#unwilling and unable to move on to reality as it is now while knowing he himself Hasn't changed exactly and is trapped in a body that isn't

[orange-artblog]

Dream "What have you done to me? I'm a unicorn!" Dreamtale versus Nightmare "I'm no unicorn, no magical being.. I'm human, and I love you." Dreamtale

[antarcticsloth]

Love of The Goddess Chapter 1

To find the prologue, click here! I hope you enjoy the first official chapter of the story! If you do, consider donating to my ko-fi or just leaving a reply/reblog!

I wake up sobbing. I reach out both my arms to feel beside me. I find two soft masses on either side. For a moment, I can delude myself that it’s Damien and Clarissa. Reality comes crashing in, though, when neither of the pillows I’ve propped beside me breathe or feel warm. I take a moment to compose myself.

I give up on sleeping for now, unwilling to live through that day again. I look at the clock to read the time—3:27 am. Even though it’s been six months since I lost my spouses, it still feels like it happened just yesterday. I get up from the bed and sit at the vanity in the room. Two letters rest upon it. Letters that I’ve memorized already.

The first letter is from my mother and father. The second is from the Orchid Convocation’s Chairman of Death, Sephtis Hecate. The note from my parents was left behind when they left my home to go back to Bouangill. They had stayed with me for a month, helping me pick up the pieces of my life. Sephtis’s letter had come through the mail. It was surprisingly personal, having come from one of the country’s top officials. If I ever get the chance, I would like to thank him for the kind gesture one day.

I scan the letters once again as a means of comfort. It’s hard not to feel completely alone in the big house, and the notes help remind me that I have a support system. Mom and Dad's note says they’re always around to help me and are only half a day away. It also states that my room is always ready for me should I decide to move back home. It then details how the town has my back and is grieving alongside me. Sephtis’s note is a bit more clinical but carries a similar sentiment. In the letter, he states that the attack that happened was nothing short of a tragedy and that I had two connections in such a brutal encounter must be devastating. He sends his condolences and says not to hesitate to reach out to his office should I need help in processing my grief.

I refold the letters, placing them back in their designated spot. It’s still dark outside, but I can’t stand being in the empty house any longer. I gather my belongings, ensuring I have my parasol and sunglasses for when it inevitably becomes daytime, and leave my home.

I wander aimlessly at first, letting my mind drift to anything but my dream. Eventually, I find myself in front of Satatodough. The lights are on in the building by now; the new owner having already started to prep for the morning rush. I sold the bakery a couple of weeks after the incident, unable to stand the thought of caring for it without Clarissa. The new owner, Squall, is kind, but it’s no longer the same bakery Clarissa used to run. It just has the same name. I even keep the recipes guarded.

Overwhelming sadness strikes as I look at the building. Unable to stand it, I turn and walk away. I make my way to the shop I work at with Agatha, The Dryad’s Grace. Knowing her, she’s probably still awake and working on some new potion. I walk a little past the fountain in the town square and various shops before I come to the building labeled as the Dryad’s Grace.

When I walk in, sure enough, Agatha is leaning over the counter, which is currently scattered with various herbs, while murmuring to herself. She doesn’t look up as I walk in. I see a note with her scrawling on it that’s been crossed out and written over several times next to her. It looks like she’s working on something with the same base as our invisibility potion, but she’s adding plants that definitely don’t belong in one of those.

“What are you working on?” I ask.

Agatha startles, nearly dropping the bottle in her hand.

“I swear to every god above, I will have to put a bell on that door.”

I turn to look up at the small set of chimes currently hanging above the door that rang when I came in. I see Agatha stare at them, too, scowling.

“Fine. A bell on you then,” she grumbles.

I chuckle a bit before repeating, “What are you working on?”

Agatha scowls, returning her full focus to the bottle in front of her. “What does it look like? An invisibility potion.”

It suddenly dawns on me that she must be incredibly tired and is making potions on little to no sleep, which never ends well.

“Creeping Toothwart doesn’t go in an invisibility potion,” I say gently. “That usually harms people.”

“What do you mean? I don’t have Creeping Toothwart. I have… Oh no.”

She looks down at the potion she’s made and slowly looks up at me in horror. She corks the bottle and says, “I don’t know what this will do.”

“Well, we can’t sell it,” I reply.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She grabs a label and writes a question mark on it with a permanent marker. She then sticks a price tag on it, writing a warning stating, “Consume at your own risk” on the other side.

“It’s a miracle you are the most sought-after apothecary in the country,” I note, amused.

“It’s a wonder to me, too,” Agatha replies before letting out a big yawn.

“Why don’t you go to bed? I got my mandatory few hours; I can take over on making inventory for now.”

Agatha pauses and looks up at me with realization in her eyes. “You should be at home.”

“You know how hard it is to be there now,” I respond. “Like I said, I got the amount of sleep I need. I’ll take over. Are there any orders that need to be ready by morning?”

She sighs while nodding. “We have an order for a vial of Death’s Blight to be delivered by 9 am. I’ve already got it set aside, though.”

I sputter at that. Death’s Blight is the world’s most potent poison, and I can’t think of a good reason anyone would need an entire vial of it when just a few drops are enough to kill a giant.

“It’s a delivery to the Bliss Suite. I was going to do it, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll send you instead while you make your morning rounds,” Agatha continues, not paying attention to my shock. “I think it’s time I finally sleep. I’ll see you in a few hours. Please work on the invisibility potions if you’re not going to go back home to rest.”

With that, Agatha yawns as she climbs off her step stool, which helps her reach the counter, and walks towards the back room, where we keep our stock and a small hammock for her to sleep in. She makes no effort to clean up the supplies before she leaves. I’m left with a bunch of herbs and various potion ingredients to resort and put away before I can start making what she asked me to.

Eventually, I get into the swing of making the potions. Hours pass with me concentrating on the crafting of bottles of invisibility. The windowless shop doesn’t allow daylight into the dimly lit store. Instead, I use the small hanging clock on the wall to inform me of the time. I listen as it chimes eight times and cork the last bottle as it does.

I go around the store to pick up the daily orders I need to deliver. I gather them into a basket and go to wake Agatha. She stirs, groaning and complaining about how little sleep she was able to get. I hand her a potion of energy I brought with me, and she accepts it eagerly, practically chugging it. She sighs, stretches, and gets up.

“Are you on your way to deliver everything?” She asks, her voice still thick with sleep.

I nod, holding up the basket for emphasis.

“Make sure you bring the Death’s Blight to the Bliss Suite in time,” she reminds me.

“What does someone need a full vial of this stuff for anyway?” I ask, a little concerned.

“Don’t know. And with the amount of money he paid, I’m not about to ask.”

“Guess I’ll just have to ask,” I think to myself. “The last thing we need is to fund a mass murder via poisoning.”

I wave goodbye to Agatha and head off to deliver everything. My first stop is to give a few health potions to Dulas at The Open Cabinet, the local general store. He’s a bit of an underhanded man, but he’s kind enough. Damien and Clarissa used to make me deal with him whenever we needed something because I could typically get the best deals, knowing how to haggle a bit better than them. I keep my conversation with Dulas short and make my way to my next stop.

I visit the Kulanavone’s next. They run the Mythril Mantle. Zoria still has a hard time speaking to me without a pitying look in her eye, so this is my least favorite stop to make.  They have been kind and looked after me the most since Damien and Clarissa’s passing, but our rapport has never really mended since Zoria broke the news to me. We have a quick check-in as I bring them their energy potions. We both say we’re fine, but I can see in their eyes that they know I’m lying.

My last stop is at The Gentle Presence, the local tavern and inn. I actually have two stops here: one to Ghinn, the owner, and one to the unnamed person who ordered the poison. I walk into the inn and am greeted happily by Ghinn.

“Lorna! Is that the special blend of spices I asked for?”

“Yep! Who do you have that’s asking for Klosica spice blends?”

“The fella in the Bliss Suite,” he responds.

I freeze, caught off guard. Probably not from around here, then.

“What do you know about that guy?” I try to ask nonchalantly.

Ghinn raises an eyebrow. “Next to nothing. He seemed kind of shady, I guess. Why?”

“I’m technically not at liberty to say,” I mumble, looking at the ground to avoid eye contact.

“He wanted a breakfast local to Klosica and seemed a little suspicious. Lorna, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I say unconvincingly. “I just have something to deliver to him, but I’m not sure I trust him with it is all.”

“Have you considered not giving it to him then?” Ghinn questions.

“Yes, but Agatha said he paid a lot for it. I was thinking of just outright interrogating him.” 

I shrug, acting nonplussed, but my heart is thudding. I’m not typically the one to go looking for trouble, but I don’t want people to lose someone they care for because Agatha and I were money-hungry.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lorna,” Ghinn warns.

“Probably not, but it’s what I’m doing,” I say, my mind made up. “See you in a bit, Ghinn.”

Ghinn is left gaping at me as I run up the stairs. I quickly find the Bliss Suite and knock on the door, hoping the soundproof enchantment lets it come through. It must not because I’m left waiting outside the door until 9 am precisely. When I hear the chime of the clock downstairs, the door opens. I’m faced with a man a little taller than me. He has blue, slightly scaly skin and stringy, dark green hair that falls just above his shoulders in a middle part. He blinks at me a few times. He goes to close the door, but I quickly shout, “Wait!” before he does.

The man pauses, looking me over wordlessly. He’s dressed in all-black clothes that are a bit baggy. A hooded cloak drapes over him. He looks like an assassin from one of my books. I shake the thought from my head. Assassins aren’t real, at least not like in the stories. 

Finally, the man looks at the basket in my hand and sees the vial of Death’s Blight. He looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to hand it to him and be off. I cross my arm over my body, putting my hand on the vial at my side. I turn the basket away from him, eyeing him over.

“Who are you?” I ask. 

My voice cracks a bit, betraying my nerves. I narrow my eyes at him and try to stand taller to match his height. I don’t want the man to know I’m afraid.

“I believe I paid for discreetness,” the mystery man clips out in a deep voice.

“As soon as you answer my questions you can have what you paid for,” I assert.

The man sighs. “If you can’t fulfill the order, I’ll just get it elsewhere.”

I scoff. “Good luck. I believe you’ll find we’re the best equipped to handle this order. I know for a fact that not even the apothecary in Halstone carries all the ingredients to make this poison.”

The man’s eyes grow wide as he hisses, “Keep your voice down.” He looks nervously into the empty hallway as if to confirm no one else is eavesdropping.

“I would love to keep my voice down,” I say, getting a bit cocky, “but unfortunately, you won’t tell me anything about yourself. How do I know I can trust you with this stuff?”

“You need to trust your customers?” he asks sarcastically.

“When it comes to orders of this nature, yes.”

The man eyes me warily before opening the door wider.

“I’m not having this conversation in a place anyone can hear. And apparently, this is the only way I’m getting my order. Come in,” he says begrudgingly.

“I am not going into a soundproofed room with a random man ordering the most potent poison that exists,” I sputter.

The man sighs in frustration. “Fine. My name is Sothlodyn. I’m on a mission from some high-up people to kill a scientist who went mad during The Merciless Death.”

My hair stands on end. I’ve read a lot about the scientists who ran experiments during the plague that swept the world. Many scientists were given blank checks to find a cure by any means necessary. Most of them used the money for good, to help people. A few notable cases, however, went power-hungry and performed cruel experiments on people in the name of progress. I run through the list in my head of maybe a hundred or so scientists that I can name who fled from the law. Only four were based in Wateragron.

“Who is it?” I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me.

“You know pre-creation era scientists?” Sothlodyn asks.

I nod.

“Okay, well, I really can’t be talking about this out here right now. Just come in.”

“You just confirmed you’re capable of murder. Absolutely not.”

“Fine. You know what? Fuck it!” He exclaims. “Why don’t you come with me? We can stake out the enemy together, and you can hand me the poison when you see we’re in proper danger. Is that what you want?”

I think on it for a moment.

“Yeah, actually. That sounds good to me. That way, I know you’re not going to target innocent people with this.”

Sothlodyn looks at me quizzically. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“Nope! What’s our first step?”

“Oh my gods. I’m going to get in so much trouble with my organization,” he mumbles.

“What organization?” I ask.

Sothlodyn cradles his head in his hands. “If you’re going to be joining me, I guess I may as well tell you everything.” He pauses, taking in a ragged breath. “I work for a group called The Court of Reapers. It’s an organization for assassins.”

I laugh at that. “An organization of assassins? That sounds completely made up!”

Sothlodyn doesn’t laugh along with me like I expect him to. It sounds like some sort of prank.

“What reason do I have lying to a stranger? Especially one who hasn’t even introduced themselves, mind you,” he says seriously.

“Oh. Well, my name is Lorna. I’m Agatha’s apprentice at The Dryad’s Grace.” I say heartily. “Let’s see… What else do you need to know about me?” I ask cocking my head to the side, looking at Sothlodyn with wide eyes.

“Nothing,” he sighs.

“So, like, how do you become a Reaper? If that is actually a real thing and you’re not just yanking my chain.”

Sothlodyn looks like he’d rather be talking about anything else. Nonetheless, he answers, “I fell into it as a way to repay a debt to someone who saved my life. I joined with someone who I trust more than anyone else.”

“I don’t think I would become an assassin for anybody, no matter what debt I owed them,” I say, scrunching my nose up at the thought of turning to murder for someone else.

“Well, then, you’ve probably never loved someone enough to do anything for them,” he retorts.

“Don’t you dare say that to me!” I snap. “You don’t know my life.”

“And you don’t know mine,” Sothlodyn says darkly.

I fume silently. I want to yell and tell him what I’ve been through, but that’s not the priority right now. I bottle my anger and plaster on the best neutral expression I can muster at the moment.

“Where are we supposed to stake out this scientist anyway?” I ask, desperately trying to change the subject back to the matter at hand.

Sothlodyn narrows his eyes at me, clearly still bitter about my remark. I watch him take a deep breath and plaster on a blank expression.

“Reports have been saying that he’s been staking out this area. It seems he has some business in Satatogo.”

I think about that briefly. There are no major research facilities within the area. Any of those would be in the capital, Halstone. I continue to let my thoughts flow before I realize what is so significant about Satatogo, The Dryad’s Grace. I look up at Sothlodyn, speaking my theory aloud. He nods solemnly before agreeing to go back to Agatha’s with me.

It’s a short walk from the Gentle Presence to The Dryad’s Grace. Along the way, Sothlodyn fills me in on the details surrounding his mark. I learn that the man we’re after is named Merrick, a name that only rings a faint bell in my knowledge of scientists. Sothlodyn also details how he has to fill out a report after he’s honored his hit. Apparently, it is not seen as the worst thing if there’s collateral, and the clients who hire The Reapers can choose the method of death they want.

I feel queasy as he tells me all of this. I don’t want to give him the okay to murder someone, even if they’ve done terrible things. It feels as if I’m signing off on somebody’s death sentence if I give Sothlodyn the okay. The rest of the way to the apothecary is spent in uneasy silence, with me lost in thought. I finally decide that I’ll try to talk things out if possible. Maybe we don’t have to resort to killing anyone.

As The Dryad’s Grace enters our view, Sothlodyn puts out his arm to stop me. I look at him quizzically before he points to a man I’ve never seen before. He’s wearing clothes similar to the man beside me, except he is wearing a black face mask, and his clothing seems slightly more tattered. The rest of his features are difficult to make out from this distance.

