you, you’re safe here.” He said, softly.

You looked deep into his icy, sharp eyes which despite their intensity managed to provide you with a sense of comfort; effortlessly. Who would’ve known that the God of the Underworld could be so gentle?

“Thank you for helping me.” Your voice was barely above a whisper but he heard it alright given he was so close to you. He squeezed your hands a little, as if to say ‘You’re welcome.’ Your hands fit in his perfectly, you noticed. He stood just a feet away from you and you could feel the power radiating off of him.

He smiled gently. “If I may ask, how did you end up so deep into the woods that you stumbled upon my Kingdom? What are you running from?” He wanted to figure this out since the moment he saw you.

“My father.”

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why is that?”

“He wanted to marry me off to a business associate's son so he can profit off the alliance and expand his own businesses. I refused, repeatedly. But then I found out that he was planning to forcefully fly me out somewhere, to marry the same guy. So I took off. I ran from home, and didn't tell anyone where I was going.” You exhaled shakily. “And now I’m here.”

He nodded, slowly and calmly as he hid his utter disgust at the mention of you almost becoming someone else’s wife.

He noticed how you started tearing up while speaking of your cruel father, so he simply pulled you closer and tucked your head under his chin while running a soothing hand down your back. His arms wrapped around you in a safe embrace. You felt the cool material of his suit against your flushed face as he held you close. He smelt amazing. You wrapped your own arms around him, feeling his taut body beneath the material of his suit.

You hadn’t been hugged in a long time, so you started tearing up even more, until you began letting out little sobs. He tightened his grip around you, pressing you against his muscular torso. “Shh, my angel. It’s alright. I’m here now. You’re safe.”

You held back a sob, your voice cracking as you spoke, “But if… if he finds me, he will…”

The god pulled away a little, his hand reaching up to gently cup your face and tilt it back so he could look into your teary eyes. “He won’t find you here. I will keep you safe, don’t worry.” He wiped the fresh tears which escaped your eyes.

You were once again lost in his eyes, just now noticing the flares of grey in them. You were both caught in the moment, when you heard a low whine. It was the adorable monster who had managed to get in between your bodies. You looked down and cracked a little smile.

“Of course, Cerberus will keep you safe too.”

---

You and the god had quite a long conversation leading up to dinner. A conversation often interrupted by a certain three-headed dog’s constant need for attention from either one of you.

You learnt a lot about the one whose Kingdom you were in. You found out that he’s been here forever. Despite being dark, cold and barren you could tell he loved his realm more than anything.

You had to ask him about Persephone and he had you surprised when he told you that unfortunately their relationship didn’t last long and that she left him for good shortly after they got married.

You also found out that those closest to him call him ‘Bucky.’ And that his one true friend has always been the hell-hound and guardian of the Underworld, who also was currently asleep at your feet.

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” you asked, watching him from across the grand dinner table.

He took a sip of his wine, never breaking eye contact with you. “Not anymore.” he answered and you melted.

Over dinner, you spoke some more. Then he noticed you got all quiet. Damn it, he cursed. This was the moment he had been dreading all day.

“You miss your home.” He wasn’t asking, simply stating. He noticed how you pushed your food around on your plate. You weren’t as curious to know about his kingdom anymore, you weren’t chatty; just quiet all of a sudden. He missed the sound of your voice.

Home… “Not home, no. Just my mother. Sometimes I feel like she’s the only parent who’s ever truly loved me.”

He could feel the pain in your voice. But some of the rules of the Underworld were such that even he couldn’t bend them. “You know I cannot let you leave.”

You had that bit figured out the moment you found out who he was. “I know.”

He was surprised by how calm you were. “You… don’t ardently wish to go back home?”

You looked up from your plate and at his handsome face. “Going home would mean that I’d have to face my father. Now that I’ve been gone for so long, upon seeing me he’d either obliterate me or drag me down the aisle and marry me off against my will. I prefer none of those things. As for my mom, I do miss her but she’ll survive. She’s a strong woman.”

The god listened, leaning back in his seat; very much at ease in your company. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you want?”

You cracked a little smile. Or perhaps it was a smirk. You mimicked his body language, leaning back in your seat as well. You twirled the wine around in your glass. “For now, I want to be away from my family. I feel safe here. I don’t want to leave.”

He found himself wanting that as well.

---

You woke up the next morning to a sight which made you chuckle. No, it wasn’t an overly excited Cerberus. It was breakfast, along with a generous serving of pomegranates.

You ate it all up. Then set out to find the god after you got dressed and ready for the day. Somehow, everything one could need could be found in the large closets found in the room you slept in. You had only been here for a little while but you settled in just right.

You walked along a shadowy corridor. Bucky had given you a tour yesterday, hence you knew that this path led to the throne room. And that’s where he was; manspreading on his throne, wine glass in one of his hands while the other lazily stroked his beloved three-headed guardian; who sat by the feet of his master and wagged his tail as soon as you came in sight.

“Your Majesty.” You spoke, walking further into the room and stopping at the stairs which led to his throne.

He smiled as he watched you standing there, dressed in a dark grey dress. Similar to the one you wore yesterday, just a different color. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You looked down at the dress, smoothing the soft fabric down as you spoke. “Also thank you for breakfast.”

He caught the smirk you had on your face. He knew the reason behind it. “I assure you I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

You took the liberty of walking up the stairs which led to his throne. “I didn’t say anything.” You whispered with a smirk and reached down to greet Cerberus. “So what do you do all day?”

He took a sip of his wine, watching you as you knelt to the ground beside him and gave the dog endless pets. “I’m a god.” He sounded cocky. “That’s plenty of work already.”

When you looked up at him and smirked, he could’ve sworn he felt tingles dance down his spine. There you were, a beautiful woman happily sharing space with him inside his dark kingdom like it was no big deal, with no intention of leaving anytime soon because you said it yourself that being here made you feel safe.

The more he looked at you, the more he saw the light radiating off you. The light he so desperately needed. The light which balanced out the darkness he carried with him. The light which showed him glimpses of possible futures with you, if you’d be willing. The god was content in your company. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt the need to protect something so fiercely.

“Come with me.” He stood up and set his glass aside, holding his hand out for you to take.

You took it and he helped you up. “Where are we going?” you asked, as he led you down the stairs and into the corridor again.

“There’s so much for you to see. My kingdom isn’t just full of darkness and death. There’s beauty here too, of course, none quite like your own but close.” He spoke as he led you somewhere, holding your hand carefully in his as though it were made of glass and would shatter if he let it go.

You rolled your eyes at his comment, pretending as if it didn’t make you all flustered. “Is it now?”

The god led you all the way to the place he was most fond of in his entire kingdom, other than his beloved throne. It was a vast garden, fit to be the backyard of a castle. There were more kinds of plants and flowers than you could count. Cobblestone walkways leading to what seemed to be a pond in the middle, surrounded by stones and moss.

The dark red roses caught your attention rather quickly. You reached out to touch the soft petals and you felt Bucky’s presence behind you. He was so close that you could feel his warm breaths against your skin.

“It’s so pretty.” You whispered.

He reached around you and plucked one of them, handing it to you. “Just like you.” He mumbled and you gave him a genuine smile as you accepted the gorgeous flower. Dark red, like blood and sin.

Amongst the numerous plants, trees and shrubs you managed to spot the one growing pomegranates. You cracked a little smile. Even though the garden was partly shadowy and foggy; the rays of sun which came through were golden and gentle. As you looked around, you spotted a yellowish weeping willow tree and walked towards it, the god followed you.

“You’re the first one to ever step in here, you know that?” he said while thinking about all the times he spent hours in here wondering if one day fate would ever allow him to find someone he could share the joy of being here with.

You reached out to touch the dangling leaves and looked back at him. “Well thank you for the privilege, Your Majesty.” You teased.

You walked a few steps forwards, standing under the willow tree and admiring his secret garden when you felt his arm snaking around your waist as he placed his chin on your shoulder.

Neither of you said anything. He was more than happy to have you here, he had been lonely for way too long. You said to yourself, ‘this isn’t so bad.’

He had told you about the rules of the Underworld before, you knew you couldn’t leave. You didn’t want to either. Sure, you missed your mom a lot. But going back out there would mean having to live in constant fear of what if your dad finds you. And what would he do if he does?

Being here meant that you’d be safe and wouldn’t have to worry about anyone catching you. You didn’t fear anything here. It was quiet and the handsome god was great company. You felt all warm and tingly as he held you close, yet it felt comfortable and natural - like you were meant to be here with him, as if you had known him all your life.

As of now, neither of you knew where this mutual attraction would go, or what it would end up being. But at the moment, just having the other one there was enough. He gave you the safety you had been searching for all your life and you provided him the warmth and light he had craved for millennia.

---

Days in the Underworld were surprisingly peaceful; filled with surprises, visits to the garden, learning more about the god and finding out why he stayed as far away from his family as possible, wandering his kingdom all day, reading… time just flew by. And before you knew it, you had lived in the Underworld for months.

Your bond with Bucky morphed into something more affectionate and sweet. Lingering touches and longing stares turned into deep, passionate kisses and always having to sleep in the same bed because otherwise nothing made sense. It wasn’t just love, it was tender adoration. It was warm, and light and safe.

You hadn’t been intimate yet, but the sparks flew around whenever your hands touched at night, or when your eyes met from across the table at dinner. You were both holding back from taking it a step further. It wasn’t like he wasn’t dying to have you in his bed, or that whenever he kissed you good morning you didn’t feel the need to get on top of him and ride him until the sun came up the next day - but you were both waiting for a sign from the other and it was driving both of you insane.

It got really, really heated one time. Bucky was on his throne, with you in his lap. His hands slipped under your dress and lazily caressed your thighs while he kissed the hell out of you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, while you gasped and moaned through the kiss.

But just then Cerberus barged in, barking and jumping around with nothing but chaos on his mind. Bucky let out a loud sigh while you hid your face into his neck and giggled. It was those moments which made you love the place all the more. Not just the place, but the god as well.

Winter came and when the weather was the coldest, and you spent all your time indoors is when the memories of your mother started tormenting you. She used to spend all her time baking in the winter, so you asked Bucky if you could too. He, of course, let you have anything you wanted whenever you wanted so naturally he let you.

You tried so hard to keep yourself busy and happy but you couldn’t help but miss your mom. Bucky noticed it. And it broke him. He gave you everything one could ever need. You had everything here, and yet he could see how your eyes weren’t so shiny and curious or filled with magic and light anymore. You were dimmer than when you first came here.

He began seeing you wandering around his home a lot less as you spent all your time either in bed or standing on one of the balconies, staring out at the woods longingly. No amount of books, or poetry or visits to the garden or your favorite food or kisses from Cerberus made you happy any longer. And Bucky’s worst fear was materializing in front of his eyes.

You were no longer happy in the Underworld it seemed.

One night, he found you curled up in bed earlier than usual. He stood at the door and watched you. You weren’t crying, you were just sad. He walked into the room and called out, “Angel, are you okay?”

You sat up immediately, not wanting him to see you like this but at the same time you couldn’t fake being happy either. So you gave him a faint smile. “Yes, just a headache. I’ll be fine by morning.”

He smiled faintly. His heart breaking at the sight of the sadness in your eyes. “Come with me, I have something to show you.”

You got out of the bed and took his hand. He led you to one of the libraries he had; the coziest one with the huge fireplace and the perfect window which allowed you to see the breathtaking view of the gentle snowfall.

You stepped further into the room and saw that he had the fire going already and the room was much warmer than anywhere else in his castle. You walked right over to the large window, pressing your palm against it as you watched the light snowfall; clean, dazzling white and calming. Your headache faded little by little.

You felt a soft, warm blanket being placed upon your shoulders and you immediately wrapped it around you. Turning your head to the side you found Bucky right behind you. He kissed the top of your head and wrapped his arms around you.

“Feeling better?” He asked and you nodded.

“Much better.”

You stood there, basking in the comfortable silence and the warmth of the room, just watching the snowfall and how it accumulated on the ground; a fresh, thick blanket of ice.

“You miss her.” Again, it wasn’t a question from him, just a statement.

“Who?” You pretended not to understand.

He kissed your cheek and whispered, “Your mother. Your home. You want to go back, don’t you?” He sounded almost heartbroken and bitter.

You remained quiet. You didn’t say anything. No… ?

He spoke up again. “Even if I let you go, you will never be willing to come back here. To me.” He pulled away from the hug and walked over to the fireplace, shifting the burning wood with a brass fire poker. “Why would you?” He sounded pensive. “Why would you come back to this dark, barren kingdom when you can be perfectly happy out there? You must feel like you’re being held captive here.”

He didn’t turn around to face you so he couldn’t see the silent tear which fell down your cheek. So he thought that if given the chance you would run away from here and never come back to him again? Did the past months mean nothing? Did he not see that he was all you wanted?

Your throat burned.

“Is that what you think of me?” The crack in your voice caught his attention. He turned around to face you with a worried look on his face. He couldn’t believe he made you cry. You weren’t sobbing, but you couldn’t contain the tears. “You really think I’m gonna be happy out there, without you?”

That broke him.

“Angel… I didn’t mean to…,” it was rare for the god to find himself at a loss of words but now he did.

You wiped your tears away. “Did you even notice that I haven’t cried in months? Not since I met you because you make me the happiest I’ve ever been. This dark, barren kingdom you speak of feels more like home to me than when I lived with my family.”

He walked up to you and pulled you into his arms. “Baby… I’m sorry.”

You hugged him back. “I don’t feel like I’m being held captive. I don’t want to leave you. But I can’t help but miss my mom. I don’t want you to think I’m not happy with you anymore, I am. But I�� It’s… I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.” He said, pulling away to look down into your eyes. “I need you here, with me. The thought of you leaving me forever and never seeing you again, it… it kills me.”

You held him by the back of his neck and pulled him closer. “I’m not leaving.” You gave him a sweet kiss. “I love you.” You kissed him again and sensed his surprise as he kissed you back feverishly. You whined when his mouth left yours only to kiss down your neck, nibbling on your skin and leaving dark red marks behind.

“You drive me crazy, you know that?” He mumbled as he kissed along your throat, walking the two of you back until he plopped down on the soft, velvety couch with you on his lap. You looked at him with nothing but hunger in your eyes. He looked at you and smirked; burning desire, lust and sin in his icy blue eyes.

“Likewise.” you whispered.

His hands grabbed you at your butt, firmly as he pressed you further into him. You could feel him; big and hard under you. You moved your hips against him, grinding on him out of desperation and whining in need.

He chuckled against your lips. “You’ve had me by my heart ever since you walked into my life.” He spoke as he cupped your face gently. “I never knew I could feel so deeply for someone until I met you.”

You stared into his eyes, your heart overflowing with all that you felt for him and your body burning with desire at the same time. So much so that you could no longer sit still on his lap. You needed him so bad it almost hurt.

You leaned into his touch. “I feel the same way.” You leaned closer, gently caressing the back of his neck. “Falling for you was so easy.” You felt his body tense under you.

He groaned. “Come here…” he pulled your face closer and pressed his lips to yours immediately, kissing you passionately and making your body tingle; biting your lip before shoving his tongue past your lips and kissing you like he’s famished and you’re the only thing which can satiate his profound hunger.

Next thing you knew, he pushed you down onto the couch and hovered above you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. You moaned and whimpered, body squirming under his. You needed him, terribly.

Bucky’s mouth left your lips as he kissed his way down your body, undressing you in the process. Your long, flowy dress found itself on the floor as he settled himself in between your legs. His handsome face just inches away from your dripping core.

He looked hungry, and feral – a man who wanted to do bad things to you, and you were more than happy to let him do whatever he wanted. “You’re mine.” He growled before he leaned in and kissed your wet folds, his tongue slowly circling around your throbbing clit and licking down, parting your wet folds with ease.

Your body felt hotter and lighter as a pressing need to release formed deep inside you as you felt his tongue stroked your most sensitive parts. “So fucking sweet…” he looked up at you and found you with your eyes shut, head thrown back in pleasure. “Look at me.” He ordered and the authority in his voice made you tremble.

You opened your eyes and supported your upper body up with your elbows digging into the couch and you took in the sight of him in between your legs. His strong arms wrapped around your thighs, keeping you in place and close to him. He maintained eye contact as he licked in between your wet folds again, making you whine as he teased you. His touch was deliberately slow, pleasurably agonizing.

“Please…” you cried out, whimpering and begging him to take you already.

Your hand flew to his hair and you tugged on it gently as he flicked his tongue over your clit over and over again. His stormy blue eyes watched how you lost control under his touch; legs shaking as he teased your entrance with the tip of his tongue. His hands wrapped around your thighs, securing you in his grip as he pushed his face further into you, making you cry out loud until you came undone.

He kissed his way up your body again, then lifted off you for just a moment to get rid of his clothes. Once done, he was hovering over your naked body again.

“If it were up to me, I’d keep you here…” he leaned in to kiss you on the lips, “just like this, forever.” He loved the sight of you; naked, hot and squirming under him. He desperately wanted to keep you there forever and never let you go.

You giggled. “Fiend.”

He smiled as he looked down at you. “Where have you been all this time?” He leaned in to kiss you again as his hands touched you wherever he could; letting his hands linger at your breasts and taking his sweet time; caressing and kissing your skin.

His hands slipped in between your legs with ease; caressing your inner thighs as he went. You moaned into the kiss; his touch was slow, and gentle and enticing but also fiery - much like himself.

You whimpered and squirmed under him, and he smirked through the kiss as he pushed his erected cock past your tight entrance, pulling your legs up to wrap them around his waist. You moaned out loud as he pushed into you, your back arching off the surface of the couch. He grunted once he filled you up entirely, giving you a couple of seconds to adjust.

He grabbed both your hands, laced your fingers together with his and pinned your interlaced hands down above your head. He stared into your eyes, lips parted as he struggled to fit inside you. He had always wondered how he would feel inside you. How warm and how tight and snug you’d feel… but you felt better than he imagined.

You threw your head back, moaning. You were so full of him that even you couldn’t even form a proper thought. His lips found yours again, trying to get you to stay quiet while he rolled his hips against yours. He pulled out and pushed himself back into you, and watched in awe how you struggled to fit him inside of you.

“Come on, take all of me…” He mumbled breathlessly as he pushed deeper into you. You heard him gasp and swear under his breath as he rocked into you. Your nails sank into his skin, around his shoulders; which you held on to as he pounded into you.

He bit your lips, kissed your open mouth, and shoved his tongue past your lips while he rammed into you; and you never once complained. He stretched you out completely. And it did hurt, but the pleasure compensated for the pain. Your legs trembled around his waist, he thrust deeper into you; fucking you like only a god could.

Your back arched off the couch as you felt a familiar warmth washing over you. Bucky growled and bit down on your shoulder to keep himself from being too loud while he fucked you. He was relentless. The sound of his moans and grunts sent tingles dancing down your spine and you were sure that his bite left a mark.

Bucky’s hand found its way to your front and he pressed the palm of his hand against your lower abdomen. He liked the rush of excitement which coursed through him each time he felt his cock deep within you. His hand travelled all the way to your neck and he gently squeezed the side of your throat. Hard enough to make you lose your mind while he kept pounding into you incessantly.

“Fuck…” you heard a barely audible moan leave his lips as he rammed his cock in and out of you incessantly.

You felt him quicken his pace. You tightened around him, and he groaned, pounding into you; growling and mumbling swear words under his breath. You felt the pressure in between your hips grow until you couldn’t hold back anymore.

His other hand toyed with your folds; his fingers furiously rubbed the skin around your clit and made you tremble and whimper again. You moaned, craving more and more of him. With a few more strokes of his thick cock, you felt his thrust becoming irregular, and felt his cock throb against your walls. You tightened around him, feeling the burning hot need to cum grow hotter and hotter inside you until it exploded.

You came with a loud moan, gushing all around him. Bucky came right after you; buried deep within you – growling under his breath. His warm cum shot at your walls and trickled out of you when he carefully removed his length from your entrance. You were a whimpering mess. And so was he.

He collapsed next to you. You were shaking just a little as he tucked your head under his chin and ran his soothing hand down your back; while kissing the side of your head.

“I love you too, angel.”

---

Bucky agreed on letting you go for a few days, so you could meet your mom. But he had one condition:

“My mom will freak out!” you exclaimed.

Bucky shook his head. “Mortals can’t see him as the guardian of the Underworld. Your mother will see him as just a regular dog.”

“Then how can I?”

“You’re special.” He walked over to you and pulled you into his arms, kissing your forehead. “You were meant to be here. To be mine.”

“Are you sure about this?” You bent down to give the excited three-headed little monster scratches.

“Absolutely.” He was sending Cerberus along with you for your safety.

You smiled at the dog and looked up at it’s master. “Alright then. When do I leave? And how?”

The god smiled. “Right now. I’ll take you.”

You smirked. “You know we can’t show up in a chariot being drawn by horses, right?”

He chuckled. “Trust me, angel. Come on, take my hand.”

You did. And the next thing you knew, all three of you were surrounded by black fog, and less than a few seconds later, you found yourself standing at the entrance of a beautiful, gated home you didn’t recognize. You looked beside you and there stood your beloved god and his trustee guardian. You realized it was night time.

“Where are we?” you looked around, not recognizing the neighborhood.

Bucky grabbed your hand in his and Cerberus’ leash in another. “Your mom’s place.” He led you to the front door and rang the bell. You were confused, but too excited to see your mom to ask any further questions.

Needless to say, your reunion with your mother was filled with tears and teary smiles and hugs. She then told you that her and your dad were no longer together and that this was her home now. She didn’t know where your dad was, and neither did she want to.

“Oh honey, who is this handsome young man?” Your mother asked, once she realized that Bucky was there too.

You went along with the story you and him had concocted before leaving the Underworld. You told your mother that Bucky was your long term boyfriend and that you ran away to him because you were in love with him and couldn’t agree to marry someone else.

