#thisforgottenlore

Two hours. It’s been over two hours since they started this chase, deep in the south neighborhoods. Mad cackle and overturned trash cans the only trial leading away from what was supposed to be a gun fight. (Even the police weren’t sure how to break up a scene quite like that one; nor could much be heard over the moaning...) Pursuit wasn’t his usual MO. But the report shoved into his hand had at least given him warning of what he should expect. A rarity for him, but all the more reason he’d grit his teeth and worn his running shoes.

Whoever...whatever this was, was fast. Quicker than thought. Eyes there then gone. A flash of teeth and a laugh that chilled his spine. Shadow swift and difficult to track, save for the odor lingering and the feeling that crept along his skin, leaving his hair standing on end.

And, of course, the pick up lines.

They were, perhaps, the most baffling of all. Flung out from roof tops, corners, windows, and shadows. Each worse than the last and given with a glee that bordered the line of taunt and tryst. Confounding and, if he were honest, the most unnerving part of all this.

What the FBI wanted with it/them he didn’t know. Nor did he ask. Questions, he’d begun to find, often led to answers that disappointed. And perhaps it was a selfish act, to not ask. Perhaps, it was the only way to survive. They’d sent him in, after all, with what knowledge they had. And that, by itself, was an act that indicated they didn’t expect him to succeed.

Perhaps, once, there would have been a fire to prove them wrong.

But marks never counted FOR him, only against. A litany of mistakes that stretched so far it was a wonder he could see the sun rise above the horizon at all. A lifetime would’t be enough to atone. What else could he do, though, besides try? And as his feet pounded the pavement all he could hope for was enough of a try that he didn’t end up dead or worse...

A sharp corner has him skidding. Rubber practically burning off his heels as he caught himself on a corner of brick. Eyes scanning and wondering if, perhaps, the thing had given him the slip. Would have left it there if a garbage can hadn’t come sailing out of the alley just then.

He was beginning to have a nasty suspicion that this...thing wanted this. Was enjoying the chase. The sounds bouncing off alleys sounding far too close to laughter. A near hysterical giggle, of sorts, or something so gleeful it couldn’t help but reflect painfully off the concrete walls. Tantalizingly close. And yet, and yet...

Ears practically pricked forward. What was said he didn’t understand, but the tone he knew well. Taunting. Teasing.

Fucker.

Something darts away once more, half up the wall, over a roof, and with a jump that can’t be human. Into the open window of an abandoned warehouse. His steps slow even as his gun comes out. Thumb quick to find the safety; hovering. Exit points and options mapped even as he groaned internally at the cliches present. 

A trap, did he sense, and he hesitated. But his skin crawled, as if in warning, and with a deep breath he moved forward. Stepping lightly over chains and concrete until he ducked in to the dark building.

Movement caught his eye immediately and he fired. One-two-three! But nothing fell and he frowned. Gun lowering. What the fuck? There was no way his aim had been that off. No absolute fucking way.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up then, suddenly. And his stomach felt as if the room dropped then. Adrenaline pulsing through him, bringing a wave of white hot rage that even he couldn’t quite explain. Anger struggling through his built defenses and straining within him so hard he staggered.

Deep in his stomach, something else entirely coiled up as well. A hiss through him that certainly didn’t help at all. Shiver following over his skin as he struggled with the way his skin suddenly flushed.

It was like hitting a brick wall, he realized vaguely. Two, in fact. And it’s a miracle he manages to stay on his feet. Something heavy THUDS to the ground not too far away. And he fires again. Two clean shots that he can hear the casings for bounce off the floor.

He needs to keep his cool. He’s kept his cool for the last three years. So why the hell does he feel like he’s 13 again and fighting foster father #4?

Fingers wrap around his gun and the shot only misses because he makes himself jerk his aim. Bullet sailing past a face...a grinning, grinning face that holds amusement that he KNOWS he’s the butt of. It makes his blood boil. All the more so because the thing?

A man.

    THE CREATURE CRASHES AGAINST A TOWER,   its claws seeking purchase upon the crumbling structure.      The red dragon flees.       Victorious, and baleful, the beast that remains unleashes a roar so violent that it feels for a moment it may split the earth beneath it.

Its body trembles as it does.     After it is done, it breathes.  Takes a moment.   Its jagged huffs loud and rattling.      Then, it swings its mighty head towards a figure standing closeby .. and splits its lips apart in a bloody grin.    Hauls its body down to the ground, clawing the talons atop its wings into the dirt to steady itself, hefty tail cleaving a path through the tower as it does. 

