#i would kill and die and scratch and bite and maim for him i think

[lorephobic]

im no better than a dog because even though i know this is makeup, seeing this photo gives me an adrenaline rush accompanied only by the animalistic instinct that makes me want to tear somebody limb from limb for doing this to her

[solaneceae]

my battery is low, and it's getting dark.

a codebreakers fanfic about étoiles losing his sight. read on Ao3

It starts off with light blurriness — the kind you get when you forget to remove your contacts before bed, dryness and irritation welcoming you back to the waking world. Étoiles doesn’t wear contacts, although he does don a pair of sturdy, cheap rectangular glasses on occasion, whenever reports have to be read or written in thin leather-bound books for the Résistance’s upper echelon. 

(Upper echelon he’s never caught a whiff off, by the way. Étoiles understands the need for secrecy, for compartmentalization — but damn, it does get lonely here in headquarters, with nothing but his own voice and long-dried ink speaking of codes going rogue and islander alignments to entertain himself with.)

He blinks, once, twice, rubbing at his eyeballs through the skin of his lids. No amelioration. He shrugs it off, readjusts the straps of his slime armor. It’s a shit one, not even the good enchants on it. But he’s been restless lately, antsy. Not quite worried, but something else, something in the negative shape of a beloved, beret-wearing egg. Ants under his greenish skin, a fire only the cold bite of enemy blades and a close brush with Lady Death can fix.

He likes Kristin. She’s funny, with her large brimmed hat and gentle smile and gentler words still. Philza’s a lucky man.

“You are sad,” she would say, in the space-between-spaces he would drift to when downed, just before the ‘doom-doom’ of revival. The crimson bud of her smile would twist into a scowl, as she watched him give her a two-fingered salute. “Is that why I see you so often, starling?”

“I’m not sad,” he would answer without fail — the ache inside his chest wasn’t sadness. Étoiles didn’t do sad. He killed, he destroyed, his body grown in a weapon meant to hurt and maim and be hurt in return. Meant to be wielded by someone worthy. (He thinks of pitch-black feathers and a wheezy laugh, the tingle of wither-decay dancing on his skin, the smell of bone. Claws digging into his bony hips, a litany of trills speaking of ownership-claim, great shadows trapping him in so effectively. His knee guards stained by fresh soil where potatoes are endlessly grown in honor of a great warrior he once crossed blades with. Worship, devotion.)

“I’m not sad,” he mumbles, jumping down the well and into the darkness of the dungeon below. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a shit one, and he could scratch that itch in the back of his mind that demanded blood be spilled, be it his or otherwise. “Maybe I die for real today, let’s goooo.”

He never does. He’s too good at dungeoning, too good at placing blocks and throwing splash potions at his feet, golden apples now a rare last resort because he knows what happens when he eats too many. Aaaah, what a pity, he thinks, as he loses himself in the clash of metal on metal and the grunt of mobs falling at his feet. What a pity, I feel nothing. Bad day for me, bad day.

***

The blurriness stays. Days go by, sluggish and quiet, too quiet on this shit island, and no amount of sleep or healing potions make it any better. His arm stings with static-burn where the black and green binary tar has spread, higher, creeping up his neck. But it does nothing to hinder his movements, doesn’t dull the sharpness of his mind. So he ignores it. “Maybe you should get that checked out or something,” Foolish pokes at it once, as they sit and talk atop the Titan’s head using the blue and green plush chairs the TazerCraft have sneaked in. Pac e Mike, wow wow, sings a little voice in Étoiles’ mind whenever he sees splashes of blue and green, because those two live rent-free in everyone’s builds and brains.

“It’s okay,” he smiles at the shark-totem, easy and casual and Étoiles. “It doesn’t hurt.” It doesn’t. “It’s not changing me.” He is changing, that softness that Pomme had made bloom inside him eroding away with every day she’s gone. It’s harder to stay still, harder to stop and talk to the others, because half of them are depressed and the other half are going insane. But none of that is the code’s doing. “Look, I’ll prove it! 1v1 stick?” he jumps to his feet, throwing a wooden stick at his friend with a fiendish grin. “1v1, right now, let’s go.”

Foolish chuckles, even though his smile doesn’t reach his emerald-carved eyes. (His features are hazy, fuzziness getting worse every time Étoiles wakes. Doesn’t matter.) 

They fight, Étoiles takes it home with six hearts to spare. And he still feels empty.

***

Lilacs. Sunflowers. Cornflowers. Poppies.

Flower biomes were Pomme’s favorites. They’re hard to find, but Étoiles is one patient, stubborn cucumber. “T’aurais adoré ça, légende,” he hums, picking another poppy by the stem and stuffing it into his inventory, the frozen subspace keeping it suspended in time and fresh. He can almost hear the pitter-patter of her little cheeto legs in the grass, the rustle of the blades against her shell. The bomp of a red sign being placed, asking for more red, more blue, more of every color to make her siblings flower crowns and dye her trusty scythe like a rainbow.

He can barely make out their shape anymore, only differentiating roses from poppies by tracing their petals with gold-scarred fingers. He sees a blue blur somewhere at his right, oh, cornflower probably. Her secret code.

He lets out a deep, guttural groan and lets his body fall backwards, hitting the plush grass with a thump. A few butterflies flutter out of the way, one of them settling back on the bridge of the warrior’s nose. He glares at it, faded golden stars comically crossed. He only sees the yellow of its wings, stark against sky blue. “Hey, hey. Tu vas rien trouver ici, tu sais. J’ai pas fleuri depuis des plombes.”

The critter’s wings flap once, unbothered. Étoiles blows on it to make it go away, fails. (He’s a failure, at everything. Fails to keep his kid safe, fails to win a 1v1 against an insect.) Soon enough, there is enough butterflies on him to pin him to the ground under the would-be guilt of disturbing them. Étoiles whines, childish and unserious. “Vas-y, j’peux plus bouger. Pas juste. Même la nature me déteste, c’est bon.”

He’s missed this. The warmth of a sunbeam, the scent of fertile soil, the brush of grass blades, the call of the earth below pulling at him. Part of him wants to sink into it, curl up in Her embrace like a child would in their mother’s womb, forget about the world and the Federation and the Codes and all this shit. Maybe he could fall asleep right here. Let his body soak up the sun, let himself bloom again. Let that softness grow out of his skin for all to see, like he used to. Or, he thinks he used to. The memories of Before are static-fuzz between his ears, unreachable unless he looks at them at the corner of his eye, so to speak.

(The freezing cold, then heat as air exploded around him, an impact. Physicality, sudden and unexpected, the song of the stars loud in his ears as he opened his eyes for the first time in front of a bewildered human in a frayed straw hat. He was happy, wasn’t it? He thinks he used to be happy. What happened?)

But Étoiles is a warrior, a weapon, and weapons dull and rust and grow weak if left to rest. So he takes a deep breath, pushes himself up. “Désolé,” he hums to the butterflies as they scatter away. They are but bright, colorful blobs in his dulling eyes. “Désolé,” he says as he warps back home to forge yet another axe. 

His inventory is full of flowers that he’ll forget about, wrapping him in a constant mix of herbal scents that has Cellbit recoiling next time they cross paths. Étoiles doesn’t notice it, the Brazilian’s bothered expression lost on his rapidly-decaying vision.

***

By the time the Code challenges him to what Étoiles knows will be their last duel for the foreseeable future, his sight is all but gone, everyone and their dog has taken notice, and he has brushed off their concern. “I don’t need to see to click good,” he boasts, slamming down deepslate to launch himself fast and run circles around a disgruntled Pac. “See, see! I’m strafing, I’m doing it, playing the game.” Pac makes a strange sound, one he struggles to guess the emotion behind without body language. “It’s okay, Pac. It’s easy. There’s no problem, at all.”

Phil isn’t here yet, can’t see any names on his comlink but Tubbo told him he wasn’t. Shame, shame he won’t be there to see him die, Étoiles thinks as the rain soaks through his shirt, the boom of lightning bothering him more than he lets show. His ears are ringing as he jumps, ducks, tugs at the string of his bow and sends an arrow flying where he knows the Code is, he can feel it, the only spot that doesn’t smell like anything but void. But there’s no feedback, no satisfying sound of health being chipped at, nothing.

This Code is too strong, his sword winging an off-tune melody as it goes through the binary without ripping or tearing. No damage. Ah, he thinks, so they have finally stopped playing. I see now.

The back of his chestplate shatters into a blast of broken enchant magic and diamond shards, some of them lodging themselves into his flesh. Something cold sinks between his ribs, brushing against his spine in a white-hot flash of pain that irradiates through his whole body, and oh, yeah, it’s over. It’s joever, as Tubbo would say. “GGs,” he gasps through a mouthful of dark green blood. He coughs it up, lets it splash down his neck and paint his shirt. Tubbo’s screaming somewhere, too far away for Étoiles to discern the words. “You- eugh, you slash-kill’ed me, good job you cheater. Easy win.”

The entity growls, a hum-buzz that makes his brain (or whatever he has for brains, maybe lettuce?) rattle inside his skull. The blade slides out, cutting away at him further on its way out, and his body falls into a puddle of rainwater and mud with a wet thud. It hurts, blackered arm buzzing, pain creeping up his neck and the right side of his face, extinguishing the last of his remaining sight. 

He faintly realises that almost nobody knows about his respaw mechanic. Ah, et merde. He hopes they’ll have the presence of mind to ask Antoine, when they realise he wouldn’t just re-pop into existence seconds after his death… or when they noticed his body starting to wilt and decay, if they stuck around for long enough.

(Tallulah knows, he remembers. He told her. But had she told Philza, before she disappeared along with all the other eggs?)

Through his fading senses, his comm buzzes with what he knows is his first death message in a really long time. He can make out the sound of rapid footsteps, clickety hooves and heavy, leather work boots. Tubbo and Pierre. He closes his eyes, not that he needs to anymore for darkness to cradle him. He lets go.

He doesn’t see Kristin this time, only hears a faint sigh and a gentle breath sending him off into the void. He hopes they find his seed soon. He doesn’t wanna stay missing for too long, after all.

***

His personal death-void is not so bad of a place. Boring, obviously, but there’s a familiarity to it, to the way the darkness shrouds him like a heavy blanket, pushing against him from all sides. Not oppressive but comforting. Cradling, instead of crushing.

It reminds him of the dirt patch he was born in — he had been asleep and new, just ripe for the picking, dirt-stained hands pulling at his stem with the roughness of a long-repeated gesture. He had screamed, he thinks, not in pain, but to show the world he was here and alive, hello, hello sun, hello dirt, hello person! Had given poor old Théo a heart attack too.

Ah. He could remember, now. Théo, his leathered face and kind eyes with crow feet, wary at first before this walking, talking little legume with the night sky in his eyes, flower-covered vine-tail like some sort of umbilical cord trailing behind him as he follows the old farmer around, asking him endless questions in barely-legible French. But… yes, he’d been kind to him, Étoiles thinks. The first face his face saw. Makes sense it would be one of the first things that came back to him. Maybe remembering was easier in the void? Maybe he should die more often.

…Nah. Dying wasn’t his style. And having to regrow a whole new body over a week was annoying. He had things to do in the island! Like talking with people (eurgh), and giving them things (yes) and fighting with Philza (yes! yes! yes!) and have fun!

So he waits, oblivion pulling at him like gravity. The void is a quiet place, sometimes, but more often it’s not, with the song of supernovas and wailing stars far away keeping him aware, listening. He hums along to it with no mouth or vocal chords (not yet, still growing, still so small, unripe), and sometimes he swears he can hear another voice singing with him. Off-key, awful really, almost crow-like, but it sounds like someone he cares about, so he’s happy to listen to its drone.

Other times, he sleeps. And he dreams of tiny hands and quiet chirps and clicks, of the yesyes uncle Phil taught her, of the chrr-chrr-peep that means him, when she calls Étoiles’ name in her own little language. And he curls around the memory, softness, and lets it carry him up into the stars glittering behind still-forming eyelids.

***

“Étoiles.”

He hums — warmth, the slow beating heart of the earth. The choir of stars constantly burning far, far away. He could listen to it forever, because he had been listening to it since the birth of the first star, he knew.

“Mate. You with me? C’mon, s’been a week already. Come up here, you can do it.”

The voice scratches pleasantly at the back of his brain. But the earth is so warm, so comfy, a cocoon of peace and respite he’s not sure he wants to leave. He sighs with no lungs to breathe, no need for them, when all he could ever need is right there — perfect temp, perfect moisture, glucose, carbon dioxide, rich nutrients all around. Who needs gapples, really. Or thoughts. Or responsibilities. This is the best.

“...Mh. Alright then.”

The voice grates on his ears, ears that try to flick but are stopped by the soil packed around them. He groans in drowsy irritation, curls in on himself in an attempt to shield himself from it and from the world. It seems to work, the noises fading into nothing, and Étoiles feels his thoughts scatter as a faint scratching sound seeps through the earth and into his mind like white noise. Sleep pulls at him again, and he lets it.

He’s startled back into wakefulness by something pulling harshly, somewhere that feels a bit away but is still part of him. His eyes fly open in pained surprise because ow, ow, that’s my— “Come here, you lazy fuck!” That voice — high-pitched, that heavy accent he’s come to love, amusement and exasperation combined, Phil, his Phil, his GOAT, his brother in arms, his Death-touched angel.

Étoiles blinks, unseeing. Étoiles remembers. And with awareness comes something else, something that shimmers and calls his name in gentle whisper-echoes, as he feels himself being pulled up, and up, dirt parting to let him ascend back to the surface. Aah. Goodbye mama. Hello problems. “Get harvested, idiot!” Philza Minecraft grunts with effort somewhere above him, and the tug gets stronger, prompting a pained ow out of him as the ground crackles and breaks above him, and he feels air-sun-outside on his back as he’s forcefully pulled from the ground like the fresh crop he is. He flails a little bit, kicking off dirt and soil (it’s everywhere, in his hair and between his toes and a little in his mouth and nose, bleh!), then rolls onto his back with a groan, frowning up at the sky he knows is there, blue and clear, because it doesn’t smell like rain and the surface soil is dry and warm.

He’s back. And he sees nothing at all. Welp, better close his eyes again then. He feels a shadow fall on him, feels a sandaled foot nudge his side. “Helloooooo. Hello Phil,” he greets the other leaning hard on the deadpan because he knows it makes his friend laugh when he does that. It lands. “What, that’s it?” the elytrian caws, kneeling beside him and poking at his face, talons dulled to a gentle roundness. Étoiles wishes he didn’t trim them, but Phil is too nice, too careful, too eager to smooth himself down for others, for the eggs. Docile.

Étoiles despises it, but he keeps quiet because he knows Phil doesn’t like to talk about those things. “You get yourself killed by a fucking Code of all things,” Phil keeps going, “make everyone freak the fuck out because you won’t respawn like a normal fucking person, and that’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“Antoine knows. And I’m here now, so it’s okay.”

“Antoine barely logs on, you absolute dumbass. You’re lucky Lullah told me about the seed thing, because you would’ve been fucked six ways to Sunday.”

He opens his eyes, if only to shoot Phil a halfhearted glare. And then immediately forgets about it, blinks owlishly. Sits up to get closer to the other man. “Phil. Why are you stars?”

“What.”

He sees stars. (And not in the sex way, because he doesn't do that.) It’s not night, but there are stars in his vision, where pitch blackness used to be, and the constellation is Phil-shaped.

Philza is a cosmic cluster, a nebula shining bright in the darkness that has become his world. He can see nothing beyond him, not the plants surrounding him, not the long vine attached to his lower back Phil used to pull him out. He can tell it’s there, though, lightly thumping at the ground in agitation. “You, are stars. That’s how I see you now.”

“Wait. Can you, like, see again?” Phil asks, uncharacteristically soft. “I know it was getting… bad. And your eyes are like, all greyed out. Did the code stuff on your arm do that?” Étoiles sees a cluster of stars approaching his face — hand — and feels fingers brushing just under his right eye. He’s a bit startled by the contact, the area usually covered by his trust bandana (he needs it back, needs his stuff back, hopefully someone held onto it for him). Phil draws away, an apology ready from the way his constellation-body shifts, but Étoiles doesn’t let him. “I can’t,” he answers, tilting his head, ear flicking in focus — the stars that make up Phil sharpen, and he can almost make out the shape of the wings bound behind his back. “But I can See. I think.” He also wouldn’t mind Phil’s hand on his face again. It feels nice. Scratches at something long-buried, and denied.

Philza makes a confused sound. “Okay, I heard that capital S there. What’s that mean? Are you pulling a Daredevil?”

Étoiles grins, sharp-toothed and playful. “Oh, oh! He thinks I’m a superhero? He thinks I’m cool, Felipe Minecraft? Big win for me.” Phil rolls his eyes, which Étoiles can tell because the crow always makes that low warble when he does. “But no, it’s not like that. I still need my eyes to see like this, and I don’t hear or smell better than before.” Although his status as a hybrid means his baseline is still higher than the average person’s, but that’s irrelevant. “FF.”

“So no cool blindfold for you, ey?”

“No cool blindfold. I will just do a Pomme and drown myself later, to make up for how uncool I am.” (He cannot drown. No lungs. But he can pretend.)

He squints. There’s a little cluster, right there at the side of Phil’s head. He can connect the dots, identify the shape of the elytrian’s bucket hat, but there’s something else there too. “What’s that on your head, Phil? I can’t make it out well.”

“Oh— here,” the other takes his hand and guides it towards his hair, and Étoiles feels a familiar texture under his pads. He makes a noise of surprise. “That’s. Mine.”

“Do you want it back?” Phil hums, brushing at the large cucumber flower tucked in the band of his hat. “It bloomed this morning, on top of the plant you were growing under. Took it as a sign you were, uh, done cooking.” Étoiles snorts. Good guess. “But uh, I guess the plant was also you, cuz it’s at the end of your tail now. Dragging.” Ah. Yeah. He really ought to cut it. “Is it weird? That I’m wearing a piece of you? I don’t know what… fuckin’... cucumber etiquette is.”

“It’s not weird,” Étoiles says, because he doesn’t think it is. “You can keep it.” He kind of likes it. That Phil’s wearing a piece of him. It makes him, happy? “You know, that I am your weapon. Yes? So it makes sense, that you show it.”

“You’re my friend. Don’t call yourself a weapon, man.”

“Same thing for me.”

Phil’s response is wordless, a simple, noncommittal mmh. But Étoiles can hear the hidden fondness in it. He pushes a little further, crudely imitates that  one bird sound Philza makes when he’s happy. Whoops internally when Phil puffs out his feathers and trills out a yesyes in return. Héhé. “Yes yes, Philza? Fight me, right now?” he slips into his usual stance, just a bit offset by the lack of armor weighing him down. “1v1, no weapons, no armor? Fistfight, let’s go.”

Phil cackles, crow-like. “I am not fighting you right now, you little shit. You menace. What’s wrong with you?”

“Aww, Phil hates me,” the warrior whines. “He hates me. He won’t 1v1 me, he must hate me. Sad.”

“Oh my god, stop being a baby.”

“I was literally born five minutes ago. I am baby, and Felipe Minecraft hates me,” he sasses back, and Phil throws his arms towards the sky in exasperation. “Oh come on. I spent a week protecting your green ass! Making sure you got enough sun and water and shit, it was like doing egg tasks all over again. Antoine even talked me into fucking singing, pretty sure he was pranking me with that one by the way, and still you think I hate you?”

“Nice caulk, Phil.”

He can’t see it, but Étoiles knows Phil’s eyelid is twitching. “Mate. I got a faceful of ass pulling you out of here, you’re on thin fucking ice.”

The cucumber snorts. “Héhé, got mooned by the stars.” That was kinda funny. “You were pulling me by the tail, I do not know what you expected. You’re lucky I’m a plant, or there would have been full cock and balls there.”

“Bruh. I thought it would be connected to your… plant belly button, or whatever, like an umbilical cord.”

“It’s an ass button, GGs.”

“Jesus Christ, please don’t call it that. I didn’t even know you had a tail. You didn’t before.”

“That’s because I always cut it,” the warrior huffs, said tail lashing behind him from the restless energy that always accompanies a new body. Its leaves drag around the loose dirt in little swish-y sounds. “Give me a sword, Phil, it’s already annoying me.”

The crow peers down at the vine, then back at him. “I dunno, man. You look kinda fun with it.” Étoiles squints. He can’t quite make out Phil’s expression like this, all stars and nothing between them, but he can hear the hidden laughter in his voice. “...I will cut it with my teeth then.”

“Won’t that hurt more than with a blade?”

“It doesn’t hurt. Only the base. Like when you pulled on it.”