“I’m gonna be away on a business trip for a couple of weeks, so I thought why not leave Y/N with you until I return. After all, she’s been wanting to see you.” Bucky spoke to your mom politely and won her over within a few minutes. The god was indeed very charming.

After leaving Cerberus in your care, Bucky parted from you at the doorstep with a long, deep kiss. “I’ll be back for you, angel. Miss me.”

You smiled, kissing him back. “I will wait. I love you.”

“I love you more. Take care.” he kissed your forehead, and left.

Leaving you behind to your mother whom you had missed, but who also had a thousand questions for you. You answered all of them, lied at most.

---

The first week went by almost too quickly. Mother-daughter quality time, gossip and all. Cerberus was a sweetheart and each morning when you woke up and saw him in the kitchen keeping your mom company, you’d freak out for a moment or two. Then you’d eventually remember that she couldn’t see him for what he truly is and you’d calm down.

By week two, the jittery feeling of being back with your mom had died down. Not that you didn’t enjoy spending time with her, but the fear of your father finding you caught you off-guard often.

It was someday during the third week of you being back with your mom that your fears hit you hard. You had a terrible nightmare where your dad was back and was trying to take you away again. It was spine-chilling to a point where even Cerberus picked up on it.

You woke up to him whining and licking your face. You sighed in relief upon seeing his heads looking down at you in worry and confusion.

“I’m okay,” you gave him some pets and he immediately curled up on the bed beside you. You snuggled beside him, caressing his fur which looked shiny thanks to the moonlight coming in through the window. “You miss your daddy, don’t you?” You saw his multiple ears perk up at that. You giggled. “I miss him too.” You give his paw a kiss.

“Well good thing daddy’s here.” You heard his voice coming from the dark shadow of your room. Cerberus jumped out of bed and was surprisingly quiet as he greeted his master with much excitement. “Hello,” Bucky greeted him, “how about you go home now? I know you’ve missed it.” One last scratch behind the ears and a snap of Bucky’s fingers later, Cerberus disappeared into black fog.

You sat up in the middle of your queen-sized bed and leaned over to light the soft, golden lamp shade by the side of your bed. You blinked in confusion. “Bucky?” You were pleasantly surprised. The soft golden light made him look almost angelic despite his signature, all black outfit.

He gave you his signature cocky smirk. “Were you expecting someone else at this odd hour, angel?”

You rushed out of bed and right into his arms. He wrapped his arms around you, holding you close and he kissed your hair. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too baby. You have no idea.” He pulled away and cupped your face so he could get a good look at you. He leaned down to kiss your lips, deeply. You felt warm all of a sudden.

You smiled through the kiss before pulling away, asking in a hushed tone, “How come you’re here at this time?”

“I sensed that something was wrong. You were having a nightmare, weren’t you?”

You nodded. “But I’m okay now.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

You rubbed your nose against his. “Doesn’t matter, you’re here now.”

He grabbed your face and kissed you again; down your neck and along your shoulder. His stubble tickled your skin and you giggled as quietly as you could. You felt his hands caress your skin under your shirt, inching closer and closer to your breasts while he walked you back and eventually pushed you down onto your bed.

Your body tingled and burned under his warm touch, and there was nothing you wanted more than to have him buried deep in you. Ever since that first night together, you craved him almost all the time. After all, he made love to you like a god.

“Do you know how hard it was, being away from you for so long?” He whispered, sounding gentle, but also demanding and hot.

Suddenly you felt all confident and sassy. “Why don’t you show me then?”

He smirked and grabbed your oversized t-shirt and tossed it over your head and somewhere behind him. The sight of your bare body underneath him made him growl. “Is this how you slept every night? Almost naked?” He whispered in your ear as his hands roamed your body, mainly toying with your breasts. “Did you touch yourself, while thinking of me? Hmm?”

You gasped and moaned just at the sound of his voice, he was barely touching you.

He pressed his mouth to yours again, impatient to just have you already. His mouth didn’t leave yours as his hand slipped in between your legs with ease; caressing your inner thighs as he went. His touch caused a shiver to run down your spine as you moaned through the kiss.

“Shh,” he mumbled against your lips. “Can’t have your mom find out that her daughter is being a dirty, dirty little girl for me now, can we?” He ran his fingers up and down your folds, gathering and smearing your arousal around as he went.

He messed with you for a little bit; stroking your walls with his fingers and making you whine. You whimpered quietly under him as he nuzzled your neck and nibbled on the skin along your throat. “Please…” you pleaded. He chuckled.

“Please what, baby?” he teased you with his fingers, keeping you on the edge.

You whined under your breath. “I need you… please…”

His lips found yours again as the two of you hurried to unbuckle his pants and he pulled it down enough to free his erected cock. He couldn’t wait any longer. “I need you too baby,” he kissed you deeply, “but I’m gonna need you to be quiet for me, okay?”

He pulled away and waited for an answer. You nodded, breathless already.

“Good girl.” He pressed his forehead against yours while he pushed his erected cock past your tight entrance. You moaned under your breath as he did. You whimpered as you felt all of him. His lips found yours again, attempting to get you to stay quiet while he rolled his hips against yours.

“Shh, angel.” He whispered in your ear before pounding into you like his life depended on it. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, something which had become a habit of his, as he groaned under his breath at how your body welcomed him perfectly.

You failed to form proper thoughts as he rammed into you. The sounds he made were downright sinful and you loved it so much; knowing that you had the power to make him lose his mind.

“You’re all mine, you hear me?” He mumbled. “Tell me you’re mine,” he whispered right at the shell of your ear, and you moaned quietly at how he sped up into you.

You did as he asked. You told him again and again that you were his. And no one else’s. You couldn’t imagine loving anyone else.

Bucky held you like you were the most fragile thing ever even while he fucked you like there was no tomorrow. You were a tear-stained, whimpering mess as you came around his thick cock. He came right after you, grunting and groaning under his breath.

“I love you. So much.” He whispered, kissing the side of your face to calm you down.

You smiled, breathless still. “I love you too.”

He stayed with you, in your bed long after you two were done going at it for a second time that night. You snuggled into his side, your hand lazily across his torso. “Are you gonna stay for a little longer? Have breakfast with mom and I?”

He caressed your cheek with his thumb, “Won’t your mother ask how I got here?”

“I’ll tell her that you got here quite early while she was still sleeping.”

He raised his eyebrows at you rather dramatically. “Look at you lying without any shame.”

You giggled and got on top of him, straddling his waist and placed both your palms against his toned chest. “Oh the things I do for love,” You leaned down and kissed his lips with your own swollen ones.

He smiled. “Does your mom like me? As your… boyfriend?” He asked, sounding a little worried and it made you laugh because he was… him - a god, a king, ruler of the Underworld and here he was worrying about if your mom approved of him or not.

You pulled away to look into his eyes. “Yes. She likes you quite a lot actually. Who wouldn’t? You’re perfect.”

He smiled, his heart exploding at your words, as his hands caressed your exposed thighs. “I like her too. We’ll visit her every now and then, don’t worry.” he spoke and then looked around at your bedroom. “I like it here.”

You kissed him again, pouring all your love out into the kiss. You pulled away again, “Also I was thinking maybe we could go back tomorrow.”

He knew perfectly what you meant but he was dying to hear you say it. “Where to, angel?” He reached out and grabbed your hand, bringing it to his lips and kissed your knuckles.

You smiled down at him, your heart exploding with just how much love you had for him.

You answered, “Home.”

#hades!bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #marvel au

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ahjustroza · 2 years

Note

This is a question, not necessarily request but feel free to answer this how you see fit but how's felix with equally subby s/o?

I'm a natural bottom and sub, I feel like losing everytime I read about him around here

Delivered to you by my 2AM sleep-deprived state. Lovingly. With Ryan Reynolds.

Sub and Bottom MC with Equally Sub and Bottom Felix

I said before that Felix is a sub and a bottom (in my headcanons), however, that doesn't mean he will do everything his partner wants during sex

Let me tell you

Many fanfictions people write (or stories, headcanons, etc) aren't realistic

Real sex doesn't work like that lmao

Wattpad is a lie and I am not sorry to say it

Ao3 can get funny but not every writer expresses a sub/dom relationship right

Or at least they are always similar to one another so you actually get bored or you can tell what will happen in the next paragraph or so...

Subs don't just whine and moan out whatever their dom partner does to them in bed

At least Felix doesn't.

People have limits and turn-ons

Have comfortable and uncomfortable positions during sex etc.

So people often communicate with their partners to really enjoy sex

It doesn't have to be a serious talk really, but it can be more like small talk too

Like telling your partner that you want to switch positions or you don't like it when they do something

All that alpha and kitten stereotypes are complete bullshit so let me explain how the sub/sub relationship with Felix and you will work:

Soft and sensual sex

Lots of spooning sex

Lots of kisses

Lots of soft touches

A very emotional and intimate experience overall

Being top or bottom is often has to be experienced since you and Felix might like perhaps you on top and Felix on bottom

Or you on bottom Felix on top

If you are both shy just do spooning sex! You can hold each other and feel his skin pressed to yours

Listen to his moans and breaths

Praise each other, which Felix actually does a lot on a regular basis

Like my boy compliments everything you do for real

He is your number one simp

Also, he will move his hips a lot even when you decide to let's say ride him

No one just stays still during sex when got very horny

Felix is often very horny for you mind you

So you two will probably ride each other and then cry out moans

I just picture this relationship to be vocal in terms of whining and moaning idk why

Also, both being sub doesn't mean you two will always have soft and slow sex

You can fuck each other's brains out when in the right mood too

I think Felix and you would have a very close relationship that even begins sub doesn't stop having hard and fast sex

But communicate

Tell him what you liked and what you don't

Tell him how you want him

Because he will tell you

He is quite shameless about it in fact

So it can work perfectly even if you are both subs

Don't feel like losing anything just own your preferences and go with whatever makes you most comfortable

Not every relationship must have one sub and one dom

It is the deep love you share with your partner that matters not the sex positions and all

So what I can suggest is that read the headcanons considering MC is more comfortable with their LI than anyone else

that they are willing to try new positions with them for example

One fanfiction writer made a comment like 'you can still be the bottom while you are riding em' and I was like gIRL-

So these things are very complicated

And love is a rocket science

In a way.

Just love each other and not worry about "meeting the standards" with Felix

He'll simp even if you have ugly Christmas sweaters like Ryan Reynolds'

#felix iskandar escellun #fictif felix #felix escellun #felix headcanons #last legacy felix #fictif games #fictif last legacy #last legacy #felix smut

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hikarimiyanaga · 3 years

Text

Loving You (Part 3)

Part 1 I Part 2

I just finished writing... the first part. Oh god, this fic already has a sequel and I haven't posted all of it yet. Also, thanks for the support for me through hell week, it still isn't finished but apparently my muse likes to just tell my exams to f*ck off.

Warning : Omegaverse. Beta!Reader x Omega!Wanda Maximoff. Curse Words. Mentions of Bullying.

Also, just tell me if I need to add more warnings so I can edit as quickly as I can.

Taglist: @mitchiesdungeon / @upsidedowndanvers

Two weeks pass by and before you knew it, Wanda’s overwhelming scent invades your nose. You turn to her sharply and see that she’s wearing a jacket but it’s not enough. Jesus. You can even smell Pietro’s and he’s further down the hall. You quickly get the perfume from your locker and go to her. You see Tony take off his jacket and give it to Pietro while Pepper is assuring him that it’s okay. So he’s fine. You get to Wanda and take your own jacket off. Everyone knows that Pepper and Tony are set for life so him giving Pietro his jacket is just a sign for other Alphas to back off.

“Fuck.” Right. Beta. Not going to be enough. “Wanda.” You call out and you see Vision heading towards her. Oh. FUCK THAT. No one, specially Wanda gets to be claimed by an Alpha who hasn’t even bonded with anyone yet. Vision’s scent is overbearing because no one has ever sullied or claimed it yet. You look her in the eyes. “Do you trust me?” She furrows her eyebrows and nods. You spray the perfume and you can already feel your own heart calm down. Damn, this perfume really is the best.

Flashback

“Y/N.” It was your first day of school and you turn to see your Ma holding out a box… of perfume?

“What is this?”

“Scent hiding perfume.” You furrow your brows and look at Dahlia.

“For me?”

“No. For Omegas.”

“Am I-“ How did they know?... Do they know?

“That’s still unclear, sis.” Alsie says and pat your head. You sigh in relief, you weren’t ready to know just yet. “Just accept it and keep it in your locker. And if you smell an Omega’s scent which means-“

“They’re in heat.”

“That’s right, anak. This perfume is effective on hiding their heat’s scent.”

“Oh. Just like suppressant pills.”

“Yeah. Most Omegas’ heat scent can be suppressed by clothing and pills but if it can’t.”

“Then use this?”

“It’s highly effective. I gave some to my friends back in High School and it literally blows their heat scent away.”

“Oh. Nice. Do I give the whole bottle?”

“Yep. Better safe than never.”

“Gotcha.” You get the box and put it in your bag.

“What was that?” Wanda raises an eyebrow at you.

“Perfume.”

“Wanda.” Pietro calls out and both you and Wanda turn to him. He tilts his head. “You don’t have any smell.”

“It’s the wonder perfume.” Angel says and gets the bottle from you. “I can’t believe you have one of these.”

“Wonder Perfume?”

“Said to be only sold to known Omegas that have connections, this perfume can’t be found anywhere else.”

“It can cancel out any scent.” You get the bottle back and hold it out to Wanda.

“You’re giving it to me?” You smile.

“Yep. Better safe than sorry.” You get another one from your bag and toss it to Pietro. “If Tony’s scent ever runs out.” Tony growls at your words and Pepper puts a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. You roll your eyes.

“So you were that girl.” You tilt your head at Angel.

“What girl?”

“My first heat in this school and I haven’t met Natasha yet so I was hiding out in the bathroom since my brother’s scent was getting weak. When suddenly one of those bottles slid inside the toilet stall. Never knew who it was.”

“Ah.” You rub your neck. “I could smell your scent and just slid it without thinking.”

“How did you get these?”

“Ma gets those all the time. She gives me a box every time I run out of it.”

“A box!?” You nod.

“The one in my locker has only five bottles left.”

“But this thing isn’t sold in malls or online.”

“Yeah. I think one of mom’s clients is the owner and developer of it? I met her once at a Gala.” Angel’s jaw drops.

“Seriously?”

“Yep. I can tell Ma to get you some if you want it.”

“N-no. I already have Nat and her scent overpowers mine.”

“Oh. That’s good.” You grin and Wanda gulps. God, how could you be so adorable? “An Omega should never feel alone when they have a heat.” Angel narrows her eyes at you.

“What? Dependence on others?” You shake your head and give her a smile.

“No. Not dependence. Just lending a hand. Specially in time of need.” You wave them goodbye and go to your first class.”

You were waiting on the secluded bench when you hear two sets of footprints. You look up and see both Pietro and Wanda. They’re both wearing their dad’s jackets but Pietro is no longer wearing Tony’s.

“Hey, Y/LN.” He greets and you smile.

“Hey.” Wanda sits next to you and Pietro rubs his neck.

“Can I eat lunch with you guys? It feels awkward with my friends now that I returned Tony’s jacket.” Wanda narrows her eyes at him. You frown at him as well.

“Are they bull-“

“They’re not! It just feels awkward!” You chuckle and nod at him.

“You can’t. This is my and Y/N’s secret spot.”

“Wanda! Come on!” You sigh and stand.

“Take my spot.”

“But-“

“No buts. You’re in heat and it can get uncomfortable if you keep standing. So just sit.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll get something. Wait here for a second.” You leave them and Wanda glares at Pietro. He notices her.

“What!?” He asks as he unwraps his sandwich.

“Would you leave!? This is the only place Y/N eats with me!”

“Just this day! Jesus! Share your blessing!”

“I’d rather die than share Y/N!” You stop in your tracks as you hear Wanda’s words. You blush and you feel your heart beat faster. Damn it, why does she have this effect on you? You shake your head and take a deep breath to calm yourself down.

“I’m back.” You say as you drag the chair in front of them.

“Wha-“

“Where?”

“From over there. Used stuff that aren’t always stable get thrown there.” They look at each other then at you.

“Is that safe?” You shrug and sit. Wanda holds out a plastic bag to you and you get a sandwich and juice from it. You hum and smile. You moan at the first bite and Wanda blushes while Pietro laughs.

“Where’d you get this?”

“She prepared it herself.” Wanda elbows Pietro on the side and you eat more.

“Thanks for the food.” You say and grin at her. She blushes and smile at you.

You yawn as you get inside your last class and sit at your usual seat. Usually, you get the whole table by yourself but this time someone takes the seat besides you. You turn and see Angel who gives you a small wave. You nod at her and get your notebook out. You pay attention to the Professor. Then suddenly, Angel pokes you lightly and she points to her notebook where you see a question.

How many AP classes are you taking?

You hum and write your answer.

3 this year, why?

What are they?

Latin, Calculus and This, why?

Before either of you knew it, you were both having a conversation through the notebook.

Just asking, have you taken Japanese?

Yep.

Can you help me with my homework today? It’s hard and I don’t know where to start.

Sure, come with me to the library.

That’s perfect since Natasha has to help the Judo Club today.

You nod and after half an hour, the class ends. You stretch your body before putting your things in your bag.

“Why the library?” You yawn as you get out of the classroom.

“Wanda’s there.” Angel raises an eyebrow as she follows you.

“What’s with you and Wanda? You spend time everyday despite having different classes.” You hum and your sleep-deprived self has no more inhibition whatsoever. All you want is to take a nap. You were about to on lunch but Pietro was there. You couldn’t possibly do it on a chair that was about to break.

“I like her.” Angel grins teasingly but you don’t care anymore. You yawn again. “I think she likes me too but I’m too scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Her. And society.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.” You finally enter the library and Wanda waves at you but it falters when she spots Angel. She frowns. What are you doing with another Omega? Someone with a soulmate mark? You notice her gaze and go to her. “She’s here because she needs help with her homework.” You yawn again and Wanda furrows her eyebrows at you.

“Are you okay?” You hum and grin lazily at her.

“I’m fine.” Angel brings out her homework and after just half an hour, you’ve already helped her finish it. Before you knew it, you’ve closed your eyes and lean your head into Wanda. Angel hides her laugh as she reads her book on Japanese language. Wanda blushes as you snuggle into her and hug her arm.

“She likes you, you know.” Wanda looks at Angel who smirks. “She told me herself.”

“When?” Angel smiles and closes her book.

“Just before we got here.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s sleep deprived and had no inhibition.”

“Well, I like her too.” Angel scoffs at her.

“As if that wasn’t obvious? You literally ditched your own brother to hang out with her.”

“She’s the only person who helped us that day. Most people either ignored or rolled their eyes at us. Then there she was, she was reading a novel and I took a chance.”

“She helped you?”

“Yeah. She was just straight up adorable.”

“You’re falling fast and hard, Maximoff.” Wanda smiles.

“At least I’m falling for the right person.”

“She’s a good one.” Wanda chuckle and nods.

“At least you’re not bullying her. It seems she has had bad experience. Specially with Omegas.”

“Yeah. She was the target of Janine and her goons; they were straight up messing things up for her. Which is why she never goes into the cafeteria anymore.” Wanda grits her teeth and Angel can feel her protectiveness… Jesus, it feels like Wanda has already imprinted on you despite being an Omega.

“No one stopped them?” Wanda looks at you.

“Some Betas tried but ultimately gave up.” Angel runs a hand through her hair. “Most of the cliques and groups just ignored them. Wasn’t one of my finest moments.” Wanda nods and looks at her.

“How bad was it?” Angel sighs.

“Only she can tell… but this bad one was when they filled her locker with their heat-scented clothes. She ran so fast to the bathroom and puked.” Wanda flinches at that and clenches her fist, how could they? So that was why you were so adamant to avoid her at first.

“The teachers?” What the hell were they doing while you were suffering?

“Didn’t pay them much attention since Janine’s parents are big donators to the school.” Wanda scoffs. Typical corrupt assholes. Would rather keep the money than to protect their own students.

“Her parents?” What about them? Didn’t they help you? Since you were so fond of them.

“I don’t think she ever told them, if they did then R Firm will rain hellfire to the school and to all the people who did it.”

“She’s been through so much.” She holds your hand and rubs your knuckles. Angel looks at her and groans. Wanda turns to her.

“Yeah. Fine, I’ll tell you the worst one.”

“There’s a worst?”

“Yes. When they tried to frame her for stealing underwears.” Wanda’s eyes widen and she felt her heart drop.

“What?” Angel sighs and fidgets with her book.

“Yeah. When she opened her locker, it was just pure underwear. Overflowing and everyone can smell that it was from Omegas and Alphas alike. It was a good thing that there was a camera installed in the hallway and people wearing masks were seen putting it inside her locker. Nobody knew who did it but most people knew it was Janine’s idea and Rumlow most probably did it.”

“Why go that far?”

“The only thing her parents complained was her not getting into AP classes despite her middle school record. People liked testing her endurance or if she-“

“Was going to get her parents again.”

“Yeah. R Firm is feared by most people in the town but that fear was lessened when people knew that she was a Beta.”

“Why would she let them go that far?” Her voice breaks slightly as she and Angel turn to you. You make yourself more comfortable on Wanda’s shoulder.

“I think she blamed herself.”

“For what?”

“For being a Beta.” Angel sighs. “When I ran into her in a bathroom one time, she had scars on her wrists.”

“No.” Wanda gets teary eyed and Angel nods.

“I think she wanted to die. It was a month after the evaluation tests when I saw the scars.” Wanda’s tears flow freely and Angel gives her a handkerchief. She accepts it and wipes them away. “I think she knew how her second gender affected everyone in her family.”

“Angel. Tomorrow will you please point out Janine to me?”