  ❝  Bull.  ❞       It says, in a voice, familiar.   Aurelios voice.    From the dragon, yet everywhere, yet nowhere, all at once. An odd, booming sensation.   Aurelio shakes out his scales, red spraying from them as he does.  Beneath the thick armour of his skin, many injuries can be seen.      Fresh and weeping.     Gored grooves where claws have dragged, and teeth have punctured and torn.   His own maw, and his own talons, are also stained red.      

@thisforgottenlore​ said: "I... love you. I just wanted to tell you that." ( for faye :3c) -- { this is legit from your old Kratos blog. I have so many old asks from you, I’m so sorry for being such a disappointment but I still wanna answer them all ;-; }

meme: Dragon Age sentence starters ;; status; accepting

♔—- Her time with Kratos had been... interesting, to say the very least. They started off on a bit of a rocky stretch, as Kratos wandered into Laufey’s camp in a manner that suggested he was a threat and very much aware of the fact. It hadn’t taken her long to plant him firmly in the ground and show him why she wasn’t someone worth messing with, lest he wanted to lose what remained of his then-broken body.

Faye, however, was nothing short of a kind creature, a nurturer at heart, and while she had absolutely no hesitation in defending herself, her people, and her weapon, she just as quickly apologized, lowered herself down onto her knees, and offered Kratos her assistance.

At first, he’d seemed... unwilling to accept. She was a stranger, one that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could hold her own against him, and if she wished it, she would be nothing more than a threat to him, his well being, and any goals he may wish to accomplish. After all, he’d been searching for her axe, and she made it very clear that she had no intention of letting him have it. 

She had, however, taken care of him. It became obvious quickly that the reason he desired her weapon so dearly was no because of the power it held, but his belief that its magic could be used to heal a wound that would not heal. It proved simple work for her to patch him up, though his recovery stretched on for many days. She’d been forced to make a more permanent camp for them, one with a makeshift shelter that protected them--more important, Kratos--from the elements and proper wards and defenses set in place so the wanderer could heal in peace rather than worry over what lurked in the woods.

Nursing him back to health and protecting him as she did so was something she’d been more than willing to do, especially once he stopped fighting her on it. Once he recovered, he could be on his way, and they would never have to see one another again. His health improved, but he refused to leave her side, insisting instead that he owed her a debt and he would not leave until that debt was paid off. Faye didn’t see it that way. She saw her kindness as just that--kindness. Kratos saw it as a service that he could never repay because she saved him.

Until the day came that he did repay her, defending her from a freak accident that otherwise might have ended in the loss of her life. His debt repaid, he no longer had reason to tie himself to her, and yet... he stayed. At least, when Faye voiced that he didn’t have to go, that if he wished to stay with her, she would enjoy his continued companionship. From there, their relationship seemed to grow more intimate.

While Kratos always seemed to enjoy her stories and took solace in her voice filling the trees, they’d never tipped too far over the edge. She’d admit to a certain attraction... the type that had her yearning, though she hadn’t readily admitted it. She felt that he may very well feel the same, but his emotional range seemed more or less nonexistent. Pushing it might have driven him away or made their travels unnecessarily tense, but from the moment that Kratos decided to stay with her without being bound by a debt he owed? 

Considering very little time actually passed between Kratos agreeing to stay and their naked body moving together in harmony, illuminated only by their campfire and the moonlight? It was safe enough to say that their relationship took a very violent shove into something more serious, or at the very least, something more intimate. Faye wasn’t sure Kratos quite knew how to love, though. He’d been deeply wounded by something--or many somethings--in his past that made it difficult to break through the hardened shell he built around himself to protect his core.

Over time, though, despite there never being verbal confirmation, Laufey knew her feelings for Kratos were very real and oh so very intense. Love, she dared to think, but never had the nerve to utter such a thing aloud. More for fear of scaring him off than anything, she decided to firmly keep such a confession to herself. She knew, sooner or later, she would have to admit it. If Kratos was the man she’d seen in her visions, the future father of her child... He would have to know eventually, but waiting for the right time to drop such a thing seemed with how delicate pieces of their relationship seemed. Both so strong and so fiercely determined to make it in this world, one way or another, it seemed almost laughable that parts of their connection still seemed so fragile.

Never, though, did she truly expect Kratos to be the one to say it first, though.

She sat next to their fire late that night. Late enough that they probably should have both been asleep by then, but they’d gotten a late start to dinner due to more... pressing activities that took priority once they made camp and settled in for the night. They did work up quite an appetite, though, so Faye set out to roast a few sizeable pieces of the deer they took down during their hunting adventure.