“That’s our guy,” Sothlodyn declares confidently. “Stay on your toes.”

He grabs my hand, hurrying us to the entrance of the apothecary. He bursts the door open, and we’re greeted with the sight of a delirious-looking Agatha being urged by the man to give him all the ingredients we have.

“Listen, man, there’s no way I’m giving you my inventory, especially not for free,” Agatha says, looking like she’s still getting her bearings straight.

The man turns to the entryway, looking at the bell, then to us. I shiver as his eyes scan mine. He has grey eyes that are cold and devoid of any emotion. It almost feels as if he has no soul. Instinctively, I nearly reach out with my magic to determine if he’s truly soulless, but he lets out a dry, rasping laugh before I get the chance. As he laughs, he waves a hand in an odd pattern.

With that, I become weightless. My hair begins flowing, and suddenly, with fear, I realize I am falling into an abyss. I hear Agatha’s voice and see her falling beside me. I grab onto her and look around wildly for anything to hold onto. What I find is Sothlodyn reaching out. I catch his hand as a light appears at the end of the abyss.

We hit the ground hard. Sothlodyn and Agatha seem to recover quickly, but I am left on the floor, winded for a solid couple of minutes. Once I recover, I stand shakily, taking in our new surroundings.

We’re in a room with clean, white tile and three doors. In the center of the room stands the same man as in the apothecary, Merrick. Sothlodyn runs and tackles him, demanding to know where we are. As he makes contact with the scientist, however, Merrick dissolves into a black sludge that leaves a small puddle of ooze in the center of the room. It dawns on me that we are now alone in Merrick’s domain with no discernible way out, and I feel ready to cry in terror.

[datastate]

i can't remember if i've mentioned this here, but i've been having. thoughts abt how mr. chidouin's the one who killed qingyuè / kai's mother. maybe it's sort of an honor, in a twisted sense, that it's the godfather that's the one who puts the final nail in the coffin -- but it hardly matters. the death's covered up, dismissed, as all others have been. and that is that.

there is nothing for gashu to return to. their child is the next bargaining chip to keep him locked here under threat without needing to explicitly disclose they killed that 'chinese traitor' and could just as easily kill one with her blood...

but then - what it means later on... dredged up because mr. chidouin's always been curious, hasn't he: he wonders what kai remembers, he wonders how kai languishes, if he does at all. he wonders how much mandarin means to kai, or if he even knows he's chinese. he wants to learn about kai as his friend, but also as the killer. it's that morbid taste of it, of wanting to know what exactly he took away - or if it's he who made kai strong.

because he's proud of who kai's become, he is, as inconvenient as it may be for their assassin to end up unable and unwilling to kill anyone... that doesn't mean se's not strong. & it's just fascinating seeing that play out, seeing how kai clings to the chidouins now and directs his strength into something protective, only accepting destruction when absolutely necessary -- which, with them, provides just enough leverage to justify it. it makes mr. chidouin feel special, seeing someone as strong as kai kneel to love (a love he'd been deprived of; one only chidouin could return... still the murderer, he lifts it from qingyuè's body)

but... kai only kneels because this love isn't fake.

once gashu was convinced to let kai go, to no longer endure the dread of watching his son's tragedy unfold, mr. chidouin instead became his caretaker and embraces that proudly.

so when mr. chidouin dares to ask kai, he's forced to confront the discomfort in his own heart that he'd tucked away and refused to linger on. killing's part of the business, there's no room for regret and you won't make it far if you do, but... hearing the long unheard grief from kai's mouth. something hidden from the only person who could possibly empathize with him, and instead given to the murderer... this desperation to know who he is. it should be perfect, the perfect moment to plant that thought: you're mine. isn't that all that matters? - but it only makes kai retract. & it makes mr. chidouin's heart ache with forgotten remorse.

his mistake is forgetting the value kai weighs each life with. mr. chidouin is unable to envision a world in which that inherent value may tip the scales unfavorably for someone who discards them as pieces. oh, yes, he does acknowledge each life as important - but certain sacrifices must be made.

& yet... while he believes kai's still so naive in this way, he can't find it in himself to blame him.

mr. chidouin was freshly 20 when he pulled the trigger on qingyuè, and he then moved on to meet atsuko & sara as mrs. hiyori dealt with what remained of gashu. he was never forced to deal with the ugly end of death... but kai was exposed too early and thus detached himself. once mr. chidouin - again at fault - wears that wall down... kai realizes he has nothing to grieve, though witness to mr. chidouin's own family, the curiosity aches again to know what only his father knows. (what only mr. chidouin knows.) this desire to mourn and understand who exactly he's grieving never knowing, before he fully accepts the chidouin's as his own with nothing else to linger upon.

it takes patience - but mr. chidouin instead told him: keeping her memory is pointless. (it was nothing but a painful exercise in guilt, that's all he remembers her as before he saw reality as it was. he's saving him. he loves him).

...and when kai's eyes flicker with anger, he truly looks like his mother.

[freewillacquired]

[From Good Rain] The chaos that had overtaken the simulated streets finally seemed to have settled down. Rain thought that she might finally have a moment to catch her breath, but then found herself blanketed by the shadow of a massive figure.

Nemesis lived his life in a sedative-induced haze, whether he was asleep or awake. Most of the time he was kept sedated to the point of being knocked out, but even while awake, it was as if his mind was lethargic or something. His personality, the parts of him that were Matt instead of Nemesis, were buried deep, half-asleep, too tired and distant to take control. All he could do is watch through his own eyes as he did things he didn't want to do, killed people he didn't want to kill, because he was ordered to. The controlled parts of his mind went on autopilot once an order was given, and his body moved without him wanting it to. It was like being an unwilling passenger in a car driven by a homicidal robot.

Being recaptured after Raccoon City was his absolute worst nightmare. Why couldn't he have just been killed by the nuclear weapon like other normal human beings? No, he had to strangely regenerate, his virus-permeated form only spurred on by the radioactivity and too focused on survival to allow him to die. It hadn't been bad at first... Oh, sure, he'd grown tentacles, and he was a few inches taller than he'd been before. Maybe more muscular too. Had his bones gotten thicker? But regardless, he was alive and free and could do whatever he wanted. Until Umbrella caught him with a trap they'd laid out for him...

And that was that. He was taken to some cold-ass place in Russia, under the ocean and the glaciers he used to advocate to save as an environmental activist, and re-enslaved. He had a vague sense of who he was, of what had come before this. It came more to him in dreams than anything else. But for now, he just couldn't seem to take back his autonomy. Without Alice to help quite literally in beating some sense into him, Nemesis felt forever doomed to repeat simulation after simulation, killing innocent people again and again.

He hated the New York testing environment. Before he'd been plunged into hell, he'd been a nature lover, a camper, a hiker... and frankly, the smell of gasoline, metal, rubber, and city funk was something that had become downright triggering to him. Not to mention the hulking creatures with massive nails and spikes through their heads he was sometimes made to battle. Axemen, they were called. Gross, he thought, and yet he felt sorry for whoever they used to be.

So at first, when he'd been released into an entirely different simulation with blue skies, green grass, and the occasional pet dog running around, Nemesis thought something had changed for the better. But... no. He recognized these streets. They were the suburbs of Raccoon. He could almost walk to his house from here... Not only that, but they had him hunting down innocent people again. Why? Like, what purpose does this serve? Of course I'm gonna be able to kill these poor people, what does this prove?! All he could do was watch in horror, unable to stop seeing the world through his left good eye and Umbrella's orders and ticker data through his experimentally altered right one.

During times like this, Matt tried to distract himself so he didn't have to face the reality of what he was being made to do. It helped that he always felt foggy, like he was asleep and couldn't quite wake up. It was easy to just let go and be a passenger when he couldn't even hold a coherent thought long enough to-

Wait, I know her!

Nemesis stopped for a moment when he saw the woman. The sight of her was like glass shattering inside his mind, breaking windows and letting in air and light where there had only been a dark void before. It hurt, the sudden flood of memories, and it was anything but coherent. Flashes of people he knew but couldn't remember the names of, glimpses of the Hive, creatures and sounds and screams... It gave him a headache, breaking Umbrella's control on him for a second time, but it was the best pain ever. He felt like he'd woke up after years of slumber, dazed but in control.

Lowering his chain gun to his side, Nemesis clomped over to the woman as his visual overlay courtesy of his retinal implant identified her as Rain Ocampo. Rain... The name came with another traumatic flash of memories, and Nemesis didn't get his hopes up. Rain was dead. He remember now... he had killed her himself. It was something he'd seen in his nightmares a multitude of times before Umbrella had leashed him again. It was one of the worst things he'd ever had to do, shooting Rain. So this... couldn't be her. Unless...

Clones...

Nemesis knew the testing environments were populated with clones because Umbrella considered them expendable stand-ins for "real" humans. It was incredibly sick, even if the technological advancements that had created them and the environments themselves were nothing short of amazing. Oh man, now he was pissed. They cloned Rain? Really? What the fuck, Umbrella, seriously?!

As he got closer to her, he knew this probably wouldn't go well. He looked like road pizza. Actually... most roadkill looked better than he did at this point. But he had to try, nevertheless. Even if she was just a clone, she was some part of Rain that was still alive, and that meant something to him. "Rain...?" he asked, hoping he wouldn't scare the shit out of her...

[blackwolfstabs]

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 30 the final day

ESCAPING REALITY

"Let's get out of here."

DISCLAIMER: i have never made-out with anyone, kissed anyone, or been intimate with anyone ever before. i know i'm a total noob, so i sincerely apologize if this isn't spicy enough for some people, is boring, or is so virgin-coded lmfao. i also didn't go crazy, because Sam and Danny have a make-out session in "The Wolves of Woodsboro" so i didn't want to be too repetitive. anyways, enjoy ♡ or don't.

“I should get back…” Sam sighed, lying on her side with her head in Danny’s lap as she stared at the flashing pictures on the television. She blinked slowly as his hand moved over her face to brush her hair back.

“Why?” he quizzed, “You said Tara was gonna be out at her film class party until 11:00.”

She didn’t move, just gave a small shrug. “I know, but…” 

If she didn’t leave now, she wasn’t going to. With the end of the semester coming up, Tara had been out late many nights to meet up with her peers and study for finals. This left Sam lonely after work, so she’d been going over to Danny’s apartment to spend time with him. It’s not that Tara would have the time to spend time with her, even if she was home, but just not being alone in the apartment was comforting. However, Danny was always there and Sam had grown quite attached to him recently. Maybe it was her hormones spiraling from the approaching, yet notorious ‘time of the month’, but she knew what she felt and that was the desire to be near him. 

And he knew it too. “What? Are you finally trying to get away from me?” he teased and nudged her by jerking his knee a little when she didn’t respond. “Hmm?”

“No,” she chuckled and tilted her head over her shoulder to meet his blue gaze. “It’s just…” She moved onto her back, feeling him glide his fingers through her roots and along her scalp as she explained, “If I don’t leave now, then I’m never gonna leave.” Her eyes dropped.

Danny shrugged. “Who says you have to?”

Okay, he had her, but at the same time, he was playing off of his own attachment to her. Sam knew that; however, it didn’t stop the small smile that pulled her lips. “Come on, Danny, you know what I mean.”

He still played innocent, “Do I? I’m not so sure I do.” His smile, which was wider than hers, gave him away.

She then sat up and turned around to face him. She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, “Are you really going to make me say it?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

She scoffed and shook her head, dropping her gaze to the sofa cushions as if she had to formulate the right words to say. There was silence between them for a few moments, before he called her name.

“Sam.”

Her dark eyes immediately rose to meet the calm ocean shimmering in his light ones. He tilted his head in a gesture, inviting her onto his lap, “Come here…” 

Like a dog guilty of chewing up a shoe, Carpenter ducked her head a little as she obeyed, crawling over to him and settling herself on his lap. She leaned against him, letting him guide her legs in close so he could put one arm around them, while the other supported her back. Then, he pressed a loving kiss to her temple, and oh, did that make her not want to leave even more.

Danny let his forehead rest against the side of hers for a moment. Even after all this time, she was still on edge about the amount of time she spent with him in their relationship. Maybe she was afraid that Tara would think she was being replaced, or maybe she was afraid of becoming too dependent. But she shouldn’t have to worry about those things. He knew old habits die hard, which was why he often played his cards convincing her to let go and let loose. There was no more Ghostface, no more running, no more uncertainty, and no more inability to trust. 

Yet, that wasn’t the issue. It was her own self that she didn’t trust for whatever reason.

“Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘unable to stay, unwilling to leave’?” he asked her. 

She scoffed. “You mean like the track from Titanic?”

He smirked. “It suits you pretty well.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?”

“You choose.”

Sam rolled her eyes and looked over to have their eyes meet. “What are you trying to say?”

Her partner traced circles on the side of her thigh with his fingertips. “You claim you can’t stay here, but you dread the thought of leaving,” he explained, noting the small shade of rouge present in her cheeks, “Do you need help making a decision?” He reached his fingers father up her leg to nearly slip beneath her shorts.

She instinctively glanced down at the touch, then returned her attention as she pulled his hand away with her own. “You sound like you have something in mind…” 

And at those words, his softened smile grew back into one of certainty. “Maybe…” He watched her eyebrows raise a little as she gave a small nod that encouraged him to share. “Let’s get out of here.” She blinked at him, her captivating eyes caught in his as she looked between both irises. He shook his head. “Let’s just get out of here,” he repeated with a little more enthusiasm. He pulled her in closer, “Just for a little bit. Can we?”

But she shook her head and shyly looked away, “No.” Though, she couldn’t break her smile.

“Yeah,” he countered, holding her against him so she couldn’t escape.

“No, Danny—”

“Mm-hmm. Why not?”

By now, she was undoubtedly blushing. “Because Tara—”

“Hey,” he cut her off and gently took her chin to make her look at him. “She knows where you are.”

This was true. Tara always knew where Sam was, and Sam always knew where Tara was. If Sam wasn’t home by the time she got home, her little sister already knew that she was safe where she was. But the older Carpenter always played hard-to-get, leaving her to still avoid eye contact with her boyfriend as she remained silent.

He kissed her cheek, moving his hand from her chin to hold the side of her face. “Hmm?”

She just answered with a sigh. He kissed her again, which made her give him a warning glance that was not serious in the slightest.

This just made Danny chuckle, and he trapped her in his arms to shower her face and neck with kisses, leaning her back a little to tease her. He kept on, until she broke down into defeated giggles.

“Alright, fi-hine! You win,” she managed, cringing a little as he nuzzled her jawline. 

He gave another chuckle and pulled away from her to find her eyes blinking to stare up at him. They were now glowing in desire, and he knew she now wanted him just as much as he wanted her. “Still wanna leave?” he tested.

Samantha didn’t give him a verbal reply, just raised one arm around his neck to pull him into a proper kiss. She felt him melt into it immediately, and suddenly, the sound of the television and humming of the air conditioning was blocked out so all they knew were each other.

Not breaking contact, Brackett lowered his girlfriend down all the way to have her lay on the couch. She kept her engaging hand on the back of his neck, while he felt the other gently curl into his shoulder. He kept her wish to keep him close as he untangled himself enough to crouch on top of her. One hand gripped the edge of the cushion to straddle her in place, and he used the other to cup beneath her thigh.

They parted at the same time, Sam sighing from the duration, while Danny dipped his head to brush his nose along her cheek and into her hair.

Escaping reality was always better than existing in it.