“Why not keep it? It’s a part of you.”

Because it speaks for me, he considers replying. Because it says and shows things that I don’t want people to see. Even now, it wags, because Phil is here and now brushing stray dirt out of his hair and it’s very nice. (Is he touch-starved? He might be. Pomme is gone, and he doesn’t trust people to touch him, other than with blunt force and sharp diamond blades.) But Étoiles hasn’t kept his tail since he was a child, still wide-eyed and showing his innermost self to the whole world without any shield. He feels weird. Exposed. And it’s okay with Phil, because Phil is Phil, but it’s not okay because they’re out in the open and anyone could come and see. He doesn’t like that. “Because people can grab it, and it gets stuck in things, and it’s annoying. I cut it, now.” He tugs at the appendage, bringing it up to his mouth. “Nope,” Phil snatches it away, and Étoiles hisses at him. “Calm down, dude. At least let’s do it cleanly.”

“Eeeeuugh. Okay.”

”Then we’re getting your stuff back from Antoine’s, good god. You’re still butt-naked and I won’t have you strut around like that.”

“He has my things? Comms, armor, my backpacks?”

“All of it, yeah,” the older man huffs, and Étoiles can hear the telltale sound of an item being summoned of an inventory. Enchanted axe, he parses, recognizing the ozone-y smell of the sharpness enchant and the sound of the air being sliced downward. He doesn’t feel anything when the vine is severed, frowns when he realises Phil left a good… fifty centimeters of it, still attached to his body. “Phil. You misclick? You aim like shit today?”

“You said it hurts near the base,” the elytrian huffs, finality lacing his every word. “Keep it or cut the rest later, your pick, but I’m not hurting you.”

Étoiles’ ear flicks in confusion, and so does his tail. It moves faster, easier now without the rest of the plant weighing it down. “...We fight each other all the time, that hurts more. I don’t care.”

Phil stays silent for a few seconds. Nebula-Phil shifts before him. “It’s. Different.”

Étoiles hums. Philza has the Tone™ again, the one that means he’s thinking of things that hurt. He thinks of clipped feathers, of matted down that he wishes he could run his fingers through and fix, fix, let me fix it, let me do this for you. But he says nothing. Maybe another time, when they’re both ready for that conversation. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Maybe I keep it this time. Maybe.”

He can hear Phil’s smile in the next word he speaks. “Attaboy.” And he tries to ignore the way his tail wags with renewed enthusiasm at that.

[unwaveringcanis]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓 𝟐.

———

Colter looked from me to his beta, a conversation flowing between them through their eyes. I stood by, waiting and watching them. It was like they were trying to decide what to do, even if the endgame would be with their deaths at my hand.

“How about this, you already issued the challenge the moment you spoke down on me. You either fight here or die.”

My shoulders lifted in a noncommittal manner, I was growing tired and bored of these antics. The wolf in me wanted out, so much so that each ram against the cage its power bursts forth. Every other wolf whimpered, showing me their necks in submission. Colter growled, his eyes the color of his wolf.

‘Fine.’

He shifted down, a slightly smaller wolf form than I expected him to be. No worries, shifting down to my wolf, who growled the moment he was allowed out. Claws digging into the earth as he stretches, shaking his whole body. He was bigger, stronger and faster than the alpha in front of him.

A scoff, as he sized up his opponent. Colter did the same, circling each other soon turned to a full blown fight. He tried to go after for our throat, but it was easily dodged, a cat and mouse game. This display of aggression from Colter was to be expected. He was older, less mobile, less agile. When I saw the opening, the wolf took over and went for the blow to his side—teeth and claws dug into his ribs.

He howled out in agony, he was able to shake me off. My muzzle was coated in his blood and fur, oh the sweet taste of his blood fueled me to finish him off. I ran full speed, my head crashing into his already tore up side. His claws scratched at my face, teeth coming into my shoulder but I brushed it off. I tore into his throat, his gurgled howl fell short.

Biting down harder, as he struggled to free himself. Instead of submitting like he should’ve, he chose death— with a quick head tilt I snapped his neck. His body slumped to the ground, letting him drop. I stood on him, a sign of my dominance. I shifted back, blood coating my tattooed chest.

“You see your alpha?! How weak he is, how he couldn’t protect his pack from the hunters that encroached on his land?! How so many of you had to die!? Join my pack and you’ll be protected, you’ll be allowed to do what you please, you’ll have stability, peace and prosperity.”

I yelled out, wolves one by one trotted towards me, licking the back of my hand as if to say they were with my pack. His beta and a few others remained there, giving them a look. They would pose a problem in the future, however when that time comes. I will handle it. Taking off into the forest.

“To prove your loyalty to my pack, chase them off this territory. If you catch them, maim or kill. Whichever you choose is fine with me.”

And like that, they were chasing those who once were family to them. My own pack followed suit, I made my way to the truck where I snagged a towel. I looked at Kae who shook his head with a smile, this wasn’t the run of the mill kind of thing. Thinking about how to expand my businesses into the town that this territory has.

“Send up the drone. I want to watch this unfold.”

‘Seek help.’ Kae said with a laugh, he went and retrieved his tablet. It flashed on, as he summoned the drones. I watched as the trunk opened, five drones flew out of it and towards the chase. Each angle showed the wolves chasing the four idiots, one tripped over the log and was immediately pounced on. He did put up one hell of a fight before being taken down.

A lovely scene if I do say so, it took two hours they came back. The only person/wolf left was the beta, he was the only one who made it out. Everyone else was dead, not truly how I wanted it to be but oh well. The wolves shifted, a mix of people. They looked relieved to see me smiling. A woman stepped forward, hands folded in front of her.

‘We are pledging our allegiance and loyalty to your pack, Killian. If you’ll have us.’

Everyone looked at me, I nodded my head. Sending out the link, a few moaned in pain as the link between them and the alpha was a pain filled process, my wolf howled and their wolves returned it. Now this was handled, it was time for us to head back. Normally we’d share a meal but I really wasn’t trying to do all that tonight.

I had to get ready for the summit, which took place two days from today. So I told them to head home, meet me at the pack house. Luckily this was my territory now, they could either stay where they lived at now or move to the pack houses. Either way worked for me, they were now members of my pack.

‘About the hunters? What do you want to do with them? There’s three sectors of hunters near here. I say we kill them all when we get back.’

Nodding my head in agreement, they will have to be properly dealt with when I get back. For now, I’ll have one of my scouts inflight their little group. So I could keep tabs on their comings and goings.

“Send in, Axel. Make sure to tell him to get their accounts and everything. I want addresses, bank accounts and the like by the time we get back. I need this to go smoothly.”

‘Of course.’

Kae called the drones back, as we piled into the truck. I needed a drink or six. After killing the man, I felt the need to kill his beta. I knew he’d show his face when he thought I’d let my guard down. Until then, I focused on the main issue at hand. This damn summit, I’ve invited Luna to come with because she practically begged me to. Let’s hope this year isn’t chalked with bullshit.

Closing my eyes, allowing sleep to come to me for the duration of the ride. My wolf was still ever present but less aggressive than before. Maybe killing the man healed something in us. Who knows. All I know is, my pack and territory just got immensely bigger. We went from twenty-five members to forty.

Could I lead such a big pack?

Time will tell.

Something inside of me told me a war was brewing, and I had a choice in which side I would be on.

Pushing that feeling away, I focused on the now.

𝐄𝐧𝐝.

[flowers-of-io]

#10 Blood

Read it on AO3 here

You put the gun into your mouth To bite the bullet and spit out Cause it's running in the family All the rituals of you and me

Eris Morn stares at the pyramid, sharp against the backdrop of Jupiter peeking out from behind the horizon. It is dawning on Io. Asher is standing by her side, silent in horror and fury, and wonder. His human hand is clenched into a fist and the Vex one shudders convulsively.

“I’m going down there,” she says, her voice ringing loudly in the deafening silence.

“You’re in a rush to your grave I see.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the pyramid.

“If I don’t, we all will find ourselves there even sooner.” She pulls out a dagger and begins making her way down the cliff. Asher does not try to talk her out of it; he knows her well enough to acknowledge it is no use.

“Eris.” Instead, he tosses her his shotgun. Their eyes meet and a comfortable silence lingers between them for a while, until she finally nods and turns towards the cliffside.

He watches her disappear in the distance and, knowing she cannot hear it—though it would make no difference if she could—says quietly, “Be safe.”

*

Fiddling with the radio knobs, Asher tries to contain his panic. Because fear is unreasonable, he murmurs to himself, because it obscures his vision, because they are all—every single damn one of them—utter morons; because how irredeemable of an idiot must you be to as much as consider such a fool’s errand worthy of your time and resources? Because they are fools, fools with no brain and blood on their hands, putting lives at stake in the same stupid way and expecting a different result—

A signal pierces through the static. Asher catches his breath.

“—do not let the atrocities of Crota haunt you. Whatever this is, we will not let the tragedies of our past repeat—”

He slams his open palm against the table so hard the radio trembles. Idiots! Have they truly learned nothing, are they truly expecting to miraculously work out by the golden rule of fortune favouring fools? Oh, now they have brought tanks, that will surely turn the tide!

But even through his ire, he cannot help but listen to the distant gunshots and scarce commands. He tries so hard to keep from hoping, because hope is a fool’s errand and only ever makes things harder. Too well does he know the pang of guilt every time a frantic call for support shakes the airwaves he is listening in on; his body stirs, ready to get up and rush to aid, but he cannot, all he would ever do is listen to the cries of anguish and lists of casualties read out monotonously long into the night. Both remorse and self-pity swirl together like sugar crystals in stirred tea as his hand twitches, as he almost reaches out to kill the signal but always holds himself back.

It is hours later when the battle dies down. From the scraps of dispatches and commands it seems the calamity has been avoided, and Asher leans back in his chair with weariness matching that of a field-bound solider. His radio picks up on the chatter of post-fight reports, Ikora talking so fast it is barely comprehensible, someone’s response driven out by the hum of static

Even through the interference, he recognises the voice and fights back a sigh of relief so profound he can almost feel tears in his eyes.

“Good to know you are still alive,” he barks into the comms, as dryly as he can muster; both glad and angry and acknowledging none of these emotions.

“Asher,” Eris breathes, “I’m sorry… I could not—”

“Are you allowing this buffoonery?”

“It was a Vanguard operation,” she says with a hint of bitterness, “but there is something entirely more terrible here—something ancient. What we have forgotten the fear of. The storm rumbling overhead.”

“Remain clear in your purpose, then.” He closes his eyes. “But do not… succumb to it.”

A long moment of silence settles between them, static cracking, before she responds.

“I have seen the Dreaming City, cousin.” There is both sorrow and wonder in her voice, as if she was telling a fairytale. “One day, I will take you there.”

 *

 “Have you seen the Traveler yet?”

Asher cocks his head, looking up from the piece of fossil he is turning in his hands. Eris is staring straight into the distance, at the aurora-painted skies and the colossus of Jupiter, and the majestic Cradle below it. Unmoving, save for the thick black flow down her cheeks.

“No.” He follows her gaze, taking in the unearthly cyan glow of the evening sweeping over Io. Distant geysers are but white streaks against the background of the star-specked blanket of sky. After a short, tentative silence, he adds, “I don’t think I will.”

Eris’ eyes flick to him, the briefest glance before they turn back to gaze at the horizon, “I heard it’s magnificent and heartbreaking. A shattered chalice of Light.”

Asher watches the swirling fumes rising up, up towards the skies. He can almost feel its radiance from the distance, prickling against his skin and warming his core. Is not Io just that, he thinks, a shattered chalice filled to overflow, rivers of brightness spilled and still trailing between its rocks?

“Have you seen it?” He asks despite knowing the answer.

She shakes her head. The City is a fickle lover, loud and kaleidoscope-changing. Some things are fit to be adored from the distance.

“It gives me hope,” she says softly after a while, and the glow of her eyes flickers. “How it maimed itself to shatter the cage, broken and radiant.”

Asher thinks bitterly how fitting it is that she has moved to the Moon, to poke and prod and taunt the darkness that marred her out of something more than burning vengeance. He is all too aware of the Pyramidion’s angular shape behind his back.

They sit in the cyan glow, two broken and radiant things on yellow sandstone, and the silence between them is dim and warm like the swelling night.

 *

 On the day Oryx falls, Eris stumbles into his quarters trembling like an aspen leaf. It is late, only a few windows in the Tower still aglow, and the City engulfed in the uneasy slumber of a battle raging overhead. But she has felt him die in the inmost depths of her core, and the shudder which tore through the cosmos in that moment left no room for doubts.

Asher makes her tea she is too nauseous to drink and curls up on the sofa with a book in a nest of blankets and pillows. She just watches the Traveler, bright and absurdly gentle against the horrors of this night.

“I dread the next step,” she says quietly.

“Take comfort in this triumph, if nothing else.” The soft rustle of flipping a page seems deafening in the stillness of the room. “You did kill a god today.”

“And what good did it bring?” The words are out before she can stop them; she knows it is a wrong question to ask. She knows she should keep her eyes fixed on the purpose. Yet she allows herself a second of bitter grief, of Eriana’s face etched silver in her mind and the itch of tears streaming down her scarred cheeks.

“Is the path you’re walking worthy of your fear?”

The question shakes her out from the stupor. She turns to meet his gaze, fixed on her from above the book.

“Yes.”

“Then walk it.”

The next time she sees him is in the hospital.

 *

 It is a lovely autumn, painting the Tower plaza red and yellow in an eternal sunset, leaves dancing in the air as gusts of wind pull them into a waltz. Eris can see the trees from her hospital window but their beauty frightens her, the effortlessness with which their branches sway and shimmer in the sunlight just another punch of realisation how nothing will ever be good and safe and beautiful again. It takes her three weeks to start speaking again, yet everybody is quick to shun her when she begins talking of the Hellmouth. Only Ikora stays, teary-eyed, tending to the burns on her head and limbs and examining the amputated toe, swallowing Eris’ every word like poison that soaks into her bloodstream with toxin of woe.

Asher does not cry, does not look away with disgust-laced pity. He makes her tea and the first proper meal she has eaten since leaving the hospital, sits down across the table and watches her with scientific curiosity. He does not negate the change, but there is no condescending sympathy in how he looks at her eyes and scars and patchy skin. And most of all, he allows her to talk; and when she finally finds the strength to begin, she cannot bear to stop. Words spill out of her like the black tears from her eyes, rotten and terrible, as she claws furiously at her core to scrub them off, to cleanse herself of the putrid stench of death clinging to her bones. He grounds her with practical questions, his matter-of-factness comfortingly familiar. It calms her when she starts shaking and losing her grip, a constant to hold on to against the deafening howl of her own twisted thoughts.

He lets her shuffle through his books and lie on his floor and does not ask whether her eyes hurt. He goes on as normal; even when she startles at every sudden noise and bleeds ink over his sofa throw, when she is whispering to herself and scratching at the scars on her skin. He just leans over the table, passing her a sheet of half translated text. He has been trying to decipher the Cabal language and wants her to take a look.

She is grateful.

 *

 “I do not advise this.”

Eris cocks an eyebrow at him, “I expected stronger words.”

Her glance is bold behind the veil of steam from the cup of tea she is holding, the feignedness almost undetectable. But her fingers are stiff and pale, clutching the porcelite like a lifeline, and her foot bobs nervously under the table; and when Asher meets her gaze, she looks away.

“I thought of Eriana as of someone possessing as much as half a braincell.” He stirs his own tea meticulously. “I understand she is grieving, but this idea is ridiculous. Dragging you to die together down there will not return Wei to her.”

“As long as Crota lives, no one is safe. This is not just about vengeance.”

“And what makes you think you two can achieve what thousands of Guardians failed to?”

She hates the disdain in his voice, the judgemental glare he is flashing her across the table. Like an older brother deriding a bratty sister.

“There isn’t just the two of us.” She leans forward, narrowing her eyes. Challenging him. “Sai and Vell are more than willing to crush Crota. Knowing Omar, I think he’ll join in gladly. Mare Imbrium took its toll on more than just Eriana, you know.”

“Mare Imbrium was a Titan’s tomfoolery,” Asher raises the cup to his mouth in an annoyingly dragged-out gesture. “We knew nothing about the Hive. Nothing about the weapons they used. Now we’re only beginning to scratch the surface, and frankly, I do not like what I’m finding.”

Eris crosses her arms, “Toland says—"

“Toland!” He smacks the cup against the saucer so rapidly the tea spills out. “You... Out of all the people, all the wretched charlatans in this bloody system… You’ve come to him?!”

“He knows more than you think.”

“He will lead you there to die smiling all the way through!”

Eris’ silver-grey eyes turn to steel. She bares her teeth like an angry animal about to strike, “What would you have me do, then? Get over it? Over Aparajita, and Gunnvor, and Jagi, and Lee? Over Wei? They died to reclaim the Moon. We owe them to continue the fight!”

“Don’t mistake idiocy for bravery, Eris.”

“Stop doing that.” Asher raises his eyebrow, and she adds, “Talking to me like to a child.”

“You act like one.”

Eris springs up, her chair swinging backward and nearly falling to the floor. Her hand itches to stab him where it hurts the most, to ask him where he was while she watched the corpses of her friends scattered over Lunar rocks. To tell him to sit on his ass in this damn library and keep lying to himself he is being useful. Her love for him boils and burns, and the bland disapproval on his face feels like a searing brand stamped on her with an iron rod.

She storms off, turning back at the door to give him one final, furious glare. Her eyes well up with angry tears, and it is the last time Asher sees them.

 *

 Fiddling with the radio knobs, Asher tries to contain his panic. Because fear is unreasonable, he murmurs to himself, because it obscures his vision, because they are all—every single damn one of them—utter morons; because how irredeemable of an idiot must you be to as much as consider such a fool’s errand worthy of your time and resources? Because they are fools, fools with no brain and blood on their hands, putting lives at stake in a stupid way and expecting to—

A signal pierces through the static. Asher catches his breath. Even through the interference, he recognises the voice and fights back a sigh of relief so profound he can almost feel tears in his eyes.

“—call for retreat! I repeat, this is Eris Morn of unit eight-three-seven. I have lost a third of my cohort, I call for retreat! We are dying out here!”

She is alive, for now. He picked up on Conar and Pujari earlier, the former badly wounded and packed up on an evac shuttle; Vell is still kicking somewhere out there too—stupid Titan—yelling curses interrupted by bullets into the comms. Dropping dead, getting rezzed, cursing again.

But even through his ire, Asher cannot help but listen to the distant gunshots and scarce commands. He tries so hard to keep from hoping, because hope is a fool’s errand and only ever makes things harder. He knows well that by the time the battle dies down, there will have been hundreds of Ghostless and dead and nonresponding, and he will have swallowed just as many I-told-you-so’s down his throat. He is furious, furious and mournful for the lives lost, and guilty for the warmth of his apartment and the untouched mug of now-cold tea. He should not have gone there, he is right to have stayed, yet every sound of battle is like a prick of conscience—making him wonder ever so briefly if this had been a life only just snuffed out, one he could have, possibly, saved.

 *

 The smell of smouldered flesh is still strong in the air when Eris lowers her hands, the storm of Light around her subsiding. What is left of the ahamkara are wind-scattered ashes, strangely silent after the recent din of hurricane and whispers. Ikora pokes them with the barrel of her rifle; her face intent, wary. They hardly ever go down easily.

But all is quiet. A breeze rustles Eris’ hair gently, a welcome respite from the humidity of Venusian jungles, and after a minute of fraught silence Ikora looks up and her eyes soften.

“Looks like we’re done here,” she slings the weapon over her shoulder and summons a Sparrow, “If we’re quick, we can make it for dinner.”

Eris still watches the ashes, the breeze sweeping them gently across the terrain. When Ikora calls after her, she nods absently and turns away; the hand in her pocket tightening around a shard of bone that seems to fit perfectly into her palm.

Back in her room, she lies on her back and stares up at it, fingers caressing the jags and curves of its surface. It is beautiful and ancient. She thinks briefly about embedding it in silver, creating a jewellery piece or ceremonial weapon, but then rejects the notion. She will wrap it in leather and place in her locker, safe under layers of cloth and paper, her ultimate safeguard.

She falls asleep with her fingers clasped tightly around it, and dreams of sunshine and marketplace chatter, of silvery laughter and stalls full of fruits red and fresh like the sunrise.

 *

 “Praedyth complained about you.”

“Oh did he,” Asher does not look up from the book he is slouched over, the unkept mess of alabaster hair giving in to gravity and falling over his face. “He tires me.”