Wrapped in little more than a blanket, she sat on a log she’d conjured for convenience and comfort, turning the roasting meat over the fire to ensure an even cook on all sides. Kratos finished setting up the last of their perimeter before settling in beside her. He’d grown rather confident in sharing close spaces with her, so he wasted little time in wrapping two strong arms around her midsection as she prepared their late supper. 

“I... love you. I just wanted to tell you that.”

Both of her hands paused and her emerald eyes rounded in surprise as the words sank in. Kratos wasn’t much for conversation. He loved listening to her talk and he hung onto every word she said, but he wasn’t always the best when it came to speaking his mind or elaborating on his feelings. She never minded. He spoke enough to satisfy her and if he had something he wished to say, something he felt important, he would say it, but emotions were a difficult enough thing for him to express in action, so to openly confess to them? If she hadn’t already been sitting, she might have fallen over, and even now, with Kratos’ arms around her, she felt like she might still slip off the log she perched herself on.

As shocking as the statement was, though, she knew it must have been weighing on his mind and heart for quite some time, and it was important enough that he felt she needed to know.

“I--” she murmured, stuttering over what she wanted to say in an endearing but almost uncharacteristic fashion. Gods, she’d never imagined what love could truly feel like. She always worried after seeing those visions that the person she met who would eventually have a child with her would never feel organic, that their love wouldn’t be real, or worse, wouldn’t exist at all. What did she know about being in love with someone? She never had been, before now. Infatuation, sure, but love?

Turning enough to face him, she left the deer roasting without proper supervision. If it burned, it burned, plain and simple. “I know,” she finally murmured. “I’ve known for quite some time and I’ve known even longer how I feel about you in turn. I--” Even though it was already out in the open, she found it difficult to say it. Why? It should have been the easiest thing in the world.

@thisforgottenlore​ [Illya] asked:  "Do you think to bat your pretty eyes at me. And I will fall over you to please like all your little american hussies? Think again."

Steve’s first reaction was surprise. It wasn’t often that Illya spoke in full sentences to him, honestly, and even then they were usually clipped and tightly controlled, not a lot of excess emotion. Besides the very obvious don’t talk to me signals he radiated anyhow. Illya in general wasn’t very personable and mostly kept to himself, which for the most part suited Steve just fine. The two blonds... had not gotten along in the short time they’d worked together. But Steve was used to working with those he didn’t quite click with, knew how to be professional when the time called for it. As long as they could complete missions and no one killed anyone else, that was fine with the captain. 

All of that changed when Illya was with Bucky, of course. Then all bets were off and the Russian man practically became a amicable chatter box. The two would sit close and chat in Russian, faces softer than they got with respect to anyone else- not that Steve watched them at it all that long. He usually had plenty of other things to do, in other parts of the Compound. 

This explosive statement, however, hurled at him complete with a finger pointed in his direction, was the most Illya had said directly to Steve in days. All because Steve had instructed him to finish the reports by that night, and reminding Illya of the mandatory briefing the next day. And if Steve’s tone had been a little cool and dismissive, well, it was what he’d come to expect from Illya in return. Not this... sarcastic, argumentative snap. It almost brought a smirk to his face, but Steve smothered it.

     “Well, interesting to know that you think my         eyes are pretty,” he couldn’t resist saying.

From the eye twitch that got him, it was obvious that hadn’t been the point Illya had been trying to make. Steve so rarely was able to be that caustic with people without true consequences, and he enjoyed it more than he should. Stepping closer, Steve narrowed his eyes, noting distantly his annoyance at the barest height difference Illya had on him. 

     “I don’t expect you to fall over me, as you say. But I’m in charge        around here, of this team, and I do expect you to at least do what           you’re supposed to as a part of the team,” Steve said firmly.

Not truly wanting to get into a fist-fight with the other man in the middle of the common area, Steve simply tilted his head in the universal got it? gesture before stepping back again. On his way out he couldn’t help the flash of annoyance, turning his head to leave a parting remark. 

@thisforgottenlore​ asked :  Hulks just gonna give a VERY SOFT SMOOCH TO JAMES CAUSE WE LOVE A BABY

          While an incredibly rare event, it’s by no means unheard of for James to be exhausted after helping on a mission. Usually it only happened because he was assisting after an already long bout of insomnia, but he refused to back down from his word and always made sure to keep alert until the way home was secure.

    The unusual part here was probably down to James going straight to Hulk afterward, the pair meeting halfway from where they’d been positioned and calling dibs on the larger of the rides available to take home. And the second Hulk had sat down James had curled up beside him, eyes already closing because he knows it’s safe to.

                                         He doesn’t expect to actually fall asleep.