She turned her face a little to give his jawline a couple of soft kisses, before sliding her hand away from his neck to guide him to her lips again. Her head tilted into it, a spark of a warm flame flickering in her chest. She stretched her arm down and clawed the hem of his shirt.

In response, he squeezed her thigh, his hand high enough on it to nearly catch her hind end. He could feel the lean muscle she sported slide beneath her skin, while her nails clutched his shirt, catching his bare skin. She moaned into him, which made his lust for her grow. 

She sounded very different from her normal pitch whenever she moaned. It was higher and sometimes breathy, like she was desperate for the attention, especially when he had her beneath him. He was the only one who seemed to be able to dominate her. 

Samantha Carpenter was untamable, unbreakable, and the most mysterious person anyone could ever have the pleasure of knowing. But a rugged loner like Danny Brackett managed to bring out colors in her that she didn’t show to anyone. Anyone but him…

They broke apart again to have Sam pull her partner’s shirt over his head and off of his arms. He leaned down to trail slow kisses along her collarbone, while she gently sighed into his ear, placing her own generous pecks on his shoulder. His hand slipped beneath her shirt to start easing it up towards her chest. He squeezed her side, and a low rumble took hold of her occasional noises.

There came the times when she’d growl. Danny noticed that she normally did this when she was trying to fight her own arousal—the sexual urge to initiate intercourse when it wasn’t planned. But he knew the signs. The way she turned her head, the growling, the way her skin would heat up and she would start to pant before they even got into anything, seriously. He adored it all.

He hummed as she dipped her nose into the crook of his neck, her scent the only thing he could process. He drew his hand away from her side to trail his knuckles down her exposed stomach, feeling the definition of her abs when they tensed at his delicacy.

“Mmm—” She moaned through gritted teeth as he got down to the borderline of her pelvis, “Danny…” She couldn’t hold back the instinctive buck of her hips.

Her boyfriend shushed her though, retreating his unknowingly teasing hand to encourage her top up even further. “Shhh… it’s okay, baby,” he whispered. He felt her shudder in ecstasy, to which he lifted himself to meet her gaze.

Sam swallowed. “D-did you want to?”

He calmly replied, “Only if you want to.” For a moment, he thought she might force herself to snap out of it, but then she nodded and finished pulling her shirt over her head. He smiled and combed her hair back to its initial, neat placement. Then, he lowered himself close to her face again, which made her shrink back in submission. “There we go…”

She let out the smallest giggle that was more breathless than genuine, letting him press his forehead against hers. They held each other’s eyes for a long moment, Danny’s hand holding her at the flank of her chest, while her arm held him around his waist. Then, she closed her eyes as he shut his and gently rubbed his head against hers.

Sam smiled, and when he grew still again, she stole a quick kiss off his lips. “Do you wanna lead?” she asked him.

Danny curled his thumbnail beneath the band of her bra and tugged on it. Slowly but surely, he was training her out of her old habits. As many days as he had known her, there were still things he hadn’t memorized or discovered, but if anyone asked him, that’s what made loving her fun.

He was still learning, still burning, still wanting, still all-in, and still falling.

He nodded. “Okay.”

OMFG I'M DONE!! this was my first 30 day challenge and as much fun as i had doing it, i'm so happy it's over! But I'm even more happy that i completed it (even if i started it in early september and didn't finish until the LAST DAY OF NOVEMBER sshhhhhhhh)

bless you all for all the support y'all gave me on this rollercoaster ride and for sticking with me to the end. and while this may be the end of the challenge, I'm immediately going to jump on my queue so there's more one-shots coming within the next couple of days ;)

p.s. special thanks to "Still Fallin" by Hunter Hayes, "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This" by Toby Keith, and "Something Sexy About The Rain" by Kenny Chesney.

All my love, kudos, and best to you all! stay safe out there and thank you! ♡ - parker

[bronze-bell]

As Victor's free hand reaches behind Aesop, the embalmer can feel himself struggling to process, to understand. Every part of him felt weak, his body unsteady as he melted into the touch given to him, unable or unwilling to let go (he couldn't tell which as the world blurred in front of him, as his thoughts did him no favors).

A shaky hand attempted to steady Victor, as Aesop felt the way Victor so comfortably leaned into him, hardly processing until the cap was off and Victor's head leaned against him just how close the two were, how he could feel the other's heartbeat, how two would collapse, melt, dissolve into one.

The longer Aesop felt Victor leaning onto him, the more his own form would be dragged down by gravity, his surroundings not mattering when the embrace he was held in was so kind. He'd contemplated what kind of death he'd want, knowing all too well that for all the care he could give others, he wouldn't be able to receive what he had brought so many others. Maybe, being in someone's arms, having someone who would at least give him comfort in whatever fading consciousness he'd be in, would be nice.

If both of them were going slack, how were they staying upright, except for the fact that each was leaning on the other? Aesop reached for the back of Victor's neck, fingers trailing down and drawing patterns, his other hand absentmindedly tracing the edges of Victor's scars. A contented hum left him as he heard Victor's own voice showing his comfort and trust.

The dead were familiar. And yet, as Victor's warmth seeped into him, Aesop didn't want to do such a thing just yet. Not when it meant being reminded of the coldness that was the only thing he could touch. His fingers tapped, echoing the familiar motions of opening and closing the clasps of his makeup kit. If he moved, surely he would be alone once more, and who was to say if or when the next time would come?

For now, at least, he was in the warm grasp of someone who truly cared. Aesop had no interest in waking up, if this were a dream.

He feels... Small, here. In these arms, against this heart, drinking in the warmth like alcohol through his skin. Entirely consumed in this embrace as he weakens, going slack and melted like wax as he soaks into the fabric of Aesop's coat. He's never felt this safe, this loved, this whole before. Like he's part of something, of someone, losing himself in the touch in a way he hasn't in years. It feels good. Like a treat for surviving so long with barely even a brush of hands to feed his starvation.

Aesop is slumping into it as well, this spell taking hold of him in the same way it has Victor. Again, he finds himself held up only by the weight of two bodies leaning together, and as much as Frederick is kind and gentle, he's convinced that right now, Aesop is his favourite person in the whole world. His hands are so soft, even under gloves, as they hold his back and dance against his spine, stroking old scars from knives and burns and whatever else that are kept fresh by the strangeness of this place.

It's then he realises his own hands are slipping down, his body much too tired to keep them up, so he wraps his arms around Aesop where he can let himself go limp without worry. The cold of Aesop's body feels warm against his skin, and soon he knows it'll warm up under his hands as he flushes a little, drunk and giddy and completely out of energy as his head spins with the hazy reality of what is happening to him.

His attention is caught by Aesop tapping against his neck, and he leans into it, letting his focus drift to Aesop's soft hands again. He moves one of his own shakily back up to mirror it, nestling his hand in Aesop's hair to keep it from falling back down again, idly scratching dull nails against his scalp.

He only hopes Aesop feels as good as Victor feels while melting into his bones, hoping he isn't too much of a burden to the man. He feels so safe here, so warm, so tired... Please let him dream here a little longer...

[bloodonthecoral]

Where Eagles Fly — Prologue

Taglist — @vintagelavenderskies

“Make our ancestors proud, my dear son.” whispered Celia, embracing Sam tightly.

Sam's gaze wandered towards the rest of his family. Rita stood beside Celia, unable to stand still; nervously, she bounced on her toes. Next to Rita, Lucy stood with her eyes fixed on the train in front of the platform. Philip stood by their father, his worried eyes not aligning with the stoic expression he tried to maintain.

“I will, Shimá.” Sam promised, momentarily turning his attention back to his mother.

“You'll have to keep us posted on your training,” interjected Rita, her usual bubbly demeanor replaced by anxiety. Deep within, she questioned if this might be their final farewell.

“I'll write until you can no longer read,” Sam joked, hoping to coax a smile from her one last time. Rita nodded but couldn't muster a smile.

“It'll be okay, Rita,” Sam took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. “Remember when I used to shield you from your fears during the dust storms? I'm protecting you from different forces now, and I'll always protect you... Always.”

“I love you.”

“Love you more.” Sam replied before turning his attention to Lucy. The girl stood in an awkward and stiff manner, unsure of what to say. It hadn't occurred to him until now how mature she had become. Fresh into high school, makeup and boys had captured her recent interests. A subtle rouge tinted the girl's cheeks, and her lips were lightly colored with red lipstick. A bittersweet smile played on Sam's lips as he wondered when she had grown up. The older boy began to offer advice:

“Lucy, don't get too caught up with boys. They can wait; your education is more important.”

“I won't!” Lucy huffed, rolling her eyes as Sam subtly distanced himself from her.

Sam fixed his gaze on Philip, studying his younger brother's features. Much like Lucy, he had grown up without Sam's realization. Philip's lips were full, his cheekbones high and notably prominent, and his shoulders had broadened. Perhaps, Sam was only just beginning to grasp the reality of how much time had passed for each of his siblings; Lucy was fourteen, Rita fifteen, and Philip was on the brink of seventeen.

“You're going to help out at our grandparents’ farm while I'm gone, right?”

“Yeah, and I'll take care of your mare, don't worry.”

“Thank you, Philip.”

“It's the least I can do.”

Unexpectedly, Philip's hand rose from his side, extending towards Sam. A smile tugged at the corners of Sam's lips as he firmly shook his brother's hand.

“Make us proud, brother.”

“Will do.”

Sam's attention moved to his father, silence blanketing them, both hesitant to speak. The future was unwritten, fate yet to be sealed; This goodbye didn't mean he'd never see his son again. George swallowed the lump in his throat, hoping that the words would piece themselves together.

“Keep yourself safe; the diné spirit shields you.”

“I will.”

George, grappling with unspoken emotions, nodded at his son. While words remain unsaid, Sam understood his father's silent message: I love you. On a whim, Sam wrapped his arms around his father. Something he hadn't done since early boyhood.

“I love you.” whispered Sam.

“I love you too,” breathed George.

Sam pulled away from his father, moving onto the final person, Lana.

“Oh, my lovely Lana.”

Sam pulled Lana into his chest, letting go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding onto. His eyelids fell shut as Lana wrapped her arms around him.

“I love you so terribly much.” said Sam

“I love you too.” breathed Lana.

Unwilling to let go of his lover, Sam felt his heart begin to shatter with each second that passed. Soon, he'd board a train, alone and uncertain if he'd ever return to his home. Lana's voice fell to a hushed volume as she spoke once again:

“Will you be sneaking the diary into boot camp?”

Sam's eyes fluttered open, surprised by her question. It had been the elephant in the room that only he and Lana knew of. They had planned it together, knowing the trouble it could cause. Nonetheless, Sam was convinced he needed to document the journey ahead of him. He wanted to be a journalist for years; this was something he knew needed to be documented. Without any hesitation, Lana supported his idea, even if it had foreseeable consequences.

“I will.”

“Will you be able to hide it?”

“Who knows, we'll find out.”

“Don't get yourself into too much trouble.”

“Am I known for getting into trouble?”

“Sometimes.”

“Shhh, that wasn't the correct answer.”

Laughter bubbled from Lana's lips, a sound that made Sam grin. He gently squeezed her waist. Suddenly, the train's whistle cut through the air, its high-pitched screech warning the gathered families of its fast-approaching departure time. Sam released Lana, his eyes lingering on her. Only now did he notice the tears streaming down her cheeks. The sensation of his heart dropping overwhelmed Sam; he never wanted to be the causation of Lana's tears.

“We'll see each other again; this isn't our final embrace.”

“We don't know that.”

“We don't, but we can choose to believe it isn't.”

Sam pressed his lips against her forehead before stepping away from everyone. A lump had formed in his throat; reality was finally beginning to set in. Sam drew his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to distract himself from the anxiety that had begun to set in. He was only off to processing and yet he'd grown fearful of his future. It was rather far-fetched to believe his death was so imminent. After letting go of his lip, the boy exhaled and turned away from his family.

“I'll be back one day.”

“You better be.” quipped Celia.

Sam chuckled with a touch of indifference as he stepped onto the train. Swiftly, his gaze studied the cabin's interior — a predominantly oak-toned wooden setting with seats adorned by forest green cushions. Despite their less-than-inviting appearance, a few men had managed to doze off in their seats. Other men had been exchanging conversation with others seated around them. Sam found an empty seat, its faded upholstery worn from countless journeys. His gaze shifted to the window, searching for his family. On the platform, his sisters gathered around their father, embracing him tightly. Philip stood alongside Lana, but a somber silence hung between them. Though Lana's tears had dried, her trembling lip and the embrace of her arms around her waist revealed the lingering emotional turmoil. Her eyes searched to spot him in one of the windows. When she did, she lifted her hand and pointed, momentarily turning towards Philip. An unexpected smile tugged at Philip's lips as his eyes spotted Sam’s familiar face.

Once more, the train's piercing whistle echoed through the air. Beneath Sam's feet, the floor started to tremble, signaling the imminent departure of the train as it gradually pulled ahead. Lana's arms dropped to her side as she started to run beside the train. Without hesitation, Philip joined her. Sam straightened in his chair, observing Lana and his brother jogging beside the train. The boy beamed with delight as he witnessed their run. Each step they took increased in speed until they reached the end of the platform. Their running came to a halt, and the feeling of anticipatory grief washed over them. Sam's gaze fell to his lap, observing his hands as he began to twiddle his thumbs. There was far too much for him to think of:

How am I going to keep my journal hidden? If they find it, what could they possibly do?

“Where are you headed?”

An unfamiliar voice awoke Sam from his thoughts.

“Uh, I think Camp Toccoa, it's somewhere in Georgia.” answered Sam, his eyes meeting the stranger's.

“Enlisted or drafted?”

The man was dressed in civilian clothes, the fabric appearing to be of high quality—better than what Sam had worn. His hair, a dirty blonde, framed a pair of pale blue eyes, and freckles adorned his cheeks. Leaning against the unoccupied seats across from Sam, his appearance made Sam pause; he bore an unsettling resemblance to the boys in high school who had tormented him.

“Enlisted, planning on bein’ a paratrooper.”

“What could possibly compel someone to sign up to jump from a plane?”

“Extra pay.”

“No amount of money could convince me to jump from a plane-” the stranger shook his head before continuing, “you mind if I sit with you?”

“Not at all.”

The blonde settled into the chair he had been leaning on, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He offered one to Sam:

“Want it?”

“I don’t smoke,” replied Sam, knowing how abnormal his refusal must have sounded.

“You Mormon or something?” the stranger interrogated, cigarette between his lips as he flicked on his lighter.

“No,” chuckled Sam.

“Oh, name's Thomas.”

Thomas took a drag of the cig before removing it from his lips, holding it between his index and middle fingers.

“Sam.”

“Where are you from, Sam?” asked Thomas, returning the cigarette to his lips.

“Santa Fe, what about you, Thomas?”

“Santa Fe, as well… Near the country club, have you been there before?”

“I am not white enough for that.” stated Sam, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Thomas' obliviousness.

“Sorry, uh, what part of Santa Fe are you from?”

“Near the Indian Market.”

“Oh, never been to that market, my dad isn't keen on…” Thomas' voice faltered with shame, his eyes averting from Sam. Since his childhood, Thomas' father has had a habit of expressing prejudiced opinions about the indigenous peoples.

“So why are you talking to me?” questioned Sam, raising an eyebrow.

“‘Cause I believe my father is full of it… Your skin color doesn't define you. My mother, bless her, used to tell me how people aren’t defined by their appearance but rather their character. I'm not sure why she married my father…”

“Rich people marry for status; that probably has some correlation,” reasoned Sam.