Eris’ lips quirk slightly upwards as she reaches for their shared bottle of liquor. It is a cheap Moscato, sweet and sickly-aromatic, and in the afternoon sun flooding the rooftop they have perched upon it looks like molten gold. “What do you think of this hunt anyway?”

“By the way they’re approaching it? I’m surprised there have been no casualties yet.”

“Osiris and Tallu were arguing about it yesterday. He said he didn’t approve of genociding an entire species.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Asher hums and dogears a page.

She regards him sternly, sunlight gilding her hair and flickering on the hilts of her sheathed knives. “They are extremely dangerous.”

“Every power is when you abuse it.”

“But not every power can make you abuse it.”

She has a point and Asher hates it, but he deems the matter unworthy of butting heads over it any longer. It would not deter Fairwind and Saint anyway, even if Osiris shared his rightful concerns. He closes the book and sits straighter, running a hand through his hair absently.

“With their Wei Ning mentality, all this ‘hunt’ is gonna be is a brawl.” He shoots her a weighty glance, “And of course you’ll join in on the folly.”

“The knowledge they possess—”

“Oh don’t give me that,” his hand outstretches in a demanding gesture, and as Eris passes him the bottle, his features soften, “It would be a waste if you died.”

 *

 Sunlight flickers between City buildings, slipping through the balcony fences and strings of garlands stretched above streets. The market square is swarming with people; the colours of awnings over the stalls and fruits stacked in crates are vibrant and loud and heavy with summer’s daze. Ripe-sweet scent of blooming flowers lingers in the air.

A little girl ducks under her mother’s arm and starts squeezing through the crowd—as she runs, the yellows and reds and grey cobblestone all flash past and come colliding when a stall or a body suddenly sprouts in front of her. She rams into it laughing, and zaps away before the surprised rebuke has a chance to reach her.

“Wait for me!” A boy calls after her, struggling to keep up. She does not stop until they are blocks away from the marketplace, away from the clamour and swirling crowds, by an old boathouse on the bank of the river. The heat is more bearable here, and the sunshine glimmers on the surface like stardust. The girl looks up the weathered planks, squinting.

“I’m gonna climb the roof.”

“You’re gonna break your legs.”

“I don’t care.” She already has one foot in a knothole. “Stay down here, if you want to miss the view.”

The boy crosses his arms, watching her try to find a handhold. Bravery and idiocy are indistinguishable in their small world, when the most courageous thing you can do is grin through the hurt and claim the height of the fall was worth it.

“Will you come down when I call you?” He asks, with just the tiniest hint of anxiety to his tone.

She glances at him and for a flicker there is some eager honesty in her eyes—or just the bright, reckless innocence of a child.

“I always will.”

[goldenlaquer]

This isn't a rq but I had this dream and had to tell someone. Basically, Hijikata is chasing Zura again when Zura decides to fake his death (like Kagura faking her illness) I woke up before it could continue past Hiikata's shocked face but it got me thinking what would his reaction be if he thought he actually killed Zura, and what would Sougo do if Hijikata decided to play the same card and fake his death for a while to teach him a lesson and it seems like he actually was killed by Sougo

If i may give my two cents (again, how tf y’all be getting dreams about hot men?  how how how how) Sougo’s reaction to Hijikata’s prank may go two ways. Really doesn’t matter how it goes down, I guess. These two ways have the same results anyway: Hijikata getting seriously maimed by the end of the day. 

The first way is Asshole Sougo doing what he did to Kagura; putting on a elaborate show of crying over his deathbed, blocking off any attempts of miracle revivals, instigating a funeral parade of opulent means to blow things way out of proportions, blah blah blah, all the way from the Shinsengumi compound to the cemetery we go-- Hijikata’s in a very tough spot, how can he speak up now when there’s a line of his men saluting and bawling their eyes out with Kondo bravely sucking in his tears at the front of the procession?  Everyone was invited, of the savory as well as the unsavory sorts too. Even the Yorozuya’s there, spitting on the procession ground and taking advantage of the crowds to try and illegally sell lemonade without a permit. Sougo’s giggling behind his palm; his tears are tears of laughter, of course. How dare Hijikata try the pull a prank over Sougo’s head? What a fucking amateur. Might as well take this opportunity to make sure his position as new vice-commander is set in stone while he’s teaching Hijikata a lesson. 

Way #2: Sougo is completely had. This is a bit harder, but if anyone could pull it off-- can’t Hijikata? The man knows Sougo (well he doesn’t know everything about Sougo because Sougo’s a freak, but he knows a lot about Sougo), he could probably do a convincing enough death that’ll fool even Sougo. Well, I think Sougo goes through the stages of grief; the first step-- denial. Staring down at Hijikata on the cold, metal autopsy table and shaking his head because there’s no way an idiot like Hijikata could ever die such a pathetic death. He’s gripping the lapels of Hijikata’s jacket, tugging him up-- get the fuck up, Hijibaka, stop playing on work hours. Anger. Get the fuck up! Sougo kicking a leg. The table rattles and Hijikata’s still not getting up. Get up! Kondo orders two members (in the end, it takes eight men) to haul Okita out of the room. Bargaining and depression are quiet affairs (If I just did this... If I, If I, If I); Okita says nothing but he doesn’t have to say anything-- it’s plain for everyone to see. Acceptance comes in the form of Okita sitting down at the food bar, a steaming pile of mayo dogshit in front of him, the Hijikata Special.  The patroness is sending him looks of concern but Okita ignores it and takes his chopsticks. Itadakimasu. He takes a bite and manages to not gag. This is his last tribute to Hijikata. He looks so pitiful, forcing the mayo down his throat, that Hijikata decides that the lesson has been learnt (with mixed feeling of affection and guilt) and he can conclude it by showing up then, taking the chopsticks away from Okita and telling him ”moron, don’t disrespect the mayo gods if you’re going to eat it all disgusting like that”, and scarfing the bowl down. Okita stares.  There’s something shiny in those large eyes. 

“Hiji...”

Hijikata smiles and scratches the end of his nose. “Yo, Sougo. Didja miss me--”

Okita whips out his bazooka. “Like hell. Die.” 

To be honest, I feel like Hijikata would be more straightforward fellow when it comes to teaching Sougo a lesson. I don’t think he’d take an extreme approach like faking his own death, but what the hell, comedy and contradictions go hand and hand in Gintama. Anything goes! This was simply lovely and stimulating-- thank you Anon!

[iamtheempress]

Cold Blooded

A Dragon Ball Horror Fic {Part 9}

☆☆☆

Some days have come and gone, bruises were healed ribs are fixed back into place. Vegeta is off with Goku training themselves in the time chamber for the night, in all their forms to test themselves fully.

Bulma had asked her to house sit the entirety of Capsule Corp for the night, Carlie happily obliged since she still had her old room beside the balcony. The scientist rushed to her lab and came back up to her temporary bedroom and sat down on her bed, only to dress into a sleep shirt and pull out her bottle of whiskey, an old stache in her night stand and the new bottle of Merlot for Frieza. She ordered a hot pizza for herself and maybe Frieza if he was willing to eat. 

She had a movie ready to watch and unwind. An old classic and take on horror, Alien. A solid 3 hour long movie that she loved to watch when she was younger, one of the first movies that peaked her interest hardcore to alien races all together.

She singlehandedly carried both the pies and the wine and whiskey in her arms down the hall in the direction of the theater, which is on Friezas side of the building She felt one of the bottles slipping and started to quietly curse herself when it falls from her arms, she awaits the impending crash and liqour splattering everywhere. When it didnt she looked to her side to see a tail tip encircling the bottle.

 “Tsk. Well if that were to break that would certainly be tragic, wouldnt it, Ms. Carlie?” Frieza said standing beside her with a small smile, Carlie smiled at Frieza and laughed abit embarrassed. “Thanks, Frieza.. Want to help me eat these pizzas?”She lifted the pizza boxes and the smell wafted up to the Emperor, he hummed and held his chin between his fingers. “I am quite hungry. Pizza you say? Id love to accompany you, dear.” 

He holds the bottle and saunters beside her down the hall, tail fluttering slowly behind him, a bit of blood still on the very end of his terribly strong tail.. From his most recent murder that day. “I was actually going to watch a movie too, so hope you enjoy feeling lazy eating pizza and getting abit drunk cuz thats going to happen with me tonight” She giggled and gently nudged open the door to the large theater room. “Oh there is no issue with that, I was wondering how you were doing anyway so to spend some quality time within your company is just what i needed.” 

You too will realize this

Frieza curtly nods and places the bottle of whiskey down besides the two large pizzas with hot sauce to dunk in, Carlie lifted the bottle of merlot to Frieza and smiled. “Wanted to give this to you and we can get abit drunk together.. Except i dont know your tolerance to alcohol.” “Wuite alright, im no light weight.” “Excellent!” she claps her hands together and grabs a wine goblet and one Whiskey glass.

Frieza watches her form shuffle away, eyes raking slowly down to her pretty soft legs. Her bottom showing just slightly from the shirt raised up behind her. Frieza hums and seats himself on the extra large and extravagant couch bringing the Wine up and looking at it.. His little smirk showing in the glass bottles sheen in the movie theaters dim light. “Care to tell me what we would be watching.” She tilts her head and comes back with the glasses sitting comfy besides Freeza, the light of the theater dimmed very slowly until the only things visible were Friezas eyes and the screen turning on to suit the room. 

“This movie is one of my favorites from when i was younger. It is called Alien, plot is basically a bunch of humans awake from cryostasis and there's no reason why, and then this insectoid alien called a xenomorph makes its appearance and you'll see the rest. It's great!” “Ohohoho! How precious.. Humans having their own interpretations of Alien kind is quite amusing! Cannot wait to see what kind of monstrosity your kind has imagined.” He uses his ki to pour them both some wine and whiskey. “Hey you might like it, don't knock it till ya try it.” she giggles and clinks the drinks together and takes a sip. The movie begins and she is immediately entrenched in it like its her first time watching it.

Watching a classic with the late emperor. His arms are crossed as this large fluffy white quilt is brought up to her lap and encircles her so comfortably, her slippers fall off her feet to the floor. Frieza watches her out of the corner of his eye while she watches the screen with expectant wonder.. 

He watched her pretty gossamer locks, some that were tied up and some that were loose, falling out of her messily tied bun, down her shirt, her lightly tanned skin glistens with some nice smelling body spray, tantalizing and sweet. Like her. The fact she wasnt wearing glasses made her look more appealing and this deeply confused Frieza… His eyes snapped to the screen and he took a sip of his drink, his back curving to relax into the plush cushion. 

Friezas tail slid beneath her back, she didnt flinch, she shifted a tiny bit, maybe to make sure he was comfortable, maybe to welcome it.. He took it as the latter and proceeded to welcome the warmth of her back upon his tail. 

‘You beautiful little thing…’ he thinks crossing his ankles and watching her fill another glass full of whiskey, right as the first sight of the Xenomorph came up on screen his eyes widened and he tilted his head. 

Watching humans cower in abject horror made the emperor smile in pride of the idea that this is what humans find entertaining and terrifying..the tail around her waist slowly drags her to his side; spurts of blood and the absolute massacre that sprays forth from its victims peaks his interest. Down to the idea they grow and procreate and are fast and nimble, with predatory intent to kill and overwhelm, ambush with ease. 

The very similar comparison to his 3rd form was just the icing on the cake for the emperor that made this all the more amusing. Shes familiar with the immense amount of horror this form can bring...Maybe this was intentional.. Maybe she wanted him to see that he wasnt afraid of him, no matter what form he took. 

She had eaten almost all of this pizza along with the dip of the hot sauce that made her lips look glossy and inviting...a thought Frieza never entertained before but here he was, staring at her lips and her neck where Vegeta left a bite.

He sneers and his bright red eyes return to the screen, when she places her whiskey glass down her hand touches his thick cold tail while she puts it down the emperor cracks the goblet from the grip.. Not breaking it entirely just enough to crack it.

*Thats enough of this little game…*

This gives him an idea. One to finally act upon this beautiful little woman besides him whos blanched stark white and almost flush against the 

“"this movie is quite entertaining. Kill or be killed and absolute domination with zero regard for human life. Procreate and maim, all for the sake of their queen" Frieza muses, his arm bringing the soft white blanket into his lap and his cold strong hand finds her bare thigh, Carlie was abit tipsy but she wasnt blind... "You enjoy this bloodshed dont you, Carlie.” He lets the goblet go to float gingerly to the table infront of him and tilts her head to face him. “Frieza, what are you talking about.. Its just a movie.” He straightens his back hard and looks her square in the eye; a knowing look blooms across his minimalistic features and his red eyes dilate.

“I know what happened to you the other day. Vegeta harmed you while you were intimate, I saw your back and those horrific bruises and scratches.” Her eyes went wide and she backed her head up abit from him as he held her hand in his own. “Frieza.. Me and Vegeta are fine it was a one time thing that wont-” “And how do you know that Carlie?” “Huh?”

“Ive known Vegeta for decades. Since he was a small chimp with a dead father. I WAS basically his father figure, to hell with any of his old Saiyan counterparts. They had as little an influence as i did on him. He had a temper that could never be put out..”  He snapped, raising his voice harshly almost into her face.

 For a split second.. He felt bad for doing that.

“That Saiyan bravado is all brute force and abuse. Never anything gentle..” Carlies eyes remained wide as she slowly- like cold molasses on the brain-took everything he said in. “He would never abuse me..” She pushed his hand off her leg and his tail slunk slowly beneath the shirt to her smoothe soft belly, then to her thighs to keep her still, but not enough to harm her. “He did though..  He most certainly did though… your back had proof of it.. Why would he throw you so violently… you his little mate.. That damned ape knows nothing about delicacy… its disgusting…” 

He sneers forcing the girl to her back with little effort on his own part. Carlie started to panic... “Frieza, let me go. C'mon if i didn't trust Vegeta i wouldn't be with him, let me the heck go please.” SHe pleas and pulls against the tail as the emperor cradles her head and stares down at the little scientist, a hypnotic unblinking stare as his tail tightens around her soft midsection and her quivering legs, his tail pulsing around her body.

   “Carlie… Would I lie to you.. Vegeta’s a great danger to you, he's highly unstable and you know it.. No amount of affection or care will break that ape down to what you want.. He is a *Saiyan* careless, heartless, if you were to die he wouldn't bat a lash.. Just look at where you are.” His tail sliding between her legs to lock them together to ensure she doesn't struggle too hard. SHe was all ears as she complied and lain still turning her head to the side crying…

“He left you with me… alone.. Instead of staying he went off to probably train and..” the back of his knuckles slide down her cheek. His eyes looking longingly at the slender pretty neck and her soft plush lips back up to her eyes�� 

What is going ON with him….

“Inflict more harm upon you…Possibly kill you..” He pulls away and sits up his tail uncurling quite satisfied with his claim. Hoping he made her change her mind he folded his hands in his lap. 

“You are my only friend Carlie, I'm saying this to protect you.” 

Carlie stood up and backed up staring at him. “I don't know where you get off.. Speaking to me like that.. Frieza I gotta go.. Dont fucking follow me i cant fucking think…” she slurs, turning on her heel and taking the whiskey and headed for the door.

  “Look at me.”

 She stops dead in her tracks. Frieza didn't even have to turn completely around. “That creature… the Xenomorph on the screen.. Is my 3rd form likeness..” 

3rd form… no one said anything about forms with him… “.............” She gulps and listens, letting him proceed. “This is my Final Form.. From this i can get stronger in my Golden form… one day i hope to show you its glory… But until then… know i could have killed you.. But i dont. I enjoy your company. If you choose to leave that is your choice, and i bid you a pleasant night my dear.” He raises the now full Goblet to his lips and sips.

He heard the door close and the emperor simply closed his eyes.. Her energy left the room. It was lonely. It actually *hurt* Frieza to feel her go.

"Consider this friendship squandered... i will take what i want... and what i wanted from the very beginning was you" He hissed under his breath. Continuing to watch the movie and enjoy the rest of his pizza. “I hope you have a lovely last night as Vegetas.. Because i will make you mine. Empress Carlie...you have no choice…” He muses eating a slice and licking his fingers clean. 

His tail rests in the spot where she sat. “You never really did.”

☆☆☆

Authors note: Super sorry yall. lifes been batshit and i hope yall like this truly. Were coming up on the wrap up~

Taglist: @gallickingun​ @gonuclear​ @dragonblobz @dragonballcollector @lilfriezatyrant @mommaofthesayianguild @lizardhipsdontlie @supremeleadershitlord @thotful-writing @trans-asshole @memevember  @msgreenverse​ @dragonball-hcs-or-sum-shit​ @chickiedinner​ @kamehamethot​

[highgaarden]

Klaroline Time Travel, please for the inbox game.

send me an au and i’ll write five headcanons about it.

i got this prompt a few days ago and thought - hey, it sort of fits in with one of the prompts in @klaroline-events’ june bingo: curse.

two birds, one stone? is that allowed? anyway, if it’s not allowed it’s okay, i had fun writing this all the same! another one for my drunk writing: a series tag, which as usual was written in one sitting whilst i giggle throughout.

sweetness that i took for, sweetness that she gave me to me;

though my heart has long been given to you summer's turn is nigh swifts and swallows swoop and yearn for you with all that's in the sky but blow the wind and come the rain and come my love again

i. 

she’s on the ground when she comes to. her head’s a mess and her back hurts, and she licks the inside of her dry mouth, suddenly wishing for blood to coat her parched tongue. 

the last thing she remembers is freya, davina, her own twins and bonnie standing in formation around hope; some kind of spell to slow down her age or something. she’s in her twenties and every day klaus grows more and more volatile about it, so it was deduced that something had to be done.

in that salt circle hope didn’t look too happy about it. last night there had been a huge argument between father and daughter - everyone had stayed well enough away, even hayley, who shrugs at her as if to apologize this was how their girls' summer break from the salvatore school was going.

“minutes ut horis et diebus et hebdomades,” bonnie and freya chant. 

hope groans.

 “quantum pugillus capere potest,” lizzie and josie continue, fingers clasped together, their eyes turning white. 

hope snorts.

“ex harenae spatia veluti clepsydris metiuntur,” davina bellows as wind starts whipping the air around them. 

hope rolls her eyes.

“tempus extendit!” they chorus together.

the witches chant and hope checks her wristwatch, and then a storm rolls in, breaking everything. the twins are flung to different ends of the room; freya loses her footing and has to dig her nails into the floor to avoid being dragged out the window that's burst open; bonnie bleeds through her nose and drops to her knees; davina flings herself over hope when the little baby tribrid starts to convulse--when it hits her, when it really hits her, that something has gone terribly wrong--

she's on her back. in a cemetery, her throat is bleeding and tyler - tyler? - is shouting down at her, but she can't hear anything he's saying.

she raises her hand. around her wrist, a charm bracelet glints, and her vision blurs: "no," she gasps, death taking over. she hasn't worn that bracelet since her eighteenth birthday.

ii.

klaus sits on the edge of her bed, his gaze swallowing her. she hears a crooning in her ears that she attributes to the werewolve venom taking space in her veins, smoking out the seams of her. she is burning up; this isn't real - how is this real? this isn't happening - she must be hallucinating, she was a woman in the abbatoir watching as a spell self-destructed, and now - 

she was a girl again, and she was dying.

"what's going on?" she whispers, frustrated even as gravity as she knew it malfunctioned around her, making her weightless yet heavy to the bone all at once. "this doesn't make any freaking sense."

"me persuading you, trying to save your life?" klaus cocks his head to the side. it's funny - he is so hard and unreadable here, so many years ago. he wore his rosaries and beads like they meant to be anything more than an accessory peaking just underneath his collar - he wore them like they armour; a badge of honour, hard worn after a bloody, grisly fight. and yet looked and smelled clean. so clean it cut through the putrid leaking out of her neck. "you do think so low of me, then."

"didn't i just say that?" she coughs, splattering her blanket with a fine red mist. this wasn't how it had gone the first time around. he was sitting there, staring at her, those same old hungry eyes she remembers even years later like a broken dream. she can't help herself. she stares him down, much like the first time, but then - her mouth parts, she licks her dry, parched lips, and says, "i've seen so many things."

klaus, ancient monster klaus who barely knew anything more about her than her name, klaus, the being just short of an omniscient deity,old as blood and weathered as a mountain - he doesn't laugh. he nods, once, hearing and listening. he says, "i don't doubt that, sweetheart."

she almost smiles. she's oddly satisfied. "maybe i am ready to die."

"then you're lucky," klaus says, "not many are."

"because you don't give them the chance," she says, coughing again. man, werewolf bites sucked. this memory got it down so perfectly, she would curse the witches' powers if she weren't so impressed.