  Next moment he’s aware of is largely because of unexpected motion, though it takes only a couple seconds to realise Hulk has him cradled close, no doubt to carry him inside with the intention of not waking the soldier, and James offers no protest to the attention. An easy smile appears once noticed he’s awake, but there’s no denying the shy duck when a gentle kiss is pressed to his forehead.

He remembers angels. Paper faces peeking from lit windows all red, green, and yellow; glimpses caught through the rage of snow and sleet against thin windows. Cold seeping with a bite through the glass but his nose pressed up against it anyway. Big, tall ones in the packed church, looming over the masses as carols he didn’t know the tune for drifted up. And somber ones atop of trees, eyes painted and stone like, as if the world were insignifcant in comparison to their thoughts. It’s no wonder Mary ran. They terrified him too in their poised, eternal perfection.

So much talk of it all never mentioned rumpled tan trench coats, disheveled ties, and five o’clock shadows that seemed near permanent most days Cas came by. He preferred the reality, he found. Smelling not of heaven - unless heaven were bad cologne - but wind and sweat and sometimes pie. Eyes furrowed in confusion for matters of heaven and earth were, apparently, incomparable in most ways.

Admittedly, he perhaps didn’t help with that.

But his focus had never been the big things, had it? The world peaces of the world he left to others (not that they had the means to find it, just the egos to think they could). Small things instead making up the foundation ‘why earth was worth it’. A doctrine of late night take out and dumb shit television and dogs. (If the occasional overthrowing of a corrupt local official happened? Well, a little treat now and then never hurt anyone.)

And perhaps there were more important things than Super Smash Brothers to introduce Castiel to. But honestly, the world does enough to put those small scars on knuckles and creases in eyes. Everyone needs stakes that are, once in awhile, not earth shattering.

The question is met with eyes glued to the screen, thumb hot from smashing and Samus screaming across the screen. “Because deep down we’ve all wondered who would really win in a fight: Cap or Iron Man. This? It’s the best of both worlds; bragging rights and pummelling the Ice Climbers because really, really, out of everyone that could go in here we choose them???”

There’s no lack of satisfaction as aforementioned heroes go flying off the screen. Smug smile as he leans back, shifting automatically at the feel of feathers against his back. “And look, the day you remember that Y is jump and not attack, Commander Hellstorm, THEN we can talk about who gets to be first player.”

There’s the twinkle of a jingle - he’s still not used to it, if he’s honest - that seems to sniff. Clear offense taken even if Cas only seems to frown a little.

“Hey, don’t you go on like that! Everyone’s gotta start somewhere! You take me in against some demons then I’ll let ya be leadin’ the charge but you’re on my turf now, Gracie, and this is boot camp 101 so jump jump oh my god it’s Y-”

The screen flashes and is it really a victory if one of your party members has yet to manage to leave the ground for more than a minute? He’s taking it anyway. Standing to give a fist pump and a spin, victory crow most definitely not on the classy side. Controller twisting as he flops back down heavily on Cas’ other side. Legs tangling over the angel’s lap even as he nudges the other.

                                                                            𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈.

     That was the first thought John had when he woke up to that sense of pervasive madness. For a brief moment panic rose like bile in his throat. He dreaded opening his eyes lest he find himself in some ramshackle Newcastle hotel’s room. Yet he was in his London flat’s bedroom. Nothing changed, aside from the pandemonium on the other side of the walls. He didn’t need to look outside to know what he’d see. Violence and sex in the street, perfectly normal, “upstanding citizens” acting on their basest instincts. While he was tempted to go back to bed, pretend it wasn’t happening, John knew he couldn’t. Something this big, it wasn’t something that would just blow over. So he had a fag, made some coffee, took a shower, and while he drank that coffee, he began to consider what might be behind all this. 

     Certainly Norfulthing wasn’t the only terror elemental to ever exist. He only had a name because Astra gave him one. John peeked out the window as he dressed, drawn by the sound of shouting like there was a riot on his very doorstep. He wasn’t off by much. Just a raucous group of men brawling as though they were opposing football hooligans on game day. There was a disturbing furiosity to those roiling bodies. 

     Hitting the streets, he was the stoic man in the midst of a storm. The more he walked among the chaos, the more he was reminded of Nergal’s influence. More relevantly, those brief few days those mad doctors were injecting people with his once demon laced blood. It had nothing to do with him this time. There were no sharp pains in his temple nor any desperate desire for strangers to be near him. Still -- They were all possibilities: Terror elementals, infernal influence, tainted blood. However there was no way to stop it without the key and that would come in the form of another calm in this tempest of chaos. 

     It didn’t take long and it appeared in the shape of a man. A lone arsehole looking in turn both amused and uninspired. This was nothing new nor unexpected for him. John could relate.