“Probably, it's a bit dumb, I'm sure you think the same,” A smile spread across Thomas’ face as he remembered the scene that unfolded minutes before. The lad sat up in his chair and asked, “Hey, did you see those two running beside the train.”

“That was my love, Lana, and my brother, Philip.”

Sam spoke with a smile as he thought of Lana’s behavior; it was rather out of character for her to willingly capture the attention of so many strangers. The whole train must've watched her run alongside them.

“Man, you must be thoroughly loved,” laughter escaped Thomas as he tried to speak, “my gal would never run beside a train for me.”

Confusion contorted Sam's face as he looked towards Thomas. Hesitancy laced itself into Sam's voice as he spoke:

“Did your love not show up to the train station?”

“She’s busy with college classes.”

“Lana came from San Francisco to say goodbye to me.”

“I am going to be cheated on, aren't I?” sighed Thomas.

“Just pray that you don't get a Dear John letter,” joked Sam, though the blonde couldn't find the humor within Sam's words.

A hush settled between them, allowing Sam to reimmerse himself in his thoughts.

I should've brought a book for the trip. He thought. This'll be such a long and boring train ride.

Gazing out of the window, he watched as the rumbling train passed through the sun-soaked city. To say he'd miss the city was an understatement. There was more than just the city to miss; he'd miss the summers spent in Arizona around Monument Valley. The trail rides with Philip and their friends would be a distant memory. It was on one such ride that Philip had asked him if the war would make it to America. Back then, he didn't have an answer—no one did. Their answer arrived shortly after that summer on the seventh day of December. Sam let out a sigh as he shifted in his seat, hoping to find a comfortable position that he knew he'd never find. Nevertheless, his eyes fell shut as memories continued to flood his senses. Galloping bareback down a trail he'd traveled a hundred times before, the Arizona sun beating down upon his tanned skin. Sometimes, he'd let go of the reins, allowing his mare to extend her strides even further than before. That's when it felt like he was the eagle, soaring above the desert terrain. One day, he'd return to that trail and bring Lana.

[bluerevs-a]

               eyes  practically  roll  to  the  base  of  ezra's  skull  at  teddy's  teasing,  even  if  he  doesn’t  hate  it  like  he  knows  he  should.  at  least  it  was  intelligent,  as  much  as  it  was  biting.  a  twitch  of  a  smile  dares  to  threaten  his  lips,  but  he  suppresses  it.  eyes  fixate  on  the  cherry  red  ash  of  his  cigarette,  unwilling  to  meet  her  gaze  as  offers  a  seemingly  genuine  compliment.  “if  that  has  you  impressed,  wait  until  you  hear  testimonials  from  those  orphans  i  pulled  out  of  that  burning  building  last  week,”  he  says  unflinchingly,  wearing  his  typical  blank  stare,  still  unable  to  pull  his  eyes  toward  her  own.  banter,  insults,  abuse…  all  things  he  could  handle  with  a  steely  resolve.  her  kindness?  no,  not  even  close.  she  had  his  head  and  heart  hopelessly  deadlocked,  fighting  a  battle  that  neither  organ  could  articulate  their  reasonings  for.  finally,  once  she  mentions  bringing  the  girl  home,  they  step  back  into  a  rhythm  that  doesn’t  feel  so  treacherous.  the  question  is  so  ridiculous  given  his  current  state,  ezra  no  longer  fights  back  a  smile.  “yeah,  a  real  knight  in  shining  armor.  look  at  me,”  smile  morphs  into  a  cynical  grin,  toothy  and  lip-splitting,  “i  don’t  think  she  would’ve  had  me.”  and  even  if  that  were  true,  that  he  was  a  ghastly  sight  right  now,  the  thought  of  making  a  move  on  the  girl  had  not  even  crossed  his  mind.  at  some  point  in  tabloid  articles  and  online  debate,  ezra  had  obtained  the  title  of  a  sort  of  lothario.  in  reality,  it  wasn’t  that  sordid.  it  was  just  that  almost  every  relationship  in  his  life  was  casual,  something  to  be  easily  jettisoned  if  necessary.  he  knew  no  other  way.  “i’m  only  still  here  under  duress,”  he  reminds  her  with  another  roll  of  his  eyes,  immediately  betraying  any  previously  displayed  thankfulness.  takes  another  drag,  busying  his  hands  as  she  speaks,  his  mind  turning.  “yeah,  well,  i  probably  have  some  irreparable  damage.  so,  go  ahead  and  strike  while  the  iron’s  hot  if  you’re  looking  for  me  to  say  other  shit  i’ll  probably  regret,”  another  smile,  finding  it  harder  to  ignore  the  thick  swell  in  his  chest  when  she  smiled  in  his  direction.  swallows  hard  when  he  realizes  the  extent  of  his  interruption,  a  wave  of  guilt  pulling  him  under.  “well  still,  i’m  sure  you’d  rather  have  different  company,”  he  insists,  uncharacteristically  contrite.  “...and  i  guess  you  are  better  company  than  your  doorman.  so,  thanks."

" so what if i do-- humor me. " her tone leans more playful than sadistic, a rare change. slender fingers bring her cigarette to her lips again, attention drawn momentarily to the window as she blows her smoke away. " a bar fight ? way to reinvent the wheel, " she reacts, her noticeable cynicism fading as he continues. she turns back to him, eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. she had expected many explanations from ezra, but at no point did she consider one with such heroic origins. her initial response was to hate him for it. it was just another detail to muddy her emotions even more. yet despite her feelings, as misplaced as they may be, she realizes the vulnerable state ezra is in, and in a turn of events, decides against twisting the knife. " well ez, i can't believe i'm saying this but, that's incredibly kind of you. " she speaks sincerely, sardonic remarks momentarily thrown out the window. she couldn't bring herself to be cruel at that confession. " it sounds like you picked a good one, though. sometimes those are worth losing, " she offers, taking another pull of her cigarette. " you were a night in shining armor tonight and you didn't try to take her home ? " can't help but be shocked, she couldn't imagine anyone not falling to their knees at such a gesture. in truth, she could only picture it so easily because she would if he had done that for her. though she'd sooner die than admit it. " but i guess i understand, who wouldn't want to spend their evening with me instead ? " it's an invitation for an insult but she doesn't care, at this point finding his hatred of her amusing. lips turn up in a satisfied smile as he apologizes, exhaling her smoke as she looks over at him. " an apology ? wow... " she muses, leaning forward and ashing her cigarette. she savors the moment for drama's sake. " i never thought i'd see the day. thought i'd be six feet under long before you ever uttered those words to me. " her expression softens, shruggingly gently before taking another drag. " in all seriousness, it's fine-- " pauses to exhale, " i was reading anyway. this is... " she gestures around her living room, a short chuckle escaping her lips at the mess, " it can be a problem for another day. "

[mechformers]

Ma Miles - Ch. 10

5.1k words

Bold letters are spoken in English by the Reader to Quaritch.

The comments I've received have energized my writing so much that I've finished in "record" time! So please, have all my thanks and the next chapter of Ma Miles XD

(If you want to be tagged with the updated chapters, please leave your @ myusername in the comments! I'm having trouble with the tags actually tagging though, so if you have an Ao3, I update there at the same time as I post to Tumblr!)

Previous chapter | Masterpost | Chapter 11

There’s a nose breathing you in, tucked firmly against your neck as you’re held against a solid chest, a large arm beneath your head. The big body spooning behind you is warm and solid as you’re held while you sleep. Smiling, you rub your thumb over the back of the hand that rests across your chest, your smile widening as a deep rumble erupts behind you, vibrating through your back. The nose that had been breathing you in lowers as your mate pulls you closer, ending up against the crook of your neck as his lips mouth at your sleep-warm skin. Chuckling, you grin widely, your heart soaring at how affectionate he is with you. 

“Good morning, yawne,” You mumble, unwilling to open your eyes to the bright light pouring in through the see-through metal wall. 

“Mornin’, m’ love,” The sleep-raspy sound of your mate’s voice hums immediately, his smile spreading across your shoulder as he pulls you even closer. 

“Ugh… you’re both disgusting,” Spider’s voice scoffs as the bed dips before the sound of his feet hitting the ground and a door opening and closing harshly. 

Reality crashes into you the exact moment the man behind you freezes. The sound of the TV plays in the background but all you can really hear right now is the sound of your heart threatening to beat out of your chest. It’s not the first time that you’ve woken up in Quaritch’s arms, but it’s the first time you’ve awoken in an intimate embrace like this. The both of you are unable to move, completely frozen in the same position as Spider left you in. Quaritch’s heart beats loudly behind you, his breathing labored and deep as he just holds you. His face is so close to yours, the heat of his body almost suffocating. It’s not before Spider emerges from the bathroom that any of you move. 

“Seriously?” Your son exclaims, a thinly veiled annoyance trying to hide his obvious embarrassment over the situation. 

Quaritch’s arms lift from around your body at the same time that he pulls his head back from your shoulder. He waits patiently for you to move away from the arm beneath your head, only then does he step out of the nest. 

“Pardon me, Ma’am,” He mumbles before his heavy footsteps pad over the ground. 

“Can you let me out? Lyle promised to play the videogame with me,” Spider asks, his voice hopeful, then happy as his father walks up to the door and puts his hand on the box before stepping into the bathroom. “Thanks!”

Left alone in the room, you’re allowed to breathe freely, taking deep breaths of much-needed air as your eyes begin to water. What was going on? How could you just let your guard down like this for a second time? And to think of him, the very demon from the skies, as your mate! Closing your stinging eyes, you clench your teeth as your chest tightens. You were being unfair, acting out on old prejudice because of who he once used to be. With the exception of how he brutishly took your son from you, he had done nothing to warrant this hatred from you. Out of all of them, Quaritch had been the first one to fully embrace the Na’vi ways, taking to your way of life with great curiosity and interest. No, you could not fault him for who he once was before being reborn. 

Opening your eyes, you look out at the bright day with watery eyes. Why your heart, your very soul, had decided that he was the one you would call mate, you would never know. But you could not deny it any longer. The swelling of your chest, the fluttering in your stomach, and the heat spreading across your face could no longer be excused as mere coincidences. The Great Mother had accepted him as her child, had allowed him to enter your dreams as you rest peacefully, had allowed him to act as your mate while you slept soundly, both in and out of his arms. 

“Why are you crying, princess?” His worried voice drifts over to you a moment before the nest dips under his weight and warm hands cup your face, thumbs gently wiping your falling tears away. 

Shaking your head, you close your eyes, unable to look into the worried warm ones affectionately staring right back at you. Immediately, you’re gathered up into his lap, his wide chest rumbling deeply as he shushes you, a hand rubbing your back while the other cups your head, holding you close to his heart. 

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Quaritch continues, his voice sounding almost lost and small. 

It was obvious that he didn’t know what to do, that he wasn’t used to comforting someone in distress. His clumsy hands patted your back more than rubbing soothingly, his shushing almost sounding as if he was afraid you would be head. Still, the man continued to try, powering through this unknown territory for your sake. Opening your eyes, you looked out of the see-through metal walls, looking longingly at the forest just beyond the kill zone. As if sensing this, Quaritch lifts his head to look in the same direction. 

“What do you say we take the banshees out tonight, get a little wind under our wings?” He asks, his voice immediately more confident than it had been just moments ago. 

“I will like that,” You agree, looking forward to taking Hawnu out so soon again. 

“Alright,” Quaritch hums behind you, “Alright, sweetheart,” 

He doesn’t let go of you, however. You sit in his lap, staring out of the see-through metal wall together, the silence comfortable as he holds you close. As the day slowly passes you find yourself sitting between his legs as you lean back on his chest. His big hands are resting on your bare stomach, your fingers tracing the four knuckles on the back of his hands. His stomach suddenly rumbles loudly, making him groan. It pulls a chuckle from your lips. 

“Hungry?” You ask, bending your head back to look up at him. 

“Unfortunately,” Quaritch hums, looking down at you. “I don’t particularly want to move, however.”

“You are then not hungry?” The confusion on your face, in your voice, makes him chuckle softly, the upward stretching of his lips making him almost adorable when he closes his eyes and shakes his head. 

“Not what I meant, princess,” He grins before moving his hands to your hips, effortlessly lifting you off of him and placing you onto the ground below the nest. “C’mon, let’s get some grub,”

“What is this grub?” You can’t help but ask, especially not when the corners of his lip lift in one of those gentle smiles again. 

“It’s food, sweetheart,” Quaritch grins, a hand at your back gently leading you to approach the door. 

He lets you exit first, slowly following as you step into the hallway. Four sets of eyes meet yours when you look into the room with the videogame TV. Slowly, grins spread across three of the faces as Quarith steps up behind you, placing a gentle hand on your hip. It seems to set off the three recoms behind the sitting bench

“Sooooo… Colonel,” Lyle starts, his face all but split in two as he grins while leaning an arm over the back of the sitting bench. “The walk of shame?” 

The other two snicker to themselves, bumping their fists together like teenagers. Behind you, Quaritch growls dangerously, the gentle hand on your hip tightening as he reacts to what was said. You don’t understand how walking would be shameful, but you did know that you would never feel shame while doing so. 

“I do not walk in shame,” You announce proudly, only for the room to fall deadly silent before full-blown laughter erupts. Even Quaritch chuckles behind you, his hand easing up the pressure on your hip. It does not sound malicious, however.

“She-” Lyle starts, but laughter forces a halt to his rambling. 

“They think we’ve slept together, sweetcheeks,” Quaritch helpfully explains, trying to fill in the blanks you’re drawing. 

“Did we not sleep together?” You ask, confusion clouding your voice. 

“That’s not the kind of sleep I’m talking about. It can also mean…” He looks over to the others, his face darkening slightly when he turns back, before bending down, whispering the meaning of having ‘slept together’ in your ear. 

Immediately, your face heats, your ears slicking back against your skull as you lean back to stare up at him. The warm hand on your hip disappears and uncertainty crosses Quaritch’s face before it too disappears, replaced by the stony indifference he usually wears around the General Ardmore. Turning back, you see that the grins haven’t left the three recoms now hanging off of the back of the sitting bench. 

“But you did sleep together the entire night,” Spider pops up between the recoms, his face one of deep confusion as he stares at you. “He was holding you while you slept,”

“Gee, thanks, kid,” Quaritch drawls, his hands resting on his hips as he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth again. 

Laughter unlike before explodes around the room, the recoms all but crumbling with it, and in the middle, a very confused Spider chuckles as he tries not to get squished between the seemingly adult men. Shaking his head, Quaritch walks over to the sitting bench before lifting Spider out of the pile of long limbs, gently setting him down on the ground. 

“Have they given you anything to eat?” He asks and immediately, your son grins up at him. 

“Yeah, Mansk made me something called a lumbersjakebreakfast. It was really good,” Spider explains animatedly while Mansk chuckles an unsteady ‘lumber jack’ as he gets up from the ground. 

“9000 calories, Mansk. You tryna kill the kid?” Quaritch chuckles, directing the question at Mansk. 

“What? Kid looked at a book and pointed. Wasn’t about to say no to the Colonel’s kid, you know,” Mansk shrugs, a playful grin on his face. 

“Figured we were all going out for some real food later on today. Wasn’t expecting you to actually sleep in though… Sir,” Ja added gently, earning a fond kind of annoyed huff from Quaritch. 