"who says i don't?" 

she watches him with interest. "i thought you maimed first, ask questions never?"

"maim isn't kill." klaus grins. "maim is slow, painful, yes, but it gives them just long enough to plead their guilt, swear fealty to me, no? my maiming is my mercy."

"you write poetry or something?"

klaus laughs quietly. "i did some editing work for shakespeare, for a fashion. can't say i've ever written anything, no. my talents lie elsewhere."

she thinks about the wisp of his dress shoes against the hem hre ballgown. klaus leading her into a room with wide, arched ceilings. one of my passions, he said.

"i know," she says, quietly, with so much rueful affirmation in her voice that klaus reels back suddenly. as if realising he was sitting with someone who was far more familiar with him than current logic would suggest.

it felt like strange company to be having on her death bed. he had talked her out of dying last time. would he, again, in this memory?

was this a memory?

she thinks about how powerful the witches were in their own right. she thinks about their combined power. she thinks about how her blanket scratches heavily against her drenched, hyper-sensitive skin. 

she's not sure this is just memory.

and - and if it weren't just a memory, and the spell they'd tried casting had tried to temper with time, and she was here, in the PAST, was she - oh god - was this - ?

"klaus," she gasps, clutching at his hands. klaus' eyes widen.

"i don't know who you think you are, girl," klaus begins in a snarl, but everything flashes bright and hot - 

iii.

"and how am i doing?"

he knows his lines by now. he had been confused, enraged, elated all at once when he'd first landed slap dab in the middle of a patch in time he'd already lived through, but he's seen things in his thousand-and-something years, so he wasn't all that surprised. he'd tried to switch things up at first, say things he'd held back all those years ago, and watches caroline's face change.

it was fascinating, seeing things all over again. it offered him perspective. arguing with caroline but being able to detach himself from the moment and study all the ways that make her tick. knowing her for so many years now, he knew when she was bluffing. it was the way she would refuse to meet his eyes. back then, she never met his eyes.

stubborn little woman.

she turns. her gaze was sharper than the chill of the uncharacteristically cool spring afternoon. and then all at once she softens, and the bloom around her inexplicably gain more colour. the rest of the pageant dulled around her as she grew larger than life. "you look... perfect."

he'd never realised that little breath she had let out - like he had met her expectations yet again. exceeded them, in fact. she held herself carefully  around him, like she was made of thousands of little strings which would at any point unravel, leaving her bare for him.

odd, because he could only ever remember her being determined not to relinquish any control over to him. it had never occurred to him that her grip over it wasn't as unwavering as he'd thought.

iv.

caroline speeds through these scenarios she didn't have a name for, now that she had determined their level of harm - they appeared to only be swaths of time, ripped to shreds, trying to come back together. she wondered about the reality of bonnie, freya, her girls and davina's ministrations.

what had they done to Time?

she couldn't call it memories, these moments she steps into. maybe time was reconstructing. her meetings with klaus weren't in any chronological order. at some point they were in her office, two years ago, him pleading with her to help him save his daughter. experiencing it the first time around hadn't been easy. the second - she could watch him with new eyes and notice all the other, smaller ways he seemed to be falling apart. the things she'd never noticed. 

like the way he could stare at her, and oh how he stared. the way he would level his eyes to hers when it looked like she was ready to break eye contact; he would catch her gaze and hold, pulling her back, tethering her to him, unrelenting.

he's looking at her right now as he shows her his paintings. it's the night of the mikaelson ball all over again, and she is in her gifted dress and klaus is in his relish of the moment. how she had come to him after letting him dress her. now that she's older she knows now, what it must have meant to him. this small claiming, the first of many.

but there is none of the heat in his gaze, because he's not that klaus yet. he's not in love with her, yet. he's not looking at her as if he'd like nothing else than to just press the very tips of the hair that brushed his forehead to hers, just hold her there, and not think for a while.

yet.

she knows how this will go. did klaus know, then?

"you make it sound like it was the easiest decision in the world," she finds herself saying, "choosing me."

klaus looks surprised. she'd interrupted him mid-rant about some kind of debate, michaelangelo vs donatello or whatever. "was i not making myself clear enough when i said i fancy you?"

"liking - despite yourself - that's not choosing." she gives the half-done sketches in her hands a quick glance before putting them back where she'd found them. "we both know i'm not just your fancy of the week."

klaus' face clouds over. "and here i thought courting you would be easy." it sounds like a joke, but it's not. she can hear it in the sudden shift in his voice, how it becomes just that much silkier.

"you didn't really think that," she says knowingly, playing into his charade. enjoying the danger. some things never really change, she wants to laugh.

a small smirk breaks through the hard set of his mouth. "no, i really didn't. you're too smart to be seduced by me."

caroline blinks. her own words, in his mouth, shouldn't startle her so much. how well he knew her, even having just met her. "that's why you like me," she says. only just loud enough for him to catch it.

he doesn't say anything. just lifts her gloved knuckles to his lips and kissed her there.

v.

she makes an excuse to leave. klaus is unwilling to let her go so easily but he's playing at being a gentlemen, because back then he'd thought she'd received him better. it was kind of adorable in a way, if it didn't vex her so much.

what was happening? where the hell was she? why was she stuck in a weird loop of all her interactions with klaus? was hope okay? when was she getting out of here?

she walks on, the trail of her dress getting dirty and muddled in the damp earth. she could smell in the air that it was going to rain, and yet she walks and walks and walks through the lawn of the mikaelson estate until she reaches the edge, and the air around her wrinkles and gleams, as if trying to force a doorway through.

she... takes a step forward. and another. she goes easily through the barrier - she almost wonders if she'd imagined it.

she's still in the mikaelson estate.

so she keeps walking - until she sees a familiar figure ahead. 

it's klaus.

she gulps. had he come look for her after all, shucking the gentleman and bowing to the monster?

she keeps walking. until she's close enough to see that he's looking a little more dishevelled than he did at the ball. his bowtie was lose around his neck. he'd lost his jacket, and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. 

he looks at her. the way he's always looked at her.

she breathes in. "you're here too," she says on the exhale.

"enjoy the ball?" he asks, in lieu of a confirmation. he eyes her in the dress. "i almost forgot how lovely you looked, that night. i never knew if you kept the dress."

"i did," caroline laughs, shakily. "deep in the back of my closet, hidden from prying eyes - but not well hidden enough."

a corner of klaus' lips quirk. "tell me."

"my girls found it," caroline shrugs. "and hope wore it to her miss mystic falls pageant."

"did she win?" he asks, hungry for this bit of information about his daughter in the years he was dead, lost to time. 

"of course she did," caroline half-smiles. "she was in the care of lizzie's craftful hands. i raised my daughters in my image. not all - just the good bits."

"i love all your bits," klaus says. he smiles at her, softly, cataloguing how she looks now, in the dress he'd given her years and years ago. "you loved me for far longer than i'd thought, caroline."

caroline, to her credit, doesn't blush. no, she's too much a woman now. denial had lead her nowhere for so many years. "gonna gloat about it now?"

"nah," klaus says, putting his hands in his pockets as they fell into step, into the cold night. 

the grass, almost frozen in the morning dew to come, crunch under their feet. they walk until they reach his lake, because of course the mikaelson estate would have a lake. klaus pulls his hands out of his pockets and offers her his arm, which she takes, and leads her to the bench that overlooks the reflection of the night sky on still, dark waters.

"i wish you'd taken me here instead, that night," caroline says, still in that casual offhand voice she'd adopted since meeting him. "way more romantic."

"i thought you would've been averse to romantic, so soon after we'd met." klaus shrugs. "also, the full force of my courtship would have had you on your knees, caroline. a man has to start slow."

"i thought you would've liked me on my knees," she says impishly, and he nearly falls off the bench.

god, klaus had died and come back to life so many times a creature that just refused to go quietly - and yet with her he's this fumbling bashful boy. she nudged him with his knee, through the many delicate layers of her dress. "how was your trip down memory lane?"

"enlightening," he says mysteriously. she doesn't bother to hide her grin.

"so was mine," she says. "all those times you must have wanted to rip my head off. i was a daring idiot."

"not an idiot," klaus argues. "sure, you could have held your tongue at any point - but you were certainly daring. you bore the brunt of my affections for you like armour. any lesser woman would have crumpled."

she doesn't meet his gaze, but he catches her chin before she can look away. "no, love. none of that, please. we've come so far."

he's pleased when she bites her bottom lip, understanding. he never had to explain herself with her. she was always perceptive, always listening, always deciphering. his clever caroline.

"so has hope," caroline says, and klaus groans quietly. "she's the brightest kid at the school, klaus. she knows her power and knows her limits. she can benchpress the boys under the table," she laughs in recollection, and he can't help but join in, "and you can't do anything about her growing, klaus."

klaus sighs. long and wrought out, and in pain. "i have missed so many of her years."

"what are you going to do, stall her even more? let her miss out on the beauty of aging, with lizzie and josie?" caroline catches his eye. "they've become family, our girls. we are family now - let them grow and know loss."

he's a bit dumbfounded by the wisdom she's displaying but has time to clear his throat and say, rather gruffly like when he's trying to mask awkwardness, "we're not a family. not really. you have alaric, and..."

"and alaric is my business partner, the father to the girls," she says sternly. "alaric is not... you."

it's weird, his gaze has been on hers all along, but it's like he's refocusing, seeing her for the first time. "what are you saying?"

"i'm saying that i didn't just come to new orleans because the girls wanted to spend summer break there." she licks her lips nervously. "i'm saying i came for me, too. it was a really nice holiday, klaus."

"before i bungled everything up, i expect," klaus mutters. caroline laughs a bit. the air around them had slowly warmed as their conversation lengthened, and was sizzling now, lighting up klaus' face in sparks of white and gold. "time to go back, sweetheart."

"you should work on your apology to her," caroline says, taking his arm again, and follows him as he stands and steps right into the middle of their ritual earlier.

lizzie and josie were there, and hope was in the middle of the twins sandwich - freya and bonnie were consulting a grimoire and davina was drawing chalk on the floor. they all looked up and stared at them, jaws dropping.

"looking good, dad," hope says, impressed, then her eyes land on caroline in the dress. "oh my gosh - it looks like it was made for you."

"um, it was hers?" lizzie says, snorting. "can't believe you're on honour roll."

"lizzie," josie chides. she tilts her head at klaus and her mother, looking them up and down, the way her mother’s hand was wrapped loosely in the crook of klaus’ arm, where only hours ago they had determinedly not touched this entire break. "so, weird trip?"

"you could say that," caroline says airily as the air re-seals behind them. "think something like a charles dickens novel."

"cool," hope nods. she looks at her father expectantly. "what have we learned about messing with time, dad?"

"to not do it," klaus concedes grumpily. "now off you go before i lose my mind over that gray hair growing down your temple."

"i do not have grey hair!" hope gasps, affronted, and storms the room, the twins giggling in tow.

"bet you wouldn't mind some slow-aging spells for THAT!" klaus calls after her laughingly, and she must have heard, tribrid senses and all, and mutters something about him might being right.

[divineluce]

Southpaw and Witchfire || Adam & Luce

Timing: May 30th, 2020

Location: Deep in the Woods

Tagging: @walker-journal​ & @divineluce​

Description: Kindred spirits in grief, Adam helps Luce work through her pain.

Triggers: Derogatory language CW

When Adam had messaged her, with his stupid offer of fighting, Luce hadn’t taken him seriously. But here she was, in the middle of the forest, her sparring bag slung over her shoulder. About to meet Adam for some kinda… bullshit, punch away your feelings session. Real Fight Club style, just with fewer cult vibes. As she walked into the clearing that she’d been to so many times before, Luce tossed her bag on the ground and began to warm up, swinging her arms. The scratches and bruises she’d sustained while running through the woods had faded away to fresh scars and yellowed skin, and you know? Why the fuck not bring some new ones to the game. She didn’t give a shit. Noticing movement to her right, she looked up and saw Adam walking into the clearing. “Hey. You showed up.” She said with a nod. “I heard you wanna fucking go, bro?” Luce joked, though the words came out more aggressive and threatening than anything else. She didn’t care. She was angry and if he wanted to fucking fight, she’d fucking fight.

There were certain decoctions that could dull a Hunter's strength for a time. Adam had used them when he was very young and terrified of accidentally crippling classmates or a girlfriend in a reflexive burst of superhuman strength. Indeed, Adam had no intention of winning this fight, only surviving it for long enough to maybe give his sparring partner some brief release. The liquid had been absolutely foul, but a numbing sensation and feeling of heaviness signaled that it’d worked its way through his bloodstream. His mutant healing should let himself survive pretty much anything Luce could dish out without guns or fireballs, but now there’d be no danger of him accidentally crushing her ribcage. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, winding athletic tape around his hands. “You’ve kinna been acting like an uppity cunt and your weird carny sister biting it has pretty much made you fucking unbearable. Time for a reality check.” 

Lip curling at his words, Luce stared at him for a moment, her hands shaking at her side. Her carny sister-- How fucking dare you say that about my sister. How fucking dare you.” Gritting her teeth, Luce rifled through her bag and grabbed a pair of MMA gloves. Hand to hand wasn’t her forte, she’d never gotten good at it. Swords, swords were her strength. But, looking at his smug frat boy face, his stupid angular jawline? Luce wanted to beat him into the dirt herself. She wanted to feel him hurt the way she hurt. Which is why she chose the gloves over the blunted training swords or the ratan single stick she had in her bag. The gloves didn’t have much padding, but it would be enough to ensure she didn’t break a bone in her hand when she smashed this fucking asshole’s teeth in. Sliding the black gloves on, she stared at him, her blood boiling with rage. “You’re going to regret saying that shit to me.” She said, thinking about Kaden as she ran at Adam, fists raised and ready.

The Hunter calling being what it was, most of the fighting stances Adam had been trained in were explicitly intended to kill with cold brutal efficiency. Each said style had a specific kind of physiology and type monster movement pattern it was designed to counter. Adam, being a strictly Code-observing Hunter, had intentionally abstained from learning all fighting techniques designed to quickly maim or dispatch other human beings. So today’s stance was nothing fancy. 

Adam stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, left foot turned toward Luce. He made a loose fist with his right hand by his chin with the left hand in front of his face.

Old School boxing stance any coach would teach you. Chin Down. Eyes Up. Don’t Die. 

“Why? She was the only one of you three that had her shit together,” Adam said, making a taunting beckoning with one of his weathered brown MMA gloves as Luce advanced towards him. “Your Mom even fucking said so,” he said bicep’s bunching as opened with a quick Left Jab, the boxing punch typically used to gague your opponent’s distance and defenses in order to step up stronger heavier punches. “You’re the weird lesbian problem girl who...what was it…” Adam feigned a smirking thoughtful expression as he aimed a Right Cross right for Luce’s face. 

“...Hides in her shed,” Adam said in a stilted impression of a Turkish accent. “Let’s face it,” he said, continuing to attempt to circle Luce, throwing  out quick jabs mainly to test what kind of reflexes and guarding he was up against. “Beatrice was fucking carrying both of you…..but when then she actually needed you for once? Where were you?” 

Adam let out a sardonic chuckle, abdominals tightening as he aimed a kick at Luce’s stomach. “Useless, MIA, hiding in your fucking little shed while someone hacked her to pieces. Kinna late to come to her defense now Lucinda,” 

While Adam might have had the advantage of Hunter training, Luce had years of bar fights, run-ins with monsters in the woods, and pure, unadulterated rage on her side. Her untrained eyes didn’t pick up on his stance, or the way he was testing the distance with his jabs. She didn’t give a fuck about technique. “Don’t fucking bring my mother into this.” She growled, smacking his cross out of the way with a rough punch of her own. At his horrible attempt at a Turkish accent, Luce felt her neck burn red. A growl escaped from her throat and she rolled back and forth, ducking and dodging his jabs. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she did her best to make it through the barrage of punches. Adam was stronger than her, taller than her, with longer arms that could throw harder punches than she could. But she’d been through worse. 

When he kicked out at her, Luce sidestepped and caught his leg in the crook of her arm, pinning it to her side. “Shut up! Shut up! You don’t know a fucking thing!” She spat as she punched the inside of his leg with her free hand before pushing him away, trying to send him into the dirt.

Adam had to admit that a little regret about being so thorough when the enervating decoction Luce proved that she could handle herself amply. Even in the dusky forest, Adam could see the faint splot of red-stained yellow on the inside of his leg that signaled there'd be a bruise there pretty soon. Still on the ground he tried to swing out the uninjured leg to try and knock Luce off balance. 

“Really?” The Hunter sprang to his feet and attempted to shove Luce back in one alactious motion, attempting to exploit the leverage of his own brawny frame to knock Luce down. “What I see is a trampy tomboy screw-up who never fit in, so she puts on a scary Alpha Bitch act, but doesn’t actually have what it takes when someone actually needs her.” 

Adam aimed a Left Hook in a wind-up that sent a semi-circular punch towards Luce’s jawline.

Watching Adam tumble to the ground brought some small amount of satisfaction to her. But, that moment was lost when she kicked his leg out and Luce found herself joining him in the grass and dirt as he knocked her off her feet. Scrambling to get back to her feet, to regain the high ground, Luce did her best to avoid his shove. “She told me to stay away!” She yelled, bitter angry tears welling up in her eyes, but she forced them back. She couldn’t allow her vision to cloud. But, as she tried to control her emotions, the punch Adam sent her way clocked her right in the jaw. Her head whipped around and she fell to the ground, stunned. Her teeth bit into the side of her cheek and she could taste blood in her mouth when she hit the earth. Fuck.

Fuck. As she lay there for a moment, head wringing from the shot to the jaw, Luce’s mind was going a mile a minute. If she couldn’t take a goddamn punch in the woods, if she couldn’t handle this then how the fuck was she going to save Bea? How the fuck was she going to do what needed to be done. With a growl, Luce spit out a thin stream of blood and rolled back to her feet. Her hands were low, she didn’t give a fuck about defending. She wanted to make him hurt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hissed before lunging at him, her shoulders low as she made an attempt to grapple the man.

“Well of fucking course she did,” Adam grunted at he attempted to catch Luce’s charge. Slayers and Wardens were innately faster then Adam even by the superhuman standards of Hunters, so the less specialized mutant had to leverage raw strength through his size and build in order to pull his weight on Hunts. However Luce wasn’t a Alghoul or Spawn, being lithe and unpredictable in a way only rage can make you. Through a grapple was arguably Adam’s strong point, this was proving more than he’d bargained for. “Why do you think that is?”

“I fought beside Beatrice you know,” Adam pointed out truthfully. “Saved her from a Fext.” The Hunter himself felt really the ‘saving’ had gone both ways there, and the late sorceress had more than held her own. However Adam was trying to incite Luce into giving her all, and dredging up all the rage and fury that you can’t reveal in public when people are endlessly reciting nice-sounding platitudes about your loss. Objective truth wasn’t a priority here. 

“If I’m a stupid mouth-breathing Frat broy,” Adam huffed through gritted teeth, broad shoulders knotting as he tried to force Luce to give ground in the grapple before sheer physically. “What’s that make you Lucinda? If I can come through where you can't?” 

A bare-toothed sneer broke across Adam’s hard jaw-line. “Guess Bea’d still be alive if she’d relied on me ‘stead of you.” 

Face pressed against Adam’s side, Luce held onto him, keeping him close as she began to smash her fist over and over into his stomach and ribs. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up, she thought with every impact of her gloves against his body. “Shut your fucking mouth.” She spat, though the words sent her reeling, almost more than his punches. Bea knew she’d been too weak, too fucking weak to do anything. Which is why she’d told her to stay away. Why she’d told her to protect herself. Because she wasn’t strong enough. 

Feeling the way he was using his muscle mass to try and force her to tap out, to try and wrestle her into submission, Luce twisted and turned, thrashing wildly to escape from him before he could reverse the move. She managed to wrench herself free from his grasp, but she could feel strands of her hair being pulled and torn from her head as she pulled away. “You think I don’t know that?! You think I don’t fucking know that Bea would still be here if someone, if anyone else had known?” She shouted, panting as she backed away from him. Her arms were aching, her lungs heaving. The adrenaline, which had propelled her forward in the fight, was waning and in its wake there was nothing but tiredness. Her anger, while still present, was fading fast. And the numbness, the sadness… that was all that was left. “I know Nell beats herself up for being targeted and for Bea, for Bea saving her. But I wasn’t even there! I should have been there! I should have fucking known!” She howled before throwing herself back at Adam, fists raised halfheartedly. She wanted him to hurt her, to punish her the way she deserved.