“Why?”

“I’m going to-“

“Don’t try it, Wanda.” You stir and both turn to you.

“How mu-“

“Enough. I told you before, didn’t I?” You flick her forehead and she glares at you. “Stop being a stubborn idiot. We can’t erase what happened in the past. Getting revenge won’t do me any good.”

“But she-“

“Wanda.” You look her straight in the eyes. “I mean it. Don’t try it. If you do then you won’t ever see me again.” She looks nervous at your words. “Revenge never does anyone good.”

“Justice though?” You raise an eyebrow at Angel who is challenging you.

“Justice is fine. Revenge is not.”

“Why do you want to take the high road?”

“Because getting revenge means I’m the same as them.” Both Wanda and Angel scoff at you.

“What? Sexist assholes who think they’re better than everyone because of their second gender and parents’ business. Sounds like you.” You sigh.

“Just trust me.” You look at the clock and hum. “Come on, time for me to go.” They both pack up their things and you wait for them. The three of you get outside and you stretch your body. Wanda looks down and is frowning when you turn to her.

“Why let them go that far?”

“Angel was right. I blamed myself and some part of me believed their words. I went to therapy for months and got better though.”

“Do you still go?” You nod.

“When those thoughts come back. But it’s optional most of the time.” Wanda hugs you suddenly and you look at Angel who shrugs.

“Please don’t.” Wanda mumbles and you hum.

“Don’t what?”

“Think those thoughts again.” She looks up and you gulp as your heart beat faster against your chest. You’re suddenly nervous that she would hear your heart. “I don’t think I can live without you.” You sigh and try to calm yourself down as you blush.

“You’re exag-“

“I’m not!” Wanda pulls off and glares at you. “I like you! I don’t even care if you reject me or not! I-“ She runs a hand through her hair. “You’re so frustrating!”

“Are you- Why are your emotions changing so much?”

“Because of you! You make me angry and sad and happy all at the same time!” She cries and you hug her. You send her comforting waves and hope they are enough. She calms down in your arms and you sigh in relief.

“I like you too, Wanda.” She smiles and you smile softly. “I might be a pain in the ass sometimes but I hope you know that.”

“You are.” You push her away gently and scoff.

“You’re not supposed to agree with me.” She smirks and you gulp.

“But you are. You kept rejecting me at first, remember?” You look away as you blush.

“Fine. I am.” She grins and takes your hand.

“Go on a date with me.” You chuckle and intertwine your hands.

“Sure. When and where?”

“Oh. Uh.” You laugh and Angel snickers.

“Just meet me in the park near the church? Do you know it?”

“Yep.” You smile and kiss her hand.

“Saturday, 1 pm.” You wink and pull away. “Don’t forget.”

“Angel!” “Wanda!” The three of you turn to see Pietro and Natasha walking to you.

“And I should leave.” You smile at Wanda who blushes. You kiss her cheek then turn. You wave at them as you walk to go home.

You open the door and see Valerie with a sandwich in her mouth. She’s been visiting every Thursday and moping in the house since you picked her up weeks ago.

“Hey… sis?” She grins and gets the sandwich.

“Welcome home!” She ruffles your hair and you tilt your head.

“You’re weirdly cheered up.”

“Yep!” You raise an eyebrow as she goes to the kitchen.

“Where’s mom and ma?” You look around the house and there aren’t any signs of them. Your ma’s usually cooking this time and your mom is either watching TV or scrolling through her phone in the dining room.

“On a fancy dinner date.” Ah.

“Oh, what about food?” You scratch your neck. Do you have to bike and get some from the convenience store? It’s a pain but if there wasn’t any then you have no choice.

“There’s some in the ref. You can heat it up.” You hum and you notice that Valerie’s bag is on her shoulder.

“You leaving already?”

“Yep. I have to. I have an early class tomorrow.”

“Right. 8 am.”

“Yep! See you, sis!”

“Okay! Be careful!” You sigh and go to your room after your sister left. “The hell happened to her?” You mumble as you change your clothes. You yawn as you get down. You get the food from the fridge and heat it up. You turn on the tv and watch as you eat your dinner.

Your phone pings and you see Wanda’s name.

Wanda: Hi.

You chuckle at her text. Does she have telepathy? She seems to know when you want something to do.

You: Hey, what’s up?

Wanda: Just wanted to talk to you.

You: We just talked like an hour ago.

Wanda: Still. Let me have this.

You chuckle at how cute she was being.

You: Alright.

And before the both of you knew it, you talked until 1 am where Wanda just fell asleep.

A/N:

Hell week is still ongoing but here we are. No one can stop my love for Wanda. Not even my exams nor my grades.

Thanks for @mitchiesdungeon for the encouraging words.

You've given me enough motivation to actually finish this and review as well.

Thank you for reading!

#Wanda Maximoff x reader #Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader #Omegaverse #Omegaverse Fic #Marvel #Marvel Fanfic #Scarlet Witch x Reader #Wanda x you #Wanda x y/n

167 notes · View notes

necros-writing-stuff · 3 years

Note

(Uuuuh, tw for a/b/o, inc*st, noncon, shitty writing, and implied somnophilia. May or may not be working on a version where Whitney actually likes his cousin. Also, no editing, I'm dying like the parasite babies I forgot existed before fucking off to Alex's farm)

The ride home from the airport is hell. Whitney's mother keeps asking you questions about your life, about the rest of the family. You babble on and on about how you're the top of your class, how everyone in the family is doing great, how you've already got a place at a university reserved for you when you're finished with your year of travel. Whitney's in the back seat of the car with you, but he can still see how it makes his father's hands tighten on the steering wheel each time you open your mouth, each time you remind him how his own son is nothing but a disappointment.

Whitney stays quiet, using all his self control to not lash out. His parents always compared him to you, 'why can't you be more like your cousin' this and 'your cousin would never' that.

Then there's the fact that you're a beta. Someone Whitney is supposed to naturally be better then.

Sometimes it makes him want to scream.

Whitney's mother ushers you into the house, leaving Whitney to help his father carry in the luggage.

"Your mother's made plans to go out tomorrow," his father says, "as a family."

"I have plans."

"Cancel them."

His father doesn't give him a chance to argue, grabbing a bag and taking it into the house.

Whitney grumbles to himself, dragging in the rest of your things.

Oh, of course they put you in the guest room right next to his. Can't be free from you for one second, can he?

"Just in case you need anything" he catches his mother telling you as he drops you things off, "Whitney is right next door."

Whitney's about to say something about not being a nanny when his father catches his eye, frowning. Fine, he'll be a fucking nanny.

You sound breathless as you thank his mom, your face flushed and eyes a bit too bright. Maybe you're getting sick? Fuck, would he be expected to take care of you if you got sick? Probably.

Whitney ducks out of the room before his mother can try to get him to talk to you. There would be plenty of time for him to suffer on whatever "family outing" his mother had planned.

Whitney locks his door, stripping to his underwear and getting into bed. He's got no reason to be awake. Normally he'd sneak out of the house, smoke a bit in the park with some friends. But no, he gets to be dragged around town, show you all the sights, or whatever. He knows he won't be able to get out of it, might as well not feel like shit from being sleep deprived.

It's 2 a.m. when Whitney wakes up, rock hard with the smell of omega in heat permeating the air. Whitney's initial reaction is shock. What shit for brains omega in this hell hole of a town isn't

on suppressants? The wave of lust that rolls over him stops him from following that train of thought.

It's not the first time Whitney has smelled an omega going into heat. There had been times at school, when someone screwed up, forgot to take their suppressants. Usually the signs of pre-heat would have the omega sprinting to the nurses office before anything really happened.

There had been the time Whitney had seen an omega tackled in the park, whimpering as an alpha had dragged them off. Whitney had been curious enough to watch as the alpha claimed them, snapping at any passersby. He’d enjoyed the scent well enough, but hadn't tried to have a go. Sure, the omega had smelled good, but not good enough to fight over.

This is different. Whitney's not sure if they could describe the scent even if they wanted to. Somehow familiar, but strange, different.

Whitney's out of bed before he even registers what he's doing, following his nose until he's standing outside your room.

Oh.

You? You're an omega? His shitty perfect cousin, who everyone compares him to? And you've gone into heat?

The nob turns easy in his hand. You've left it unlocked, in a town like this? But Whitney doesn't dwell on the question as he approaches your bed.

You're curled up, already built a nest and everything, eyes squeezed shut and whimpering as you rub yourself through your pajama shorts.

"Pathetic."

You jump at Whitney's voice, try to hide yourself in your nest but to no avail. The bed dips as Whitney climbs in.

"D-don't," you try to say, but Whitney's amped up pheromones are making your brain go hazy.

"Everyone thinks you're so perfect, but you can't even take care of yourself." Whitney pulls at your clothes as he speaks. You try to fight him but your attempts are weak. "Talking about how fucking smart you are, can't even remember to take your suppressants."

"D-didn't know," you manage to get out, losing the battle to keep your shirt.

"What dumb fucking omega doesn't know when they're going into heat?" He's got your shorts down to your knees now, and you are more focused on covering your groin than trying to get them back. Slick is already coating the inside of your thighs, making your underwear cling to you.

"Didn't know! P-presenting. Now. First t-time!" Your words are jumbled as Whitney pries your hands away from your crotch.

The words make Whitney pause and for a moment you think the nightmare is over. That whatever had possessed Whitney to climb into your bed has left him. Your hope is crushed as Whitney gives you a wicked smile, wrenching your arms above your head and pinning you.

First time! Whitney was going to take your first time! His stupid, perfect cousin! The one everyone fawned over, and he was going to ruin them!

He manages to gather your wrists in one hand, using the other to strip you of your underwear. Your scent is even more powerful now that you're fully exposed. Whitney's surprised no one else has come to investigate, but who is he to complain?

You're crying as Whitney frees himself from his own clothing, but you're no longer fighting him. You seem to have resigned yourself to your fate.

Good, you've already started to learn your place.

Whitney doesn't bother to give you any kind of preparation. You're leaking so much slick that there's already a wet patch forming on the bed.

Besides, he wants it to hurt.

“You know, Everyone always talks about how you’re so perfect, how it's such a shame that you’re a beta.” Whitney hooks one of your legs round him, giving him better access to your hole.

“Immagine what they’ll think when they learn you’re just an omega bitch.” Whitney's cock presses against you, your breath hitching as he nudges against you. "That all you're good for is spreading your legs for your betters."

You go rigid under him, eyes wide, mouth agape, a he cock is forced into you. Even with your heat putting your body in the ideal state to take a cock, nothing could have prepared you for this. You start to writhe under him, whining as Whitney forces himself into you.

"S-stop. Whit, please," your voice is a strained whimper, barely audible even in the relative quiet of the room.

"Shut up," he growls, leaning down to lick your neck, dangerously close to your scent gland, "or I'll do something you'll really regret."

His threat makes your blood run cold. He wouldn't really do that, would he? But he's already done so much, you don't doubt he would take it further.

Whitney's hips meet yours as he finally settles fully inside you.

"You're so fucking tight," he groans, starting to pull out. "Sure you're in heat? Not just some shitty beta begging for cock?"

He doesn’t wait for an answer, slamming back into you, making you cry out. Whitney sets a bruising past, taking no regard for your comfort. The room soon filled with the lewd sounds of skin slapping skin and your cries.

Fuck, you're too loud. At this rate the whole neighborhood was going to show up, thinking he was killing you, let alone his parents. Whitney wraps a hand around your throat, cutting off your air supply.

You struggle on instinct, only stilling when Whtiney gives a low warning growl.

Whitney keeps growling insults about how wet you are, how you obviously want his cock or you would be fighting harder. As if he isn’t keeping you from moving. As if he didn’t threaten to claim you if you didn’t let him do whatever he wanted.

But your body doesn’t seem to care.

That's the worst part, the pleasure building in your gut, your body responding to Whitney’s in a way that leaves you disoriented. His movements in you become less painful as your body adjusts to him, his cock hitting a spot in you that makes your vision go funny, makes you glad you can’t make much noise with Whitney choking you. You don’t even realize that you’ve started to jerk your hips in half hearted attempts to meet his thrusts.

The edges of your vision are starting to become fuzzy as Whitney's knot starts to catch in your hole. When Whitney pushes in and can no longer pull out, he lets go of your wrist, opting to force your legs open a little wider so he can grind against you easier.

You grab onto the hand around your neck, grip weak as you try to pry it off. It takes everything in you to keep trying when Whitney snaps at you, but you can’t breathe.

The hand on your neck disappears, only to be replaced by Whitney’s mouth. He bites at your scent gland, hard. It sends a wave of overwhelming pleasure though you, even as you're tears start anew.

He’d claimed you. Whitney had claimed you, just like he’d threatened. And the worst part was you couldn’t even bring yourself to fight him, just crane your neck so he could have better access to scenting you. The attention he lavishes onto your neck driving you to orgasm.

It’s the tightening on his cock that finally sends Whitney over the edge, his cum painting your insides as he continues to grind against you until fresh tears start to run down your face from overstimulation.

“Can’t believe you got off during your first mating, fucking slut.”

His words feel like they are coming from far away as You struggle to keep your eyes open. You groan low in your throat as Whitney shifts, his knot tugging at your hole as he makes himself comfortable.

"Marked….me..." its difficult to speak, toung feeling thick.

"I didn't use teeth, idiot. How the fuck would I explain that?"

You try to point out that you'll still smell like him. That you'll reek of his pharamones, but your words get stuck.

You let yourself slip into unconsciousness as you feel Whitney start to grind against you again.

You guys are spoiling me with this content. All those kinks in one?

This is very good, anon, thank you for sending it in!

#Whitney the Bully #omegaverse #tw inc*st #tw dubcon #tw noncon #spill your guts #🎃 anon

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destiniesfic · 3 years

Photo

132 Hours, Chapter 10

It is not better in the morning.

Read chapter 10 on AO3 or read below (but be warned, there’s mature content in this one):

Once again, it’s hard to sleep. I dream of kissing Cardan, who is actually Locke, and I am wearing Taryn’s pink prom dress. And that’s the tamest of them; I have more graphic nightmares that I won’t recount here, except to say that they are awful. Every time I wake up I am either too hot or too cold. I eventually decide I am most comfortable with one leg pushed outside of the blankets and fall into a light doze.

About two hours into my botched attempt at sleeping, I awaken to some odd noises and realize that Cardan is also awake. A moment later, I realize he must think I am still asleep, because when I look over at him there can be no other explanation for what he is doing.

As before, he is in slightly sharper focus than everything else in the room. I thought I’d find him lying down, but he is sitting up with his back against the wall, and his head is bowed forward. He is definitely trying to be quiet, but it is very clear to me from his weird breathing and the sound of skin on skin and the movement of his hand what is going on.

I shouldn’t watch. I know I shouldn’t. But I woke up turned on my side toward him and I can’t turn over or he might realize I’m awake. I can’t even imagine what would happen then. Would he stop? Would he come over? Would I invite him over? I don’t know which possibility terrifies me more.

His breathing grows more labored and he brings his free hand up to his mouth to muffle the sounds that fall out of it. I hate the way my heartbeat skips at every one, the way every muscle in my body clenches with want, with need. I stay quiet, though, watching with hungry curiosity as he curls over himself and makes a strangled sound, almost but not entirely swallowed up by his palm. His shoulders shake.

When it’s over—and I am marveling at how I just watched him jerk off—he sighs, a long, exhausted sigh that somehow really endears him to me. I want to crawl over to him and nuzzle at his neck. I want to drape my body over his body so we can keep each other warm. I want to lick his hand clean, a thought that I recoil from even as I have it. That can’t possibly taste good, and yet—

“Ah, shit,” he whispers. He’s looking down at his hand, and my delusional omega brain wonders if I should go offer to lick it. But then he pulls off one of his already dirty socks and uses that. He got a shower today, but being stuck in a dirty room the size of my stepmother’s walk-in closet negates that fast. Honestly, after being stuck down here for days, I’m not sure we’ll ever be clean again.

Cardan’s head falls back against the wall. His clean hand grabs for something at his side, and when he presses it to his face, I realize it’s my sweatshirt. He exhales again, and it must be my imagination, but it sounds suspiciously like my name. He takes a few, deep breaths, then puts it back down and curls up on his side, using it as a pillow.

I feel like I have been holding my breath this entire time, but I keep holding it a little longer, just in case. There is a pulsing, demanding heat in me, concentrated between my thighs, but, as I always do, I push it to the side. I curl my knees to my chest, and hope it will be better in the morning.

---

It is not better in the morning.

When I open my eyes, it is to the migraine that threatened me yesterday finally breaking, like someone’s jammed a railroad spike into my left eye. The fever is roaring, too, and I pull my leg back inside the blankets and wrap myself up tight, but my shivering doesn’t stop. My muscles have acquired a dull ache that makes me think they’d be bruised if I could peel my skin back and look.

I think I half-expected to find that Cardan had crawled on top of me in his sleep. Then I would wake up, then he would do it, and it would be an awkward thing to work around while kidnapped but at least the worst of my symptoms would abate. But Cardan is still by his corner where I’d seen him fall asleep last night, except now he’s curled up in a ball around my sweatshirt. So there would be no morning hump session, which is good, because I am not yet at the point where that seems more alluring than scary, awkward, intimidating.

My mouth is dry, and I turn over to reach for the water bottle, but it is empty. When had it emptied? Did I empty it?

“Cardan,” I whisper. That’s all it takes to jolt him out of sleep. He sits up, and rubs his eyes, which then widen when he looks at me so I must look really terrible.

“Shit,” he says again, which brings back echoes of him saying it in the night, which just makes my entire body seize up because he’d been jerking off—over me? or over the situation?—and there was an increasingly urgent part of my brain wondering why he’d had his dick in his hand when he could have put it in me. And then, ow, a cramp on top of everything else. As if everything else weren’t enough.

I paw for the pills the Bomb left me and swallow them dry, hoping for some relief from the headache, even though it won’t be immediate. Then I start to push up to my hands and knees.

“No, no,” says Cardan, shoving out a hand but not coming any closer. “No, you just— just wait, I’ll get them. I’ll get you more water.”

“I can do it,” I insist, but it’s taken so much effort just to get this far up and I’m trembling holding myself in place.

“Jude, you look—” He trails off and shakes his head. It must really be that bad. I want to tell him he doesn’t look much better. The circles under Cardan’s eyes have deepened, and he’s already sweating so much that his curls cling to his forehead. But he just sets his mouth in a line and says, “Let me do it.”

In almost any other circumstance I would hate being bossed around by him, but I just flop onto my belly and groan, “Fine.”

Cardan, however, is wired. He must feel as jagged and sleep-deprived as I do, but I can see the extra jittery energy in his every step. I did make that joke about thrusting, but what happens when you box an alpha in rut in a basement with no outlet? Where does that energy go?

Apparently into his fist, because when he pounds on the door it’s so loud that I nearly jump off the mattress. My head throbs. “Hey!” he calls. “Jude needs water!”

There is no answer for a solid thirty seconds. When Cardan glances at me, I am frowning. “They’re usually right outside,” I say, and my stomach plummets at the thought that we’ve been locked in here and just left with no food or water.

“They’re coming,” Cardan replies, probably to reassure himself. He bangs on the door again, this time with even more urgency. “Hey!”

A few seconds later the door opens, and it is not the Bomb standing there, but the Ghost, dressed in black, his face an inscrutable mask. “Alright, I heard you.”

Cardan takes a half-step back from the door, toward me. I pull the blankets tighter around myself and flatten my back against the wall. This was the outcome we had worried about. Everything Cardan had said and done yesterday was to keep our captors out, and especially to keep the Ghost away from me.

“You need to leave,” Cardan snarls, his hands balling into fists at his sides. I am surprised at the ferocity in his voice. I’ve seen him angry. I’ve seen him hurt people with a shove or a cruel word. I have never seen him like this.

But the Ghost is unimpressed. Probably because if it came down to a fight between the two of them, he would definitely win, even though Cardan has more muscle. “You can relax,” the Ghost says. “I’m a beta.”

Cardan blinks, and so do I. But then his eyes narrow. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The Ghost sighs. “Ask your girlfriend if I smell like anything. Her receptors are on overdrive. Even maskers wouldn’t help.”

I expect Cardan to protest that I’m not his girlfriend, and I’m about to open my mouth to say he isn’t my boyfriend, when he looks at me and asks, softly, “Jude?”

The urge to deny anything is knocked right out of me, and I inhale, concentrating. It’s difficult to get anything beyond Cardan’s scent and mine, both of which hang heavy in the stagnant air, but I do pick out something. I look up at Cardan. “Just hand soap. He smells like hand soap.”

Cardan looks skeptical.

“I’m less of a danger to her than you are in this state,” the Ghost says. “I can help her out of the room. Let me.”

In this state. He has to know, then. Uneasily, Cardan moves aside to let the Ghost into the room, tracking him as he walks over and crouches at my side. The Ghost presses a cool hand to my forehead while looking at my sweaty, tangled hair.

“Why didn’t you say you’re a beta?” I ask, shivering.

“Wasn’t relevant. When did you last take medicine?”

“A few minutes ago. What about the Roach and the Bomb?”

“Do you introduce yourself to people by telling them you’re an omega?” It’s a rhetorical question, because he then says, “We have to get you into the shower. I’ll help you up.”

I nod. I know what I look like and what I smell like, and I am not so proud that I won’t accept his help.

“Hey,” Cardan begins, when the Ghost reaches out to put an arm around my shoulder, but I give him a look and he doesn’t say anything else, although the set of his jaw tells me he’s unhappy. He crosses his arms.

“Cardan,” the Ghost says, “can you go turn the water on for her? The old heater takes a while to get started. Make it warm to start, not hot. She can turn it up if she needs to.”

“Right,” Cardan says, and over the Ghost’s shoulder I see him nod and leave.