“Well, you figured right,” Quaritch starts, resting his hands on his hips before sucking his bottom lip between his teeth once more, an obvious habit of his. “Gonna have to get some real food in this kitchen. Luckily, the three of you volunteered, ain’t that right guys?”

A collective of groans sounds before the three sit back down on the bench, mumbling while their ears twitch. You didn’t understand why they were complaining. If they didn’t go out to gather food, how would they have anything to eat? You didn’t know where the sky people food came from or how it got there, but then again, there were a lot of things about the sky people you didn’t understand. 

“Get off of the couch already,” Quaritch barks, but you notice that there’s no heat behind it. “And Lyle?”

“Yeah, Colonel?” Lyle turns to Quaritch while turning off the videogame TV. 

“Take spider with you,” Quaritch grins when both Spider and Lyle groan. 

Looking up at him, you notice how his smug grin shifts into another fond smile, and it’s like there’s a whole new person standing before you. Staring up at him, you let your mind wander for a little bit before turning to walk over to your son. Spider and Ja are bent over a small screen, Ja’s long fingers pointing as the two whispers to each other. As you come to a stop behind them, you can see that there’s a drawing of the forest on the small screen and when Ja pinches the surface with two fingers, the drawing gets smaller. Or bigger? You’re not really sure. The drawing is showing the clearing where you’ve taught them the Na’vi way, the area where there’s an abundance of food available for them to take back here. 

“My dearest boy,” You call for Spider, watching as your son turns to smile at you. “Be careful and listen to Eywa’s signs. Use your senses,”

“Mom, it’s gonna be fine. I grew up here, you know,” His smile turns into a cheeky grin and you can’t help the sinking feeling that drops in your chest. Your boy was becoming a man before your eyes and there was nothing you could do about it. 

“But you haven’t grown up in this area. Watch out for them. They are still like small children,” You open your arms as Spider steps closer, leaning his forehead against your stomach. 

Wrapping your arms around his head, you gently press it against your stomach in a tight hug. You understood that he was a young man now, understood that he wouldn’t cling to you like he used to do. The blessed extra time you had gotten while imprisoned here, was one you would treasure for as long as you lived. To have that extra time with him before he left your nest entirely… 

“Don’t worry, mom,” Spider gently pulls back, looking up at you, “I love you,” 

And of course, he saw right through you. For as long as you had been together, he would always be able to read your emotions. As a child, he had been both hot and cold, always on the move until he wasn’t, then he would stick to your back or chest in a sling, snoring softly as he slept oh-so-soundly, cuddled close to your skin. Being of the sky people, he developed a little slower than Na’vi children, which led to more time spent with you while the other children moved more freely with their long, strong limbs. It didn’t take long after Spider’s sixth birth bead was added to his songcord, however. He was off like an Ikran after that, giving the Sully kids trouble to keep up with him. In the end, only Lo’ak had been able to keep up, their energy level just about maxing out together. 

“I love you so much, my son,” You whisper back, leaning down to kiss the crown of his head before pushing him away to follow the recoms as they left. 

Standing in the middle of the room, you watch as they walk out of the common room. Mansk stands by the door, looking over at Quaritch. The two of them are having a silent conversation, much the same way you’ve seen Quaritch and Lyle communicate. Mansk eventually nods and then, he too is out of the door, leaving you alone with Quaritch once more. A big, warm hand rubs your shoulder and when you turn your head, Quaritch stands there smiling down at you. 

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about him, sweetheart, the boys will keep him safe,” Quaritch squeezes your shoulder gently before walking over to the videogame TV, putting away the stuff that they had been playing with. 

Turning to him, you watch as he bends at the waist, letting out soft grunts as he reaches for the pillows on the ground, before putting them on the couch. You don’t understand why there were many pillows on the couch and only one in the nest, but you were certain that sky people had their reasons for that too, however strange it may be. 

“I reckon you want some real food, sweetie?” Quaritch hums as he folds a blanket before hanging it off of the couch end. 

“You are hungry too,” You offer, hoping he too wants the food Pandora has to offer instead of the awful stuff he had fed you all those months ago. 

“I am, sweetcheeks, but I’m not particularly picky. Now, for a sweet angel like you, a simple “pb-n’-j” on toast won’t do, will it?” You chuckle at the weird way he speaks, not really getting what he’s talking about. “Come,” 

Holding his hand out for you to take, Quaritch gently wraps his fingers around your hand before gently leading you through that very same door your son and the other recoms had left through. Walking down the corridors, he doesn’t let go of your hand. What he does do is walk slower, as if the destination he’s taking you to is one he doesn’t want to go to. However, when he opens a huge door and leads you outside, you’re confused as to why he didn’t want to go outside. 

“Call for Haw-nu,” He mumbles, but that couldn’t be it, could it?

“Hawnu,” You repeat back at him, noticing how he still hasn’t let go of your hand. It makes your stomach flutter wildly as your ears perk toward him. 

“Haw-nu. That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” Quaritch turns to you, his sharp eyes looking into yours as he silently tastes Hawnu’s name on his lips. 

“Not Haw-nu, but Hawnu,” You try again, an amused smile unable to stay hidden on your face. 

“Hawn-u,” Quaritch tries again, and try as you might, you’re unable to hold back the gentle chuckle that bubbles up within you. 

“No, Quaritch. Hawnu,” You repeat again, grinning up at him. 

“Hawnu,” Quaritch repeats perfectly, a fond smile sliding into place across his face as he looks down at you. “I like that very much,”

“Like what?” 

“The sound of my name on your lips, darling,” Quaritch cups your face with his free hand, his thumb caressing your cheek as you stare at each other. 

You hadn’t noticed that you had called him Quaritch. You don’t know when you had stopped thinking about him as the sky demon and when you had started referring to him as Quaritch. Worse than that, you were starting to think of him as Spider’s father. You don’t know what to do, or what to think at that moment. Quaritch was looking down at you in a way he had no business to - except… he had every right to. He had initiated a courtship and you had accepted it, foolishly thinking that he didn’t know better, and now, months down the path, you realized that you had developed feelings for this man.

Before you could pull away though, before you could step back, Hawnu and Cupcake landed before you, the two having heard or seen you long before you got the chance to call for them. Walking with you over to Hawnu, Quaritch greets your Ikran with a firm rub down his long forehead before gently helping you up on his back. Only then does he let go of your hand before walking over to Cupcake, greeting her in the same manner before making tsaheylu with her in such a smooth way only a natural-born Na’vi, that had made the connection through years of friendship, could. You’re left to clumsily make tsaheylu with Hawnu, your Ikran pushing worrying feelings your way before he gently takes off and you’re in the air once more. 

Feeling the fresh Pandora air against your face calms your nerves to a degree where you’re able to think straight again. Turning your head, you look over at Quaritch, finding his eyes already looking at you. He smiles gently, holding your gaze for a while longer before turning his head back. His profile is beautiful against the setting sun, his long neck, his broad shoulders… his slim waist. You don’t think you’ve ever seen such a thin waist on a warrior this mighty. The thought of running your hands up and down his sides, of holding onto that solid waist in either a hug or… 

Swallowing hard, you turn back to the sight before you. Distantly, you can feel Hawnu pushing his feelings of approval. He thinks you’ve made a good decision in your choice of mate and maybe he’s right. Quaritch has been attentive after you accepted his courtship, has paid more attention to you and your needs, on top of the attention he was already giving your son. He has proved to be a man worthy of love, worthy of a family, and the deep bond it creates. Calming your nerves, you breathe deeply, trying your best to settle the worried lump that has grown in your stomach. What a fool you had been to have believed him ignorant when it came to courting rituals, the only side of learning the Na’vi way you never thought him interred in, and therefore never even mentioned. You want to believe in Quaritch so much, want this change in him to be true because he willed it and not because it would gain him something. But trusting him fully, could you even do that? You realized that it was a choice you would have to make before soon. 

Hawnu dips down, descending to the ground below, and you suddenly notice how your mind has drifted away from you. Looking to the side, you can see Quaritch staring at you with a worried look on his face. You try your best to give him a reassuring smile, but you should have known that it wouldn’t fool the man. Instead, he points down to a clearing on a cliff and it’s only that you recognize where you are. You’ve been here before with the unit, training with their Ikrans as they learned how to make tsaheylu while free-falling. Nodding, you ask Hawnu to land, holding on tightly as he comes up on the clearing fast. Sliding down from Hawnu’s back, you gently break tsaheylu before moving in front of him, leaning your forehead to his as you silently apologize for your absent mind. 

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Quaritch asks just behind you, his voice careful as he stands awkwardly behind you. 

“Yes,” You smile up at him, “Come, we should eat,”

“Right,” He doesn’t sound like he wants to gather food, but still, he follows you as you move toward the treeline.

The sun is quickly setting behind you as you enter the forest, the Great Mother bathing Pandora in a bioluminescent hue. Grateful that food is never far from places like these, you take your fill until you’re almost uncomfortably full, sighing happily at the sweet tastes the fruit offers you. Quaritch eats messily, juices dripping down his chin as he digs into the various fruits, eating with a healthy appetite. Distantly, you wonder if he feels grateful for having tasted Eywa’s creations, but when he looks up from his half-eaten yovo fruit, you can’t help the happy grin that spreads across your face. 

“What?” Quaritch asks, his mouth full, seeds sticking to his chin. 

“You eat like child,” You offer as you step up to him and gently wipe the sticky mess from his face. Bending down, Quaritch closes his eyes as he lets you clean his face, your own hands now slick with the fruit’s juices. 

“Well, I was hungry, darling,” He grins down at you when you step back, making a display of digging into the rest of his fruit, a grin of his own on his face as he gets messy once more. You can’t help the laughter this time and with it, Mile’s eyes glitter in the bioluminescent light. 

Showing Quaritch the nightlife in the forest, you study him as he touches every plant he can lay his hands upon, an almost childish, open smile on his face at every different reaction the plant gives. The wonders of the Great Mother shine so clearly in his eyes as he follows you, his ears twisting back and forth as you walk through the forest. Eventually, you lead him back to the clearing, noting how his face falls a little when he realizes. The child-like wonder shifts into soft contentment as his eyes meet yours, a gentle smile crossing his lips once more. For a moment you can feel your breath catch in your throat while your stomach flutters. He’s a beautiful man and when he smiles, when he directs it at you, and you alone, it feels like you’re caught in an invisible net.  

He sits down close to the edge of the cliff, leaning back on his long arms as he lets his head fall. Looking at you upside down, he huffs a chuckle before lifting his head to look out over the beautiful Pandora landscape ahead of him. Following his line of sight, you know exactly what he sees. The forest is bathed in glittering lights of every color, the plants below glowing beautifully as they share their lights with everything Eywa has touched.  Sitting down on the ground beside Quaritch, you fall into a comfortable silence, your eyes turned to the Great Mother’s creations. 

As the silence stretches on, Quaritch’s heat draws you closer until your shoulders eventually bump into each other. His bare skin radiates so much warmth, the sensation almost like getting wrapped up in soft blankets on a cold, rainy day where the wind howled through the cracks in the maruis. You don’t notice how you gravitate closer and closer until you’re plastered to his side, your head leaning against his shoulder. The silence is comfortable and his warmth even more so. Looking up at him, you notice how he’s only staring at you, a gentle look on his face. Smiling back up at him, you close your eyes as his right hand comes up to slowly push away a strand of your hair. The hand ends up cupping your face before his thumb caresses your cheek as you open your eyes to stare up at him again. You watch as he slowly leans down towards you, his eyes hooded as he nears, clearly intending for your lips to meet in a kiss. His descent is slow, his forehead resting on yours, giving you time to pull away if this is not what you wanted. His eyes meet yours, asking for permission before he turns his head slightly to the side to kiss you. Panic strikes you and before you know it, you pull away. You’re not ready for this. It’s too soon. You quickly get to your feet, stepping away from him. 

“It is late. I need to be with my son,” It’s the sorriest of excuses, the rejection so poorly veiled that it almost pains you. Still, Quaritch does not rage, does not raise his voice or take. Instead, he looks up at you with something aching to sadness before he nods, pulling his long legs beneath himself as he gets up. And that somehow makes you feel worse.

“I understand,” He says, not meeting your eyes. 

You’re just left standing there as he calls for your Ikrans, watching as they land before you. He holds your hand as he helps you up on Hawnu’s back, but no matter how much you search for them, his eyes never lift up to meet yours. There are no lingering touches, no gentle smiles, or commentary. Instead, he lets go of your hand as soon as you’re sat across Hawnu’s back, turning his back on the both of you as he walks over to Cupcake, rubbing her forehead and whispering something to her when she screeches loudly after he makes tsaheylu. The flight back is uncomfortably silent. And when you arrive at the base, your parting is even more silent as he walks to your door, putting his hand on the box before opening it for you. But before you’ve even entered, he’s turned for his own door, opening and closing it, without a goodbye, without even looking back. 

Stepping into your room, the wrongness of the situation fills you. The door closes behind you, its metal latches clicking into place as it seals you off from the outside world. Stepping into the room, you smile gently at Spider snoring loudly in your nest. He’s twisted into his blankets, a half-eaten spartan fruit sitting beside his head. Picking up the fruit, you put it down on the table before stepping into the nest. Curling around Spider, you wrap your arms around him, smiling at the way he sighs happily. There’s a pain in your chest, however. A pain that doesn’t go away as night gives way to dawn. Staring out of the see-through metal wall, you go through what happened time after time, after time again. 

Why had you pulled away? Had you not wanted this from him too? Huffing a humorless chuckle to yourself, you almost chastise yourself for even thinking about it. He was the sky demon, the destroyer of Pandora, the very person who destroyed your hometree. He was incapable of loving anything but himself and yet… Eywa eventually blesses you with rest, your mind numb and your soul empty as you drift off to sleep.

When the door to your room opens, the day is bright and Spider has watched his TV for a while. Ja enters your room carefully, eyes searching for yours as he takes you in. Understanding seems to hit him and he clears his throat before stepping further into the room when Spider excitedly greets him. You watch as the two bump their fists together, Spider grinning wildly as he asks about what the plans for the day were. 

“Bet you’re hungry?” Ja grins down at Spider before looking up at you, “Ma’am?”

“Mom, you didn’t get to see all the stuff we gathered yesterday. Mansk said we’ll be rolling down the hallway by the time we’ve eaten it all,” Spider’s excitement brings a smile to your face, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You thank the Great Mother that your son doesn’t realize it. 

“He made some really great dishes for us, Ma’am,” Ja smiles gently before walking out of your room. 

Following Ja into the common room, you’re surprised to see a long table in the middle of the room. The unit is gathered there, eating and chatting animatedly with each other as they laugh. Quaritch sits at the end, moving a piece of ovumshroom around on his plate. He doesn’t meet your eyes as you sit down to eat with them, doesn’t greet you or acknowledge you at all. In fact, Quaritch doesn’t meet your eyes the entire day, avoiding contact as much as possible and giving silly excuses each time you try to talk to him. 

It pained you to see him like this. Pained you to know that your hesitant rejection had caused this. He had been nothing but kind toward you and your son, had worked harder than anyone and yet when it came down to it, you hadn’t been ready to accept him just yet. Maybe he thought you didn’t accept him at all? But that couldn’t be, you had accepted his courting after all. Your heart twisted painfully at the thought, your ears flattening against your skull as your tail whipped anxiously against your nest. Sighing deeply, you decided that you would corner him come morning. All of this just had to be a poor misunderstanding, right?