Adam had reasoned from what Penelope had told him that the perpetrator of Beatrice’s murder had a high probability of being human, or at least ‘humanish’ (A surprisingly broad category in the paranormal underworld) He hadn’t pressed Nell for any details the other night, not wanting to stir up all that pain. Adam was not a therapist. Thus when he saw Lucinda’s spirit flagging, he perceived the same necessity that had informed his own parents. This was a dark and unforgiving world, and caring for someone means ensuring that they were a survivor by any means necessary. 

“Yeah you should have,” Adam snarled back at Luce  in a baritone made thick by heavy breathing. “What ...the..actual fuck is this….” The Hunter’s harsh voice reaching a deeper note at Luce’s passionless defense. “The fuck you are you doing Luce!?” Adam’s face took on a livid tinge as he began a true assault. “They’re going to kill Nell! Kill you!” The previous ambient bird and animal noises were hushed as Adam’s yelling continued into a stream of dark profanity broken by an unrelenting barrage of uppercuts, right crosses, and kicks. The Hunter no longer bothered with any guarding or dodging, focusing all his muscularity and energy into a tool of violence. If his words couldn’t reach Luce, then Adam would fall back on the neanderthalic method. 

“They’re like me! They’re killers! They won’t fucking stop just because you beg or Nell’s innocent,” Adam hissed through clenched teeth, knuckles raining down in blow after blow toward Luce. “You give up and you’ll both die! Because you’re weak! Where’s that fucking fire?” Adam swung a roundhouse kick Luce’s way. “Step up or die in the dirt cunt! Killers don’t care if you’re mourning!” 

Words. His fucking words. Luce could handle the onslaught of kicks and punches, she let them fall without blocking them, her body absorbing the blows. His fists against her arms, his feet against her legs, his elbows knocking against her stomach. Each impact sent a firework of pain through her body but she let them come. She could deal with the pain. She could handle the pain. But his words, his goddamn words. Luce closed her eyes as she curled up in on herself, her arms coming up to protect her head, as if that would stop the words he kept hurling at her. “I know! I know they’d kill us in a heartbeat! I know they would!” She yelled, though the words were more of a sob. They’d killed Bea without a second thought, they’d do the same to her, the same to Nell.

But when he asked about her fire, her fucking fire, Luce’s eyes flicked open. He wanted to see fire? He wondered where the flames were, where the spark was? While part of her had died the moment she’d found out about Bea, another part of her had been unlocked. Flames fueled by hatred and sorrow and loss. He wanted to see fire? Dodging out of the way of his roundhouse kick, Luce stepped back, extending her gloved hands. “You want to see my fire?!” With that, she let out a roar of anger and grief. Blue flames exploded from her hands, shooting around the two of them. The flames formed a giant circle around them, their blue tongues reaching higher and higher as Luce stared at Adam with pain filled eyes. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save my family! Whatever it takes!”

Adam flinched as the witchfire roared around them, a wall of phlogiston sapphire that made the Hunter’s vision ripple in a heat haze, as very air had become a boiling liquid. Blue fire was at least two thousand three hundred degrees if not more. The white sweat-stained fabric of Adam’s sleeveless gym shirt curled at the edges, fraying as small black-ridged holes appeared. Wave after wave of dry heat washed over Adam, a searing pain mountain even as his nostrils filled with the faintly sulfurous scent of his own singing hair. 

Adam lowered his hands to his own knees, the deep breathing of physical exertion made labored by the flame burning away the oxygen inside the ring. His brown eyes met Luce’s, bruised features painfully turning into an expression distinct from the contemptuous smirks and leers he’d been assuming. Adam walked to Lucinda across the blackened grass, gait a little stiff as the flaring heat accentuated the previous blow she’d landed on his leg muscle. 

If Lucinda permitted it, Adam attempted to catch her  in an embrace of sweaty bruised arms. “I know you will.” 

The air between them shimmered with heat as the fires roared around them. Luce could feel the energy rushing out of her body, her strength being consumed by the hungry flames around them. But, she couldn’t let go of the fire. She couldn’t release them. The sorrow she carried, the pain, the emotions were reflected in every flickering strand of light that surrounded the two of them. As Adam approached her, she watched his movements with a wary, tear filled eye. She wouldn’t burn him, wouldn’t do that to someone. But, if he said another foul thing against her and her family, if he doubted her abilities…

When his arms reached out for her, it wasn’t a headlock or a grapple or any other move she’d been bracing for. Instead, Adam pulled her into a hug.

The second his arms closed around her, Luce felt all the sadness and grief return to the surface, unfettered by the anger and rage and guilt. The fires died, leaving nothing but a circle of charred earth around them and smoke curls. Wrapping her arms around Adam, Luce buried her head into his shoulder and sobbed.

[feathers-scales-and-tails]

Lately I've seen a lot of posts talking about the environmental impact pet cats can have. And while this is absolutely excellent that awareness is finally being brought, I have yet to see a single discussion about pet dogs. Many don't know but they can be just as destructive as cats if allowed to wander unchecked! I'd really appreciate if you could take the time to read this or share it please! So cheers, I'll try not to drag this out too long.

Dogs just like cats, massacre animals simply because of instincts, they're bored, or because it's just fun to kill. Despite it being illegal in Queensland, Australia where I live to allow a dog to leave its property unsupervised, it is common place to see it happen anyway. Local councils are slack with pet cats and dogs so even if their wandering is reported often no punishments are enforced upon owners. Majority know how harmful a single cat can be; my backyard population of Eastern Water Dragons (5 adults, estimated 13 babies) was slaughtered by my neighbours cat. That damage has never reversed and to this day, roughly 8 years after, I have never seen another Water Dragon in my yard. Yet mention a dog and people will bite your head off with "dogs are angels" and "my dog would never kill"

We don't often hear about dogs killing wildlife although it does happen, considering they don't drag the kills back home likes cats do. Often dead possums and kangaroos will be abandoned wherever the dog killed them, unbeknownst to the owners. However what we do hear about commonly, is livestock.

Ask any farmer in Australia and they will tell you that they've had stock massacred by dogs, occasionally feral but usually pets. Feral dogs don't like light and are usually smart enough not to jump into a paddock where they'll be trapped and prone to discovery by humans. Pet dogs don't have this fear, and are often found covered in blood and gore surrounded by bodies.

Here are some of the stories I was told just from last year. Warning I have included very graphic descriptions so if you don't want to read feel free to skip. I'll summarise at the very end of this post how many stock died for you without the details.

12+ sheep (he stopped counting it was too distressing for him but estimate is around the 20 mark) attacked by dogs. 5 were still alive when he found them, 2 passed away as he went to get his knife. He had to finish 3 off. He doesn't know what time they were attacked but considering most of the blood was dry it was likely many, many hours ago. The dog wasn't caught but it was likely a pet one considering none of the carcasses were consumed at all and the owner lives close to both a university and a town where there are many pet dogs.

23 sheep including lambs and pregnant ewes massacred by two pet dogs. 11 were still alive when found and most needed to be finished off. These dogs had obviously taken great joy in chasing the sheep since all injuries sustained were to the rear with absolutely no scratch on the front end of the sheep. It's likely they chased them, grabbed them and pulled them down, them let them back up and repeated until the sheep collapsed from blood loss and exhaustion. Several of the sheep were missing the tendons in their legs and these tendons were found flung across the paddocks. The two dogs responsible were found on the property, they were playing with a deceased lamb. Throwing it in the air and shaking it. When they caught sight of the farmer approaching them they ran over for pats. I'm unsure what happened to the dogs? I believe the farmer found their owner and gave them a serving but allowed the dogs to live.

3 calves attacked by dog/s. Culprits weren't caught so this one could have been feral, but considering nothing was eaten again doesn't seem likely. 2 of the calves were found deceased, one with chunks taken from both sides so big you could stick your fist inside apparently. The other one was missing her ears and tail but had no other visible injuries asides from tears at her heels. She likely died from shock. The 3rd calf was found still alive, lying on its side with its intestines hanging out. The dogs had crippled its back legs so it couldn't stand or run and then torn open its stomach. It appears that they may have been going to eat the organs but were disturbed or scared off? This calf was shot.

7 sheep killed, 3 pregnant ewes and 2 lambs. I wasn't given details of how they died, or if any were found still alive, however I was told something which is incredibly upsetting. The dog that did this was their own. She was their pet German shepherd who had previously chased sheep but never attacked them. They rehomed her somewhere without other animals.

37 chickens. Once again no details but it was the neighbours pet dogs.

An alpaca who was guarding his herd of sheep died valiantly defending them from two dogs.

Somebody's entire flock of 10 sheep. They'd not long gotten them and since they were pets they were obviously crushed. Dog wasn't caught but was likely another pet considering the lambs bodies appeared to have been shaken around like toys.

That was all during 2018, last year. Please note that if vet treatment was feasible, a lot of these animals would have received it. Their conditions were so poor that there would've been nothing a vet could do asides from euthanasia. Although vet euthanasia is more humane and nicer than a slit throat or bullet through the skull, rural vets often aren't nearby so can take several hours to arrive. Although some cases would come down to money (a vet callout fee is around 100-200 bucks) majority were because these people didn't want to leave their stock in pain while they waited for vets to arrive (they likely would have died before the vet arrived anyway). So please don't come at me about how them putting their stock out of their misery is abuse or anything like that because it's an awful thing to go through and was not a decision made lightly.

All of this I only know from talking directly to the farmers (I'm involved in agricultural shows particularly the sheep and poultry sectors). Two of those people I mentioned are friends of mine. I had SEEN that first examples sheep on the Friday. He'd taken me down and showed me all of them. By the Monday, I think it was? Over half of them were gone. There was one little girl I fell in love with and joked about taking home with me. It crushed me finding out she was one of the ones he had to finish off, left there god knows how long in agony. I'll attach a photo of her because she deserves remembering.

That's livestock, I dread to think what dogs are doing to our local wildlife. Here are a couple cases I've heard about this year for wildlife. Descriptions are brief and not gory.

Pet dog killed a blue tongue lizard found in their yard. She also maimed another one which they got off her and took to the vets (likely euthanised)

Pet dog jumped and pulled a Ringtail possum out of a tree on an early morning walk. Owner got the possum away from it but she was pretty maimed, she was euthanised at the vets.

Pet dog kills big Brushtail possum it found crossing through the yard at night.

Pet dog on a walk takes off on owner chasing a wallaby. Leash wasn't securely being held so is pulled from the owners hand and the dog runs off into bushland after the wallaby. He came back after 10-15 minutes of calling him, muzzle covered in blood. It's unknown what happened to the wallaby.

Oh so many snakes killed by dogs.... people like to brag about their dogs killing snakes so I've probably got 30 stories of this for you. "He was guarding his family like a good boy" "only good snake is a dead snake and (dogs name) here knows it!" "Better the snake than me" "one less snake! I think that's celebration. I hope he gets more"

That last one in particular makes me incredibly angry. Vast majority of snake bites are because people either try to catch or kill the snake, if left alone we wouldn't have as many 'vicious snake attacks' as we do. Many dogs die annually or require antivenon due to being bit while mauling snakes. It's not that hard to train a dog not to touch wildlife.

I think it's great we're becoming more aware of the environmental impact cats have, and are hopefully becoming more responsible cat owners. However education also needs to be raised on how destructive dogs can be. We need to ensure that we're responsible owners and do everything we can to minimise the impact our pets have on both wildlife, and other people's pets.

Livestock summary: 12+ sheep killed, 23 sheep killed, 3 calves killed, 7 sheep killed, 37 chickens killed, 1 alpaca killed, 10 sheep killed. And not a single one was eaten, simply killed for sport.

Here's that gorgeous girl I said I'd attach a photo of, may she rest easy now.

[thatoneloser-kid]

Read you were receiving Ellina prompts, how about writing about Dina (or either) realising she likes Ellie? :) thanks!!

Dina remembered the first time she had seen Ellie, it definitely wasn’t the most attractive first impression to make.

Dina found her at the gate to the complex in torn clothes, covers in mud, blood and guts, applying pressure onto her father’s -no, not her father. Her… Joel’s- wound.

Dina sent Jesse to get help before moving to kneel beside Ellie.

“You have to help him.” Ellie said, looking at Dina with cold blue eyes. “He’s going to die if you don’t stop the bleeding.”

“We will,” Dina swore, “Jesse is going to get someone from the med wing. Are you hurt? Have either of you been bitten?”

“No,” she answered.

“What happened to him?”

“Raiders,” Ellie explained shortly.

The medics appeared then, heaving Joel onto a makeshift transfer bored and rushing him off to the bay, Ellie stumbling after them, telling them everything she knew about Joel.

His blood type, that he wasn’t allergic to anything, what had happened with the raiders.

Then she was stopped outside the room by a man. “You can’t come in, kid.”

“Get out of my fucking way,” Ellie growled.

“Hey,” Dina said calmly, placing a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “They’ll look after him.”

“They have to save him,” Ellie said, taking a step away from the man by the door.

“And they will, but right now you could very easily be mistaken for one of those things and someone could shot you on sights.” Dina joked with a cheeky little grin, holding up her keys. “Go to my place, get washed up, there is nothing you can do for him right now.”

“I-“

“Just don’t steal anything,”

Ellie looked down at the key in her hand before nodded, heading off to the house Dina told her.

Dina stayed behind, helping clean up the corridors of Joel’s blood before heading back to her place.  

She left a towel, a pair of sweat pants and a sweatshirt at the door of the bathroom before heading downstairs and set stuff up to make scrambled eggs.

“I’m Dina, by the way,” Dina said when she heard footsteps behind her. “I figured you should know the name of the girl who is about to make you the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever tried.”

“I need to get back,”

“I will take you over after you’ve eaten,” Dina offered, turned to Ellie, whatever she had to add to her statement dying in her throat when she saw the girl standing before her.

Dina’s sweatshirt was a little too tight, but Ellie still, somehow made it look good, and her wet hair was pulled up into a hair tie, a few stray strands framing her face in ringlets.

And her face, now completely void of dirt and blood, was prettier then Dina imagined, a dusting of freckles over her cheeks as the bridge of her nose.

It wasn’t until Dina brought her eyes back to Ellie’s face from where they had strayed down her body, that Dina realised Ellie had said something.

“What?”

“I said thank you, for the, albeit too small, clothes, and the shower.”

“Sure,” Dina smiled, turning back to her eggs.

“I’m Ellie,”

“And what’s your dads name?” Dina asked.

“He’s not my dad, he’s my… Joel.”

“Well, your Joel will be fine, and I would imagine he would want you to eat.” Dina reasoned. “And I can wash your clothes if you’d like? That was a nice flannel.”

“You don’t have to do that, I’m just grateful you helped us out.”

“I wasn’t about to leave a pretty girl covered in blood out there alone.” Dina scoffed, like the idea was just barbaric. “Do you like nettle tea?”

“Never had it,”

“Take a seat, I’ll bring it over when I’m done.”

Ellie headed for the table and Dina turned back to the food, bracing her hands on the counter, frowning at her thumping heart.

(Ellie hated the nettle tea, scrunching up her face in such a cute way that Dina could do nothing but just stare).

Joel was, of course, okay. And, apparently, the brother of the guy who ran the compound so they stayed, but Dina wasn’t sure for how long. Forever? Until Joel was better? She didn’t know and didn’t get the chance to ask for almost two weeks.

She ran into Ellie by mistake, in the gym as she dropped off food to Jesse.

“Thank you,” Jesse smiled, dipping in for a kiss but then Dina spotted Ellie, laying into a bag in the corner, and her feet were moving before she even registered the fact, ducking under Jesse’s kiss.

“See you tonight,” Dina called over her shoulder. “Hey,”

Ellie stopped, catching the bag as it swung toward her before turning to Dina, her face damp and red. Dina really couldn’t help but stare.

“Hey,” Ellie greeted. “Did you want this?”

“No, no.” Dina waved her off. “I was just checking in, how’s your Joel?”

Ellie rolled her eyes at the playful teasing, and Dina felt an odd sense of pride at the fact. “Getting better.”

“I’m glad,” Dina watched attentively as Ellie grabbed her water bottle, tipping her head back and taking a long drink. Dina watched the way her throat bobbled as she swallowed before shaking herself out of that pervy train of thought, especially in front of her boyfriend. “Are you staying?”

“I think Joel wants to.”

“And you?” Dina managed to keep her voice even but there was hope bubbling in her chest. She ignored it, and the implications.

“I don’t know,” Ellie shrugged. “I don’t do well in the same place for too long.”

“A comfy bed and food is a pretty sweet deal in this world.”

“You’ll be surprised what you can do out there,”

“Consider it, sticking around.” Dina said, moving to leave.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, you might be fun to be around.” Dina grinned at Ellie. “When you get that stick outta your ass.”

Dina left then, leaving a shocked Ellie behind.

Ellie found her the third time, three weeks after she first arrived.

Dina was tending to the live stock at the time.

“Hey,”

Dina felt a flutter in her chest at the sound of the girls voice alone, which should her been and first red flag. Dina glanced back, her nails scratching behind the cows ear. “Hey.”

“What are you doing?”

“I was feeding them, but this girl here just loves a good scratch.” Dina said, rubbing her hand against the cows cheek.

“It’s a cow,”

“It’s a living thing,” Dina disagreed, holding her hand toward Ellie and wiggled her fingers. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“Remember? Stick, removed from ass.”

“You’re kind of an asshole,” Ellie said, but there was not really venom behind it.

“Thank you,” Dina smiled, wiggling her fingers again. “Now, come here.”

And Ellie did, unsurely.

“Pet her,”

“What?” Ellie frowned. “No.”

“Come on, she won’t bite.” Dina huffed. “Not that that would affect you, from what I’ve heard.”

Ellie ignored that little jab, reaching out and patting the cow, tentatively at first, but began scratching the top of her head when she realised the cow wouldn’t hurt her.

“She’s softer than I would have thought.”

“She’s just a baby, almost a year now.” Dina explained, rubbing under the cows chin. “The mother had trouble giving birth, we have to get doctor Jonah in, we don’t have a vet on the complex, so she was the closest thing. She had to pull the calf out with her own hands, it was crazy.”

“Was the mother okay?”

“Yeah, she was fine, it was the baby who was in danger,” Dina lifted her eyes to Ellie, who was towering over her, scratching the cows other ear. She wasn’t smiling, but that hard look she always wore had melted away. “After that I started reading up on veterinary care for the farm animals we have here, and for cats and dogs.”

“You want to look after them?”

“I do, this is my job here, but when she was suffering and I couldn’t do anything, I felt awful.” Dina admitted. “I want to be able to help if it happens again.”

Ellie’s eyes moved to her, her eyebrows raising, seemingly in surprise to see Dina was already staring at her. “That’s really cool,”

“We’ve spent years trying to keep ourselves alive, a lot of the time we forget about all the living things that kept us alive before all of this.” Dina reasoned and Ellie nodded slowly. “Were you looking for me?”

“No, I was just looking around, figured I should get to know the place I’ll be spending the forcible future.”

Dina felt herself visible perk up, “You’re staying?”

“For a little while,” Ellie nodded. “Tommy reasoned that if I get cabin fever I can go out scavenging or hunting. And you were right, a bed and food is a pretty sweet deal.”

“And what about the company?” Dina found herself saying, that same flirtatious tone in her voice that she used on Jesse.

Ellie seemed either oblivious or unaffected by Dina’s borderline flirting. “I mean, I’ve only met a few, one is an asshole, the rest are fine.”

Dina laughed, more out of surprise than anything. “Wow, new girl got bite, huh?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard the stories?”

“Everyone has hear the stories.” Dina laughed. “You kind of hot shit, new girl. We don’t get a lot of new people here, so when we do it is huge news.”

Ellie snorted. “Is that why people keep starting.”

“Maybe they are attracted to you, Freckles.” Dina shot back, leaning back against the fence.

“Yeah, okay,” Ellie scoffed, both at the idea and the nickname.

“Besides, I don’t like to believe hearsay. Maybe you can tell me all about your stories sometime?”

“Most of what people are saying is true,”

“Is that right?” Dina tilted her head up curiously. “You really cleared out twenty settlements looking for your Joel?”

“That’s what they’re saying,” Ellie laughed, smiling down at the calf when she pressed her head against Ellie’s stomach when she stopped petting her. “No, it was only ten. Ten, small ones.”

“Aw, only ten.” Dina chuckled, speaking with a tone of sarcasm. “Well, that’s nothing then, right?”

“It wasn’t-“ Ellie shrugged. “I’m not proud of it, of taking another human beings life, but they had someone I care about.”

“Hey, you don’t have to justify yourself to me,” Dina held up her hands. “You did what you had to do, those people were horrible, capitalising on this horrible situation, killing and maiming just because they can. Killing doesn’t hold the same merit in this world.”