“He listened to you,” I marvel as the Ghost peels the blankets from my body and helps me to my feet. I should feel more self-conscious that I’m wearing only a tank top and underwear and my thighs are definitely crusty with residue, but he isn’t making a big deal of it, so neither am I. Besides, between my shaky legs and my bad ankle, I am a little distracted by the effort of not toppling over.

“Alphas. Temperamental, but they like to feel like they’re doing something.” It seems like a joke, but he doesn’t smile when he says it. He supports my weight easily, and with his help I hobble out of the room.

“You really don’t smell like much,” I inform him. “It’s weird.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Right.” Mentally, I kick myself. And the Ghost doesn’t say anything else, so I don’t either.

As he helps me across the little room, I am very conscious of my body pressed against his and his arm around my shoulder. My hormonal brain, ecstatic that I am being touched, is swimming, trying to tell me I am attracted to him. Am I attracted to him? I mean, I think he’s handsome, objectively. Should I have sex with the Ghost? I probably shouldn’t have sex with the Ghost.

But, of course, those images are provided to me unbidden because the omega part of me is ecstatic that I am willing to actually entertain my horniness. What if the Ghost helped me into the shower and he stayed there with me? And Cardan also stayed? And then what? My rational brain scolds. I don’t know anything about the logistics of having a threesome in a shower. It seems like an easy way to get more injured than I already am.

And while having sex with the Ghost would be simpler from an emotional standpoint because I barely know him, he is a beta, so it would not actually solve any of my current, heat-related problems. Also, Cardan would be sad.

Do I care that Cardan would be sad? That’s an uncomfortable thought.

“Oh, thank god,” I say, when we finally reach the bathroom and I see Cardan pacing back and forth in the little hallway and hear the shower stream hitting the old yellow tile in the bathroom. I can’t wait to be clean. I can’t wait for these heat-induced intrusive thoughts to go away either, but unfortunately that’ll take a little longer.

“Do you need any help getting undressed?” the Ghost asks, in a tone so dispassionate that even my omega hindbrain wilts at how obviously uninterested he is.

“I think I can manage,” I say, mostly because I can, but also because Cardan looks like he’s on the verge of tearing the Ghost’s throat out, and I still think the Ghost would win that fight but I’m suddenly not sure. We’ll all be glad when this is over.

So I limp into the bathroom, close and lock the door behind me, and tear off my sweat-soaked tank top and my underwear. Instead of standing in the shower, I grab the soap and sit right down, not caring if the floor is gross. I nearly start crying when the water hits my skin, and am almost surprised it doesn’t start steaming around me. It feels cool, so I turn it up a little until I’m comfortable. Then I begin scrubbing myself all over.

It takes a long time before I feel clean. My body still reacts to the lingering traces of Cardan’s scent that cling to my skin and hair. But I discover that someone’s stocked the shower with a set of floral shampoo and conditioner that claims to be “scent-dampening.” Small text on the back advises that they “may have diminished effect during periods of heat or rut,” but I pour a good third of the bottles out into my hands and wash and condition my hair, detangling it with my fingers. I wash my pubic hair, too, just in case it’ll help.

When I step out of the shower, feeling much better, I eye my gross clothes and dread putting them back on. But on the closed toilet, neatly folded, someone has left me an alternative: one of those loose maxi dresses you can find hanging on a rack in the back of a Walgreens, for cheap. I pull it over my head; it’s olive green, and too long, but it fits okay otherwise. There are also some soft black shorts, which I put on under the dress. There’s no replacement for my underwear, so I wash it in the sink, wringing it out as best I can, and leave it to hang dry on the towel bar.

When I step out, Cardan, who has now taken to pacing the main area with his head bowed sulkily forward, perks up. “Hey,” he says. “You look… wow, a lot better. Your scent’s— you’re better.” His nose wrinkles. “The shampoo’s a little weird, though.”

“Not a fan of lavender?”

“It just doesn’t really…” He gestures vaguely. “...like, go with you. It’s the opposite of what you are.”

I limp over to an empty chair and ease myself into it. Because I am so tired that my filter is totally worn away, I ask, “What do I smell like to you, anyway?”

“It’s…” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and fidgets. I notice his feet are still bare, and nearly blush, remembering what had happened to his sock. “It’s hard to explain. I mean, I probably smell like a lot of things at once to you, too, right?”

I nod. “But if you had to choose,” I press, and brace myself, trying to anticipate the worst thing he could say. Methane gas, rotten fish, a dump?

“Cinnamon, I guess,” Cardan admits.

“What?” I sit forward in my chair. “You hate the smell of cinnamon?”

“No, I.” He looks flustered, but tries to channel it back into haughty and irritable. “Don’t be stupid. I’m going to go shower.”

“But—” I begin, perplexed, but Cardan has already disappeared.

The Ghost, who had been leaning silently against the wall, pushes off of it to approach me. “I should change your bandages,” he says, crouching down to expect them. I open my mouth, but he anticipates me and looks up, adding, “I know you have questions, but I’m only going through this once. Better wait until Cardan gets back.”

I press my lips into a thin line. I can be patient when it’s important, but I am feeling frayed right now. As he is re-wrapping my leg, I blurt out, “How do you know what to do if you’re a beta?”

“What, with your leg?”

“No, with—” I look down at him and find him raising his eyebrows. He had been joking. I sit back in my chair, pouting.

“My dad was an omega,” he explains. “My mom was an alpha. I saw all sides of it growing up, even if I didn’t go through it. Three days every few months I’d be on my own.”

“Was that hard?”

“It was what it was.” He gives me another look. “Now wait.”

I scowl at him. “Can I have a mandarin?”

Maybe happy not to be talking, he gets up to get one from a bag slumped on top of the mini-fridge. I catch it when he tosses it to me, and alternate between picking at it and taking sips from a fresh water bottle until Cardan emerges from the shower, damp and cleansed of sweat. He sits down across from me, and I scrunch up my nose. Lavender doesn’t really suit him either.

“I told Jude I’d only go through this once,” says the Ghost, who seems happier to remain standing. “But I think I can guess your first question. Yes, we all knew what was going on. Pretty much from the get-go. We didn’t say anything because you guys were being cagey for some reason, but we figured we could get you the supplies you needed anyway, no harm done. I only said something because I’m the only one here, and Cardan wasn’t going to give me access otherwise.”

Cardan shifts. I ask, “Why are you the only one here?”

The Ghost blinks at me. That wasn’t the follow-up he was expecting. “The Bomb and the Roach were called away.” He shrugs. “Might be good news, might be bad. Hard to say. They figured I could handle things alone while you were in heat. It’s not like either of you are in a state to go anywhere.”

“So, what, you’re all betas?” Cardan asks, cutting me off before I can follow up.

“Yes.”

He frowns. “We thought you were using maskers.”

“It wasn’t a bad assumption,” the Ghost says. “People in our line of work often do, so we can’t be traced by scent. Betas make good spies, too. Any profession that requires stealth.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense. “So were you recruited because you were a beta, or…” My stomach sinks as I consider another possibility. “You were all, like, born… nobody made you this way, right?”

The Ghost hesitates, then says, “I was, yes. The others’ stories aren’t mine to tell.”

Cardan gawps at me. “You’re thinking they were… what, de-designated? Why? To make them better at… crime?”

I shudder. Forcible de-designations were categorized as human rights violations by the United Nations in the early 1970s after certain unethical human experiments came to light. Sure, there are de-designation therapies out there for people whose designations cause extreme dysphoria or health complications, but they take months. The forcible de-designations are quick, and brutal, and painful, and if the subject survives the physical complications, they might not survive the psychological.

“I hope not,” I say, quietly, telling myself that my discomfort is brought around by the idea of anyone suffering such a painful ordeal, not because I like our abductors. I change the subject. “But you were recruited?”

“Yes.”

Man of few words. I hug my arms around my stomach. “Must be nice.”

“The job opportunities or being a beta?”

“Not having to deal with…” I peel one hand away from my abdomen and gesture vaguely.

“No, I don’t envy that.” The Ghost looks between us. “Although I do sometimes wonder what I’m missing out on.”

I glance at Cardan, who, to my surprise, actually looks angry. “If you had fresh clothes for Jude the whole time, why didn’t you give them to her?” he demands. “Why didn’t anybody stay with her? She was stuck in her gross clothes and she was alone, all day.”

Again, the Ghost looks slightly taken aback, although he smooths his face into his usual inscrutable mask in an instant. “The Bomb got these for her yesterday, but she was curled up in her nest and we didn’t know if she’d want to move or be bothered.”

“My nest?” I frown. “No, that’s not right. I don’t have a—”

“It’s a sad nest, but you did pile all the bedding in the room up in one corner.”

“No, that wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t—” I look at Cardan in horror, as he is the one who put all the blankets and pillows on me, but he is looking away from me. I shake my head, and some wet hair falls into my face. “It’s okay that I was alone. I think it was better. Don’t worry about it.”

I feel the Ghost watching me closely, and shift in my seat. “It’s not shameful, what’s happening to you,” he says at last. “Plenty of people go through it all the time.”

“Not you,” I retort.

“Maybe not, but I’ve been around long enough and seen enough to know there are upsides to being an omega.”

“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Like what?”

The Ghost’s eyebrows shoot up. “You want me to tell you?”

“Yeah.” I glance at Cardan, who’s slouching in his chair and pretending to ignore both of us. “Tell me how my life doesn’t totally suck right now.”

He looks at me, then at Cardan, then says, “I guess I don’t have anything better to do.”

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jurdan fanfic #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #the folk of the air #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

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corvus--rex · 3 years

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Another one that's not truly abandoned, working title Code Violet. Post s.8 Omegaverse, Klance slowburn. Omega Lance has been put on medical leave by the Garrison after the war because of his PTSD, which really just translates to secondary sexism as he's the only Omega among the Paladins. But then Keith goes missing on a Blades mission and Shiro calls the team back together.

~*~*~

He could deal with torture. At least, that’s what Keith told himself, having never been through it personally. But he did know how to deal with pain. A result of too many fights and questionable decisions in his life. But the sensation that overwhelmed his senses wasn’t pain. Or maybe it was. He didn’t know precisely. All he knew at that moment was that he could actively feel every last one of his nerves. He could feel the normal everyday functioning of his body mixed with a racing heartbeat and hyperventilating lungs. And yet he felt oddly detached from it. It felt as though his Alpha was protecting his mind like a mother wolf with her threatened pup. It was a very strange sensation. It felt like it went on forever. He felt something in his body shift. Something new and wholly unfamiliar. And then the pain actually hit. It crept in slowly, radiating from his core until the blooming white-hot flames licked their way through all of his nerve endings. He might have screamed, but he could never be sure. And when the searing pain left, it didn’t go quickly. It smoldered like the embers of a bonfire, burning low in that deceptive way that made it unclear as to whether or not the charred remains were still alight. But Keith could feel it, the low, steady flame that curled its way through his fingertips and all the way to his toes. Neither mind nor body relaxed until the cool touch of unconsciousness wrapped him in its embrace. He was blissfully unaware of being lifted, carried, and finally left in a dark cell while his captors waited for him to wake.

~~*~~ 5 Movements (7 Weeks) Later ~~*~~

Lance was startled awake by his comm screaming for his attention on his nightstand. No one he knew would call at half past five in the morning. All the official evaluations he’d undergone concluded that yes, he had PTSD just like the rest of Team Voltron and everyone else who’d fought in the war, but that with his weekly therapy sessions, he was handling it well enough for active duty. He had the unpleasant suspicion that it had something to do with him being the only Omega on Team Voltron. It didn’t seem to matter, however, as he was kept on medical leave.

When he was woken at the barest hint of dawn’s asscrack, squinting at his comm’s screen, he was shocked to see Shiro on the other end of the call. He fumbled for the button, accidentally dropping the device on himself. He figured he must have hit it somewhere in his sleep and adrenalin-fueled struggle when Shiro’s sleep-deprived face popped up in the holographic projection.

“Shiro? What? What is it? What’s going on?” Lance asked, voice low and rough, his mind not yet fully engaged.

“How soon can you get to the Garrison?” Shiro answered, sounding more awake than he looked.

“Um, probably about an hour. Why? What’s happening?”

The face of the Atlas’ captain darkened. “Keith’s gone missing. He was supposed to check in one movement ago, no one’s heard from him and they can’t trace his comm. It’s the second one he’s missed. Acxa and Kolivan are here requesting a team from the Coalition.”

Lance was awake. He knew Keith was away on another mission, he’d heard it directly from the man himself. He knew Keith would be out of reach for a while. He knew he wouldn’t know if Keith was ok until the mission was over. But he also knew that Keith was expected to keep to the check-in schedule, sending a scrambled message to a secure communications outpost that would then be sent on to Acxa, who was leading the Blades for the duration of the mission. It was almost overly complicated, but the mission was one that required careful stealth. It was the only thing Keith had been allowed to say about it before disappearing for what was supposed to be an extended 3 phoeb mission.

Acxa made sure to keep Team Voltron informed when it came to the check-in schedule, letting them know that Keith was ok. He had made the first three check-ins, even if the team was kept in the dark as to the messages’ contents. Acxa knew that there was a possibility that he could miss a check-in, but as long as his comm was active and could still be traced, she would know that the mission was still going. If he missed more than one check-in, it would raise alarms. Shiro said that he’d missed one a movement ago, which meant that he should have checked in again and hadn’t. If Shiro was calling to say that Keith had missed the check-in, and not that the mission was confirmed to have gone wrong, well, Lance didn’t quite know what it meant, but it wasn’t going to stop him from finding out.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, fully awake and already half-dressed.

Shiro nodded and cut the call.

Forty-five minutes later, Lance was walking into the conference room. He was surprised to see that he was the first one there save for Shiro. Lance was the only one of the team who wasn’t either assigned to the Atlas or stationed at the Garrison. Given his leave status, he’d decided to stay home with his family. The Garrison knew where to find him if they wanted to.

Taking a seat in the middle of the table, Lance leaned forward, resting his arms on the metal surface. “Who else is coming to this?” he asked.

“Adam, Pidge, and Hunk, Acxa is bringing Kolivan, and against my wishes, the MFEs will be here as well. They don’t have the security clearance our team has. They were involved on the front lines, but they’re not us. And they know even less about the Blades. But Iverson ordered it, so they’re coming.”

“Kinda surprised I still have the clearance,” he muttered, even though he knew Shiro would hear him anyway.

“And you know that if I had any real say, you’d be on the Atlas with us. You’re an outstanding pilot, the best at small team tactics I’ve ever seen, and I know no one can iron sight a target like you can. We wouldn’t have made it through several of our missions with Voltron if it hadn’t been for you. I don’t know if you realize it, but we never would have won the war without you.”

Lance looked up at that. Shiro was watching him, the Alpha’s expression one of pride and affection. “How’s that? We did it as a team. I wasn’t any more or less important than anyone else.”

Shiro shook his head. “Not at the end. You’re right about that. It was a team effort. I meant before that. Back when we rescued Slav. We only had one chance at getting him out, and we almost didn’t. If you hadn’t made that shot, we never would have succeeded that day, and – as much as I hate to admit it – Slav’s input and genius went a very long way in helping us win. Without you, none of it would have happened.”

Shock and realization flashed across the Omega’s face. “I – I never thought about it like that. I just did what I had to. We needed him, and I just did it. I never put it together like that.” He stumbled through his words, understanding the weight of what he’d done hitting him. He started at Shiro’s hand on his shoulder.

“I hadn’t either until recently. But that wasn’t a conversation to be had over a call. And I want you to know from me that I have been fighting Administration over your forced medical leave. It isn’t Iverson who’s sidelining you, it’s the heads of the Medical Division. They’re the only ones who can overrule him. Your evaluations confirm what we already know – that you're fit for active duty. The shrinks know it, we know it, even Iverson knows it. I don’t know why the med admins won’t clear you, but I have an idea, and their thought process is wrong. Being an Omega has nothing to do with your capability as a Garrison officer. We will get this sorted out.”

Lance stood up in a rush, nearly knocking the chair over, and crushed his pack Alpha in a tight hug. “Thanks, Shiro,” he mumbled into the Alpha’s shoulder.

“Anytime. I mean it. You’re more than just your service record. You are still, and always will be, part of the pack. Part of our pack. You do know that, right?”

Lance huffed a laugh into Shiro’s shoulder. “That’s about the only part I haven’t questioned. I – I miss him, Shiro. I just want to get him back safe.”

Shiro pulled back, holding onto Lance’s shoulders. “We will. We’re not giving up, not even if I have to go after him myself.”

The door gave a soft hiss as it slid open and closed. Lance and Shiro snapped to see who was there.

“We interrupt something?” Pidge asked, Hunk standing beside her.

“Lance! You made it! Oh, man, I am so happy to see you!” Hunk practically yelled, rushing in to wrap his old friend in a crushing hug.

“Yeah, I made it. I'm happy to see you too, Hunk,” Lance said far more softly and returning the enthusiastic hug.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19*

#my writing #abandoned wips #Klance #vld #voltron #abo #omegaverse #omega lance mcclain #keith x lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain

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tonystarkbingo · 3 years

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TSB MIV Week 17 Roundup!

We have only TWO MONTHS LEFT for this round of TSB!

Title: When We Break With Tradtions - Chapter 1: A New Path Collaborator: J_Gun_i (Fighting_for_Creativity) Card Number: 4004 Link: AO3 Square Filled: T5 - Fatigue Ship: Ironhusbands, (pre)M'Baku/Rhodey/Tony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Spiritual Man M'Baku, Established Rhodey/Tony, Meddling Shuri, panic attack (?), strong opinion against outsiders (at first), kinda soulmates. Summary: M'Baku was approached by Princess Shuri who had an unusual request. Agreeing to it, M'Baku found soon out that he set things into motion, he'd never have dreamed of. But what can he do when souls are bound to be together. Also, no one is safe from a meddling Princess Shuri. Word Count: 8625

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Title: a moment in between Collaborator: ohjustpeachy Card Number: 4017 Link: AO3 Square Filled: S5 - Fears appear in reality Ship: IronHusbands Rating: Gen Major Tags: hurt/comfort, angst Summary: Those few blissful seconds right before he regains complete consciousness sometimes feel like all he has left. Then, of course, the realization hits, and Rhodey feels the loss all over again, hears the words anew every time. Complete paralysis. Tonight is one of those nights. Or, Rhodey wakes from a nightmare and Tony does what he can. Word Count: 1203

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Title: Rumor Has It Collaborator: Faustess Card Number: 4059 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Holding Hands Ship: IronHusbands; Pepper/Steve Rating: Gen Major Tags: Implied (not actual) Infidelity Summary: Rhodey wakes up to find Tony reading aloud to Pepper and Steve about his (supposed) wild, playboy lifestyle and their respective roles in it. Jim Rhodes is not caffeinated enough for this kind of hilarity. Word Count: 1319

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Title: m the Edge (Screaming My Name) Collaborator: ralsbecket Card Number: 4056 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - Free Space Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Major character death, angst/tragedy, canon-typical violence Summary: They’d gotten there too late. Everyone used to joke with Steve about him being the Man Out of Time, and today of all days the reminder is just a sharp slap to the face. Maybe he needs a slap to the face, Steve thinks briefly, because then at least he would feel something. Word Count: 5128

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Title: a lifetime’s a short time (when love never ends) Collaborator: deehellcat Card Number: 4028 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - whump Ship: Pepperony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Canonical Character Death, Dementia, Grief, Aging, Avengers Endgame compliant, with all that implies, I'm Sorry, Implied Suicidal Actions Summary: Years have taken a lot from Pepper, and in the waning of her life, even her memories begin to fall away. Word Count: 2101

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Title: Along Collaborator: periwinklepromise Card Number: 4053 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A1 - Lip Sync/Karaoke Ship: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanova Rating: Teen Major Tags: none Summary: “Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Maria grumbles. Natasha gives a slim smile. “Because I asked you to.” Word Count: 388

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Title: That’s Fiancé Badass Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Image (IM3 - Tony Handcuffed by his captors) Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Mob AU, Fluff, BAMF Tony Summary: Steve Rogers was many things. Patient was not one of them. This usually seemed to be less of a problem where his beloved Tony was concerned, but tonight his patience was wearing thin. He had plans. And Tony was late for them. When his phone rang, 20 minutes past the hour, he did his best not to let his irritation show. He really did try. “Anthony,” he answered in a levelled but commanding voice. “You better have a very good reason for being late tonight of all nights, my love.” Word Count: 1880

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Title: At the End of the Day Collaborator: Politzania Card Number: 4007 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - Writing Format: Past Tense Ship: Stony Rating: Gen Major Tags: domestic fluff, established relationship, sleep deprived!Tony Summary: Steve helps Tony get undressed after a long day, gently fending off his overtures along the way. Word Count: 416

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Title: i am the horizon that you ride towards - Chapter 1 Collaborator: deathsweetqueen Card Number: 4066 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R4 - Kink: Alpha/Beta/Omega Society Ship: Stony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: major character death, rape, underage content. Warnings for this Chapter: forced marriage Summary: Tony’s mother and father die when he is sixteen. He doesn’t mourn his father, but when he sees his mother’s still, gaunt face, the dark colour of her skin washed out, there are tears in his eyes that falls, running down his face in rivers, matting in the collar of his jerkin. “Come,” Obadiah says, coldly, his hand landing on Tony’s shoulder. Tony cringes, but follows, mostly because he has no other choice – Obadiah, as his father’s second-in-command, had made his feelings clear; he had no intention of caring for his dead liege lord’s omega son, not when he could get to business and begin making alliances with Tony as the thing to be sold to some stranger like a horse. Word Count: 4664