Chapter 9 | Masterpost | Chapter 11

[kassandras-one-braincell]

Abby Anderson x GN!Reader - Please Don’t Leave Me

Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt: Please Don’t Leave Me (I’m creative with my titles)

Can be found on AO3 here.

Setting: before Abby leaves to go golfing. Abby and the reader are in an established relationship.

Warning: angst angst angst, excessive usage of the f-bomb and discussions of murder.

(Y/N) replacer safe.

Word count: 1846

Fuck, she’s really doing this.

Every day since Isaac had granted the Salt Lake Crew leave to hunt down Joel Miller, you tried to bargain with Abby, tried to make her see some sense. That killing him won’t take away any of the pain she feels. The grief. The gaping hole in her heart. But she’d always brush you off, distancing herself from you, suppressing her emotions with bicep curls and crunches as per habit.

Each passing hour, a nail was hammered into the coffin of the woman you love. And this morning is the final nail.

The quaint apartment you call home is filled with a cacophony of rustling and pleas as Abby shovels supplies into her backpack, preparing for her hunt. In her mind, Joel’s death warrant is signed, the execution nigh. And God are you desperate, trying to drill some semblance of reality into her stubborn mind one last time before she embarks on a journey she’ll only regret.

“Abby, please just listen to me for one minute—”

“I need to do this.” She heads to your small shared closet, refusing to look at you from your position by the bed. You frantically try to intercept her path, knowing full well she’s much, much stronger and can reposition you with ease. But it’s worth a try.

“This isn’t going to solve anything,” you implore, clutching the wood.

“Move, (Y/N).”

“Abby, this isn’t going to bring him back. You know that.”

“Move.” Her tone is exasperated, utterly focused on packing her shit and promptly leaving. Your heart sinks to your stomach.

“That girl in the hospital. The immune one. She must have been like a daughter to him for Joel to kill a group of innocent people for her,” you plead, feet firmly planted on the floor. Searching for her eyes, those blue irises alight with a maelstrom of hateful determination. They meet yours. “Killing him will just put her through all of this.”

Abby reaches for the closet door and slowly pulls it open, acknowledging your reluctance to move, deciding to disregard it. The wood begins to dig into your back and you’re forced to step aside. “This isn’t going to end, Abby. You fucking know this.” As she folds some spare clothes and places them in her backpack, you fall gracelessly to the bed, needing to sit down. Bile climbs up your oesophagus. Shit, where was her sense of fucking empathy?

“Abby…” Once again, she doesn’t so much as spare you a glance, folding the garments in robotic fashion. “Abby, you said she was a kid. A kid.”

The final shirt is stuffed haphazardly into the bag. She grits her teeth and turns to you. “He killed dozens of Fireflies, (Y/N). Dozens. And that’s all we fucking know of. There could be hundreds of others because he’s a stone cold killer.” Her face flushes with anger, no remnants of the woman you know left behind. “No one person is worth that many fucking lives.”

You let out a breathy laugh in sheer disbelief. “But it’s not about them, is it? Not to you.” The words escaped you in a hiss, one that didn’t go unnoticed. “Never fuckin’ has been.”

Abby rolls her eyes and grabs her maps from the coffee table, iron fist crumpling the papers beyond legibility. “There could have been a cure. A fucking cure to all this.”

On the surface, her words are rational. One life for a cure that would save millions was a worthy sacrifice, that you would be foolish to deny. But the odds of developing this cure were slim, and the girl would have likely died in vain. You knew this. Abby knew this. Jerry knew this.

With a shaky breath, you cradle your arms, never before having felt the urge to cage yourself around Abby. Fingers firmly gripping at your elbows, you let the cards fold. Unadulterated truth.

“You’re in denial, Abigail.”

A tut. “Don’t you fucking ‘Abigail’ me.” Her previous efforts to maintain a steady tone have been vanquished, anger seeping into each progressing word.

She’s gone.

And it’s this precise revelation that fills your eyes with oceans. Throat closing up, nose burning with the urge to spill over, you attempt – attempt – to articulate yourself, to no avail. Seconds later, rivulets trickle from your eyes to your cheeks, and you find yourself sniffling like some stupid kid… No, not a kid. A grieving adult, bereaved by the loss of a lover. Because the other figure in the room is but a husk of the radiant soul you fell for.

“All…” You pause to inhale, deeply: a futile effort to regulate your breathing, to lay rest to the turmoil suffocating your ability to fucking think. “All that’s going to happen is… You’re going to have to—” Hiccupping, you close your eyes, praying no more tears would fall. “To live with the guilt of orphaning a kid.”

Sentence finally out, you surrender to your sorrows, allowing them to wrack your chest with sobs and heaves until it gets too much, salt freely spilling from the floodgates. You can’t…you won’t bring yourself to look at Abby – the machine in her place, one programmed to kill and kill alone.

It’s wholly terrifying.

Distress flickers in her eyes, her frown slackening for a fraction of a second at the sound of your despair. “No one is forcing you to come,” she puts plainly, as if that has anything to do with the issue at hand.

“You know this – isn’t about that. Fuck, even Owen knows this…this is a bad idea.” Too dejected to cry. Too dejected to battle the hitched breaths you take trying to force out the words.

Words that fall upon deaf ears. “That’s not what Owen told me.” She slots a Swiss army knife into her cargo pants’ pocket, headed with a canteen in hand towards the kitchenette. “He was there, (Y/N). He agreed that Joel needs to die.”

“Because he’s fucking scared of you!” We all are, nearly breaks free from your lips, but that’s not what Abby needs to hear right now. Nothing that will push her away. Further away. The reigns you have on your lover are fraying, leaving you grasping at nought but strings. Frenzied, you attempt a softer, less concrete approach. “Baby, it isn’t normal to be so…hellbent on revenge like this.”

Silence. The delicate trickle of water sounds from the faucet as Abby fills her canteen. Then, a sigh, one of frustration as opposed to defeat. “If you think calling me ‘baby’ is going to erase four motherfucking years of grief, you are sorely mistaken. You’re smarter than that.”

Patience thinning, you stand up, wading through strewn supplies across the apartment floor towards the kitchenette. “Four years and you still haven’t given yourself time to mourn properly,” you reason, deliberately obstructing her path out of the kitchen with your body again. “Maybe if you had you’d see some fucking sense.”

God, that was a mistake. Shit, shit, shit shit shit the last thing you want to do is piss her off, not with her mind in such a volatile state, devoid of all logic.

“I appreciate you’ve lived a fucking sheltered life since the outbreak,” she seethed. What?

“That’s not true—”

“And you have no fucking idea what it’s like to have someone ripped away from you like that.” Volume rising, words a mantra fuelled by detest. “And you know, maybe, just fucking maybe, this’ll be my one chance to put an end to this shit!” The fist not clutching her backpack clenches. And for the first time ever while alone in her company, you flinch.

“He fucking deserves this, (Y/N)! If I can show him a fraction of the pain he caused me—”

“Abby, you’re scaring me,” you whimper, closing in on yourself. Genuinely afraid she’d raise her hand towards you.

Had you a mirror, you’d know truly how perturbed you look in this very moment. Streamlines drying on your cheeks, eyes reddening and puffy from crying, wide with fear like a doe face-to-face with a moving car. Body subconsciously making itself smaller, reducing its surface area, reducing the likelihood for any incoming swings to hit.

She lowers her guard, colour returning to her knuckles as she unravelled her fist. Knitted brows returning to their natural place above her eyes, mouth parted as the horror of her behaviour settles in.

“You know I would never hurt you, right?” Even her previously stern voice cracks at this.

It takes tremendous willpower to not fall back as she takes a tentative step towards you.

Drying your eyes with your sleeves – her sleeves…you forgot you’re wearing her old sweater, the notion sour on your tongue – you break your mutual gaze. “You’re not you right now,” you whisper, not trusting your larynx to produce anything above a mouse’s squeak. “This isn’t the Abby I know.”

For the first time this morning, a sentiment other than bloodlust registers in her face. Hurt.

Either unable or unwilling to respond, Abby recommences her packing in solemn silence.

Shit, you have three, perchance five minutes at best to dissuade your girlfriend from leaving and doing something that will haunt her for all eternity. Yet all you can do is brace yourself against the wall and allow a second tsunami of tears to wash over you, pangs of anguish striking your heart. “Abby—”

“I’m going, (Y/N).” Firm, with a shred less conviction, but firm enough.

A violent sob tears through you as you beg, beg, the vessel of the woman you adore, “Please don’t leave me.”

For a fleeting moment, your heart stops as she hesitates in her tracks. A flicker of hope seizes your mind, that perhaps she has reconsidered, that finally some logic has entered her train of thought.

It all crashes down when she reaches for the spare rifle ammunition by the front door.

“Fuck, Abby—”

“I’ll be gone a month at most.”

Hail-Mary.

Hail-Mary.

Please.

Chest shuddering with each sob that wracks through you, you utter through violently trembling lips and hiccups, “You’re so – fucking blinded – by your hatred – right now – that you can’t – fuck, see – this will – kill you—”

The gravity of the situation threatens to make your knees buckle.

Abby plucks her jacket from the coat hanger and wades over to your crippled stance by the kitchen. A hand brushes your salt-slicked cheek as a lock of hair is swept out of your line of sight. “I love you,” she whispers in pained honesty.

“Abby…” You try to take her hand, to ground her, to remind her of the life she’s leaving behind on her relentless pursuit of this warped sense of justice.

“Goodbye, (Y/N).” She squeezes your palm and lets go, zipping up her pack as the front door to the apartment creaks open and slams shut.

Death is a word that isn’t used lightly, especially not after an epidemic takes the world by storm. But part of your spirit certainly died the moment that door closed behind her.

(I’ll leave it up to you whether she has a change of heart or leaves and scores a few hits above par.)

[flickeringart]

Neptune in aspect with Mars

(Read my post about Sun and Moon aspecting Neptune and Mercury and Venus aspecting Neptune)

These planets aspecting each other makes for a curious connection, because in a sense, they represent opposing principles; Mars represents the personal drive and the ability to spring to action, the force that works to impose one’s independent will on the world – Neptune represents the inner urge for emotional unity and the religious/spiritual experience of being merged with the source of life. When these planets are in aspect in the natal chart, the personal ability to carry out one’s will is inextricably linked to redemptive longings. Simply put, Mars-Neptune individuals will put their energy into fulfilling the ego ideal, the perfection of potential that existed before the personality began to form. The personality cannot assert itself in a way that would crush the dream of perfection. Neptune is the dream of purity, the undifferentiated beauty of never having left the garden of Eden. Mars on the other hand is the agent of independence and self-motivated action – he has the purpose of fighting for the individual self which is antithetical to the Neptunian principle of surrender. While the Moon and Venus are quite social; the Moon represents nurturing and care-taking of needs, Venus represents the ability to be loving, affectionate and gracious; Mars is selfish and to a certain extent anti-social – most definitely anti-Eden and its eternal bliss. Subsequently, Neptune paired with Venus or the Moon is a little less of an obvious conflict than Neptune paired with Mars.

The conjunction of Neptune-Mars might cause considerable frustration and unconscious manipulation, because one cannot assert oneself, which is to declare separation, without feeling a deep sense of guilt and shame. It’s a little bit like the Bible story of Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit and immediately becomes aware of sin. This is certainly not an easy phenomenon to deal with. The impulse to avoid accountability for one’s actions can be overwhelming, even if the consequences are perceived to be good. There can be a tremendously inflated sense of righteousness accompanying every move the individual takes because deep down there’s the feeling that one has committed a terrible trespass, that one will be unable to atone for. While the softer aspects, the trine and the sextile, more easily lend themselves to genuine selfless acts and natural inclination to fight on behalf of every bleeding heart and soul in the world through acts of sympathy and kindness, the conjunction usually brings more troubles. There can be an overwhelming feeling of having to do certain things because one cannot stand the idea of being separate from other people. One finds it easy to identify as the martyr or victim, unwilling to take radical responsibility for one’s actions – or if one does it’s in order to self-sacrifice. Often the individual will adopt any ideology that promotes the mass before the individual – often socialism or marxism fits the bill. Neptune is symbolic of undifferentiated reality, blurred edges and passive surrender. It’s not a planet that promotes autonomy and individuation. Not uncommonly, decisions and actions are referred to as byproducts of societal or larger-scale units that have little to do with the poor self. These individuals are usually profoundly dissatisfied with the ways of society because on some level they believe that individual autonomy and agency is a sin – and that the only way to redeem oneself and humanity is through some kind of chaotic dissolution of difference. This urge is seldom conscious, but it is there none the less. Vladimir Lenin had this conjunction and he wanted to revolutionize society to fit the marxist ideology, but really what this means is to overthrow the upper class – to punish those that seem to revel in the delights of Eden, to get rid of the internal shame of being excluded from paradise.

It seems like Neptune-Mars shows up in individuals with the capacity to move a crowd, perhaps most importantly, with the capacity to be the front figure and leader of the masses. Vladimir Lenin certainly affected the masses and so did Napoleon I with the same conjunction. Hassan II of Morocco, known to be one of the most severe rulers widely accused of authoritarian practices and abuses of civil rights had this conjunction as well. These examples are far removed from Neptune’s reputation for denoting empathy, soft-heartedness and sensitivity. However, it might be precisely because of the refusal to abandon the hope of the sweet sweet nectar of paradise that can only truly be accessed in a state of pre-birth if even then, that the outrage is so total. Most children scream when they are born, and this is probably the kind of terrible rage caused by separation that lingers in these people. The sign the conjunction falls in will certainly affect the expression the energies filter through – Lenin had the conjunction in Aries, Hassan had it in Leo and Napoleon had it in Virgo. Virgo is a much more analytical and practical sign than the prideful fire signs of Aries and Leo – consequently Napoleon is famous for his fine skill for method and strategy in war. On his Wikipedia page, it states that Napoleon had a hypnotic effect on people and could bend the strongest leaders to his will in one-on-one conversations. Hypnosis is a marked Neptunian phenomenon. What happens is that the person is able to gently infiltrate the other person’s will – which is quite extraordinary. If someone is receptive and open enough to suggestion, the opportunity and the invitation is there to mold the other through unconscious communion. Since there’s no obvious forcing taking place under hypnosis, the hypnotized person must cooperate on some level – yet it’s not a conscious cooperation which is why the whole phenomena of hypnosis is so unnerving. In general, people would like to think that they are in complete control of themselves, but it’s more of a fancy fantasy rather than an actual reality. We don’t know what we are receptive to and Neptune reminds us of this. He seeps through the most tightly shut doors.