“Why? Because there are no laws?”

“Yes, but not how you’re thinking. There are people out there breaking the law, killing families, just for a little bit of food. And I get it, I understand, surviving is a basic human instinct, but so should be self preservation, so should be helping your own. You did the wasteland a favour, those people were going out hunting for anyone they could find, god, Ellie, they murdered a family from the compound.” Dina said. “Mother, father, two kids. The oldest was six, youngest four.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t hurt kids, or the mothers. Just whoever fought me.”

“Again, I’m not judging you, Ellie.” Dina stressed and Ellie’s eyes narrowed slightly, like she didn’t believe what Dina was saying. So Dina took a step closer, looking at Ellie with soft, sincere eyes. “I’m not.”

“How could you not? I killed people.”

“To save someone you love,” Dina frowned.

Ellie swallowed and nodded, looking down at the calf who had began eating the hay at her feet.

“Hey,” Dina said softly, prompting Ellie to look up at her. “People are going to spread shit around this compound, some might look you look like a superhero, others like a savage, but regardless of what anyone say you know why you did what you did. You know that you didn’t do it for joy, or as some kind of fucked up sport. You protected what was yours from actual savages.”

Ellie looked like she wanted to say more, but whatever thoughts she was having seemed to be too much for her and she completely shut down. “I don’t care what they say.”

Dina was a little disappointed by the sudden shutdown but it was understandable, Ellie didn’t know her. “Good, because some here can be real shitheads.”

They spoke a few times over the next few weeks, and Dina didn’t even realise she had been completely ignoring Jesse until he caught up with her after she finished her shift at the farm.

Dina palmed it off as her being excited to finally have a girl around her age in the compound, there was a huge gap when it  came to girls, from Esti, who was eleven, to Laura who was nineteen. And, at fifteen, she didn’t want to be hanging out with an eleven year old and a nineteen year old didn’t want to be hanging out with her.

Jesse understood, and a feeing to guilt settled in her chest when her smile at her, dipping down to kiss her.

Dina didn’t really figure out that she had a crush on Ellie until about six months into their friendship which, in hindsight, was stupid, the signs had been there from the beginning; the heat in her chest when she first saw Ellie (without the blood and guts all over her), the constantly seeking her out, the excitement when she agreed to stay, the missing her, the butterflies, it was all there. She should have known.

The thing that triggered the realisation was so mundane that Dina wanted to roll her eyes whenever she thought about it.

It was hot, like it usually was in Jackson, but Ellie was getting antsy being in the compound to Dina offered to take her to a place in the safe zone outside the walls.

Ellie had shown up in a pair of black jeans, torn not by style but by wear and tear, a faded grey racer-back with a blue flannel over the top.

Dina had glanced up from rounding around inside the bag of food she had, doing a double take when she spotted Ellie making her way toward her, her face peppered with more freckles due to the sun.

Dina gnawed on her bottom lip as her eyes rolled over Ellie, the rolled up sleeve of the flannel have an effect on her that it never did when Jesse did it.

Ellie’s lips hooked up into a soft smile as she drew closer, Dina noted the butterfly knife tucked into the holster on her jeans.

“Where are we going?”

“Good afternoon to you too, Freckles.” Dina greeted sarcastically. “Oh, I’m great, thank you. You?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “How are you, Dina?”

Dina grinned at Ellie’s feeble attempt at pretending to be annoyed at her. “Good, warm, you?”

“Sceptical,”

“You don’t trust me?” Dina cocked her head teasingly.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Ellie kinked an eyebrow, causing something in Dina’s stomach to flutter. “That should tell you everything you need to know.”

“Fine enough,” Dina nodded, shouldering her backpack. “How did your Joel react to you leaving for a while?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Ellie shrugged, holding her hand out toward Dina, nodding at the bag. “Would you like me..?”

“A gent, huh?” Dina fixed the bag a little better on her shoulder. “But I’m okay.”

They ended up at the lake, lounging back on the grass, Ellie losing the flannel and wrapping it around her waist, leaving her in a racer-back that showed off the side of her sport bra.

Dina couldn’t help but stare, small glancing out the corner of her eye while Ellie sat back on her elbows and stared out at the water.

“I know this isn’t much,” Dina commented.

“No,” Ellie interrupted. “No, this is amazing, thank you. I was just- I was getting restless.”

“I could tell,” Dina hummed, turning onto her front, perching herself up on my elbows, tentatively touching Ellie’s tattoo. Ellie seemed little startled at the sudden sensation, goosebumps rising on her skin. Hope raised in Dina’s chest, there was no way it was cold enough for that. “Have you really been bitten?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ellie licked her lips and nodded. “When I was thirteen, by a runner.”

Dina noted the sadness in the girls tone. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Ellie glanced over at Dina, before her eyes flickered down Dina’s fingers that were tracing the bumps on her skin.

“I-uh, I wasn’t the only one bitten.” Ellie took in a shaky breath before speaking again. “Riley, she was my-“

Dina smiled softly when Ellie trailed off, calmingly tickling Ellie’s forearm. “Your Riley?”

Ellie huffed out a little laugh at Dina’s teasing. “Yes, my Riley. We were trying to escape a militia group when I fell, Riley jumped down to save me, we were both bitten in the process. she told me we have two options, shot ourselves or wait it out.” Ellie licked her lips briefly before continuing. “She said it would be quite poetic, us losing her minds together.”

“But you never did,” Dina frowned sympathetically.

“No, I’m immune.” Ellie said. “Riley wasn’t. I didn’t- I know she wouldn’t have wanted to roam around as one of those things, but that didn’t make it any easier to…”

Dina watched Ellie clench her jaw and swallow, her throat wobbling.

“That was so brave, El.”

“She was good, she didn’t deserve what happened.”

“No one does,” Dina agreed.

Ellie nodded, taking a few seconds to gather herself and Dina could see the exact moment she shut down. “So, why this place?”

“It is peaceful, Dina shrugged, pulling her hand back. “It is one of the few places that is safe out side of the walls.”

“It is peaceful,” Ellie agreed, turning her eyes back to the water.

Dina just let herself stare, taking in the freckles on Ellie’s face, the way the bridge of her nose was a little red from the sun, how her blue eyes look almost clear in the sunlight, the little scar in her eyebrow.

Dina stared until a little voice in the back of her head whispered something she had been adamantly avoiding.

She had feelings for this girl that far surpassed any feelings she ever had for Jesse.

Ellie felt her staring and glanced over at her, the corner of her mouth twitching upward. “What?”

“Your freckles,” she commented. “The sun really brings them out.”

“It’s almost like they are little pockets of melanin, which are activated by the sun.” Ellie said dryly, making Dina roll her eyes and shove her.

“Jerk,” She grumbled. “And I was just about to say they were cute.” She said, rolling into her back.

They settled in silence, Dina’s thought reeling at her realisation.

She didn’t care that Ellie was a girl, no one else would either, but Ellie was her friend, and she was dating Jesse, who was nice enough, handsome, she really wished she could love him.

“Did you love her?” Dina asked quietly, just loud enough for Ellie to hear. “Your Riley.”

“I could have, if we had more time.”

Dina nodded. “I’m sorry you lost her.”

“Yeah,” Ellie hummed. “Me too.”

Joel was there to meet them at the gate, thundering over to Ellie was a scowl.

“Oh, your Joel doesn’t look happy.” Dina whispered, and Ellie barely bite back a smile.

He scolded Ellie first, then Dina, telling them there were walls around the place for a reason, and that they didn’t have to leave.

Dina disagreed, taking Ellie but surprise, claiming it was very easy to get cabin fever in a place like that.

A sense of realisation washed over Joel’s features and her nodded, warning Ellie to just tell him next time.

“Thank you,”

“For what?” Dina frowned.

“Sticking up for me.”

“Oh, I wasn’t.” Dina shook her head. “You’re right, it is very easy to get cabin fever in a place like this. All the same people, the same mundane day, it really takes a toll. I just never realised it before you. I never realised what it was like to experience something outside of this compound, then a new kid shows up covered in blood.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t my blood.”

She spent a few nights with Jesse, hoping to feel even a fraction of what she had felt with Ellie, but it just wasn’t there anymore, so she sat down with the boy.

Jesse seemed to know it was coming, smiling sadly at her.

“I’m sorry, Jess, I wish it was different.” Dina apologised and Jesse placed his hand on hers.

“It’s okay, Dina. Don’t apologise for this.” He assured, and Dina let herself fall against the boy, into a comforting hug. “Ellie, right?”

Dina stiffened. “What about her?”

“You like her,” Jesse stared in a ‘duh’ tone.

“How do you know?”

“The way you look at her, Di.” Dina pulled back and expected Jesse to be mad, but he just looked at her with a soft smile, no malice or anger present in his features. “Since she arrived, you’ve looked at her with a look that I always wished was directed at me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t- I only figured it out last week.” Dina admitted.

“It’s been there all along.” Jesse laughed. “Remember when you brought her to see her dad-“

“It’s not her dad.“

“In the hospital? You looked after her, you stared at her with so much tenderness.” Jesse recalled. “Now, I don’t believe in any of that love at first sight or that fate bullshit, but if I did-“

He didn’t need to finish his statement, Dina knew exactly what he was saying.

“Go get your girl, Dina.” Jesse nudged her and Dina smiled, feeling like a tonne weight had just been lifted from her shoulders.

Getting her girl, as it turns out, was much harder than Dina had anticipated.

Ellie was stupid. Not when it came to fighting, or book stuff, but emotionally? Ellie was dumber than a pile of rocks.

She tried to be subtle, telling Ellie she was beautiful, that she looked good in her outfits, then she started blatantly flirting with her.

It effected Ellie, she could tell, but she still didn’t understand what was happening, and it was frustrating.

It was so obvious that even Joel noticed.

“What are you doing with Ellie?” He asked one morning while Ellie was in the shower and Dina was eating at the table.

“Is this the shovel talk?” Dina grumbled into her cereal.

“No, I’ve just noticed how you look at her,”

“You, too?” Dina huffed. “Will she ever notice?”

Joel let out a gruff laugh. “I seriously doubt it, kid.”

“So, what? Do I have to spell it out to her?” Dina sighed, leaning back in her seat. “I don’t even know if she likes me like that.”

“Ellie is… tough, she had to be, but she is different with you, more care free than I have ever seen her.” Joel divulged. “Be patient with her, she will figure it out. She just has a hard time with all of this, she had a bad experience.”

“Riley,” Dina hummed, and Joel looked a little surprised.

“She told you?”

“Yeah, it was really rough, and could easily mess someone up.”

Joel nodded. “Ellie has been through a lot that could easily mess a kid up. Be gently with her, yeah? She’s been through a lot, the last thing she needs is more heart break.”

“I won’t break her heart,”

“Then there won’t be an issue,” Joel clapped a hand on Dina’s shoulder just as Ellie entered the kitchen, dressed in black sweats and a grey tank top, towel drying her hair.

She frowned at the scene in front of her, seeming oblivious to Dina’s almost dreamy stares. “What’s going on?”

“Talking about patrols,” Joel answered, giving Dina’s shoulder a little squeeze, pulling her was her daze.

“Yeah, patrols.”

“Okay,” Ellie looked unconvinced but let it slide.

Their first near miss, and Dina’s first indication that maybe Ellie liked her back happened a little over a year after Ellie first arrived.

It was during a sparring session (because of course it fucking was).

Dina was distracted and, really, who could blame her? Ellie was all red faced and sweaty, and touching her, who can really blame her for being pinned so much.

Ellie had backed her up against the wall roughly, her arm pressed against Dina’s throat, and Dina felt a spike of arousal as her back his the wall.

They were both panting, both staring at her other intently. Dina waiting for Ellie to say something but instead the pressure on her throat slackened (Dina would think more into why she was disappointed by that later) and her eyes dropped to Dina’s lips.

Dina reached out, gripping onto Ellie’s hips and pulling her in close.

But nothing ever came of that because the second their bodies came flush together and door to the gym rattled open, causing them to jump apart.

Ellie had ducked her head, rubbing the back of her neck and called it a day.

She had avoided Dina for three days after that before finding her at the farm with brownies as some sort of lame apology.

Ellie was different around her after that, like some school girl with a crush and it was both exhilarating and frustrating.

The second near miss came thanks to the new calf, Betty.

They had been mucking out when Betty gave Dina a little nudge with her head, causing it to stumble right into Ellie’s arms.

Ellie held on tight with strong, safe arms, holding Dina against her.

“Are you okay?” Ellie questioned quietly, looking down at the girl in her arms.

“Betty likes to nudge you when you aren’t paying her any attention,” Dina said, her hands coming up to rest on Ellie’s chest but she didn’t move away.

This moment was interrupted by Betty nudging at their sides.

It took a few months for Jesse to become the same boy she grew up with but once he started asking about Ellie Dina started to vent to him.

“It’s so frustrating,” Dina huffed. “I’m trying so hard but we either get interrupted or she doesn’t get that I’m flirting with her.”

“That does sound frustrating.”

“So what do I do?”

“Take her to the dance, or meet her there, get her to dance with you.” Jesse suggested with a little shrug.

So Dina did, she told Ellie to meet her at the dance, and Ellie begrudgingly agreed.

She was sweaty and a little tired when Ellie finally appeared, but she didn’t think twice about dragging Ellie onto the dance floor during one of the slow songs.

Even at the words ‘I think they should be terrified of her’ Ellie still didn’t understand what Dina was trying to say, so out of frustration, she really hadn’t meant to be so forward, Dina kissed her.

The first kiss Ellie didn’t respond to, too shocked and surprised, but she melted into the seconds kiss, pulling Dina a little tighter against her.

And Ellie’s smiled after that kiss? Well, that had to be the prettiest smile Dina had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on.

[travellerfromanantiqueland]

Mars: Courage and speaking truth to power, self control

@magickfromscratch

They forcefed us a million platitudes, Bible verses, parables and folk sayings attempting to keep us docile and obedient. The Bible verses encouraging us to fight the good fight and have courage in our hearts weren’t for me and the other “girls”; we were drilled on the Bible verses about being meek enough to inherit the Earth, as harmless as doves, wise enough in God to stay home and do as the God-appointed Man in Charge in our lives instructed us. We were taught to always be afraid, always be silent, and practice self-control not out of concern for the well-being of those we could hurt by lashing out, but out of self preservation, for as soon as we weak little girls fight back, we were assured we would be crushed mercilessly by men, by the world, or by God himself. The lies they told: “You only think you’re brave; someday someone will break your spirit and you’ll learn that you aren’t brave, and never will be. God puts authority figures in your life for a reason, and if you defy them, you defy God himself. Be meek and humble in every situation, always obey authority, even when it hurts you and others.”

The church in question was across the street from the middle school I attended; across the street on the other side of the school was the church where I was baptized at age 12. The homophobic pastor around whom I had noticed red flags (and was ignored when I tried to point them out to my mother) started a sermon with fear- and hate-mongering about Hell and the Apocalypse, gays and other degenerates, the “false prophets” of science and tolerance for other cultures. Me and my little sister, we hated and feared queers who believed in evolution, made eye contact and resisted the urge to laugh as our mother scolded us. The pastor became angry, stated that he wanted to cause some sort of spiritual moment he had been told about in pastor school, that he wanted everyone in the church to kneel at the open altar. He told his congregation “If you don’t come and kneel, you’re saying you don’t want no more of god”. I struggled not to visibly snarl at him, and when my younger brother shifted nervously as though to go kneel, I leaned over and shook my head at him. We were the only family in the church who didn’t break, and that was the only time I ever got my mother to agree that a church was dangerous enough that we could absolutely never return. (We later learned that this particular church had a history of covering up sexual assault on the Church bus; it had happened to the daughter of the family who originally recommended the Church to us. They never pressed charges; her pain, like the pain of every other girl I knew who was raped or sexually assaulted growing up, was kept an open secret for the sake of her church, family, and attacker’s reputations.) 

The pagan community will occasionally pretend to be less dogmatic and authoritarian than Christianity, but they are full of shit 9 times out of 10. Wiccan/New Age/eclectic types are far less likely to do this, but I have yet to see any self-proclaimed “serious, reconstructionist, historically accurate Polytheist” pagan group (official or otherwise) that does not pull at least some of the same bullshit. Krasskova is one of the loudest voices representing modern day polytheists, and I’m hoping her reputation precedes her enough that I won’t have to go find the particular quotes by her that sound like they would’ve been right at home in that pastor’s mouth. The kemetic community in particular, to which I primarily belong, has had a years-long issue with valuing “keeping the peace” over the kind of “chaos” that would be caused by both unofficial community leaders, and the actual modern day leader of the Kemetic Orthodoxy, actually enforcing a zero-tolerance standard for racism, transphobia, misogyny, and other bigoted and/or predatory behavior. I wrote a pretty long and pretty heated post about this recently that explains my views on the matter. Having the courage to rock the boat and stand up to authority figures, or even just the popular group narratives, is actively discouraged in online kemetic spaces, as well as most other pagan spaces (online and irl) I’ve encountered.

As an act of “Christ approved” teenage rebellion against a culture that was suffocating me, I became an adrenaline junkie as a prepubescent child, and then almost immediately at the onset of puberty, a juvenile delinquent, for most of my teen years. I narrowly escaped being sent to juvie and having a lifelong record (if not actually being maimed or killed) on numerous occasions. I developed self-harming behaviors and passive suicidality through engaging in risky behaviors. To this day I struggle with my temper, have really poor impulse control, and am still trying to unlearn toxic and abusive behaviors I adopted when I was being abused and neglected at home as well as rejected by my larger community (religious and otherwise). I have deep-seated issues with authority of all kinds (in a more enlightened and affluent environment, I likely would have been diagnosed and treated for ODD; as things are, I’ve gotten very little in the way of therapy, most shrinks seeming to prefer to just put me on more and more medications for “anxiety, agitation, insomnia and unstable moods”).

I assume I don’t have to go into the various specific ways this has caused me difficulty when doing anything at all in the astral, much less trying to work with or worship gods. The trauma and baggage I already had regarding all this was difficult enough for me and my patrons to work through; to have so much of the same toxicity thrown at me from the pagan community that advertised itself as a healing salve to Christian religious trauma? I’m pretty fucking annoyed about it, to say the least.

Worried look on the face of the ringside nurse At one, for once, with the universe Choked out Choked out, choked out, choked out I stretch and strain with all my might Drift off into the velvety arms of the night Kick and claw and scratch and bite Fire up the grill, everybody eats tonight Choked out No brakes down An endless dark incline Most of the boys Won't ever cross this line If they all want to die dead broke that's fine, that's fine Everybody's got their limits Nobody's found mine

[cheetahsprints]

Subtle Grace

Summary: Harrison Wells met his guardian angel, in a surprising turn of events. Words: 2637 Sequel: Here 

Links have been fixed. 

Harrison awoke with a splitting headache. He groped for a pillow and pressed it to his face. He groaned. Luckily, the curtains were closed. He felt strange. His mind was hazy. He clawed the information from his depths.

The last thing he remembered, it was raining. He had been tracking Russell Glosson, who was the key to his wife’s murder. The police didn’t believe it had been on purpose. Just a car accident, it happens, they said. A little digging had revealed the truth. The man blocking them at every turn was nicknamed Turtle, slow yet efficient.

He had pulled up on a dead end. He was taking a break at Jitters. By chance, Turtle had showed up there. Harrison had cornered him in the alley. He had his handgun pointed, but then -- but then. The memory tried to slip between his fingers.

He curled on his side and pushed the pillow harder to his face. He forced himself to fight past the muck. There had been another guy. Harrison couldn’t recall his face. He must not have seen it. He memorized faces with ease. He had hit the ground, searing pain climbing all over his right side. There was blood everywhere, mixing with the rain.

He was dying. The last thought was of his daughter. He thought of how he was a horrible father for leaving her an orphan. She would probably find out on the news or have to identify his body. His broken ribs screamed with every sob that had escaped him.

A bright light had blinded him. He’d been by a river, in the height of summer. It reminded him of camping with his late wife, when they were wild and youthful. But she wasn’t there. He had seen himself, floating in the river, which was turning red. Everything was too bright. He ached all over. He thought he heard a flapping of large wings, but he couldn’t see any birds.

He couldn’t figure out how he ended up in bed. He tossed the pillow to the floor. He pawed at his body. He had no injuries. That was impossible. His breathing sped up, panic setting in. He sat up. There was no agony, no blood. There was only the lingering feeling of nearly cracking his head open on the asphalt. He had the sensation that he wasn’t alone. His eyes darted over each corner of his room.

“What the hell,” Harrison screeched. There was a shadowed figure at the end of his bed.