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Title: My Favourite Day Dream Collaborator: startrekkingaroundasgard Card Number: 4048 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: T5 - arranged marriage Ship: Stony, Natasha/Reader Rating: Teen Major Tags: mentions of homophobia Summary: Forced to marry as young nobles, both Anthony and the reader had to abandon the people they truly loved for status and reputation. When Sir Steven and his trusty assassin Natasha agree to spend a few nights at their estate, the pair have the chance to see their loves again. However, around Steven, Anthony is a blabbering mess and Natasha is still angry that the reader chose to marry for duty over running away with her. Can they find their happiness or will they waste their second chance? Word Count: 1581

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Title: Iron Man + Avengers A Collaborator: rebelmeg Card Number: 4034 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: T5 - framed Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: cross stitch Summary: Cross stitch of tiny Iron Man flying around an arc reactor blue Avengers A

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Title: In Victory, and in Defeat Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A3 - free space Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: marriage proposal, fluff and angst Summary: The Battle of New York seems all but lost. Until it isn't. And Tony can't risk saving the world without knowing the answer to a very important question first. Word Count: 2146

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Title: soothing Collaborator: ohjustpeachy Card Number: 4017 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: A1 - writing format: drabble Ship: Stony Rating: Gen Major Tags: fluff, drabble Summary: Steve realizes that the arc reactor has a sound. Word Count: 100

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Title: untitled Collaborator: Nicnac Card Number: 4048 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: S2 - Riri Williams Ship: Tony Stark & Riri Williams Rating: Gen Major Tags: none Summary: Ironheart moldboard Word Count: N/A

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Title: Bowling for Platypuses Collaborator: newnewyorker93 Card Number: 4042 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: A5 - Dark Alleys Ship: IronBros Rating: Gen Major Tags: Moodboard Summary: A moodboard for rebelmeg’s and my yet-to-be-actually-written fic in which Rhodey out-pranks Tony at a glow-in-the-dark bowling alley using an intriguing fact of platypus biology. Word Count: N/A

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Title: Skinmage Collaborator: 27dragons Card Number: 4027 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R5 - AU: Urban Fantasy Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: AU: Urban Fantasy, Tattoos, Magic, Pre-relationship Summary: The magic for making pictures move was relatively well-documented, though it was a difficult and costly process. But getting marks on the skin to react -- that was infinitely harder, complicated by the living cells of the canvas and compounded by the changeability of the shape.There was archaeological evidence of past civilizations that had dabbled in it, usually reserved for especially high-ranking leaders. But those cultures had jealously guarded those secrets, and to the best of Tony’s knowledge, no one had ever managed to actually replicate the art. Word Count: 1027

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Title: A nice day for self-discoveries Collaborator: Gottalovev Card Number: 4077 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A1 - Kink: Figging Ship: Stony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Slight BDSM (hair pulling, exploring power dynamics, talk of kink, talks of figging-but do not get your hopes up, I didn't tag it for honesty), blow job, hand job. Summary: Tony gets the wrong idea when he sees what Steve bought at the grocery store. (It leads to sex anyway). Word Count: 3772

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Title: Stanley Cups Before Wedding Rings Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R3 - Arena Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: N/A Summary: Steve Rogers and his team just won the most coveted trophy in hockey. And yet, that's still not the best part of his night. Word Count: 2040

#tonystarkbingomarkiv #tsbmiv #tsb miv weekly roundup #tsb miv week 17

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rebellect-writes · 4 years

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[SIZE=1][b]Name:[/b] Jess. [b]Age:[/b] Old enough that I'm getting tired of answering this. [b]How did you find us?:[/b] I took a trip into Hell and found you.

[b]Name:[/b] Lazarus Donovan [b]Nicknames & Aliases:[/b] Laz will do. [b]Age:[/b] 40. Though he looks 35. [b]Date of Birth:[/b] May 28th 1971. [b]Gender:[/b] Male. [b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Questionable. [b]Occupation:[/b] Jack of all trades, that, and he's Twist's hound.

[b]Animal Species:[/b] WereDog. [b]Animal Description: [/b] [IMG]http://breederinfocenter.com/images2/20061111213659_074529_1.jpg[/IMG][LIST]For a supposed medium sized breed of dog, Lazarus’ canine half is actually quite big compared to some dogs and still not the biggest mutt on the block. He stands at 26 inches at the withers, and weighs in at 90lbs of streamlined muscle that can make some humans cringe in fear. From the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail; he’s 5 feet and 4 inches so it’s easy to get scared. He’s not a long coated German shepherd dog at all, though the thick black and tan fur would make you think so. Screw your pure blacks and your pure white variations; he loves his dog form the way it is. It makes it easier to blend in with some working dogs as the breed is generally used for labour. [/LIST][b]Do you have a hybrid/alpha form?:[/b] [URL=http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=Weredog&order=9&offset=96#/d2lw0fb]Scooby Snack? Yeah!... You idiot.[/URL][LIST]Of course he has an alpha form; it was practically beaten into him. Standing roughly at 6’11, and weighing in at 250lbs, Lazarus isn’t that much bigger in this form. Of course he’s a bit menacing but that’s a good thing – so he thinks – and isn’t something that anyone should want to meet in a dark alley in the middle of the night. Laz retains his black and tan markings in this form, though his fur is only a little thinner in this form then his full dog form. He looks like he’s a dog that can walk quiet comfortable on his hind legs really, with cone like ears, a muzzle packed full of fangs and hands with curved claws and a brush like tail. [/LIST][b]Rank:[/b] Rogue. [b]How long has your character been a lycanthrope?:[/b] All his life. [b]Mindset:[/b] Dominant. [b]Power level:[/b] Beta by choice (hides his alpha status).

[b]Face Claim:[/b] Josh Holloway. [b]Description:[/b] [IMG]http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv90/bloodwillout/app%20pics/600full-josh-holloway.png[/IMG][LIST]Lazarus is 6’1 inches tall in his human form; he’s pretty average in the height department which is fine with him. He’s your average kind of guy in all honesty, he’s used to hard graft so he’s pretty toned, Lazarus only weighs in at a simply 200lbs even if he doesn’t look like it, and most of the weight’s packed away in muscles. With pale green eyes that darken considerably when he’s angry, the shaggy cut of dirty blond hair, and dusting of stubble finish off his rugged look quite nicely. Some day’s he clips his hair back, sometimes he forgets to shave. It’s not something he really pays attention to.

Does a sense of style matter, really? Well if you insist on it. Laz doesn’t like clothes and he doesn’t exactly hate them either. He’d be much more comfortable lounging about in a pair of jeans and a loose shirt than a suit – though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t look smart when he dresses up! He just needs to be poked and prodded hard to do so -, so his style doesn’t differ from torn and shredded jeans, open dress shirts and t-shirts and a pair of boots. Jewellery and tattoos now eh? Well he does wear the odd pendant or handmade wrist band. It’s just a matter of practicality most days. [/LIST][b]Special Skills:[/b][LIST]Gee, you mean all those street smarts have gone for nothing? Shame. Other than that, he's good staying under the radar as a dog. Also, this is pretty important becuase not everyone can be as cool as he is. He’s a full blown animal servant, meaning that from the first mark he became less breakable and susceptible to vampire mind tricks. From the second mark, gave Mordichai the ability to draw power from him and taste food and drink through Lazarus. The third mark gave them both the ability to communicate telepathically with each other but only when his Master is awake. The forth mark gave him immortality by drinking his masters blood, better mental stabilisation/communication with his master and the ability to draw on Mordichai’s strength. Oh the perks of his job! [/LIST][b]Personality:[/b][LIST]Lazarusarus is a firm believer in ‘survival of the fittest’, that being said, he’s got a sort of soft spot for weaker dogs. He won’t actively help them, but he will keep other folks from breaking people even more if he can see that the ‘underdog’ can pull themselves through whatever task it is. What can I say? He likes a challenge and if he sees one, he’ll prod at it but, he’ll likely lose interest and go about his business after awhile. Idiots have little appeal to him. He’s a smart man, intelligent so he won’t rush into things from the word go. He’ll exploit weaknesses that he can find for his (and the his Master’s) own benefit if he can, and if he can’t, he knows when to cut his losses. Sure Lazarus can charm people, smile and joke around, he can also be cocky and egotistical at times, and closed off as well at times.

He loved once, or lusted, he doesn’t know what it was but he thinks its love. Oh sure he’ll deny it if he’s ever asked, but he knows the truth. He won’t open himself up fully to another person again, unless he can help it. Does that mean he’s looking for someone to open up to? Heck no. He’s just going to keep himself apart from people and still be around them. Trust issues is probably what you’d call it, actually, it’s what he’d call it to. The woman that stole his heart earned his trust, but when she left, that hurt him. So, he’s made it a personal mission in life to just not care what people think about him, and as long as they make no trouble that he has to fix, he doesn’t care what people do.

A common thing with Lazarus is, until you can prove yourself to him, you get a nickname. You can bitch and moan and demand that he use your real name, but he’ll stubbornly start making said nicknames worse. It doesn’t mean anything to him really, but dog’s minds are different in some respects. Scents and actions are easier for him to remember then names are. The only acceptation to this rule are the dominants to this dog, he’ll go out of his way to remember their names.

Donovan won’t take an insult lying down; to him that’s like losing an ear or something close to death. Making him sit out of things will make him whine and pout like a toddler deprived of sugar. He may or may not voice his complaints but to people that know him; you’d be able to tell by the tension in the man’s shoulders and the snarky attitude. It’s sort of the same way when he knows he has to submit to someone but doesn’t really want to. He may think he’s bigger and stronger, but if he’s forced into a position that makes him back down, he does it with as little snark as possible and takes off to the pub afterwards, or in the worst case scenario, takes a pocket knife to the inside of his arms to release the tension he feels. He hasn't cut for a long time, since before he was in love even, but it was an old habit and you know how they die don't you?

Lazarus doesn’t think of himself as mad, not in the conventional sense of the term. So he can kill without hesitating, it’s the predator in him, not the human. That and the fact that any good cat is a dead cat, was beaten into him when he was growing up. He’s not afraid to do what must be done to protect what’s his, if it means submitting to someone to get something he wants, he’ll do it. Practicality really when you think about it is something any animal knows. A weakness could get him killed, and he certainly doesn’t want that. He’s not afraid to bleed for a good cause either believe it or not, if a show needs to be put on, he’ll put his name forward and that will be that. Someone called him masochist when he was younger, so maybe that is true.

Marked by the Master vampire, Mordichai, hasn’t changed him much at all. Red (Violent Man) is someone he can relate to in some ways, and he’s pretty fond of that personality when he’s not being a prick trying to scare everyone. Blue (Business Man) is the side that draws out Laz’s more controlled side. He cares when Blue is around. Mordichai’s well being is one that Laz puts before his own. He’ll stop Red at a cost to him if he has to, distracted Blue and anything else that needs doing. The vampire is his master and owner, mind, body and soul. [/LIST][b]Likes:[/b][LIST] [*] Carving figurines and sketching. [*] Reading when he's alone. [*] Playing with his tennis ball when he's in his dog form. [*] When Mordichai isn't bugged by Kiss vampires. [*] Chasing cats in dog form. [*] Sleeping in occasionally. [*] Mordichai's attention. [*] Quiet nights at the Raven. [*] Walking instead of getting in a car or on a bus. [*] A challenge in any form. [/LIST][b]Dislikes:[/b][LIST] [*] Having to suffer idiots on a regular basis. [*] Mordichai's disappointment. [*] Losing his ball. The last time it was under the couch. [*] Kiss vampires poking their noses in where they're not wanted. [*] Humans thinking that they're all that when they aren't. [*] Drunks in the club. [*] Being around other were-dogs for a long time without a reason. [*] A bad horror movie. [*] Rainy nights. [*] Not being able to find someone for Red to kill. [/LIST][b]Strengths:[/b][LIST] [*] Repetitive shifting with little fuss and bother. [*] Doesn't mind being Red's puppet. [*] Partial shifting. [*] Marked all four times. [*] Keeps his eyes and his ears open for anything useful. [/LIST][b]Weaknesses:[/b][LIST] [*] Not catching the change in Mordichai's moods. [*] He's too curious at times. [*] Silver still burns, even if he's a born shapeshifter. [*] He has a bit of a sweet tooth. [*] Won't ever allow his master to hurt a woman under 18. [/LIST][b]History:[/b][LIST]Born back in the cold July of 1971, Lazarus Donovan was pushed into the world by a teenage mother named Aileen in a back alley in East Cork, Ireland. Aileen should’ve told her parents, she should’ve done a lot of things to ensure that the baby would be safe and sound but she didn’t. Instead, she’d hidden it until one day she couldn’t hide any longer, just like she hid that she could shapeshift. Unprepared for everything, the youngster dumped the baby the first she could find that would offer the babe some chance of survival, in the ambulance bay of the CMC (Cork Medical Centre) before fleeing and never looking back. The father was never notified, Aileen didn’t even know his name, didn’t even care about that dog.

The baby was stumbled upon by a human nun of all creatures. The human sister found Lazarus tucked away out of the worst of the cold weather, and heartbroken for the little mite, Sister Magdalena brought him inside to get checked over by one of the clinic doctors. There looked like there was no option for Laz at the time, declared fine by the doctor, the Sister had no choice but to contact the Priest that resided over the parish and go through the appropriate channels to get the baby into a loving home. For some reason Magdalena was protective of the whelp, she wanted to take him home with her and raise him as her own son, but she did not. The only thing she could give him was a name, and that was Lazarus. Lazarus’s earliest childhood memory is that of mean and spiteful nuns with bony fingers prodding and poking. Magda may have given him a name, but she had no say in where he went after she gave him up. During his earlier days in Cork, Lazarus knew one human family in the space of three years. The Donovan’s didn’t have him long, they didn’t even get to call him son and he didn’t get the chance to recognize them as parents before Mrs Donovan’s husband died in a car accident and his ‘mother’ put him back into care before moving to England. Not understanding what was happening around him, the wee lad just carried on like any normal child would.

Bounced around allot over the next few years from home to home and foster group to foster group, Laz finally hit a wall. He’d always know that he was different someway, but he didn’t know how different until one day he was kicking a football around in the park on his own and the next, he was a dog. A bloody big dog too, in his thirteen year old mind. It was his thirteen year old mind that passed it off as a dream the first time, and the second time it happened without his control, but everything fell apart when he hit fifteen. Laz was with his foster sister, Olivia. She was a great girl, pure human and also a strict catholic just like her parents. When she saw him shift, at first it was fun and games, but then she began to grow wary, thinking he was the devils hound and that her brother was unclean. When he shifted back, despite what he said and did, she began to panic and ran home leaving Laz to watch her go.

He could’ve followed, he wanted to, but he didn’t. Instead he shifted and went the other way, running for days and days until his paws bled and he couldn’t go any further. He stuck to the minor roads, out of the way, and never once went near humans. They didn’t understand him, he didn’t even understand himself. Eventually he found himself in Dublin, and he still hadn’t shifted. He wanted to be a dog, to forget the look of horror on Olivia’s face. That didn’t last though, it was perfectly logical for the youngster to want to hide and forget everything that was happening, but it just wasn’t meant to be as he found out a year later. Tearaway teenager Mary found him, scavenging on some scrubland that was passing itself off as a parkway. She coaxed him out with food, and he went to her. A year as a dog is a rough time, Laz had lost weight, forgot a lot of things, almost forgot how to shift back. Once the food was gone, so was he for a few days and they played this cat and mouse game for days, until finally Laz decided to stop running away. She’d proven she wasn’t going to hurt him, and he’d had a lot of time to think about things and what he wanted to do.

Eventually, he found his way back to human form. He had learnt a lot, noticed a lot too. Humans weren’t the only things out there. It was probably what brought him back into the world of the living, but with no money or place to stay, the teenager had to do what was necessary to get going. He stole, lied and cheated his way through the supposed conmen and women stalking Dublin’s shady alleys over the next few years. When he managed to get a place to stay for himself and wasn’t reduced to squatting as a dog, Laz found a job in one of the bars. He always kept an eye on Mary, she knew him as a dog, she didn’t know him as a human though and it was one of those things that he wanted to change. Ok, so he supposed he stalked her for a little while, in a platonic kind of way. It was hard at the time to get his emotions straight between human and canine. The pub he worked in was her regular, and he saw her every night coming and going with strangers. Eventually summoned up the courage to talk to her and she blew him off. Obviously, he’d said something wrong but Laz couldn’t work out what it was, pushing twenty one, he really didn’t need the aggravation of dealing with a woman when he was trying to be normal.

Over the next fourteen years Lazarus made a name for himself. He never had a stable partner; he worked and charmed the people around him. Did good things for the people he considered friends and eventually ended up buying the lease for the pub he worked in. The Kings Head became his little kingdom, a place he could control and do with what he wanted as the world changed outside the front door. The biggest thing that happened in his little life was that the supernatural came out of the closet in the late nineties. However in 2006, the supernatural world was very much a part of day to day life for the thirty five year old hound dog, Laz. He often spent time around other shapeshifters and vampires, he just enjoyed their company and that’s when everything turned upside down. A bar fight broke out, some angry vampire that had stopped in to get out of the rain had been assaulted by humans, two from the local church. More religious fanatics than anything else, they’d had that type in the pub before and they’d always punted them out on their backsides. It was complicated and Laz only remembers a little, just stepping in between a priest and the vampire, a blade punching into his side rather than the vampires. He didn’t even know why he did it; it just felt right to him, like he needed to be there. How was he supposed to know that he’d sparked the vampire’s curiosity with one act? Mordichai dispatched the rest of the rabble that was there, it was bloody and violent and by the end of the night the Kings Head was burning down. Laz didn’t care, the knife had done some serious damage that his body was struggling to heal and he was pretty much out of it.

He was dragged back to a house that Mordichai had rented while he was in the city, the vampire poked and prodded at him and Lazarus did the same back. He quickly found out that the vampire wasn’t just one person but three and he came up with names for each personality. Red, Blue and Mordichai. He must’ve done something right because in the last five years, he’s not wandered away from the vampire – actually, scratch that, he wouldn’t leave the vampire he called master – and his master hasn’t killed him. Supposedly, if Mordichai wanted him dead, then Red put his foot down on that buy giving Lazarus the marks of an animal servant binding the dog and master together for all eternity. That still doesn’t stop Mordichai from skinning him, or something really creative but one thing is for sure, they need each other and that’s that...No matter how much they deny it. [/LIST][/SIZE]

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shipmistress9 · 5 years

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FTLOAP: Chapter 36: All The Best Laid Plans…

Fandom: HTTYD

Theme: Hiccstrid - Medieval-style AU - Romance - Angst/Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Reduced to little more than a stable boy, Hiccup, despite his noble birth, has few prospects for more in life. But when he meets a girl who came to look at the horses, being a stable boy might not be enough anymore. Together, they have tough choices to make and great risks to navigate if they want to survive and be together.

Rating: Explicit

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Discord-server for discussions and questions

Part 1: Prologue; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11;

Part 2: Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Interlude 1; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Chapter 22; Chapter 23; Chapter 24; Chapter 25; Chapter 26; Interlude 2; Chapter 27: Chapter 28 ; Chapter 29 ; Chapter 30; Chapter 31; Chapter 32; Interlude 3; Bonus 1; Chapter 33

Part 3:

Chapter 34; Chapter 35

Alpha/Co-author: @athingofvikings

. – * – _ . o O o . _ – * – .

AN: So, here we go again. Sorry again that there was no update last week! But everything went a bit chaotic, and, well... *shrug* I hope this chapter may make up for the wait though.

I've struggled with this week's title a bit as I had a very specific idea of what I wanted it to convey. By now, it ended up being this title form the song 'Best Laid Plans' by James Blunt. It's the perfect quote really, but I hesitated to use it because the song as a whole doesn't fit at all. But then, that's also true for other titles I chose, so I guess it's okay. ^^"

More at the end...

. o O o .

Chapter 36: All The Best Laid Plans...

When Hiccup returned to the stables, he was greeted by the sight of something he’d grown used to, but would never tire of: Astrid lying in his bed, wrapped only in his warm blanket, and fast asleep.

It was a heartwarming sight, and for a while, Hiccup just watched her sleep. She looked so soft, so peaceful, and he was reluctant to wake her. But he knew that she’d scold him if he didn’t, and she would have a point. Their time was almost up, and sleeping was too much of a waste of time.

He lay down beside her, and reached out to carefully caress her face. “Good evening, milady,” he whispered. “I hope you had a comfortable rest?”

Slowly, Astrid stirred and her eyes opened, still a little bleary. But when she saw him, her face turned into a warm smile. “Hey,” she mumbled. “You’re back.” She yawned and blinked a few times. “H-how late is it? How did things go, with Snot there and all?”

“Oh, Snotlout was not a problem,” he chuckled. “And I was able to sneak away as usual. Don’t worry, we have enough time now.”

Astrid’s smile grew even brighter, and she drew him closer toward her, her lips on his incredibly soft. More often than not lately, Astrid’s first reaction when they met at night was more intense, heated kisses and searching hands. But sometimes it also was like this, slow and sweet and sensual, and Hiccup couldn’t say which he prefered.

As always, he completely lost track of time as they kissed. Astrid’s soft gasps and her hands in his hair effectively distracted him from every thought that might have come up, be it about his conversation with Cami earlier or about the coming weeks of separation. As long as he was here, with her, nothing else mattered.

“So, did you ask her?” she eventually asked what easily could have been an hour later – an hour filled with nothing but soft kisses and caresses, of them basking in their closeness. She was wrapped tightly into his blanket against the cool air, her head resting on his bare chest by now, and her fingers were drawing random patterns onto his skin.

Hiccup’s heartbeat quickened at her question. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about this plan, not exactly. But a part of him, the part that was still clinging to the rules he’d grown up with, had hoped that she had forgotten about it.

”I did,” he replied, and shifted until he could look at her. “And she said we could do it,” he went on truthfully. It would have been easy to tell her something else on this matter and play safe… but he would never lie to her.