(Buy products with my art)

My own family is quite Neptune dominated and what often happens is that I feel subtly manipulated, yet the manipulation is never fully conscious on the part of the individuals so it becomes difficult to confront them. The times I have, they either take offense or seem genuinely perplexed. It is impossible to confront Neptune, because he works underneath the surface, below the threshold of consciousness. When confronted these types are deeply disturbed that they could’ve imposed something on someone – they either go into a introspective mood, become appalled or proclaim their love and sympathy in an attempt to restore union. My mother has Mars in the 12th house and although it’s not aspecting Neptune, Mars is placed in the house pertaining to this planet and she has Neptune in her 1st house. She never gets angry but people around her certainly do. She is eternally understanding of everyone else’s anger and has acceptance for it, yet she doesn’t respond to any of it on a personal level. She apologizes every time something upsets her. She is never aggressive, yet she does instill subtle guilt through little cues and hints every now and then because it is a sin to have a will that does not align with the crowd that one finds oneself in. Sometimes, when things aren’t the way she wants to see them she doesn’t see them. She presumes that on the most basic level, all people want the same thing, which is probably true on a “soul level”, but sometimes it doesn’t translate to everyday matters. People’s personalities contradict each other and this is no trivial matter – people can and do clash because of individual differences and it can be detrimental to one or all of the individuals involved. However, Neptune doesn’t like to see a clash as a clash – that would be to treat it as a definite fact, which would contradict the fluidity of oceanic union. The frustratingly passive statement “It’s everyone’s fault” or “It’s everyone’s responsibility” is the attempt to not deal with cause and effect while establishing the fact that some abstract common force is always at work. This is neither true nor false but this attitude conveniently keeps everyone “unified” and dependent upon each other.

Admittedly I went with the most gruesome examples when writing about the conjunction, but it goes without saying that not all people with this aspect is going to be a Lenin type – Ryan Gosling, Avril Lavinge and Timothé Chalamet all have this conjunction and they’re all quite popular entertainers in their own ways – they move the masses on some level. Ryan Gosling has a Pisces Rising so his chart ruler is Neptune which makes it particularly strong. He gives off that pure hearted watery eyed look that is extremely mesmerizing to the public – he portrays himself as sweet and compassionate, he seems to have a marked innocence and purity to his outward projected identity. Avril Lavinge has her Sun-Mercury in the 12th house squaring her Neptune-Mars conjunction in the 3rd. She has more of an edge to her personality with a lot of planets in Scorpio but she certainly comes off as a chaotic, intense and absent-minded creative which I would attribute more to Neptune. Her strong rebellious “I don’t care” statements through her music resonates with a lot of people, but so does her more sentimental songs. Timothe´ Chalamet has his Moon in Pisces sextile Mars-Mercury-Neptune and he is quite the stereotypical Neptunian boy – he looks delicate, introspective, dreamy and androgynous, more like an ethereal creature than an earth-bound human. With the conjunction in the 5th house there’s no wonder that he can act and express himself in a very fluid way. Acting and performing musically are the specialities of the Neptune, and if enough components in the chart support the endeavor one might just become famous. The trine and sextile aspect also lend themselves well to these kind of occupations. These people can effectively gain the sympathy of the public because people recognize something of themselves – something pure and unborn, a mutual feeling.

A good example of someone with the trine aspect between Neptune and Mars is Russel Brand. He is quite the Neptunian with an angular 10th house Neptune opposing his Sun and trining his Jupiter-Mars-Moon planets in Aries. Even though he certainly has the fire and energy of an Aries Mars that can sometimes be a bit too much for people he is not only fighting for himself he is fighting for all people. In many ways he’s embodying  universal hope and rage. He is fiery but also very receptive and deeply concerned with not causing any damage or hurt despite his characteristic blunt and direct approach. He has a marked religious/spiritual inclination, which is usually the case with a strong Neptune in the chart. In his early years the longing for Eden was sought through drugs, alcohol and fame, while it has now shifted to a more healthy inner exploration and focus on being of service to people. The soft aspects between Neptune and Mars-Moon-Jupiter planets in his chart helps him to cope with the disturbing Sun-Neptune opposition. In recent interviews, he admits that he still feels the pull of fame and success, yet he knows that if he goes down that path he will lose himself (his Sun) and will ultimately end up disillusioned and dissatisfied. I have the trine in my own chart, and I float aimlessly through life with the notion that things will work out and my actions will come to me, because I can’t plan or control anything. I have learnt that I have to trust the way things unfold, because I have a clear sense that my forced actions won’t lead me anywhere except to frustration and a sense of isolation. The sextile aspect seems to function a little bit more as an asset and a skill for the person to use. Politicians like Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande all have this aspect and they can effectively use their receptivity to the masses and people in general to inform their actions.

Now to the harder aspects. Britney Spears is a good example of the dilemmas created by the Neptune-Mars square. Her Neptune squares Mars in the 12th house, the house belonging to Neptune and Pisces. Because of mental instability in her twenties she was put under a conservatorship which is essentially the equivalent of giving up personal control of one’s personal matters in order for an outside source to manage them until one gains some foothold. Mars is one of the prime factors of personal ambition and autonomy, but when it’s in the 12th it is given up – it is essentially a slave to the undifferentiated realm and subjected all the forces of the unconscious. A 12th house Mars in itself doesn’t have to produce the mess that Britney found herself in, but with it squaring Neptune, Mars is going to get swamped, mislead, confused, manipulated and subtly coerced because of the need for fusion, into doing things that will pull her further away from independent action. Another good example is Kylie Jenner. She has Neptune in her 1st house squaring Mars on the MC. She is publicly known for being part of the Kardashian-Jenner family, but she’s also gained attention because she skillfully created her own brand Kylie Cosmetics and became very “successful” (as in earning a lot of money) due to her own independent action and initiative. However, Neptune is anti-independence – and curiously enough there’s always some dishonesty involved when Neptune makes any hard aspects in the chart. She was declared the youngest self-made billionaire by Forbes in 2019, but, she has later been accused of forging tax documents to appear to be a billionaire. Neptune simply can’t let her be all that her Mars wants to be – a successful business woman with a clean record. Self-sabotage is almost always the case, however minor with this aspect, because Neptune refuses Mars’ need to be potent in the world.

The opposition creates a different dynamic although the dilemma is similar to the square. The person can be called to completely abandon an independent will to take action in favor of the glamour and blissful archetypal experience, not unlike the example of Russel Brand and his indulgence in fame and crowd-pleasing at the expense of his sense of self. The difference between having Sun opposing Neptune and Mars opposing Neptune is that in the first instance one is prone to give up a sense of self in favor of Neptune’s waters, while in the second, one feels the urge to give up the ability to direct one’s own life in order to merge with life around oneself. The opposition usually lends itself to extremism because the two polarities, in this case Mars and Neptune, can’t coexist. Queen Elizabeth II has this aspect, Mars-Jupiter in the 1st opposing Neptune in the 7th. She is on the one hand seen as an archetypal figure, immortal and divine and blissfully kept out of the real world in order to serve as a symbol and a fairytale for people to feel spiritually connected to. She’s non-aggressive, forgiving and compassionate, transcendent of the fuss of the world yet overseeing it all with care. She is essentially functioning to satisfy the religious/spiritual instinct of the masses, although it’s certainly done at the expense of her own selfish wants and needs. Luckily for her, her Mars drive is quite global and collective in nature considering that it falls in Aquarius and is conjunct Jupiter – it keeps her objective and less personal in her martial assertion. However, I’m sure she struggles with the contradiction between her own will and her role as an immortal unreality that would seem to activate itself in the interaction with other people (Neptune in the 7th). Edward Snowden also has this opposition falling in the same houses. His Mars-Sun conjunction opposes Neptune, and he famously leaked information about mass surveillance programs to the press. Neptune has everything to do with leaks and the dissolution of boundaries. He’s both been called a hero a traitor – which perfectly fits with the contradiction that the opposition represents. He certainly made a personal sacrifice by revealing the things he did so he is perfectly shouldering the martyr cape. In any case he did what he did for the public with the concern of other people in mind (Neptune 7th house) he took a non-selfish stance for the sake of a higher ideal and ethical conviction. Both Queen Elizabeth and Edward Snowden are quite extreme in their Neptunian capacity and has taken on fates of mythic magnitude.

[bestintheparsec]

As Does the Snow

Frankie Morales x Reader

Summary: You and your neighbor, Frankie, get snowed in together. 

A/N: I wrote this down when the power was out while I was—you guessed it—snowed in. Nothing too deep/angsty in this (for once), just softness. Thank you for reading and I hope you like it!

Words: 3.5k

Warnings: none, some obvious tropes (snowed in, there was only one bed)

*Masterlist pinned to my page

~

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, prompting you to drop the pile of clothes you’re holding to answer it.

“Hey, Santi,” you answer the familiar friendly voice on the other end.

“You lose power yet?” he asks, slight concern in his tone.

“Just about an hour ago,” you reply, peering out the window. The sun’s still out, so you’ll be okay for a few more hours until it sets.

You’d all been expecting the power to go out, of course. The news has been tracking a seemingly out-of-nowhere snow storm that’s been headed your way, starting its impact a few hours earlier. You hadn’t expected to lose power so soon, though—it usually takes a lot more ice or wind to damage the lines. You’ve been preparing as best as you can for the cold nights ahead. With the lack of heat and power, it was bound to be a long night or two.

“You have everything you need, right?” he asks after a short silence. Santi and the other guys, most of them, live closer to the city and away from the countryside that you'd chosen to live in. With the way the roads are, everyone's been warned not to drive if possible. Not that there’s anywhere to go.

“Yeah, I always do—”

“Listen, I was wondering if you could go stay with Frankie during this whole thing,” he chimes in.

Frankie lives across the street from you—you’ve been good friends with him ever since you moved in years ago, even becoming a part of his group of ex-military friends when he introduced you to them, and you'd fit in like you’d always belonged there. It’s perfectly reasonable that Santi would ask you to go stay with your friend to hunker down during a storm. You would all stay with each other if you could, but seeing as that’s impossible and you and Frankie only have each other right now…yes, completely reasonable.

Fuck, who are you kidding?

What seems like a long time ago, you realized you had feelings for Frankie. And, by some luck—or not—you found out they were reciprocated.

But things don’t always work out the way you want them to; hell, it seems like things never do. At the end of the day, you both had wanted to pursue something more with each other, but life got in the way, just as it often does. You both had a lot going on in your lives back then, things you had to deal with and sort out alone. Ultimately—awkward conversations and deep talks and all—you’d both decided it was best if you simply stayed friends, lest things become overcomplicated.

And so you did. Despite this small history, things haven't really been awkward since then. He’s still a good friend to you, one of your best friends, really, and the subject hasn’t been mentioned again ever since.

Only, you haven’t really moved on. You haven’t been much good at leaving the feelings behind you, either. At first you just kept shoving them away, trying to convince yourself that you felt nothing at all whenever you were with him, nothing except friendly love for one of your best friends. But despite your best attempts not to, you found yourself slowly falling more for him. Being close to him for this long has made it even harder for you to move past it.

Not that you've addressed any of this again.

Had you sorted out the things you were dealing with back then? Maybe. But you’d both decided on what was best, years ago, and given that Frankie hasn’t brought it up again since, it’s likely he wants to keep things that way. Time tends to help some people to move on, where it drives the knife in deeper for others. Frankie’s been on plenty of dates since then, even a relationship or two. So you know you were probably just a momentary interlude in his love life, someone he stopped thinking about in that way long before you could ever even think about moving on. You're nothing more than a good friend to him now. And so you've kept your continued feelings for him to yourself, allowing them to thinly layer your friendship like a light dusting of sugar that’s never quite sweet enough to stand on its own.

But the thought of sheltering with him for a few days? You're not sure if you can keep your feelings contained if you're with him for that long and with that much free time to get lost in your thoughts. But given the seriousness of the storm, you were both bound to end up at one or the other's place, anyways.

You must have been silent for a little too long, because Santi speaks again, breaking your thoughts. “You can watch over each other, that sort of thing. Besides, you know how he can be…” he trails off, waiting for you to answer.

“I—yeah, I’ll go over there,” you finally agree, nodding to yourself. “I was going to check up on him eventually, anyways. I’ll go over as soon as I finish up what I’m doing.”

“Sounds good—let us know if you run into any trouble. We’ll find a way over there if we need to.”

You mutter a quick thanks and remind them to stay safe before hanging up, tossing your phone onto the couch with a resigned sigh. Moments later you pick it up again, quickly sending a text to Frankie to ask him if it’s alright for you both to bunker together for the night. Which he quickly agrees to, of course—you’ve spent many evenings over at his place, or his at yours.

Really, you don’t know why your brain’s suddenly trying to make this weird for you. You’ll bring some snacks and blankets, and it’ll be just like any other Friday night you’ve spent with him. Not weird. There’s nothing there (at least on his end) for you to feel awkward about.

You shake your head and finish your emergency preparations, trying to be done with it before it gets dark so you can head over to Frankie’s.

~

Exhaling deeply first, you ring Frankie’s doorbell.

“Coming!” His deep voice calls from inside.

You shove your hands into your pockets then change your mind, moving them to grip anxiously onto the straps of your backpack. Another few moments pass before you hear Frankie trod to the door. He answers it with a soft smile plastered on his face, the same one he uses every time he greets you. Immediately taking the bag you’re carrying off your arm, he beckons you inside and you follow, shrugging off your backpack.

"Did you need help with anything?" You ask, dropping your bag onto the ground and looking around the darkened place. The windows are covered, there's flashlights and candles out on the table, and a couple cases of water are stacked in the kitchen.

He’s layered up in clothing just like you are—a familiar flannel button-up peeking out from under his jacket. His hair is messy like he’s been running around all day, which he probably has been from the looks of it. If you had to describe it, he looks like...home.

Stop it, you mentally chastise yourself.

“Nah, I’m just making some final tweaks,” he remarks, walking over to pull the living room curtains shut. “The house is warm enough for now, but it won’t be long before it starts feeling like the inside of a fridge in here.”

He turns back to face you with a different sort of smile on his lips, a gentle expression you can’t quite make out.

Unbeknownst to you, Frankie’s been in deep for you, too. He knows you'd both agreed not to date, but over time he's come to greatly regret that decision. It was the right one at the time, but he can't help but wish things had gone a little differently. There’s no one he’d rather be around, and any and all dates he’s been on over the years have failed for the same reason—they’re not you. They could never be you.

Chances come and go, and his has gone. In more ways than one you’re a light in his life, someone he couldn’t ever deserve, and somehow he’s lucky enough to have you in his life at all—even if it’s just as friends. If he’s a better person now, a lot of it’s because you’ve been there to pick up the pieces, the same way he does and will always do for you without a second thought.

But something you can’t help him with is the fact that he’s fallen for you, hard, long after you’d both agreed to just be friends. And he keeps on falling.

He knows people change their mind all the time, but he’s been unwilling and unable to bring it up again with you. For all he knows, that agreement had just been your gentle way of telling him “it’s never going to happen.” He doesn't want to risk scaring you off and losing one of the best people in his life.

Frankie comes back to reality, watching you smooth out the front of your shirt.

“Okay, well, I brought some of my blankets in case we need to pile them up…” you say, pointing to the large bag you brought. “And since your stove is electric, it looks like we’ll be eating snacks for dinner.”

“That’s bold of you to assume,” he retorts, walking over to the kitchen. With a silly gesture, he proudly uncovers a large dish full of one of your favorites.

Frankie is certainly no chef, but he can put together a dish or two, even going out of his way to learn how to make the things that you both love. He puts a hand on his hip, amused by the surprised look on your face. “I made it before the power went out. They did teach us some things about preparation in the military, you know,” he teases, dimple on full display.

“And here I was packing junk food and sandwiches, like a loser,” you jest, grinning back at him. Frankie somehow always manages to make your life a little better. He beams and your chest constricts at the sight.

"Oh, we'll definitely need those for later," he reassures you with a grin. "If the guys were here that'd all be gone before the worst of the storm even hits," he adds, making you laugh.

Some of your favorite nights with Frankie are the ones that are completely uneventful, ones where you relax after a long day of work and binge your favorite snacks while watching some crappy movie on the couch. Then again, it's always the little things that make you happy when it comes to him.