His body jerked, and he somehow flung himself off the bed. His legs were tangled in the sheets. He collapsed on the floor in a heap. He crawled across the floor. He yanked his drawer open and grabbed his gun. He nearly pulled the trigger but considered the shoot first and ask questions later wouldn’t work if he killed the mysterious person. Whoever it was didn’t appear to be armed or preparing to attack him.

“Who are you? Step into the light,” Harrison snarled. The shadowy figure was revealed to be a short man with hair curling down past his shoulders. He held his hands up in a silent plea.

He took him a moment to comprehend the most noticeable feature. Behind the stranger stretched a pair of enormous white wings with a bluish hue. There was a bright blue unearthly glow about him. He wore a red and black tunic. He had some kind of golden crown, and he had matching eyeshadow. He was the most beautiful being Harrison had ever seen. Although Harrison wondered if the angel just automatically had that effect on mortals.

Harrison was one of the most skeptical people on the planet. He certainly didn’t believe in all the guardian angel crap that was the rage these days, especially within his daughter’s generation. But now, the proof was right in front of him. He liked proof.

He could just have a concussion.

“My name is Francisco Ramon,” the angel bowed, “I am your guardian angel.”

“Why did you save me? If angels always protected people, no one innocent would die.”

Francisco absentmindedly plucked a feather. It disappeared in a puff of smoke when he dropped it. The wings folded, and he plopped on the edge of the bed.

“It wasn’t your time,” he said simply. Harrison rolled his eyes.

“So my wife was supposed to die then is that it? She was on some cosmic list?”

Francisco crossed his legs. He tilted his head toward Harrison. “I don’t know anything about your wife. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Why are you still here? Why can I see you?”

“You sure have a lot of questions dude.” Then Francisco shrugged. “I’m sticking around to make sure you don’t do anything dumb.”

Dude? What was that about? He realized he was still on the floor. He blushed with indignation and hauled himself on the bed. He carefully set his firearm on the nightstand. He narrowed his eyes at the angel casually lounging in his apartment, on his bed. Like he owned the place.

Harrison huffed. “That’s Dr. Wells to you. And you didn’t say why I can see you.”

“Oh. Um. That’s on a need to know basis,” Francisco mumbled, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck.

Harrison had heard of people claiming they had seen their guardian angel. In those situations, the angel was supposedly meant to be with them, usually in a romantic capacity. The notion made Harrison want to step on a bunch of flowers out of pure spite. He dismissed it. There was only so much supernatural elements he could wrap his brain around. Even if his angel was also his soulmate (which would truly confirm the universe hated him), he didn’t believe in fate. He could move on with life, ignoring it.

In most cases, a prominent sign was a certain feeling, sound, or taste they suddenly experienced during the first kiss. He didn’t plan on finding out.

Besides, he couldn’t do that to someone so full of light. He didn’t know exactly what would happen to him when he died, but it had nothing to do with Heaven, or wherever Ramon came from. He wouldn’t belong there.

Harrison pushed off from the bed. He paid the angel no mind as he straightened the sheets and pillows. He stomped to the kitchen, only to find his cupboards had been raided. Various open cereal boxes were on the counter. A single bowl was dirty, sitting in the sink, a bit of milk still in it. He didn’t remember buying all this cereal. Must have been Jesse’s doing, although why she needed different kinds, he had no idea. She was in college, but with her mother’s killer on the loose, he couldn’t allow her to stay in a dorm. She wasn’t very pleased with him.

He began closing the boxes and putting them away.

Harrison turned and Francisco was right behind him. He jumped and slammed his elbow right against the counter. He growled and clutched his arm.

“I was thinking. I’m gonna call you Harry.”

Harrison pointedly ignored him and poured his own bowl of cereal. He almost grabbed the Raisin Bran like a responsible adult, but the Reese’s Puffs Francisco had dug into tempted him. He decided to give in this one time. He hummed at the taste. He pretend his guardian stalker wasn’t watching him.

“You can call me Cisco.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want, Ramon, since you’ve taken that liberty for yourself.”

The angel laughed. It was an empty, snide sound. “You’re really a dick you know that? It was like drawing the short straw when I found out they assigned me to you.”

“Oh, notorious am I?”

“A dozen valiant, noble, kind angels have given up you, and everyone has bets going how long it’ll take you to get yourself maimed or killed. I guess I’m your lucky number thirteen?”

“Leave. I don’t need you.”

“You’re really unbelievable.” Ramon scoffed, “I saved your life!”

“Congratulations. Do you want a medal?” Harrison merrily crunched the cereal between his teeth in a large bite.

He and Ramon had a staring match over the table as he ate. Harrison blinked, but he shouldn’t have expected to be able to win against a nearly immortal being. Ramon brushed his hair behind his ear and smirked. Harrison’s libido didn’t mind how sexy he was, and he wondered if angels were celibate or if they married or had orgies. Did they even have time between looking after the lives of insignificant humans for pleasure? He doubted it. He felt a bit of pity.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Harrison startled. “Like what? I’m not looking at you any special way. Don’t be stupid.”

Ramon didn’t appear impressed. He rested his cheek on the palm of his hand.

“As though you wanted to have me instead of that delicious cereal. I can’t blame you - I am one fine piece of ass.”

“How do you know I don’t literally want to eat you, Ramon. You are irritating,” Harrison deadpanned. Ramon raised an eyebrow.

“Because I know you, Harry, duh.” Ramon drew a circle in front of Harrison’s face. “I watch you when you’re sleeping, when you’re naughty or nice, all that junk. You’re not a cannibal.”

“That’s Santa.”

“Santa is a guardian for all the children. You only get a personal one when you turn eighteen and enter the fun of adulthood,” Ramon replied. Harrison snorted.

“So Santa is real, angels are real. I’m gonna go ahead and assume God and Satan are real.” Harrison paused, lips twitching. “Is the tooth fairy real? Because I’m pretty sure I’m the one who put money under my daughter’s pillow.”

“No tooth fairy or easter bunny I’m afraid. God and Satan are constructs, but there are demons and dark spirits. And we have a leader, the Archangel. Then there’s the speed force which --”

“Please, don’t tell me more. I still have a damn headache.”

“You did hit your head pretty hard. I’m not supposed to fix trivial ailments.”

There was a short silence.

“Wow, you said please. I’m proud of you Harry!” He stuck out his bottom lip. Harrison tried not to contemplate kissing him.

“Do me a favor and shut up.”

Ramon gave him a wide grin. His smile reminded Harrison of the sun rising. His chest constricted. His wife was waiting to be avenged. He couldn’t afford this distraction. Ramon had other ideas.

Ramon flicked his wrist, then rested his chin on top of his hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in mixing my business with pleasure.”

“Neither am I, especially with someone so far below my intelligence level, to think that I’d betray my wife like that,” Harry snapped. It was a little harsh.

Ramon smacked the table. Harrison managed not to jump. He expected Ramon to bite something back at him. He averted his eyes, picking at his fingernail. Harrison despised his stab of disappointment. His bowl clattered into the sink. He was grateful Ramon didn’t feel the need to follow him to the bathroom.

He changed out of his night clothes. He checked his calendar, and he had taken this day off. The hunt for Turtle had taken a toll on him. He didn’t bother getting dressed, he just threw on a black silk robe and sauntered to the living room. He threw himself on the couch and flicked on the TV. He went through the channels and landed on Star Trek. That was good enough.

He was starting to fall asleep again when the sound of popping woke him up. He scowled as Ramon paced the floor. His wings occasionally fluttered and flapped behind him. The breeze almost made Harrison indecent. He clutched the hem of his robe.

“Is that popcorn?”

“My favorite episode is on next! And I’m bored.”

“Because I’m here to entertain you,” Harrison remarked. To his annoyance, Ramon nodded.

“You’re not doing a good job of putting your life in danger. That’s why I’m in this cesspit in the first place.”

“I’m sorry it’s such an inconvenience for you,” Harrison said sarcastically. “When exactly do you have time to watch any series?”

Ramon shook his head. He leaned over the back of the couch, arms pillowing his head. Harrison tightened the belt of his robe and swung his legs to the floor.

“What?”

“You’ll recall I’m not mortal? You’re not my first assignment. Certainly the worst though.”

Ramon chuckled to himself as he strode back to the kitchen. Harrison stole a fistful of popcorn, much to Ramon’s displeasure. He delighted in such a dirty look on a divine angel’s face. He was achingly pretty. Under different circumstances, he would definitely throw his pride and self control to the wind.

He pictured his wife, bleeding all over the dashboard, glass everywhere. After that, his daughter’s tears. Finally, Glosson’s face flashed before him, sneering and taunting.

“What happened to Turtle?”

“Of whom do you speak?”

Harrison glared. Ramon sighed and tipped his head back.

“Russell Glosson is dead. The other guy killed him, somehow just… stopped his heart.”

“To keep him quiet,” Harrison mumbled.

Something wiggled in the back of his mind. There was one person who it might be. Plenty of criminals killed their minions. But only one was known for for his victims having their hearts crushed, while still inside their chests. Glee filled him. Harrison scratched his nose to hide his smile. He would have to be careful, considering Zolomon was the most dangerous serial killer alive. Then again, he had his guardian angel looking after him. Did that mean Ramon would stop him, or just keep him from going into situations where he would surely die?

Ramon stopped his train of thought. “I can see the wheels turning. You’re thinking of doing something dumb aren’t you?”

His wings were slightly opened. They seemed to twitched with nervousness. The edge of one brushed against his head, and he batted it away.

“None of your business.”

Ramon frowned. “OK listen, against my better judgement, I kinda care about you, Harry. You gotta talk to me. Communication is good.”

“I don’t owe you my inner thoughts.” A curiosity derived from his earlier process struck him.

“Can you see the future? Do you know if I will get injured or worse?”

Ramon wrung his hands. He licked his lips and took a moment to answer. His wings drooped.

“Sometimes. It’s - it’s not precise. I’m a bit of a joke upstairs. They say I could be powerful - only if - only if -”

“You lack confidence. Does anyone teach you, or do you have to - learn as you go?”

“The Archangel used to have training regimens for new guardians. They’ve slacked in the last few decades, no one knows why, and they haven’t seen them much. I’ve never even met them,” Ramon explained.

Harrison dropped his chin. He examined Ramon’s troubled expression. “How about a deal? I try not to get myself into serious trouble.”

“And?”

“And. You let me train you.”

“Are you sure training isn’t just code for experimenting.”

Harrison stuck out his hand. “I promise. It seems a worthwhile project.”

Training an angel seemed like the chance of a lifetime. He doubted anyone could ever claim such a thing. He imagined he couldn’t technically tell anyone. Ramon probably wouldn’t appear to someone else. That would be tricky. But he could serve as a way to keep his spirits up, when his mission was hitting brick walls.

Perhaps, it could also serve to distract Ramon. Harrison would have to take a few risks to succeed. Building rapport was out of the question. Ramon barely tolerated him, and his track record suggested that wouldn’t change.

Ramon took his hand and shook it, and there an incredible partnership would begin.

[isthatbloodonhisshirt]

Collar

Sterek A-Z Challenge: Collar. 

Stiles thought they were being ridiculous. And unreasonable. And overprotective. Because, really, he was Stiles, and the crazy stuff spouting out of their mouths made zero sense in the grand scheme of things.

Again. He was Stiles. He was the human, with the research, and the running, and the baseball bat. He contributed to the team by being generally knowledgeable while driving people crazy and saving their lives when they did something stupid.

But this? This was ridiculous.

“Guys, I told you, I’m not dangerous,” he insisted, turning his head towards the sound of their voices. He had to rely on their voices because he was blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair in the back of Deaton’s animal clinic.

He’d been there for almost twenty minutes, which was driving him crazy because, first off, ADD. Second, he didn’t like not being able to see, it freaked him out. Third, his nose was itchy, and nobody would listen to him when he told them he needed it scratched before he went insane.

It was still itchy, but they were too busy having their little pow-wow out of earshot, which was frustrating as all hell because whatever plan they were coming up with was—on top of being unnecessary—probably not as good as any plan he could come up with.

Nothing against Scott, but Stiles was really the brains of the operation. Scott was the Alpha. Derek was the muscle. Deaton was the magic user. Jesus, he was getting off-track. The point was: unnecessary planning going on somewhere out of earshot.

“Guys,” he called loudly, twisting as much as he could in his seat. “Seriously! Dying over here! I’m not kidding, I need someone to scratch my nose!”

It took another ten minutes of whining and fidgeting in the chair before footsteps sounded, alerting him of their approach. He straightened, letting out an explosive sigh of relief, since they were either going to scratch his nose, or let him free so he could do it himself.

“Stiles,” Deaton’s soft voice said, much closer than he’d been anticipating. It made him jump. “I’m going to put something on you, all right?”

“Can you scratch my nose first? Seriously, you guys are torturing me, here. This is legitimate torture. Do you know how long you left me here alone like this with nothing to do? I can’t be left alone with nothing to do, my brain goes crazy, and I start thinking dangerous things, like setting my jeep on fire for the insurance to buy a new car—which, by the way, I would never do because I love my jeep—and also what it would be like to take a shot off Derek’s extremely sculpted abdomen.”

He heard a snort, from a little further off, suggesting said extremely sculpted abdomen was closeby. He didn’t let that bother him, he’d never had a brain-mouth filter, and it wasn’t the first time he’d blurted out something that embarrassing.

Also, Derek was a Werewolf. He’d probably smelled Stiles turned on around him multiple times. Couldn’t hide anything from them. Boners were easier to hide than weird smells Werewolves could apparently pick up from the next continent.

“Stiles,” Deaton said again, voice soft. “I know you think this is unnecessary, but—”

“It is. It is unnecessary.” He let out a short laugh, holding his hands out at his sides as much as he could while they were handcuffed to the chair, palms out. “Guys, I am fine. Whatever you think that thing did to me, it’s over. I’m good. I feel perfectly normal.”

Scott murmured something, too low for him to hear. Derek rumbled a response back. Silence, for a moment other than the rustling of their clothing. He could still feel Deaton close to him, hovering right in front of him, ready to put whatever on him. After a few moments, he felt more than heard Deaton shift backwards.

Stiles jumped when a hand fell onto his shoulder, holding him tightly. It had to be Derek, because the hand was way too huge to belong to Scott. Scott had tiny, soft little baby hands. Derek had big, rough, calloused, very adult hands.

And now Stiles was getting distracted thinking about other places those big hands could go aside from his shoulder.

“You’re a man who can’t deny the truth when presented with it,” Deaton said from well across the room. “If we prove this to you, will you stop arguing and listen?”

“Sure.” Stiles shrugged. “But you’re wrong.”

A moment of silence, then Stiles felt the blindfold get pulled off on the opposite side of Derek, suggesting it was Scott. He winced when light stabbed at his retinas, blinking rapidly and trying to get used to the sudden change. Once his vision cleared, he looked up to insist everything was fine when his eyes caught sight of Deaton.

Something rose up within him. Something dark and angry, and Stiles wrenched himself out of his chair, eyes locked on Deaton and inhuman snarl escaping him. He wanted to bite him. Eat him. Kill him. He wanted to tear him to pieces and bathe in his blood. He wanted to maim him, to watch him scream, and relish in the sound of tearing flesh! He wanted—

A hand covered his eyes and like flipping a switch, the feeling left him. He was on his feet, one hand free from the chair—he still had the cuff on so he’d probably broken the chain—and the other dragging the chair behind him. He could feel Scott’s hands against his chest, his panting breaths loud in the silence of the room. Derek’s heart was slamming against his back, since the older Werewolf had moved behind him to wrap one arm around his chest and the other moving up to cover his eyes.

He had literally just broken out of handcuffs and managed to get halfway across the room while an Alpha Werewolf and an extremely buff Beta had attempted to stop him, and barely managed to.

“Holy shit…”

“I didn’t realize being infected with a parasite also gave him superstrength,” Derek muttered from behind him, hand almost painful over his eyes. It was like he was worried Stiles would magically be able to see through his skin. If he couldn’t see through the blindfold, he wouldn’t be able to see through Derek’s hand.

“Holy shit!” Stiles was about to have a panic attack. A full blown panic attack. Right here and now. “Holy shit! My dad!”

“He’s fine,” Scott insisted, hands still pressed against his chest, as if to make sure Stiles didn’t suddenly try and get past him again. “We got there before anything bad happened.”

“Get it out of me!” Stiles insisted, voice tight and panic rising.

“Stiles, you need to calm down,” Deaton said, still across the room.

“You calm down with a murderous parasite living inside your body!” He insisted shrilly. “Not cool! Why is it whenever something evil has to go in something, it chooses me?! Wasn’t the Nogitsune bad enough?! Someone else should’ve gotten the parasite, this isn’t fair at all!”

“Stiles, the more you panic, the faster it’ll kill you,” Deaton said sharply.

Stiles’ mouth snapped shut, but his heart continued to thud painfully against his chest, much faster than was normal.

He was going to die. I mean, usually, he was always going to die, but this time felt a lot more real. This time felt worse than that time he and Derek were in the pool with the Kanima circling. This was bad. Oh so bad. He might actually die this time!

“We need to get the blindfold back on,” Derek muttered.

Stiles clenched his eyes shut, struggling to stay calm. He heard a door close elsewhere and assumed Deaton had exited the room because Derek’s hand left his skin. Still, Stiles didn’t open his eyes. He knew the Werewolves were fine, but he didn’t want to risk it, so he just stood there while Scott got the blindfold back over his eyes.

Once it was in place, he kept his eyes closed, though not quite as tightly. They helped him back into his chair, undoing the handcuffs since they were virtually useless now, and Deaton re-entered the room.

Stiles felt numb. The panic was beginning to subside when faced with the realization he was literally going to die. That was why they hadn’t been speaking in front of him. They didn’t know how to save him. He was going to get eaten alive from the inside by this parasite.

“Stiles,” Deaton said, voice soft. “I’m going to put this on you now.”

He nodded numbly, feeling something brush against his neck. A pressure rested against his throat, encircling his neck, Deaton pulling a strap through a buckle at the back. When he pulled away, Stiles reached up, fingers touching at the leather band.

“Did you just put me in a dog collar?”

“It was the best I could do on short notice.” Deaton at least sounded apologetic about it. “It’s a protective spell to stop the parasite from escaping. We’ll do everything we can to get it out of you.”

“But if you can’t, you don’t want it scuttling off once it’s done with me to infect someone else, gotcha.” Stiles propped his voice up when he said it, flashing Deaton a smile. Or, he hoped he was, considering he couldn’t see him.

“We’ll get it out before that happens,” Derek said sharply from his left.

“In the meantime, he needs to stay away from humans. If he catches the glimpse of anyone considered to be human, the desire to kill will rise once more.”

“Guess that includes Lydia,” Scott said from his right. “She wanted to see him.”

“I believe it would also include Arden,” Deaton added. “Malia would be all right in his presence, but anyone classed as human, even with an ability like mine, will spark the parasite’s bloodlust.”

“I can’t go home,” Stiles blurted urgently. “Dad’s there! Dad’s human! I can’t be near my dad!”

“Calm down,” Derek snapped, not sounding calm at all. A hand was on his back, rubbing smooth, slow circles. He could only assume Scott was trying to keep him from panicking.

“Nobody’s making you go home,” his friend assured him. “Don’t worry, your dad will be fine.”

“I won’t be able to work comfortably with him here.” Deaton sounded like he felt guilty saying those words, but it was clear he wanted to get to work finding a way to save him. Which Stiles appreciated, so he wasn’t going to complain about being kicked out.

“He can’t go to mine,” Scott advised them. “My mom’s home right now.”

“He can come to the loft,” Derek said almost immediately afterwards. “It’s just me there, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Stiles mostly tuned them out, trying to keep his panic at bay. He needed to get himself under control, needed to focus. Easier said than done without his Adderall, but his life was on the line so he was fairly certain he’d manage to pay attention long enough to look through some books.

When he tuned back in, he heard Scott and Deaton speaking by the door about Argent’s Beastiary, his friend confirming he would go and get it and bring it back so they could get to work.

That would’ve been all fine and dandy if Stiles didn’t realize that Scott was across the room… and there was still a hand rubbing circles on his back.

But that... No... Really?

... No...

Derek was rubbing his back?

Maybe there were more parasites than they thought. Maybe Derek had one that made him not hate people, because that was the only explanation for why he was rubbing his back like he was trying to keep him calm.

“You should head out now,” Deaton said, voice snapping Stiles out of his shocked stupor long enough to realize he was speaking to Derek. “I would recommend avoiding the main roads, just in case.”