Astrid's eyes widened a little, gleaming with excitement. But before she could do or say anything in response to his answer, he slightly shook his head. “But before… I want to ask you a question.”

“A question? What question?”

“It's… I need to know why you are so eager.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Astrid sat up and gave him a strange look, half a frown and half a puzzled smile. “What?”

Sighing, Hiccup sat up too and watched her intently. “I mean, why is this so important to you all of a sudden? Is it because I'm leaving? Do you… do you just want to do it, to get it done before I go?”

Slowly, Astrid shook her head, still looking confused. “No,” she mumbled. “No, that's not it. I…” She made a pause, thinking. “No, it's not because you're leaving,” she finally clarified, more clearly now. “If I'd found out about this option, found that book two weeks or even a month ago, then I would have wanted to try it then already. I want to learn about all the ways we can be close together, because I feel like every bit I know makes it easier, lighter. But… I do want to try before you go. I-I’m also curious about how it feels to-to have y-you in-inside me… I…”

With a fierce blush, she trailed off, stammering, and Hiccup acted purely on instinct, pulling her into a comforting hug. She gave in without resistance, hiding her face against his chest, and Hiccup wanted to kick himself. With all her courage and eager curiosity, he'd forgotten just how strange and unknown sex really was to her. Soothingly, he rubbed her back, and it didn't take long before she'd caught herself again.

“You're right,” she sighed, leaning more comfortable against him. “I'm eager to try this before you leave. But not because you leave… if that makes sense?”

Hiccup nodded. “It does.”

“Okay. So, can you now answer a question for me?”

“Of course! Whatever you want to know.”

She pushed herself up to look at him again, a weirdly tense expression on her face. “Why did you ask that? You seem… reluctant. Is it because you don't want to do it? Please, I… I don't want to persuade you into doing something you don't want.”

For a short second, Hiccup just stared at her. Then he pulled her back into a hug, more tightly now than before, his whole body shaking with quiet laughter. “Oh, Milady, you are amazing. Have I ever told you that? Gods, I love you!”

Astrid, however, didn't seem to be quite as amused. “That's great and all, and I love you too. But it's not an answer to my question?”

Chuckling, he let go of her again, fighting to meet her eyes with the appropriate sincerity. “No, it wasn't, and I'm sorry,” he said, smiling ruefully. “You just surprised me, that's all. Okay, let's see. You wanted to know why I asked. Well, first because it was one of Cami's conditions. I had to make sure that you don't do something you’re not ready for just because of time pressure.”

Astrid snorted and rolled her eyes, and Hiccup had to admit that it had been a foolish thought right from the beginning. She was so strong, there was probably nothing that could make her do what she didn't want.

“Okay, but that's only half of an answer,” she shrugged that topic off. “You said ‘first’. So what’s the second reason for you to be so hesitant?”

Hiccup bit his lip, but then let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. “No, you're right; there's something else. But it's not…”

“It's not what?” she asked carefully as he trailed off.

“It's nothing… nothing serious.” He gave her an apologetic smile. After a short pause, he made himself more comfortable, leaning against a straw bale, and held out his arms, inviting her to cuddle into them. He waited until she’d settled before he explained himself. “It’s… it’s not that I don’t want to. Believe me, physically, I’m just as eager to try as you are.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, and suggestively let her hand trail down his chest. But he caught it midway, entangling his fingers with hers, and playfully rolled his eyes at her.

“Really,” he emphasised, chuckling, but then became serious again. “It’s my mind that is torn. It’s just… the same thing as before, I guess. I’ve been raised to certain standards, certain rules. And even though I know by now that my understanding of those rules has been stricter than necessary, it’s still… weird to break them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret anything that happened between us! Between just how right this–” he tightened his arm around her, “–feels and Cami’s reassurances, I’m not really worried anymore. But anal sex feels like a bigger step, something else, something more. And I’m still not entirely sure what to think, even though Cami didn’t really have any objections – beyond threatening to castrate me if she ever suspected that it had been my idea instead of yours, that is.” He’d added the last bit to lighten Astrid’s mood, and apparently, it had worked.

“She would do that, wouldn’t she?” she laughed, shaking her head in amusement.

“Without a doubt. Her exact words were that she wouldn’t deprive you of your wedding night but would cut off my dick afterwards and serve it to me, fried and with onions.”

“How very considerate of her,” Astrid giggled, then grimaced. “And Ouch!”

“Very much so,” Hiccup said, grimacing too.

In his arms, Astrid stirred, shifted until she could look at him. All of a sudden, her expression was serious again. “We don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable,” she said quietly. “Yes, I’d love to try, but only if you want that too. We can always wait; we have time after all. And I’m sorry; if I’d known then I wouldn’t have brought it up at all.”

Once again, Hiccup’s chest felt as if it would burst, unable to contain all his feelings. Love, wonder, amazement, and the knowledge that he was just so lucky to have her. Without a word he cradled her face in his hand and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her passionately.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured when they parted, brushing his thumb over her cheek as if to make sure she was real. Even after all these months and with their bond thrumming so vibrantly in his chest, it was still hard to believe sometimes. For a few more seconds he gazed at her, at her tiny nose, the freckles, the deep blue eyes, her round face with the pointy chin, all framed by golden strands – and made a decision.

“Let’s try.”

. o O o .

Astrid would never admit it, but she was nervous. Not scared, not afraid, not uncomfortable or worried, but nervous. So she was actually grateful for Cami’s suggestion to divide their approach over the two nights they had left; to first get used to it tonight on the one hand, and to have something to look forward to for tomorrow.

And it also helped that Hiccup seemed to be just as nervous as she was. It was written all over his face as he returned with what looked like a bucket of water and a small ceramic pot, and made himself comfortable at her side, propped up on one arm. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but neither that nor her nervousness mattered anymore when he leaned over her to sweetly kiss her.

“Promise me that you’ll stop me right away if something doesn’t feel okay for you,” he murmured against her lips. He sounded earnest, and Astrid understood how important this was to him.

“I promise,” she whispered back, meaning it, but then leaned in to kiss him again. She didn’t want to talk right now. She only wanted to feel him.

And feeling him she did.

As he continued kissing her, his free hand slowly wandered on over her skin, her neck and shoulders, her arms and sides. Astrid didn’t hold back either, exploring his body in the same manner. As always, feeling his hot skin against her own without anything to separate them was overwhelming. That and his kisses alone was enough to let her forget everything else, and she felt as if they were floating in the moment, detached from the world outside.

She gasped when he became more active, his hand playing with her breasts. Caressing, kneading, pinching; it didn’t take long until he had her in that wonderful mindless state where all she craved was more. More of his touch, of the sensations he elicited, more of him. She wanted to protest when he suddenly retreated, but when she opened her eyes she saw that he’d only turned to the side and was reaching for the small pot he’d placed there earlier.

“It’s a scented oil,” he explained in a husky whisper at her questioning look. “For lubrication. It.. it’ll make things easier.”

He seemed to wait for some kind of response so Astrid nodded mutely. But the truth was that she only had a vague idea at best of what he meant. For a second she pondered asking him, but decided against it. Whatever questions she might have, she could ask those later. She trusted him, and for now, that was enough for her.

“Can you try to look at me?” he murmured after he’d lain down next to her again. “It helps me to better gauge how you feel, when to go slower or to stop.”.

Astrid complied, gazing up at him through bleary eyes. She hadn’t even noticed that her eyes had fallen close, had been too focused on his hand casually caressing her inner thighs. When she looked up at him, he rewarded her with a beautiful smile, so warm that it made her heart melt.

However, keeping her eyes open became increasingly difficult. His fingers on her clit felt wonderful as ever, but, of course, he didn’t linger there. Not tonight. Tonight, he moved on, down, his oily touch weirdly warm and slick. For a split second, she feared he would directly push in when his fingers found their goal, and she tensed.

“Relax,” he murmured, soothingly stroking her hair with his other hand as he made no attempt to push into her at all. Instead, he just lightly caressed her, massaging her with light pressure, and she easily relaxed again.

Once she’d gotten over the initial surprise, she even found that she rather liked him touching her there. It felt different, but still good. So good… A soft moan slipped from her lips as he increased the pressure a little bit, and her hand reflexively clutched at the blanket beneath them, searching for an anchor. On and on, it went like this, with Hiccup occasionally kissing her as a distraction or murmuring low praises. He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said they would go slowly, and even though it frustrated her a little when all she wanted was more, she still enjoyed every second of it.

“Ready for a little more?”

Hiccup’s question barely registered in her mind, buzzing with all the sensations and feelings. She just shifted, struggled, tried to push against his hand. But apparently, he wouldn’t do more without an answer.

“Astrid?”

“Nng, yes. More,” she mumbled past biting her lip.

“All right,” he whispered, sounding tense. “Take a deep breath, then let it out again. But slowly.”

She did as he told her, trying to brace for what would come next. But she hadn’t been prepared. A high-pitched whine escaped her as Hiccup slowly pushed a finger into her. He didn’t go far, just to the first joint, but that already was enough. Never in her life had she anticipated how… how powerful anything could feel, not until that moment. The sensation of even such a small part of Hiccup being inside her was intense, so much more than she’d ever expected, and at first, she was entirely overcome.

“Astrid? Astrid, talk to me, please. Are you all right?”

It took a while before she realised that he was talking to her. She noticed that her eyes were closed again, and she forced them open, looking up into his clearly worried face.

“I’m fine,” she breathed, grinning, once she’d found control over her voice and features again. Then she frowned, wriggling, trying to feel… “Why did you stop?”

HIccup’s expression broke into one of relief, and he laughed weakly. “I… thought it was too much.”

Grinning again, she shook her head. “Was good. Can you do that again?”

This time, it was easier. Astrid knew better what to expect, and while the sensation still was intense, she also managed to keep looking at Hiccup now, to keep her eyes open and reassure him. Time lost all meaning then as he went on, slowly pushing in deeper, more. Every now and then he took a break, for her sake or to add more oil. By the time he had two whole fingers inside her, Astrid was covered in sweat, but grinning like an idiot.

“You okay?” Hiccup asked for the umpteenth time, but his voice was different now, not as anxious as in the beginning, but rough and heavy. When her eyes made contact with his again, she saw that he was certainly not unaffected by the last hour either. His eyes were dark and blown, his lips parted, and now that she thought about it she could also feel his trousers against her side where he had to be straining against the fabric from within.

Holding his gaze and glad that his hand wasn’t moving for the moment, she brought her own hand down to where she could feel him. His eyes widened a little when he got her intention, but he didn’t interject, only groaned when he felt her touch. Slowly, almost reverently, she pushed the fabric down, always watching his reaction. This went far beyond what he usually allowed, but if tonight was meant to be preparation for tomorrow, wasn't it only sensible to loosen that rule as well? Hiccup panted, but didn't stop her, only whimpered when her hand closed around him, slowly stroking him as he’d shown her. It was daunting – everything, from feeling him hot and thick and pulsing in her hand to him now carefully moving his fingers in and out of her – and to distract them both she craned her neck, searching for his lips again. It was a desperate kiss, hungry, both seeking more of the other with every passing second. Between his groans and grunts muffled into her mouth, his hips jerking against her grip, and his fingers twitching inside her, it was difficult to concentrate on moving her hand along his shaft, and he didn’t make it easier when he brought his thumb to her clit, rubbing it with every thrust of his fingers.

Soon, it became all too much for her. The friction on those weirdly sensitive spots, feeling his movements at her side, frantic and searching, his noises – it all had her tumbling into the most intense orgasm she’d experienced so far. She screamed as her body shook with pleasure, and the fact that she could feel him even more intensely as her body clamped down on his fingers cramped up the sensations even more. She barely registered Hiccup’s cursing, how his body shook, or something warm landing on her belly, too overwhelmed by what her body was capable of feeling. It seemed as if there was still a lot for her to learn and discover.

It took her a while before awareness truly returned to her, but when it did she could feel Hiccup’s lips against her skin again. But now, all urgency from before was gone. Instead, he was trailing a line of soft pecks up her neck and along her jaw, making her hum and giggle.

“How are you feeling?” he eventually asked, murmuring quietly against her skin.

Astrid hummed. “Gooooood.”

She turned to look at him, a little apprehensive about how he would feel after he’d been so reluctant before. She really hadn’t wanted to push him, and even though he’d agreed – and, Freya, it had been worth it! – she was a little afraid now how he would react. But apparently, all her worries were unfounded. Hiccup looked entirely relaxed and at ease, warmly smiling down at her.

“And you?” she asked, reaching up to cup his face.

He chuckled, and turned his head to place a soft kiss onto her palm. “I’m good too. More than good, actually. I…” He trailed off, shaking his head, but still smiled. “It still feels weird to circumvent the rules like this, but… But I won’t deny that I very much enjoyed this. You’re amazing! And I never thought… Gods, Astrid, I love you so much!”

Laughing weakly, Astrid closed her eyes as he leaned his forehead against her own. “I love you too, Hiccup,” she whispered, and let her hand drop to his chest, to his heart. “More than words can say.” Then her lips twitched into a smirk. “And I can’t wait for tomorrow night!”

Hiccup groaned as he rolled to the side and sat up. “You’re unbelievable!” But there was no anger in his voice, only amusement and a hint of anticipation that told her he felt similarly.

Astrid couldn’t say that she liked the chill of the cool soapy water with which Hiccup quickly cleaned them both, but him cuddling up to her after he’d put his trousers back on, with his bare chest warm against her back, made more than up for any inconvenience. Humming, she huddled closer against his warmth when the distant drums of Odin’s clock towers echoed toward them.

“Midnight,” Hiccup noted, then let out a short laugh. He pulled her even closer, burying his face in her hair, and whispered, “Happy birthday.”

Astrid chuckled, but didn’t reply and only basked in how wonderful this moment was. Wrapped into Hiccup’s embrace and his blanket and still a little dazed from earlier, she couldn’t remember ever to have started her birthday with a similar sense of happiness. She would savour this moment, drawing upon its memory whenever she missed Hiccup during the coming weeks – even as she expected this day to end with even happier experiences.

. o O o .

Late morning on the next day, Astrid began to realise how much she would need the sweet reminder of that shared moment today. She had anticipated that her birthday would be a busy day, so she and Hiccup had gotten more sleep than on most other nights. However, it still stunned her when Ruff came whirling into her bedroom a good two hours earlier than usual, carrying one of her two new-made dresses for this day.

“Come on, sleepyhead. Time to get up,” she called in means of waking her. “We have a strict timetable, can’t waste a second.”

Sighing tiredly, Astrid got up and let her maidservant put the elegant day-dress on her; an extravagant dress made of dark blue satin and with lace trimmings along her arms, her decolletage, and along the heavy skirt. Still, it was nothing to the dress she would wear tonight, made of a light fabric in uncountable shades of blue, and decorated with silken flowers and swan patterns everywhere.

“Why the hurry?” she asked, grunting when Ruff pulled the cords around her waist tight. “Isn’t it just the usual procedure? A reception, mingling, and then the official dinner after nightfall?” It was the same every year, after all. A long and boring day that would drag on an on, not much helped this year by her torn feelings. On the one hand, she wanted it to be over as quickly as was possible so she could return to Hiccup. But on the other hand, she didn’t want the day to be over. She didn’t want it to be tomorrow, didn’t want him to leave. If only there was a way he could stay, just a little bit longer…

Ruff, however, just snorted. “Yeah, that’s the plan, as far as I know. But you’ll need every bit of time you can get, believe me.”

Even though she was mystified by Ruff’s words, Astrid didn’t waste much time on thinking about their meaning and let her mind drift off to the previous night instead. No matter what she’d meant, it would still be the same as every other year. A reception for the well-wishers to greet her and present their gifts, an hour or so of polite chatting and mingling, and then later the formal dinner in the big dining hall. Nothing special.

But once Tuff escorted her to the throne room where the reception would be held, she quickly understood why Ruff had urged her on. The number of well-wishers was anything but ‘as usual’. In the previous years, there had only been the Grand Dukes, their and her father’s higher-ranked vassals, and some of the local nobility. This year though? There seemed to be ten times more; not only the usual dukes and barons and counts, but so many more she’d never even seen before and nearly all of them had also brought their sons, wives, and daughters. Astrid’s eyes grew wider and wider as more and more people filed into the throne room, and the table at the side of the room meant to hold her gifts quickly got expanded by a second and a third. And as if the sheer quantity of gifts wasn’t enough to baffle her, the quality of those gifts also was much higher than in previous years. Everyone seemed eager to point out the valuable jewellery or adornments they’d brought for her, and before long her head was spinning. What in great Odin’s name was happening here?

“The only explanation I can come up with is still the accolades,” Eret mumbled when she asked that question a little while later as the reception had gone over to the least-formal part of the day. “But even that doesn’t explain all this!” He gestured vaguely at the people around them and the gifts still on display.

Mutely, Astrid nodded, and neither Dagur nor Snot seemed to be able to come up with any other explanation either. They looked just as bewildered as she did. But at least she knew why Ruff had been so adamant about her needing all the time she could get; the reception had taken hours. By now, it was close to noon already, and with this many people ‘polite mingling’ was turning into a chore. ‘An hour or two’ just wasn’t enough to do all these people justice.

Sighing, she braced herself to talk to the next group of strangers. She couldn’t hide with her brothers forever, after all – that would only draw things out even more. But before she could leave their comfortable circle, Eret held her back.

“Hey, wait a moment,” he said with an encouraging smile. “I talked to Father last night, about the idea with Ester’s wedding, remember? To be honest, his reaction was a little weird, something about ‘We’ll have to see how the next weeks turn out,’ but he certainly seemed to like the idea of you being there. Now all you need to do is ask your father.”

This news, and the reminder of that visit, brightened Astrid’s mood immensely. There was light at the end of the tunnel. Even though Hiccup would leave tomorrow, it wouldn’t be too long until she saw him again. And no matter how long this day would drag out, at the end of it she would be in his arms again. Taking the next step…

With her mouth turning dry in anticipation, Astrid gave Eret a grateful smile. “I’ll ask Father as soon as I get the chance,” she announced, then left them to do her duties as hostess. They’d get the chance to talk more later anyway.

For the next few hours, Astrid was constantly surrounded by her guests. Sometimes, she would converse with only one person, which made it harder to get away, and other times, she got involved into small groups, all trying to talk to her at once. It gave her a headache, but she knew that retreating to her rooms wasn’t an option today, no matter the reason. So she just put her mask of a smile on and vehemently fought down the uneasiness of so many strangers around her.

She didn’t believe any of the men around her would harm her. Not really and certainly not here in this crowded room, with servants and guards everywhere. But it still took the constant reminder of Hiccup – of his encouraging smile and his soothing embrace – for her to bear it all. Especially when one particular person from her honoured guests approached.

“Milady Astrid! How lucky to get you alone for once. Allow me to again congratulate you on your birthday. And may I say that you look even more stunning than usual?”

With tensed shoulders, Astrid slowly turned toward the tall man in his elegant outfit. “Duke Thuggory,” she greeted him coolly. “Thank you for the compliment, your Grace.”

Thuggory chuckled darkly. “Still so stiff, Milady? Ah, but I'm sure in a few months, you’ll be addressing me... differently.”

“Differently how?” she replied, narrowing her eyes.

He smiled wolfishly. “As ‘my lord husband’, of course,” he purred. “I can’t wait to hear it from your pretty lips.”

She choked and managed to get out in a strangled voice, “You’re insane if you think I’d ever marry you, let alone in a few months!”

His lips curled in a satisfied sneer. “What is insanity if not a man who sees the world in a different way? I see it very differently. But unlike a madman ranting on the street, I can bring what I see into reality. And I will.”

She felt nauseous, and replied, “You’ll excuse me if I think you should see Freya’s healers for treating your diseased mind.”

His smile deepened. “Diseased... or prescient, Princess? Only time and the Norns will tell.”

She bit her lip, fighting the urge to reply that, of the two of them, only she had received a vision of the gods as to her future husband, and it wasn’t him.

Thuggory was watching her face with clear enjoyment, and leaned in. Too close for her taste. “We'll see, Princess. We'll see,” he murmured, his breath tangible on her cheek, and she fought down the bile rising in her throat. The mere idea…

But before she could say anymore, he’d backed away, his smirk still present.. “I expect we’ll see more of each other soon, dearest Princess. Until then, I hope you enjoy your birthday.” Before she could reply and give articulation to her disgust – or her confusion – he turned and walked away.

Let him talk, she tried to calm herself. That’s all he can do anyway. Taking a deep breath, she placed her hand to her chest, to where she could feel Hiccup’s soul, his warmth, his love. One day she would be his wife, she reminded herself. The Gods wanted them married, and no pompous lordling would be able to work against this.

With shaking legs but a slightly truer smile, she turned to talk to the next group of guests. She was looking forward to the formal dinner later when she at least didn’t need to interact with so many people anymore.

. o O o .

‘Later’ turned into much later than she’d expected though. Ruff definitely hadn’t exaggerated about the strict timetable; she’d barely had an hour between the social mingling and the formal dinner. Ruff actually had a minor meltdown at how little time was left for her to arrange Astrid’s hair in the required extravagant style after putting the evening-dress on, and indeed Astrid arrived late to the dinner, everyone else already being seated.

Her father gave her a stern look as she took her seat next to him which turned more accepting when he took in her appearance. Sighing inwardly at how her appearance seemed to make up for everything, Astrid let her eyes wander around the room, once more baffled by just how many people there were. The room was packed to the last free space with tables and chairs, with barely enough space to walk between them, much less wander around and mingle. That was something, at least. But it also meant that another impromptu dance with her brothers was impossible.