The hand left Stiles’ back, making him miss the warmth of it immediately, and he stood unsteadily. Derek put one hand on his elbow and helped lead him towards the exit, Scott promising he would be right back with the Beastiary and Deaton assuring him that he would be fine.

He found it hard to listen to them because Derek sucked at the whole leading-the-blind thing since he lead him right into a doorframe. Cursing and stumbling a little, he managed to make his way outside with Derek’s “help” and into the passenger side of the Camaro. His door slammed and he swore less than a second passed before Derek was beside him, shutting his own door.

Was Stiles losing perception of time, or had he moved around the car extremely quickly?

The car started and Derek tore out of the veterinary clinic’s lot, heading back for his loft. Stiles leaned his head against the window, keeping his eyes closed in case the blindfold slid down. He tried to determine where they were based on memory alone, trying to calculate the distance between each block, and what intersections they were stopping at. He felt like he was doing fairly well for a little bit until Derek turned down a street and Stiles got completely lost.

He figured he was taking him the long way to ensure there was minimal risk of human interaction. Going the long way seemed to make him antsy though, because Stiles noticed he had a bit of a lead foot, speeding through the town at a rate much higher than the speed limit.

“Aren’t you going a little fast?” he asked, turning his head to look at him despite the fact that he couldn’t see him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek grunted.

“Uh, yes it does.” Stiles had barely gotten the words out when he heard the chirp of a siren behind them and felt a cold sweat break out across his skin. “Oh no.”

Derek cursed and Stiles felt the car speed up just a fraction, as if he were contemplating speeding away, but he seemed to think better of it and slowed the car down, easing it over to the side of the road. Stiles was glad, because the last thing he needed was to be involved in a police chase that would have people asking questions about the blindfold and ultimately remove it. Sure, he could keep his eyes shut, but it was possible he’d end up being forced to open them at some point.

The car stopped and Stiles heard a door slam, footsteps crunching against the asphalt. Derek was suddenly in his personal space, pulling open the glove box and grabbing what Stiles assumed was his insurance.

A moment of silence, and then he heard Parrish speak.

“A little fast there, Derek. You know you’re in a residential zone, right? Hey Stiles.”

He lifted one hand in a wave, face turned the other way in hopes he wouldn’t notice the blindfold. A moot point, since it was tied around his head, but a guy could hope. He just didn’t want his dad to worry.

Probably also a moot point, considering Stiles had just tried to kill him less than an hour ago.

Or maybe over an hour ago? It was hard to keep track of time, he’d been unconscious and handcuffed to a chair for a while.

“Why is he blindfolded?” Parrish asked in what Stiles assumed he thought was a whisper.

“Sorry about the speeding, but if you’re gonna give me a ticket, get it over with. I need to get him home now.”

Stiles smacked his forehead, because if there was anything Derek could say that would raise quite a few alarms, it was that.

“Why? What’s going on?” Parrish’s voice had immediately gone into serious-mode, which Stiles didn’t need.

“We don’t have time to explain, just give me my ticket or let me leave.”

“Derek—”

“Stiles is going to die!” Derek shouted.

Stiles jumped at the volume of it, turning to give Derek a startled look that was probably lost behind the blindfold. He could hear the creak of leather that suggested Derek’s hands were clenching the steering wheel much too tight.

There was a beat of silence, then Parrish told him to slow down through the Warehouse District because another officer was on patrol there. Then he walked away, but Stiles heard him speaking a moment before he entered his car, suggesting he’d just called someone.

He really hoped it wasn’t his dad. Maybe he’d called Scott to get some information on what was going on.

The car began to move once more, Derek speeding again. Stiles knew when they were close to the Warehouse District because he slowed considerably, almost going the speed limit. It didn’t take long to get to Derek’s loft once they were there, and the moment the car stopped, the engine was turned off and the Werewolf was out of the car.

A literal second later, Derek was opening his door and helping him out of the car. They walked into the warehouse Derek used for a home and he stumbled his way up the stairs to the loft. The door was wrenched open, and then shut.

He reached up for the blindfold, hesitating before removing it. He gave himself a second to compose himself before opening his eyes and glancing at Derek.

After a tense moment, it became clear he wasn’t going to attack him and Stiles let out a relieved sigh, raking a shaky hand through his hair and wandering to Derek’s small table by the window so he could use his laptop.

Sitting down, he pulled it open and typed in Derek’s password, unconcerned with the way the Werewolf was suddenly behind him, watching over his shoulder.

He went into Google and looked up the parasite: Exitium Nex Parasite.

Not as many hits as he would’ve liked, most of them referring to Latin translation, but he started digging, trying to find something useful. It was do that or panic, and he wasn’t allowed to panic, so he just busied himself with what he was known for. Namely, research.

Derek disappeared from behind him for a moment, but returned carrying a large, time-worn book. He set it down on the table across from Stiles, took a seat, and opened it. The room was silent save for the occasional typing and flipping of pages, the two of them focussing on what they were doing.

Stiles reached up and tugged uncomfortably at the collar around his neck. He had to wonder what kind of dog it was for, considering how big it was. Or maybe he just had a small neck? He hadn’t known humans could fit into dog collars. Or maybe it wasn’t a dog collar and Deaton hadn’t said anything because he didn’t want to make things awkward.

The silence stretched for a long time, Stiles feeling his anxiety beginning to rise the more time passed. He couldn’t figure out if his stomach hurt because he was hungry, or because he was dying. Maybe the pounding ache behind his eyes was actually the parasite making its way through his brain. It was entirely possible the muscle pain in his left leg was due to being eaten from the inside.

A sudden burst of fear hit him after another site of no luck. What would happen to his dad if he died? The last time Stiles had seen him, he’d been attacking him, trying to kill him. What if that was the last memory he had of Stiles?

And worse, who was going to keep him in line with Stiles gone? His father already didn’t eat right when Stiles wasn’t looking, and his job made him drink more than he was comfortable with. If Stiles wasn’t there to watch his diet and hide the liquor, his father was going to find his way to an early grave!

He would be lonely, too. So lonely. Stiles may have been young, but he remembered how hard it had been for his dad to pick up and continue on after his mother had died. He didn’t know if he would manage with Stiles gone, too. He’d have to talk to Scott, make sure Scott and Melissa went by frequently to keep him company.

Parrish could watch his diet, they were together a lot at work anyway, and he knew the deputy liked his dad. He’d keep him in line, and hopefully say things like, “What would Stiles have wanted?” to ensure his father actually ate healthy.

It was more than just his dad, though. Scott would be affected, too. They’d known each other forever, and while he had the pack now, Stiles was pretty sure him dying would hit him hard. He didn’t want Scott to be sad. He didn’t want anyone to be sad.

He didn’t want to die.

Stiles jumped when Derek swept his arms across the table, throwing the book he’d been reading almost clear across the room while jerking to his feet. The chair he was in had toppled over backwards from the force and Derek began to pace, dragging his hands through his hair and sporting his ever-present scowl.

He’d never seen the Werewolf look so angry before.

“Are you okay?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, I’m not!” Derek snarled, rounding on him. “All I can smell is your anxiety and worry and fear while you sit there working away like you’re not terrified! I can’t even keep my own shit together enough to help you because I’m so worried it’s eating away at me!”

Stiles winced, and Derek blanched, realizing his poor choice of word.

He turned back to the computer, typing in another search option and beginning to click through some sites.

“Stiles.”

When he looked back at Derek, it made his heart clench, because he looked so broken. He looked like he was the one facing death, face twisted into an expression of agony and hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“You’re always saving me,” he insisted in a quiet voice, almost forcing the words out. “Just this once, I need to be the one to save you. I have to. I can’t just let you die.”

Stiles stared at him, wondering if the parasite had tapped into a part of his brain that was making him hallucinate. “What?”

“I’ve lost too many people!” Derek insisted, voice rising almost in a panic. “I can’t lose any more of my pack! I can’t!”

Warmth spread through his chest despite the fear still running rampant through his veins. Stiles had always known he was considered pack; even before Scott had become the Alpha, it was fairly obvious that he was the token human in their ragtag little group of supernatural beings. But Derek had never actually said it. He’d implied it, and hinted at it, and maybe alluded to it.

He’d never specifically said Stiles was pack before, and to hear it now… kind of floored him.

It made him realize he was legitimately screwed. Derek would only admit those words aloud if one of them was dying, and Stiles was pretty sure Derek wasn’t hiding some incurable disease he couldn’t pronounce.

“I’m really gonna die, aren’t I?” he asked quietly.

“No!” Derek looked miserable when the word tore itself from his throat, stalking over to Stiles. He crouched so they were almost at eye level and grabbed the back of Stiles’ neck in one hand, squeezing it and pulling his head forward so he could press their foreheads together. “We’ll fix this. You’re gonna be okay. You will.”

Stiles hated being a cliche. He hated it when he watched movies or read books where something dramatic happened and two people got close enough for one of them to just lean forward and kiss the other.

In this moment, he understood the reason that was always depicted in media. Being this close to Derek, feeling every exhale against his face, seeing the flecks of brown in his green eyes—Stiles pulled a cliche.

He leaned forward, closing the distance quickly before he could change his mind or Derek could pull away, and pressed his lips to the other man’s.

It was a brief, chaste kiss, but at least when he died he could go knowing he’d had this. At least he’d had this, if nothing else.

The hand behind his neck was still there, stopping him from pulling away completely so that all he could do was put enough space between them so their lips were no longer touching. He kept his gaze averted, not wanting to look at Derek. He waited for the hand to leave his neck, a part of him hoping it wouldn’t.

It did, making his chest ache at the realization that even when he was dying, he couldn’t get what he wanted.

But then he realized the hand wasn’t leaving, it was just shifting, sliding forward so Derek’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb gently brushing across the top of his cheekbone. He didn’t dare look at him, keeping his gaze elsewhere, and then he felt lips against his once more.

This... This was not a cliche. Because in movies, when the second person realized what the first had done, they immediately dove in and promptly attempted to devour each other’s faces.

Derek didn’t do that. He kissed him as if wanting to savour the feel of Stiles’ lips against his own. Parting his lips, he took Stiles’ lower one between them, trapping it for the briefest of moments.

The kiss was slow. It was sensual. It was everything Stiles wasn’t and hadn’t ever believed Derek to be. He was legitimately taking his time, as if trying to map every part of Stiles’ lips in his brain, burning the memory of this into his mind.

Stiles was more than okay with that, because this... it was better than he’d ever imagined kissing Derek would be. He’d always imagined a rough clacking of teeth, or a hard press of lips, or demanding tongue. While he wanted those things—God did he ever want all of those things—this was somehow almost better.

This was like Derek telling him without saying a word that Stiles mattered to him. Stiles was important, he was pack.

Derek liked him, and that was just crazy.

When he pulled away after effectively short-circuiting Stiles’ brain, he let out a small sigh, hand still against his cheek, and pressed their foreheads together again, closing his eyes.

“That... I... wow...” Stiles couldn’t figure out what to say.

“If I’d known that was how to shut you up, I’d have done it years ago,” Derek said softly.

Stiles would’ve been offended if the way Derek’s thumb moved across his cheekbone wasn’t thoroughly distracting. Besides, it was obvious he was just kidding.

“I wish you had,” he said quietly. “I’ve wanted to do that for... I don’t even know.”

“A while,” Derek said quietly. “I know. Me too.”

“You knew?”

“Werewolf.”

Stiles had assumed, but never really put much thought into it. Given Derek’s previous relationships had literally all gone to shit—Kate Argent being batshit crazy, Jennifer Blake being a psychotic killer, and while Braeden wasn’t terrible per se, she was still a mercenary who, oh yeah, killed people—he hadn’t ever really put much thought into the possibility of Derek knowing he liked him. He’d assumed he did, but hadn’t really dwelled on it too much.

“Wait, you said ‘me too,’ as in, you’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

Derek said nothing.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked quietly.

The thumb stilled against his cheekbone and Derek sighed. Stiles could only guess what he was about to say: he was too old for him, he wasn’t good enough for him, he was a criminal, he was a killer, he was a Werewolf, etcetera, etcetera.

He didn’t get the words out because a stabbing pain shot up his throat and he jerked away from Derek, gagging and almost falling out of his chair.

“Stiles!”

Derek grabbed at him while he doubled over, clutching his stomach and dry-heaving, pain shooting through him like fire. He coughed roughly, feeling ready to be sick, and blood spattered across the floor, hitting one of Derek’s shoes.

The Werewolf cursed and pulled out his phone, one hand clutching Stiles’ arm hard enough to bruise. He didn’t hear what Derek was saying, too focussed on the pain forcing itself through him. He wondered if kissing Derek might not have been a mistake. The parasite travelled orally, and what if he’d just infected Derek somehow. Shit, he was so fucking stupid, how could he have done that knowing how it infected others?

Then again, that might explain the pain. It was likely trying to get out and infect another host, though it wasn’t done with this one, so that seemed unlikely.

“What do you mean it can multiply?!” Derek was shouting into the phone.

Well, that explained a few things. Evidently there were now two parasites inside him, and because he’d kissed Derek, one of them was looking to get out and infect him. Stiles was suddenly eternally grateful for the collar around his neck. It was stupid of him to have kissed Derek while knowing what was inside him.

The only reason he’d even gotten infected himself was trying to save someone’s life. Apparently he was going to hate mouth-to-mouth for the rest of his—very short, apparently—life. Not even two hours later, and he was trying to kill his father.

He still didn’t even know what the purpose of the parasite’s attacks was. All he knew was it enjoyed eating human flesh, which it was doing inside of him right now, at double the speed now that there were two of them. He figured maybe forcing humans to devour other humans gave them more sustenance.

How had the last guy not killed anyone? Had the parasite just gone through him so quickly it had waited for a new host and latched onto Stiles once he’d tried to be a good Samaritan? What if there were other parasites out there, the things having multiplied and infected any number of people?

Stiles tightened his arms around his own middle, the pain almost unbearable.

He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not ever, really, but definitely not now. Preferably not now?

Fuck, just—not now!

“Derek,” he grit out, blood on his lips and his vision swimming. “Derek, tell my dad—”

“Shut up, Stiles!” Derek snapped, sounding furious.

How fitting that those would be the last words he ever heard. Derek telling him to shut up. It was so familiar and comforting that he couldn’t help but feel relieved.

Something in his back snapped and agony coursed through him. He fell out of the chair, screaming and arching his back, fingernails clawing at the floor. Derek cursed and shouted something into his phone before he was beside Stiles, gripping his shoulders.

He was saying something, but Stiles couldn’t hear him over the sound of his own screaming. Over the agony in his body short-circuiting his brain, insisting that he make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!

The door across the loft opened, the pain in his back racing up his spine like fire under his skin.

Someone was shouting to hold him down and he felt hands on him. On his shoulders, on his chest, his legs. His screaming intensified when he felt something digging into his spine, and he wished right then that he could just die, he just wanted it to end, please God, let it end!

He almost choked when something was being poured into his mouth, barely hearing Deaton ordering him to swallow, to get it down. It was that or choke on it. Choking was currently what was happening but he somehow managed to force the liquid down, a creeping warmth slowly sliding down his throat.

The second his airways were open once more, he was screaming, trying to kick out his legs and rolling onto his side, clutching desperately at whoever was crouching on his left. His back jerked abruptly, the pain flaring for a moment, and then he felt his stomach roll.

He was gonna be sick. He was gonna be sick. He was gonna be sick!

Shoving hard at the person he had been clinging to a second before, he rolled onto his stomach, getting onto his hands and knees and digging blunt nails into the hard floor of Derek’s loft. He felt hands at his neck and a moment later the collar was gone.

Stiles threw up, his body wracking with the force of his heaves, emptying everything in his stomach, along with some blood and something else.

He didn’t want to think about what it felt like coming up his throat. He didn’t want to remember what it looked like when it splattered against the sick and blood on Derek’s floor. He just heaved it up, clenching his eyes shut, and feeling ready to vomit again just from disgust.

After barely five seconds of reprieve, he started dry-heaving again and felt something else shifting inside him. A cup was at his mouth, ordering him to drink and he struggled to swallow when it was tipped back, liquid spilling from the corners of his mouth while he tried to get some of it into his body.

Shoving the cup away from him when he felt ready to be sick once more, he dry-heaved for a few seconds before the second parasite came up, bringing blood up with it. Once it was past his lips and dying on the cold floor, Deaton was there holding something to his lips once more.

He wanted to tell him it was over, it was done. There were two and they were both currently dying on the floor, but Deaton had uncapped a bottle now and was forcing him to drink it. The other concoction had been almost tasteless, but this was positively foul. It smelled disgusting, and it tasted disgusting, and he just wanted to throw up again.

Trying to push Deaton’s hand away, the druid’s other one came up to grab the back of Stiles’ head, forcing him to keep drinking.

“Drink it quickly. Your insides are damaged, if we don’t hurry, you’re going to die.”

Hard to argue with that, except he couldn’t breathe, and his lungs were burning, and his gorge was rising and God he was never giving someone mouth-to-mouth again. Even if it was Scott. Even if it was Derek!

Deaton didn’t let up until the bottle he held was empty. When he finally pulled it away, Stiles let out a loud gasp, inhaling oxygen greedily before coughing, shifting to sit on his butt and covering his mouth with one arm, looking across the loft to avoid looking at the vomit and blood and things that had been inside him.

Arms wrapped around him from behind, squeezing him so tightly that there was no way to mistake who it was. He could feel him shaking, lips pressed against the crown of his head and whispering quiet mantras of thanks.

Coughing roughly a few more times, Stiles cleared his throat, shifting his hand so he could pat at one of the arms wrapped around him.

“I’m okay, dad. I’m okay.”

“You could’ve died. Jesus, Stiles, you could’ve died!”

He didn’t have anything to say to that so he said nothing, coughing a bit more and feeling another set of arms trying to wrap around him. He didn’t need to look to know it was Scott.  

Letting them both hug him, he looked at Deaton. He was sitting on the floor beside him, looking both relieved and exhausted. He had two different bottles beside him, and Stiles figured one had contained the liquid that killed the parasites, and the other contained whatever he’d just given him to heal his insides.

It was a good thing, too, because Stiles was pretty sure those things had eaten through most of his intestines so he hoped that potion had regenerative properties.

“Where was that potion when I got punched in the face by Argents?” Stiles managed to force out.

Deaton actually managed a smile. “It’s only for emergencies. I felt as though this qualified.”

Stiles just let out a small laugh and patted his dad’s arm. “Come on, help me up.”

“You shouldn’t stand yet,” his dad insisted, sounding terrified.

“I need to stand. I can’t sit here.”

He was released, his dad and Scott helping him up. Deaton didn’t try to stop him, so he was probably okay to do so. He and Derek were in the process of carefully scooping the two parasites up in weird jars with symbols carved into the sides and bottom. When they were both in, Deaton slapped a lid overtop that also had some symbols on it.

“You should rest,” Deaton said, watching Stiles. “There’s no telling the damage you’ve incurred, and what I gave you will need time to fix everything fully.”

Stiles looked towards the door. It was so far. He didn’t think he could make it all the way there and to the car and home and to his room.

“He can sleep here.”

Everyone turned to Derek, who was washing his hands across the large open space in the kitchen.

“Put him in the bed.”

His dad didn’t argue, beginning to help him the few steps from the table to the bed. Stiles all but fell onto it, olfactory system invaded by scents of Derek. He rolled onto his side, feeling better and better as time passed. He figured it was temporary while the potion or whatever worked through his system, but it would likely wear off eventually.

He could hear everyone helping clean up, Deaton leaving to dispose of the parasites in a safe manner. Parrish—whom Stiles hadn’t even known was there—went with him to ensure nothing went wrong. Scott and Derek cleaned up the vomit and blood on the floor while his father paced by the bed.

After about half an hour, when it was clear Stiles wasn’t about to die anymore, his father passed out on the couch and Scott sat at the table texting. Probably Lydia, maybe Liam. Or even Deaton, who knew?

When the mattress dipped beside him, he turned his head and looked over at Derek, feeling sluggish and half-asleep despite not having closed his eyes once since lying down.

“We’re gonna finish that conversation,” he insisted, watching Derek shifting slightly.

“I know we are. I’m glad you’ll be alive enough to manage that.” He hesitated, then reached out one hand and ran it through Stiles’ hair, dragging his nails against his scalp. Stiles let out an involuntary noise of appreciation, closing his eyes.

“We’re having that conversation,” he said again.

“When you’re more conscious.”

Stiles hummed, feeling sleep finally tugging at the corners of his mind. He was sure he wouldn’t sleep soundly after what he’d just been through, but at least he knew Derek would be there when he woke up.

At least he knew Derek cared.

And they were going to have a conversation.

That was worth waking up for.

END.