Next to her on the King’s High Table sat Eret, Dagur, and Snot, the Grand Dukes in the same manner next to her father, with Grand Duke Oswald fortunately having recovered from his illness. The men were arranged around the heads of the table to make chatting easier – among themselves at least. Astrid herself was singled out without a partner directly across from her, so that she could more easily watch over the whole room – or, more likely, be seen by the whole room. It was only thanks to her practice that her mask didn’t turn into a scowl, and she was grateful that not much later the first course, creamy soup with vegetables, was served to everyone. The sooner all this nonsense was over the better.

The evening promised to drag out though. Astrid was uncomfortably aware of how many eyes rested on her from all across the room, and her brothers’ bantering next to her only helped so much to distract her. Oh, it certainly was fun to listen to Dagur teasing Snot about all the mishaps he’d had with Chomp over the day and Eret giving him tips on what to heed in the future. She contemplated saving some of Snot’s dignity by mentioning that Daniel had gotten thrown off, too. But participating in their conversation was difficult from where she sat, and she soon gave up. She’d had enough talking today anyway. Instead, her mind drifted off to the stables, to Hiccup. How comfortable she would feel in his arms once she got back to him, the look of happiness in his eyes, and–

“You look happy, child. I hope the party is to your liking then?”

Her father’s voice tore her out of her daydream, and she hastily recomposed her face, afraid of what exactly it might have shown. She turned toward her father, giving him a smile that was half-genuine and half-mask.

“Thank you, Father. I see and appreciate how much effort went into all this,” she said, unwilling to outright lie and say that she enjoyed herself.

The King nodded, smiling, then they both looked up as the next course was announced. And from one second to the other, Astrid’s stomach dropped, all happiness from thinking about Hiccup gone in an instant, and she felt sick.

The castle was proud to serve a special dish on this special day: swan roast from the castle’s own ground.

So that was why her swans hadn’t been at their lake...

When the dish was served to her, Astrid had to press a shaking hand over her mouth to hide her reaction. With a horrified expression in her wide eyes, she stared at the meat, surely tender and delicious, but knew that she wouldn’t be able to eat even one bite. Why? Why had her father ordered this? Why hadn’t he asked her at least once what she actually wanted?

Tears rose to her eyes, and she fought hard to keep them back. Why had this had to happen? Why, oh, why had her swans needed to get slaughtered for this? She wasn’t naive, knew perfectly well that most animals were kept around as livestock, and she accepted their death as a necessary part of life. But this? This hadn’t been necessary. Not her swans! This shouldn’t have happened, this shouldn’t have happened, this shouldn’t have happened…

A small sound escaped her, something between a sob and a wail, but luckily the noises around them drowned it out. Only Eret had noticed, his hand soothingly rubbing her back. I’m sorry!, he mouthed, looking just as stricken as she felt. Behind him, Dagur and Snot were giving her similar looks of sympathy, and Astrid wanted nothing more than to burrow into their comforting hugs right now.

But she couldn’t. Appearances had to be kept at every time, and especially now, with so many eyes on her, she couldn’t afford to show any weakness. Slowly, with her hands still shaking, she reached for her cutlery. She didn’t fool herself, knew that she wouldn’t be able to stomach the swan roast. But she at least forced herself to eat from the vegetables and dumplings, slowly to make sure she wouldn’t run out of those before the next course was served.

She was desperate for any form of distraction, but thinking about Hiccup right now only brought back memories of her nightmare from all those weeks ago. Another unnecessary death, and even though it hadn’t been real, she couldn’t shake it off her mind. The image of Hiccup dangling from the tree, feet kicking in that hopeless fight for air, and–

No! No, she couldn’t think about this, not now. She needed something else, something to focus on or she’d go insane. Her brothers were equally low-spirited though, not talking at all right now, and Astrid’s hands tightened around her knife and fork. She needed something else to occupy her mind with, anything, just–

“Ah, it’s so great to have us all together again,” sounded Grand Duke Oswald’s booming voice toward her, and she eagerly focused on him and the men’s conversation. Everything would be better than her own thoughts right now. “And good that I’m back up on my feet; would have been a shame if old Spite comes down from his mountains for once and I miss it;” he laughed. “It’s been too long, old friend.”

There was low chuckling from all men, Oswald and Spitelout exchanging a couple of playful punches, before Spitelout turned serious again. “Aye. But there’s still someone missing. Where is the old warhorse? I thought he’d at least show up to this event, if nothing else.”

From one second to the other, the men were dead silent, and even though Astrid had only listened to distract herself, this reaction drew her honest attention. She chanced a glance up at the men’s faces, and was surprised to see pain and sorrow there. It wasn’t often that these men showed their emotions so clearly, especially not in public.

It was Oswald who finally spoke again. “You don’t know?” he asked, voice hollow.

“Know what?” Spitelout shot back, a little irritatedly. “Does he think himself too good to be among us now?”

Another moment of heavy silence, and Astrid sifted through her memories, wondering who they were talking about. Was there someone missing from the group? But it had always been just these four.

This time, it was her father who broke the silence. “Stoick is dead,” he said quietly. There was pain in his voice, something Astrid rarely ever had heard, except when he’d talked about their mother when she and Daniel had been younger. Who was this Stoick that mentioning him had such an effect on him – on all of them, really? But that wasn’t a question for now, and she quickly stowed it away into the back of her mind as the men kept on talking.

“He… what?” hissed Spitelout incredulously. “You’re joking, right? I would have–”

“It’s true,” the older Eret on the table interrupted him, speaking in a low but firm voice. ”He’s dead, as is the entire family.”

“Well, not the en–” Oswald threw in, but got cut off with a quick gesture by her father.

“Not here,” Osmond said in a low voice. He sounded stern now, and Astrid risked another glance up at their faces. There was determination mixed with sorrow and, in Spitelout’s case, utter confusion. Astrid really felt with him there.

“I don’t understand,” he said, turning to Oswald, but again her father cut off any further comments.

“We can talk about this later,” he said sternly. “Now, there’s something else to do.” He stood up, and within seconds, the entire hall had fallen silent.

Astrid watched in puzzlement; she hadn’t expected a speech from her father, not now. This day was full of surprises, and so far she couldn’t say that she’d enjoyed many of them.

“My dear guests,” the King called in his far-reaching voice. “I'm honoured to welcome you all here, honoured that so many of you followed my invitation.”

Astrid frowned. Her father had invited all these people? But why? Mystified, she listened just like everyone else in the room.

“Yes, we're here to celebrate the birthday of our Princess, my beloved daughter, but I know that rumours were spreading already. As most of you already guessed, there also was another reason behind those invitations. This year, my father, King Ragnvald the Blessed, the glorious founder of our beautiful Kingdom, would have turned eighty-one years. And in honour of his nine-times-nine and to celebrate our latest victories over the Malarians, I've decided to host eighty-one days of festivals; funded out of the Royal Purse for all of the folk of the realm to participate in and enjoy.”

There was tentative cheering in the room, and Astrid threw a puzzled look at her brothers. While this explained why there were so many people here, it still astonished her that she hadn’t heard about this plan before. But as it seemed, Eret, Dagur, and Snotlout were just as surprised as she was.

Next to her, her father’s voice rose in volume to carry over the babbling of the crowd. “The festivities will start tomorrow, and there will be a wide variety of events, suited for everybody. There will be tournaments and hunts, balls and feasts. And to crest this grand occasion with a worthy highlight, we will celebrate another joyous event during these days of happiness.” He made a pause, waiting until he had everyone’s undivided attention again, then continued. “Honoured guests, I am proud to announce that, in two months from today, we will celebrate the wedding of our fair Princess Astrid.”

. o O o .

Right... before I hide under rocks again (aka in our secret writers' bar), I want to say that I'm immensely curious for the reactions to this chapter! The ending, yes, it doesn't really come as a surprise to many, but still.

But there's so much more! Thuggory, the swans, the Grand Dukes' conversation, and, of course, the steamy beginning. And the ending! I'm really looking forward to hearing your thought to all this.

Next chapter

#For The Love Of A Princess #hiccstrid #fanfiction #httyd #FTLOAP #Romance #Hiccup and Astrid #fluff #lemon #angst #medieval au #Royalty AU #Ohohoho...#😈

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kianraidelcam · 5 years

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I was tagged by @anonymous-idfk for @whumptopia‘s 30 day RoboWhump Prompt Challenge. I have three other wips and though I could use another. Today’s prompt is Low Power Cells! Full fic under the cut as per usual! Although this time, I’m going to recommend you go on Ao3 for the proper formatting. (Also 11:45pm means it is still today so I didn’t fail on day 1)

Exhaustion is defined as a state of extreme physical or mental fatigue.

Often caused by arduous work, sleep deprivation, emotional strain, or various medical conditions, or a combination of the four, it has severe and negative effects on the human body. Androids, however, were built for difficult work, did not require sleep, and have no medical concerns, only technical glitches and malfunctions. And it was only as of late that androids could feel the emotional strain brought upon by daily life and true sentience. So, Connor mused, he was most certainly not exhausted.

The stumble he took earlier in the precinct’s break room definitely was not caused by the human condition. The lack of focus he experienced during his meeting reading over proposed laws with Markus and North was not a direct result of his lack of sleep; androids don’t sleep. His inability to recall a previous conversation with Lieutenant Anderson was not because he was overworked and fatigued.

Androids do not sleep. Connor does not sleep. He was not tired.

Instead, Connor works. He works homicide with Hank by day and supports the revolution by night. He files reports, chases suspects, and interviews witnesses. He supports New Jericho’s leadership, learns how to repair androids, and attempts to make reparations with those he hunted. He walks Sumo, cooks Hank dinner, and cleans the house when he returns home, careful to discard any alcohol he might encounter. He trips over a book on the floor in the Lieutenant’s house and tries to laugh it off with the man guffawing from the couch.

“Holy shit, Con, I didn’t even know you could trip!”

Connor is a highly advanced prototype detective android with a superior gyroscope and state-of-the-art spatial sensors. He should not be able to trip.

He runs a diagnostic late at night during a rare quiet lull in his schedule.

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

Connor is a highly advanced prototype detective android with rare parts and new technology. CyberLife was a now defunct company that destroyed all other RK800 models. They claimed it was to prevent companies or other interested parties from accessing blueprints, company secrets, or mission details from any of Connor’s other bodies and memory banks. He knew differently. He freed an army of androids and cost the company millions of dollars in a single move, and secured the revolutions freedom with his own freedom march through Detroit.

It was an act of revenge and he knew it would be a damning one, for both him and CyberLife.

{WARNING: TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: 189:34:03}

He was built to hunt deviants, assist the Detroit Police Department, and to save CyberLife from the deviant “threat.” He was allotted three months of beta testing following his alpha testing. Connor was one week away from turning one year old. RK800 #313 248 317 - 51 was never supposed to live.

It wasn’t enough time. He had a week left. Connor hasn’t had enough time. He only had a week left. He still wanted to solve cases, play with Sumo, tend and build up his aquarium. He still wanted to quip with Hank, spar with North, debate with Josh, laugh with Simon, be around Markus. His LED flashes an alarming crimson, illuminating the right side of his face in a deathly glow. He had just started to live and now he only had a week left.

It takes him six hours and fourteen minutes to move from his spot on the couch and force his LED back to yellow, then blue. Roused by motion and noise coming from Hank’s room, he sets about his day, preparing the man a breakfast of eggs and a side of bacon. He smiles at Hank and tells him good morning, only receiving a grunt in reply.

{Lieutenant Hank Anderson: Friend - Nonverbal Before 7AM}

{Please refrain from communicating until first caffeinated beverage is consumed}

Connor ignores the prompt from his social integration protocol and swallows unnecessarily before closing the warning still flashing in front of his eyes. “Hank?”

The man in question lowers his mug with a raised eyebrow, a glimmer of concern barely visible in tired, blue eyes at the android’s tone and faraway look, “Yeah kid?”

“I just… I just want to say thank you. For everything. Without you, I don’t think I would have ever gotten the chance to appreciate,” he makes a vague gesture with his hands, a slight pause before locking eyes with Hank, “This. Life. Living.”

Eyebrows furrow and the grizzled detective frowns, warning bells blaring through his head, “Are you okay, Connor? Somethin’ wrong?”

Connor could tell him. He could tell him everything right now. There is a 86% chance they would leave straight for New Jericho without informing Captain Fowler of their absence at work. Hank would be scared but he would try to hide it from Connor and there is a 89% he would ignore several traffic laws in his haste to find a solution. Markus, Josh, Simon, and North would likely search relentlessly for a solution while assuring the pair that it wasn’t hopeless, that they could save him.

The odds of finding or building power cells compatible with his model in the time he had left was 23%.

“Nothing, Lieutenant. I think I’m just feeling...sentimental?”

Hank rolls his eyes, though concern still lingers. “Fucking sappy android. It’s too early for this shit.”

He tries to ignore when he hits his hip on the corner of his desk at work and Gavin’s resulting laugh.

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

{WARNING: TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: 181:29:54}

Lieutenant Anderson doesn’t miss the way his LED flashes red when the warning appears in his vision. He asks Connor about the color and the deviant RK800 assures him that he just received a minor damage report from the collision. It was nothing to be worried about. He only had a week left but he couldn’t make everyone worry about him. There wasn’t hope anyway, and it’d be easier for everyone around him. He only had a week left but there was nothing to worry about.

Markus was not so easily fooled.

Connor is at another meeting with the deviant leader, listening to the group bicker back and forth about a proposed amendment to the Constitution when he zones out of the conversation. It’s like he’s floating from his chair and sinking into it all at once, unaware he’s mentally digressed from the conversation. His processor slows down

and

{OPTICAL UNITS OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

he’s

sinking

{TACTILE SENSORS PARTIALLY OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

deeper and deeper

{AUDITORY UNITS OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

like nothing is important

like nothing and everything is touching body all at once.

{SOCIAL INTEGRATION MODULE OFFLINE}

{FACIAL ANALYSIS MODULE OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - UPDATED TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 122:32:11}

{PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

Until a hand falls on his shoulder and Connor is preconstructing six different ways to flip his attacker everything before his systems reboot and a pair of frantic mismatched eyes are only six inches from his own.

{OPTICAL UNITS ONLINE}

“-nor! Can you hear me?”

“I swear to rA9, Connor, you better respond right now!”

Voices are echoing around him, fading in and out, and Connor blinks owlishly as his systems sluggishly catch up. Markus is shaking his shoulders and he distantly notes that while his mouth is moving the sounds he are hearing are not quite matching up with the movement of Markus’ lips. Connor lets out an undignified “huuuh” as he blinks again, looking around the room to see North, Simon and Josh in front of him as well.

{AUDITORY UNITS ONLINE}

“Connor, answer if you can hear me,” Markus instructs as Connor’s eyes move back to his face.

He’s tired. He’s so tired and he just wants to go to sleep but androids don’t sleep, not even deviants. No matter how human he appears to be, he’s not he’s not he’s not he’s just a machine but he’s also so fucking exhausted. He now has less then a week left and it wasn’t enough time.

“I’m tired, Markus.”

All noise ceases abruptly, and Connor finds himself wondering if his auditory units went offline again. A quick check confirms that they haven’t, so he takes the silence as his cue to continue.

“I’m so tired. Androids aren’t supposed to feel tired but I just want to go to sleep,” Connor looks down at his hands and tries to ignore the slight static in the back of his head that just won’t go away, “I’m going to shutdown but I don’t want to go.”

It’s like a bomb goes off in the room. A flurry of activity sweeps Connor to repair bay where they run an extensive diagnostic. North holds his hand in solidarity while they attach the cable to the back of his neck, asking him what he wants for his birthday.

It’s not his birthday. He wasn’t born. If anything, Connor thinks it should be called his activation day, and either way, he knew he wasn’t going to live to see it.

“A dwarf gourami. While they are often called a community fish, they seem to do best when kept in species-only tanks as they tend to be aggressive with colorful fish, like my Siamese fighting fish. So I would require a new tank.”

They call Hank despite Connor’s protests, and despite the late hour, the man comes sprinting into his room, Sumo on his leash in one hand and a bag in the other. He studies the Lieutenant’s micro expressions but is unable to deduce exactly what the man is feeling due to his facial analysis systems running at half power to conserve energy. Connor opens his mouth to say something, anything, when Hank crosses the room and wraps the android in a rough embrace, “You fucking idiot, why the hell didn’t you tell me? Don’t worry, we’re gonna fix this. I promise, son.”

He stays in his room for the next four days at the head technicians orders while Josh and North search for compatible parts. Markus and Simon research building him a new one. Hank rarely leaves and tries to distract Connor despite his own exhaustion creeping in. The police lieutenant shares stories of his time at the academy, pausing whenever he zones out and continuing wherever he left off when he notices Connor’s awareness returning. Meanwhile, the little bit of news Markus brings is rarely good and Connor can only watch as the shutdown timer ticks closer to zero, unable to muster the energy to dismiss the notification.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 92:57:12} is when his optical units stop processing color, throwing the world around him into a grayscale.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 56:36:40} is when his social integration protocols shutdown, giving the android a sense of mood swings and confusion.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 43:02:08} is when Josh and Simon admit defeat in their search, opting to contact Elijah Kamski instead.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 41:01:01} is when Kamski informs them he can build a new set, but not in the time Connor has left. “There would be no guarantee the parts would be compatible anyway, Markus, but if you’d be so kind as to send me your blueprints thus far, I’ll see what I can do. Connor is the reason I still have the pleasure of Chloe’s company after all.”

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 34:07:15} is when Connor sees a single tear fall from Hank’s eyes during a moment Hank thinks he is unaware of his surroundings.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 21:11:58} is when his auditory units shutdown, throwing the world into a shattering silence. Markus communicates whenever he can through an interface, although the connection tends to drop unexpectedly due to power fluctuations.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 2:31:18} is when Connor diverts as much power as he can afford to his voice box and auditory units. “Hank?”

Immediately, the man is in Connor’s field of vision, eyes wide and face tight with an emotion he can’t quite define. Whether it’s due to the static or the shutdown of his facial analysis program, he’s no sure.

“It’s going to hurt for a while-”

“Don’t you fucking start taking like that, you hear me? I ain’t losing another kid-”

{Lieutenant Hank Anderson: ^Father}

Connor smiles at the notification but interrupts Hank nonetheless, “It’s going to hurt for a while, but I know you can get through it. You’ve taught me that the pain never really goes away, but you also taught me that I can learn to live with it. I lived with it and I know you can too.”

He takes a shuddering breath he doesn’t need as a spike of static shoots across his eyes, throwing the world into color before darkening it yet again, “Besides, Hank. Who else would take care of my fish and Sumo just as well as I do?”

{MESSAGE RECEIVED: RK200 - MARKUS}

{ERROR: UNABLE TO OPEN MESSAGE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

Hank ignores the buzzing on his phone, grabbing Connor’s limp hand instead. The synthetic skin flickers as it struggles to stay on despite the low power, and the temperature is noticeably lower than that of a human’s.

“Live with it for me because I won’t be able to,” Connor’s vision cuts out entirely as the drain on his systems become too much to bear, “It won’t hurt, Hank. It’ll be like going to sleep and I’m no scared anymore.”

{WARNING: UPDATED TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 6:28}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

Connor finally listens to the prompts and closes his unseeing eyes and shuts down what he can until he begins to feel untethered

floating away

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 4:32}

he’s so tired but he can finally sleep

and know what it means to dream

he could be more human than ever with his dreams

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 2:10}

he wonders what he’ll dream about

he hopes Hank will be okay

he knows Markus would be eventually

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 00:14}

{BIOCOMPONENTS #3546w, #3546v REMOVED}

{GOODNIGHT RK800}

{BIOCOMPONENTS #3546x, #3546y DETECTED}

{BIOCOMPONENTS COMPATIBLE}

{REBOOT (y/n?}

{SYSTEMS RESTARTING}

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh fanfiction #fanfiction #my writing #connor rk800 #connor #hank anderson #markus manfred #north #simon #josh #the jericrew #30 day robowhump challenge #Connor whump #30 days challenge #anonymous-idfk #whumptopia

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purge-that-urge-rhackathon · 5 years

Note

That post with the children gave me a scenario were Jack or Rhys are "stuck" and they can't contact the other, only one of their children is there as a witness. So it's a "go get mommy\daddy for help" but the child isn't making it easy as they don't or won't understand.

I kind of did this sort of same idea with an omega!jack here, but this was fun enough to take a refresher on with rhys hehehe :D This labeled as Beached. Also on my ao3 here :) My masterlist archive of bullshit i write can be found linked at the top of the blog or here.

–

Rhys had had a lot of embarrassing moments in his life.

Choking so hard on his own spit during a lecture that he had to leave the room was one. Spilling an entire cup of coffee on his desk during his internship was another. The time his fly was down and he was giving a presentation on cybernetics to the financial budget committee was pretty high up there. Especially considered he’d foregone underwear that day.

But right now, what was taking the cake was that he was stuck, on his back, in bed.

Or more to the point, his heavily-pregnant belly and the unmade nest of covers were trapping him in such a manner that he could not get up, and their toddler next to him thought it was some kind of game.

He’d tried gaining momentum by rocking, but the blankets had wedged him in pretty well, and what looseness he might’ve dislodged was trapped under his gravid form. He sure as hell couldn’t do a sit-up at this point (hadn’t been able to do one of those in months) and he’d long given up on just rolling over.

He was annoyed with his situation for one thing, and embarrassed at the fact for another.

He’d called out for Jack several times, even knowing an imminent teasing would be coming, but the older man was still deep in work in his home office. Knowing Jack, his comm would’ve been off as well to avoid distraction, and several attempts with his echoeye to reach the alpha had proven fruitless. Rhys and their kid were home with the alpha after all; no one even half as important was enough reason to let him be distracted.

Rhys huffed to himself, looking at their firstborn and wondering what kind of desperate he must be to enlist her help. “Angel baby, can you push mama?” He gave her little hand a squeeze before pressing it against his side, and then miming pushing with both hands above him. “Like this! Can you do that? Push.”

Their toddler decided it was some kind of game, and merely pressed her face into him with a wide grin and hugged his belly. She laid with Rhys as the omega struggled, kind of laughing at himself a little and the sweetness of their daughter, and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Sweetheart, can you get daddy?” Angel looked up at him, acknowledging the request but not really understanding. She was far too young for following out instructions, but Rhys really had to pee, and Jack could work on through til dawn if he felt like it. “Get daddy, sweetheart! Where’s daddy?”

“Daddy?”

“Yes! Yes, can you get daddy, baby? Where’s daddy?”

The small child worked her way off the massive bed, Rhys listening and watching as best he could to try and track her progress. She toddled over to the nightstand and excitedly grabbed a photo of him and Jack before presenting it to the omega.

“Daddy,” she explained, giving the picture over, but keeping a tiny hand on it as she dragged her fingers over the frame, leaning against the bed.

Rhys was both amused and hopeless at this point, knowing it had been a long shot. “That is daddy, isn’t it sweetheart? No, don’t put it in your mouth…” Rhys said, removing the picture a bit further away as he sighed and tried to figure out his options.

Angel, having been deprived of her latest toy, decided there were better things elsewhere, and in a panic Rhys realized she was leaving their bedroom without him.

“Angel! Angel, stay in the room!” Rhys’ voice urged, trying to get her in his view only to watch the cracked bedroom door open just enough for a one and a half year old to push through. His panic rose as he realized Jack would still be busy, he was stuck, and Angel would be without supervision. “Angel! Angel!”

Rhys was entirely distressed when Jack found him not even three minutes later, the toddler on the older man’s hip and an amused sort of smirk on the alpha’s face. “This munchkin get away from ya, baby?” Rhys’ lower lip quivered as he looked up at Jack, and the alpha sat himself down on the plush bedding next to his mate, their daughter in his lap and a concerned hand on the omega’s belly. “Hey now, what’s wrong, Rhysie? What happened?”

Rhys tried to control his voice. He really, really did. “I can’t get up, and then Angel got away from me and you couldn’t hear me calling for you and then I got w-worried for heeeeeer,” Rhys began to properly cry, and Jack began to chuckle as his adorable, hormonal mate went to pieces for nothing.

“Oh sugarplum, she was just fine. Are you stuck there good, Rhysie?”

Rhys had both hands rubbing his eyes as he cried, ignoring the alpha now and even further embarrassed at the situation. Jack’s gentle chuckles and the press of his lips to Rhys’ forehead was some slight consolation that everything was indeed okay.

“Want me to help you up, sugar?” Jack stroked the omega’s belly, still smirking but trying to soothe the sobbing omega while also keeping an unruly toddler in his grips. He turned his attention on the squirming mass in his lap as Rhys declined to answer him. “Angel, give your mama a hug.”

The feel of tiny hands hugging his belly again, and the gentle pats of those tiny hands with inquisitive chirps of “Ma-ma? Ma-ma?” only made his sobs hitch harder.

Jack knew he was probably a bastard for laughing and Rhys would indeed give him hell later if this was anything like his first pregnancy, but the alpha just leaned in close next to the cuddling toddler and nuzzled his crying mate.

“What’s wrong, huh baby? You upset ‘cause you got stuck? It happens when you’re this big, remember?”

That annoyed Rhys just enough to remove his hands from his eyes and give Jack a pout, even as tears still threatened to spill. The alpha didn’t even seem affected by the look though, taking it in stride much to Rhys’ annoyance. The omega looked at their toddler and brushed a hand over her wispy hair. “I couldn’t get to her and she could’ve hurt herself or fallen down or—”

“There’s nothing at her height she could ever hurt herself with, sweetpea. You know that,” Jack instantly soothed, stroking his own large palm over Angel’s head before placing a kiss there. She grinned and pressed her face back into Rhys’ swollen belly, making Jack smirk. “She was just playing in the front room with her blocks when I heard her. Wondering where you got to.”

Rhys sniffled and wiped at his eyes, feeling stupid and overwhelmingly emotional over the slight panic of not being able to get to one of his children.

It was fine though. Angel hadn’t been unsupervised for too long if the quick joining by Jack was any indication. Still, though. He worried he wasn’t quite getting the hang of this parenting thing even now.

“Rhys,” Jack gently murmured, rubbing a hand over the omega’s swollen belly with an incredibly fond smile on his lips. “You’re a good mama.” Rhys gave him a slightly startled look at his prescience, but Jack just chuckled. “Stop thinking so loudly, sweetheart. It’s okay, I promise.”

The younger man closed his eyes once and breathed in deeply, more exhausted from crying than from defeat. He gave Jack’s hand on his belly a squeeze and gave a light chuckle himself, mood already improving. “I’m bigger than the first time.”

“Mm, yeah, I know,” Jack greedily purred, his hand possessively stroking at the taut flesh. “Angel was a small baby. This one might be taking after your height.”

Rhys chuckled and gave his stomach a pat. “I hope not. I can’t get much bigger than this or I’ll get stuck in the doorway next!” Jack barked out a harsh laugh, getting a startled, wide-eyed look of surprise from Angel as her baby-attention focused on Jack’s laughing face. She gurgled and laughed in amusement at the alpha. Rhys pouted, but it was more for show than actual upset at this point. “See? Even she knows I’m right.”

“She makes the same face when her diaper needs changing, cupcake,” Jack still laughed as the omega frowned.

“That’s funny, ‘cause it’s your face she’s looking at right now,” the omega pointed out with a smirk.

“Damn straight, and you love this face,” Jack teased with a grin as he lowered to press a kiss to the younger man’s lips. “Alright dumplin’, let’s get you out of this quicksand.” He pulled Rhys from the blankets with little effort, and the omega was not amused when Jack questioned if it had really been that hard.

“You’re gonna sleep on the couch, Jack.”

“Not a smart idea. What if you get stuck again and I’m passed out and you need to take a piss?”

Rhys had no retort to that, now that the thought hit him. And he still really needed to go as well.

He brushed away from Jack once he’d gotten to his feet proper, making a bee-line for their bathroom as the alpha was suddenly hit with the pointed irony of his statement, and laughed like the braying jackass he was.

The only thing that saved the alpha from the couch that night was indeed the very real concern he might get stuck again and need help.

….And maybe, if he was being completely honest with himself, the gentle reassurance of Jack’s arms wrapped snugly around him and their growing offspring.

–

kofi | ao3

#it has been SO long since i've hammered something out in less than 24hrs of receiving MWEHEHE THNKS BABE!#you always give the best ideas hehehe xD also caught me right as i was falling asleep and thats when i SHINE lolol #hehehe this was fun. rhys is a pregantn mess and i love it pffft xD very thank #rhack #rhys #handsome jack #omegaverse #fanfic #my fic #poisonjack answers

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overcaffeinated-creative · 6 years

Text

A Sort of Fic, Sort of Dash Summary of Mereel and Jazari

Or, I feel like I neglect Jazari and Mereel and the cuteness that is them way too much.

This got super long but I love all of it.

- Mereel and Jazari meet really, really early in the war? Jazari’s office (more of a converted broom closet that only favors freezing temperatures because of the tech) is in Arca Barracks along with her Master’s office. She meets the Nulls, Alpha ARCs, and everyone else that rotates through with Intel.

- Yes, Jazari was there for when the Nulls holed themselves up in Arca Barracks. No, she doesn’t hold that against them but dammit, the timing was inconvenient. Solus and Lumi were traumatized from Geonosis, there was a war that full on started, someone ordered a secret army of Jango Fetts, and now this?

- Their Official Meeting was less Meet Cute and more Meet Funny.

See, Jazari knows Mando’a. Partially because it’s useful and mostly because of Solus. Early on, Little Solus spoke a rough sounding Basic and forgot words a lot. Jazari started learning to help her new Katarn Clan member feel like she belonged. Now, it’s because Solus speaks Basic only when it’s convenient and she applies that word loosely.

- The Meet Funny centers around Jazari’s sleep deprived ass being called into Master Arligan’s office to help debrief the Kal and the Others. Soon as she hears Kal’s name and sees his armor her mind blanks. She looks like some kind of bastard space succulent as her face strays between it’s normal heavily olive complexion, the bright red trying to take over and her Mirialan Green showing up too.

She also curses Solus’ existence because, “You told me it’s slang for ‘small dick’ but not that it’s a name?”

(Kal knows what’s going on and just tells her to ahead and laugh. He’s resigned to this fact.)

- Bastard Space Succulents may turn into a joke with them now that I think about it. He gifts her succulents real or printed on things or just pictures.

- From there it turns into pretty smooth sailing for everyone. Jazari’s a Jedi, yeah, but she doesn’t really act like a Jedi. Her robes are a loose interpretation of standard robes, stuffy does not describe her behavior at all, and she can talk shop on a lot of things. Mechanics? Computers? Slicing? All the seedy places on Coruscant to get any kind of contraband imaginable? She’s got you covered.

- Her and Mereel just click? They get along like a house on fire. They’re both flirts, far more intelligent than people assume at first glance, and generally good humored about things. Daredevil Lunatics are Jazari’s specialty so what is reckless? Hell, she not only keeps up but can suggest even better ideas.

- The dating thing feels like it should happen early on but absolutely does not happen forever. Mereel’s a Girl of the Week type for a long while and Jazari is Jazari. She splits her time between Work, some random hook ups/friends with benefits, and whatever Thing her, Solus, and Lumi have fell into now.

- Part of the friendship totally involves food. Jazari’s been known to occasionally make treats when she sleeps at the Temple, in her and her master’s apartment. They get brought in to feed everyone at Arca because sharing is caring. If she brings a few extras, some made to look really, extra nice for Mereel who notices? Nor do they notice if she knows he’s scheduled to come through soon she makes his favorites. Who really cares?

- Zey cares because he can see where this is going. But, I also feel like there’s just a moment where he really can’t take that little bit of happiness from her. There’s a war going on that feels like it’s trying to divide the Galaxy in too, they Order’s hemorrhaging Jedi (about four months including a fellow Sentinel he helped train, Leska Drayson, leaving Solus Vetra floating in the unknown), and Clones are dying left and right. The Galaxy is falling into Hell with no end in sight and the Light feels like it’s dying. He warns her not to overtly run afoul of the Code then leaves her be. If this keeps her faith in the light going then let her have it.

- When Mereel starts hanging around her office this also turns into her offering whatever extras she has around. He just so happens to stop by and see her and she just so happens to order extra.

“I think the word to describe this is hetikles? Try it and tell me if I got the word right?”

“Lumi skipped out on meeting up again. It’s Twi’lek spicy but want her share?”

“They sent me too much. Want to share?”

- Eventually they stop acting like spending time together is an accident and they spend their kind of downtime around the Barracks together. Her tiny office couch and comfy visitor chair, as opposed to the uncomfortable one, are his. Unless, she’s sleeping there for the night...again. Because Jazari is married to computers and keeping track of everything that she stays there for days. Really, they should just give her a bunk so she can sleep stretched out.

- If Mereel has science questions for her she either answers them or goes on a giant hunt for the answer for him. Because she enjoys learning new things too and they share a love of wanting to know.

- I imagine this eventually leads to Jazari helping on occasion with finding a cure for the Clones’ rapid aging. Fully making of said cure is 100% Mereel but she’s their to offer assistance. Sometimes it’s being his sounding board for ideas, others as a study partner or Finder of Things, but mostly as a Rubber Ducky. He talks through whatever chains of chemistry and genetics that’s causing trouble to her and she listens.

- He returns the favor for her computer coding and slicing.

- Jazari also goes above and beyond and builds a sort of genetic sequence simulator for him to work with. It took some effort to get the program datapad compatible but she worked really, really hard for this. Same as she starts studying some genetics to be a better Sounding Board and Rubber Ducky.

- The first big thing Jazari leans on Mereel for is when Solus left them. It went beyond leaving the Order and the Republic but she left for Death Watch. No one could ignore those reports coming in of Solus fitting the description of a Death Watch member, how Krownest turned into House Vizsla seemingly overnight, nor the uptick in successful strikes by Death Watch against the Republic.

And no one wanted to let Jazari forget it.

- No matter how angry she is about this reckless, dangerous, stupid looking choice there is still a Solus sized hole in her life and it hurts. Her life feels out of balance without her Introvert acting like an Extrovert bounding around telling stupid stories or gushing over new fighter tech. Lumi is more withdrawn now because those two had a connection meant to span lifetimes. Beyond the anger and the sadness there is real fear. Solus may have finally bitten off more than she can chew on a path Jazari may not be able to follow her down.

A lot of what’s eating at Jazari is something she can’t verbally express to others so she turns to sparring. Mereel falls into this and they’ll go round after round together. Leaning on him was not the plan (her problems aren’t his to bear, she knows Kal’s stance on Death Watch, and she’s not making his difficult life worse) but it still happened. He’s one of the few non-Jedi people who she shares any kind of relationship with who has the security clearance for her rants.

The biggest rant that needs clearance is what Solus did to a large portion of their network on Nar Shaddaa. It was like ten proton bombs had been strapped together and get off with a Hyperdrive. The Nar Shaddaan Rooks (a fake Mandalorian Clan as Jazari had been told numerous times) almost became a smoldering crater with the few alive and mentally sound people left on the wind. That level of chaos spooked a lot of other Republic Friendly Assets in case the Psychotic Butcher came back for Round Two. Not even Jazari would piece together what in the Sevens Hells of Corellia Solus wanted to know.

- Helping out everything is the fact Jazari is almost impossible not to like. So, she gets on well with Kal and Mereel’s brothers. Tries to be observant of their Mandalorian Traditions and remembers little things. Once she even confesses that Kal reminds her of her Dad.

- This turns into Mereel getting to hear bits of what Jazari remembers about Jedha City and her Dad. A man she still quietly idolizes because he was smart and good and kind. He also gets stories about the two kind Guardians who took care of her for a few months after her father died, surly but kind Baze and humorous Chirrut.

- I’m not super aware of the specifies of the Nulls story lines just yet but I imagine Mereel starts to tell Jazari little things. Maybe admits he kind of feels like he’s in Ordo’s shadow.

- For a softer interlude, I could see Jazari taking Mereel to this multi-level garden she visits sometimes. I imagine it’s like a part museum, part botanical garden and animal sanctuary. There’s even an aquatic plant tour where you basically rent respirator masks and go on this self guided, swim tour of plants and caves. It’s one of her favorite places ever on Coruscant.

Her absolute favorite area though is the desert ones, especially the cold ones, because they remind her of Jedha.

- The next big thing Jazari leans on Mereel from is probably the shitstorm Lumi becomes when Depa Billaba almost dies. After Solus left, Mace and Lumi were on the outs more than the in (a relationship that fully crumbles after Ahsoka is cast out of the Order), Depa became Lumi’s cornerstone. Her devotion to her Lineage Sister was one of the few things keeping her in the Order beyond the obligations she felt to Clones.

Lumi withdrew so hard Jazari worried the world had only become black and white to her. She grew more aggressive, almost froze over, and threw herself into mastering Shii-Cho because, “Master Fisto had the greatest success against Grevious.” Unspoken but fully known is that Lumi is prepared to decimate Grevious entirely in Revenge.

- During this spiraling I imagine Jazari at one point makes Mereel promise he’s not going to die during all of this. She had just finished sobbing onto his shoulder (which she feels bad for later) but she’s had to face the very real chance there’s going to be a Lumi shaped hole in her life soon. She’s tired of losing people and he’s forbidden to become one of them.

“I’ll pull rank if I have too,” she murmurs into the nape of his neck while clinging to him and still trembling, “But, neither one of us give a damn about this. This is as friends. You’re too important to me. I can’t lose you too.”

It speaks volumes about how she feels because he’s on the same level as Solus and Lumi in her mind. That’s a precious, almost scared place to be.

- When something looks Off in the Coruscant Guard, Jazari trusts Mereel enough to mention it to him. There’s a new guard among Palpatine’s personal bodyguard who was part of the Umbara Fiasco. She doesn’t trust anyone’s intentions at this point.

“I read the files,” she tells him. Neither talk about the way she broke into them. “He was prepared to fire on his own brothers and killed a Jedi. Even in self-defense, I know how sly the wording in the military code is. He shouldn’t be alive.”

- What this eventually turns into is Jazari showing a complete faith in Mereel and admitting both her and Lumi had been in contact with Solus on the sly (both before Pre’s death and afterward). Solus is fully outside of this entire, rotten to it’s very core system. As she words it, “We have restrictions to what actions we can take. She does not. Even after everything, I trust her to investigate.”

- Also admitted would be the hint of jealousy she feels toward Solus being happy? Not that she’s begrudging one of her best friend’s her happiness but the fact Jazari wants to feel that level of peace. Bitterly, Jazari points out Solus looks happier among terrorists (or former terrorists after Death Watch splits) than she ever looked in the 11 years among the Order and the Republic.

- Another soft interlude moment before Order 66 is Jazari falling asleep with Mereel on her tiny office couch. It was not built to comfortably hold one person let along two with the shorter one being 5’ 10”. When they wake up, it’s wrapped entirely around each other, legs tangled together with Jazari on top of Mereel. Her chin is digging into his shoulder while her hair is tickling his nose. One of his arms is around her waist while she has one twisted in the way only a Mirialan could achieve without dislocation. They half under the quilt she came to own because someone got tired of seeing her sleep burrowed into her own robes.

Jazari tells him they should just run away together. That way they can have a million more mornings like this and in more comfortable places. They could wake up to the early morning sunlight creeping over the hills and through the window causing the curtains to glow. Have caf outside while sitting on a swing. He has to make it though because he’s picky. Wants everything made in an infuriatingly difficult way with the only the best, hand roasted beans that cost way too much.

- If they’ve never kissed until this point (which I’ve not worked out when that happens) it would 100% happen in this moment. She basically told him she wants a normal forever with him.

- Order 66 happens soon after. Jazari does not make it off Coruscant with the others. The assortment of children, teens, and adults fleeing with her got cut off in the lower levels of the Temple. Instead, they spend nearly a month collecting others, hiding out, and waging their own warfare against the encroaching Darkness with Erkan. Jazari works to get messages out and doesn’t tell them she was hurt nor how the wound isn’t healing like it needs too.

- Lumi and Mereel get a crash course in getting along when they meet up. It absolutely was not the intention for Lumi and the small group she had to crash into the Skiratas attempting to escape. But, it happened. She saved Etain when her life was almost cut short. Between that and her skills at flight it she was useful. Both of them know that Lumi and Jazari splitting from each other to better their chances of escape was the Right Choice. It doesn’t feel like the Right Call though.

- The month it takes for things to fall into place is Tense. I imagine Mereel wants to save Jazari Right Then and Lumi wants to back him with that plan. Depa’s dead and so is Caleb. Even Mace is gone and no matter how little they saw eye to eye, she still loved him. It would be so easy to give into the grief, burst in blasters blazing, and make Coruscant and Palpatine and the Galaxy feel her pain. But, she forces herself to behave.

- The surprising plan comes when Harti Wren gets in contact with Kal and the others on behalf of Solus. Jazari got a message out to her and Solus has a plan. Her riduur’s family told them how the Dark Saber was stolen from the Temple during the Fall of the Old Republic. That’s going to be their way out. It’s a really tense meeting in Harti’s Keldabe apartment; tempers rise, words get shouted, everyone is on some kind of dividing line. More so when Solus’ plan only includes herself, Lumi, and still on Mandalore, Ahsoka Tano for the mission.

Unknown to them at the time Jai Vetra was planning the evacuation of the Republic Kamino Base for the same day.

(As standoffish as Solus acts, I do believe she deeply sympathizes with Mereel and the others. Pre fought Maul and died without her being there. She knows how much it hurts to be sidelined - in her case because she had given birth only a few months prior – and have the person you love die in the process. But, she also knows that too much emotion on a mission turns it into an unpredictable shitshow. Hell, if she had better options she sure as fuck wouldn’t be heading into this clusterfuck herself because she’s too emotionally tied to the mission as well.)

- Eventually enough compromises go down for it to happen even if Jazari remembers very little of evacuation. She was feverish, weak, and it seemed to be losing a fight to an infection in her arm. She’s partially aware Erkan may have died on the way out but otherwise feverish. Solus takes the other Jedi to Clan Vetra’s stronghold (as agreed to keep Clan Skirata Safe) but Jazari is sent with them.

- Mij Gilamar ends up being able to save Jazari but it costs almost all of her left arm. The tissues too necrotic in too many places, her body doesn’t have the strength to keep up the fight to save it, and frankly, the Force may be the only reason she survived that long at all. Medicine sure as fuck doesn’t have the answer.

- Mereel’s by her side the entire time and is right outside her bacta tank when she wakes up. Everything’s super blurry in her eyes, Jazari’s almost afraid it’s a dream again because she can see Mereel, but she still smiles at him. Soon as she’s out, still coated into bacta and feeling slimey, smelling like she rolled in pineapples, they are hugging. Jazari kisses him so many times and full on cries.

- Getting used to the mechno arm took some time. Yes, it moves and feels and responds like her flesh arm but it’s not the same. She bonds with Corr over their arms and picks up his habit of sharpening knives on the metal finger tips.

- When she’s doing better, Jazari does get her “Let’s run away together” fantasy of waking up on a perfect morning. They have caf, watch the sun rise, and cuddle on a porch swing. Then there’s a tooka wrapping around her ankles, Kad starts giggling while Etain groans from the kitchen, Besany is choking back laughter, and no one’s entirely sure what’s that noise was from Parja’s workshop but it sounded like something backfiring or maybe a small explosion? It’s not what she first imagined but it is so, so, so much better.

#caff writes #jazari naaji #mereel skirata #mereel x jazari #jareel?#mezari #fuck if i know what their ship name is #s: bastard space succulents #well the name blend one #look i had way too much fun and i fucking love how this turned out #they're not in a perfect place but they're happy

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