~

Once you've had your dinner you both get comfortable next to each other on the couch, chatting about life and nothing in particular, the way you often do—minus the lack of electricity and a mostly dark room that’s barely lit up by a couple of small camping lights Frankie has. No doubt the other guys would make things a lot more chaotically entertaining if they were all here, but you’re happy it’s just the two of you now—even if it does make it harder for you to think straight at the moment.

Frankie says something that makes you chuckle and you look up at him, noting the delicate smile on his lips and the way it almost balances out the tired lines under his eyes.  He meets your eyes, and if he looks like he wants to say something else, it's probably only in your mind because he doesn't.

The wind outside makes itself known, rattling the windows in its wake. You're suddenly grateful you'd agreed to come and stay with Frankie. Although you’re lucky to have a shelter, these kinds of storms are best when you don't have to ride them out alone.

You also become hyper-aware of how intimate the moments you share with Frankie are. At the end of the day, you're glad he's in your life, even if it's not the way the younger version of you wanted. You still have him and he has you, and that's really more than you could ever ask for.

A chill suddenly makes its way through you.

"Are you shivering?" Frankie stops talking mid-thought to ask you.

"What? No, I—" He cuts you off with a chuckle and shakes his head, reaching down into your bag. With a quick movement he pulls a beanie on over your head, purposely tugging it past your eyes as you laugh and playfully smack his hand away.

"Watch yourself, Morales," you attempt to glare at him as you smooth down your hair, but fail to contain your smile when you see that goofy twinkle in his eyes.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry,” he concedes and raises his hands in mock surrender. The grin is still on his face as he moves to fix the beanie on your forehead. Another quiet chuckle escapes his lips until his fingers move away from your forehead, accidentally grazing along your cheek.

It’s not the chill that makes you both fall abruptly silent.

It’s almost as if the wind wiped the grins off your faces as Frankie looks into your eyes with an intense gaze. His hand still hovers along your cheek, neither of you seeming able to move. You’re suddenly grateful that it’s impossible for him to hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears right now. Your imagination must be getting the better of you again, because you almost believe that there’s something wistful about the look on his face.

But just like that, he drops his hand and you both avert your eyes.

“It’s, um...getting late,” you break the silence. “We better get settled before it really starts getting cold in here.”

Frankie clears his throat, nodding in agreement and standing to pile some blankets onto the couch.

“What are you doing?” you ask him.

“Um...you know I don’t have the guest room set up. There’s just the bed in my room. You go get cozy, I’ll take the couch.”

"What? I'm not gonna steal your bed, Fr—"

“And I'm not going to have you uncomfortable in my house,” he brushes you off with a wave of the hand. “It's fine, querida, really. You know I've knocked out on this couch more times than I can count." Your chest warms at the sound of his pet name for you. It's harmless, just something he's always called you. But for some reason it makes your face warm to hear it this time.

“No, I mean...isn’t it better if we share? I think the whole point is to keep our bodies warm. It’s easier to do that if we’re in one room.”

He finally meets your eyes again, holding your gaze as though there's more than one thing on his mind, then runs a hand through his disheveled hair.

“I...Are you sure? I really don’t have any problem with—”

You smile softly at him, trying to hide any indication of awkwardness in your tone. “Yes, Frankie, it’s fine. Really. Besides, we can stack all our blankets together this way.”

He smiles back. “I have a big, fluffy one we can use, too.”

~

All the remaining heat in the house has definitely dissipated now, leaving behind a frigid chill. It's bearable for the time being, but leaves your skin covered in goosebumps anytime you expose so much as a sliver of skin to the air. The last time you checked, the snow had already made a significant cushion to the ground outside, and was still going strong.

You've been in bed for an hour or two, huddled into a ball underneath several layers of blankets and refusing to move because it only makes you colder to shift the air around.

Frankie's asleep next to you—you assume he's asleep, anyways. Neither of you have said a word in a while, and with the pattering sounds of snow falling outside, you're getting drowsy yourself. Still, you haven't been able to fall asleep, not even when you jam your eyes shut. It's too cold, for one thing, and for another, it's difficult to ignore the fact that he is right next to you. It's a big bed and there's a decent space between you, but still.

You shift positions yet again, trying to wrap yourself tighter in your section of the blankets. You move to readjust one of the blankets that's gotten pushed away, accidentally bumping Frankie's arm in the process. You grimace, hoping you didn't wake him.

"Your hand is like ice," Frankie's quiet voice suddenly fills the room.

"Oh—Sorry. I thought you were asleep," you mutter back, your voice muffled by the blankets.

"No. It's hard enough for me to sleep even when there's not a historic snowstorm going on." He jokes, though you know it goes deeper than that for him.

Not really knowing how to respond, you remain silent. Rolling onto your side facing away from him, you tuck yourself further into the blankets before resolving to pull them up and over your head entirely.

Frankie's soft laugh rumbles next to you. "Seriously, your skin is frozen," he tells you. “You’re like the opposite of a space heater right now,” he chuckles and you can hear the grin on his face.

You push the blanket off your face, feigning a groan. “Freezing weather and a lack of heat lends to poor circulation, Francisco.”

"I know, I just…maybe it would…it might be warmer if we slept closer together." His voice is so soft that you can’t help but think how nice it would be to fall asleep to the sound of it every night.

When you don’t answer right away he quickly adds, “Or not—I wasn’t trying to...I didn’t mean—Sorry.” Frankie shuffles uncomfortably under the covers.

“No, you’re right,” you murmur hesitantly, barely louder than a whisper. “It...would probably help.”

A beat of silence.

Then you hear Frankie gently move his pillow over towards you, scooting himself in until you can feel his warmth against you. He doesn’t move again at first, you only feel his chest rising and falling against your back. But ever so slowly, he wraps an arm over you, the weight of him sturdy and comforting. You can tell he’s tense—hesitant—until you place your own hand on his, holding him closer to you. Feeling you make yourself comfortable must put him at ease, and he relaxes around you. Neither of you say a word, just lay there sharing each other’s warmth.

You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder on some late nights on the couch before—things two normal, friendly people do, right? But you’ve never let yourself think too much about it. You can hardly help it now, reveling in the way you feel safe in his arms, fitting perfectly along the curve of his body. You are warmer, although some of it may be because of the way your pulse is just a little bit quickened. You wouldn't mind if you had to stay like this forever.

Frankie quietly exhales, his breath warm against the back of your hair. “Better?” he finally speaks, his voice gravelly and hushed, not much louder than the sound of snow hitting the window.

A pause. “Yeah.”

You feel him relax even more, burying his cheek a little more into the space above your shoulders. “Let’s try to sleep, then, querida.”

And just like that, Frankie Morales manages to make you fall a little bit more in love with him.

It’s then that you realize—it’s always been simple with him. Everything is always...easy with him. Nothing’s overcomplicated or messy; it’s just you and Frankie. It’s what drew you to him first, long ago. It wasn’t the outspoken openness that that others had, nor the confident resolve, but the quiet way he cares for you. The way he manages to always make you laugh, even at the times when it’s almost impossible to. The way he makes you feel so whole that you forget there was ever anything missing in the first place. That’s how he found his way, permanently, into your heart.

For Frankie, it’s always been you. You’re a grounding presence to him, someone who’s made him familiar with peace again over the years.

He lies there listening to the sounds of your breathing, sure that you’re finally fast asleep. He feels sleep coming over himself, too. He knows he’ll sleep a little easier tonight with you. He’ll weather anything when it comes to you. That’s how he knows, and convinces himself that once this storm business is over, he’ll tell you. For now, he lets himself follow you into slumber. His last conscious thoughts are of how he wouldn't mind having you in his arms like this every night, and if it weren't for your warmth lulling him to sleep, he might've confessed to you right then and there.

 ~

Permanent tags: @immundusspiritu @aeryntheofficial @i-like-those-odds @padlilli @hail-doodles @hiscyarika @taman-a @electricprincess888 @max--phillips @myrin1234 @aloneontheoutside @pascalisthepunkest @ah-callie @fleurdemiel145 @katialvi @murdermewithbooks @pisss-offf-ghostt​ @kayebede @lamnothome @fan-g0rl @lokiaddicted @mrsdaamneron​ @poedaneron​ @wolfshifter4life @dindjarindiaries​ @rociomz​ @opheliaelysia​ @dyn-djarin​ @randomness501​ @unsaidsunset​ @hayley-the-comet​ @mrsparknuts​ @exy-issexy​ @palalover​ @forever-rogue​ @adikaofmandalore​ @kaetastic​ @zannemes​ @mstgsmy​ @wille-zarr​ @arabellathorne @f0rever15elf​ @lv7867​ @stilllivindue2spite​ @urbankaite2​

[sugarandspiceevol]

A very bad day [ Nanami Kento x Reader]

Title: A very bad Day 

Paring: Nanami Kento x Reader 

Genre : Fluff, Domestic 

Summary: Nanami comforts you, after a very long day.

This was the last straw. The high pitch tinkle of your keys hitting for the floor reverberated in your brain. It sounded almost as if they were laughing at you. Laughing that they had succeeded in wrapping a pretty bow over your shitty fucking day.In your hurry to finally get inside your warm house, you’d dropped your house-keys on the granite floors.

“FUCK!” You yelled sending a balled fist straight into the wooden door frame. You heard the sound of your fist making impact and then came the pain. You’d over reacted and punched a dent in the wall and in return you had splinters in your bloody knuckles. It was painful, but a dull ache compared to the chaos in your mind.

You couldn’t hold back the tears now. You’d held them at bay all day long. You held them when you’d woken up to an empty bed, your husband, Nanami, already gone in to fight some curse or the other. You’d held you’d tears when you were scolded for an error on a report that you hadn’t made at work. When that same man who’d made the mistake was celebrated at work on his promotion.You’d held your tears when his stupid celebration delayed your work so you had to stay overtime to get the days work done. You’d held your tears when a car rammed the back of your husbands fancy car. You’d been close but still no tears when you saw the driver, a bag of chips in one hand and his phone tucked underneath his chin.

Recalling it now made your tears fall heavy and thick down your face. The type of tears that would lead to a headache and stuffed nose. But your crying was interrupted by the sound of the door opening in front of you. There was your husband, out of his work clothes and showered, his normally slicked back hair falling freely with gravity over his face. He took one look at your disheveled appeared, the dent in your apartment door and the corresponding keys on the floor. Wordlessly he dipped down to pick up the keys and on his way to straightening up you saw his eyes land on your hand, which was now bleeding freely and onto the floor.

With an out stretched hand he led you into the apartment, the warmth of the place enveloping you like a blanket. The scent of pasta was in the air and you knew that Nanami had started dinner already. You felt the embarrassment creeping up your spine at your state which only served to make your tears fall faster. You heard the click of a lock and then your already blurred vision was darkened as you were pulled gently into a hug.

He smelled of vanilla, a warm and embracing scent. His large hand cupped the back of your head, gently massaging your scalp as you tear stained his casual clothing. He was rocking just the slightest and it was so soothing. The day seemed to be melting away under his calming and soothing presence. And you were a bit in awe of his ability to bring you down from hysterics without muttering a word.

When you’d gone quiet and no more tears were running he pulled back a bit looking down at your tears stained face.

“Our neighbors are definitely going to give you weird looks now.” He same softly tucking a hair behind your ear, a cheeky smile playing on his face. You laughed, in spite of yourself the shock of the laugh almost hurting your tightened throat.

“Was it really that loud?” You asked chastened. He shock his head reassuringly.

“No I’m sure only our entire floor heard it.” He winked, something he tended to only do around you. You almost whined at the loss of his arms around you, but held it in as he guided you to sit down on of of the tall kitchen chairs.

“Don’t move.” He said and disappointed around the corner of your hallway. He was back quicker than you’d thought, juggling gauze, scissors and various other medical supplies between his long but slender fingers.

“Let me see it.” He said calmly as he set the items down and set them up. You lifted your injured hand for him to see and felt a ping of pleasure as he sucked his teeth in concern. Though you hadn’t done it on purpose it was nice to feel genuine concern from someone all day.

As he began to clean the wound he said simply : “tell me what happened.” And so you told him, watching his face the entire time. He was concentrating on your hand. It was propped up against the table and he was moving so gently that you hardly felt the pain of his movements. His face was smooth with no traces of annoyance as you talked about your day. He was listening intently, not trying to interrupt or cut you off and say what you should have done instead.

His composure broke only once, his eyebrows knitting together when you’d gotten to the part about the car accident. You’d thought he was probably upset about the car.

 If you only passively knew Nanami, you wouldn’t think he would be as into cars as he was but it was a spot of pride for him , something you’d realized he’d gotten from his father. He’d always handled anything car related, and you gladly let him. But as you went on to tell him how the guy had hit on you while exchanging insurance information, his frown deepened and you could see the anger in the corner of his eye. It was hard to concentrate on being gentle and keeping any emotion from his face.

You felt a tinge of pleasure knowing that he cared. Plowing on you got to the end of your day just as he was confident he’s gotten all the wooden shrapnel from your hand, and was ready to stitch it up.

He was quiet for a while, getting the things he needed set up and cleaning your wound. So quiet that you thought maybe he wouldn’t say anything. You watched as he prepared the needle to close you up dreading the pinches of pain that would come with it.

“ I’m sorry you had such a bad day.” He said, you felt his gaze on you now and you looked up from yourhand, swallowing hard at the intensity of his gaze. He was sorry, there was a mixture of emotions in his face. He was holding back on the advice and affirmations. He knew you better than that. He knew you were strong and knew your worth, he didn’t need to re-assure you that you were smarter than all the assholes at work. You just needed him to listen, needed him to care that you had a rough time, and not try to fix it for you.

Although he opened his mouth again unable to hold back on one point in your story. “Do you want me to handle the insurance?” He asked, not taking his eyes from you. It was clear he wanted to do it, but he was asking because he knew you could handle it yourself. And he would back up and let you take care of it if you wanted.You nodded, relief filling your body. You could have handled it but you didn’t want to. You didn’t want to think about the car or have to interact again with the sleezeball that had rear-ended you in the first place. And you knew that Nanami would gladly interact with the man, and you guiltily imagined the weasels face when he encounters your husband and his cold wrath instead of you. He’d broken his car and hit on his wife? You almost felt sorry for the man...almost.

“Please.” You answered softly with a sigh and the set in his jaw when he nodded let you know that it was done. You wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. That was just the kind of man that Nanami Kento was. “This is going to hurt” he said the anger drained from his eyes and concern flashing as he started to stitch your hand. It did hurt but Nanami was precise and quick so the pain faded quickly. You watched his face again as he concentrated. You felt warm and safe and happy, like the day hadn’t even happened. When he was finished and inspecting your hand and by twisting it around gently he looked up at you meeting your eyes.

“What?” He asked a bit concerned that he’d maybe missed something. You smiled then, using your injured hand to cup his face softly.“I love you.” It wasn’t the first time you’d said it, not even close, but your heart was racing as if this was your first time confessing it.It was strange, from the outside looking in, Nanami seemed like the type to be closed off and emotionally unavailable. When in reality he was sharp and well read in emotions. He was serious most of the time but that was because he understood the futile motions of life. He understood that working till you die was stupid but that there wasn’t a way around it. You were the break in his grey, the sunshine he protected.It was you that was closed off, proud and unwilling to have anyone but yourself share the burdens of the world you had placed on your shoulder. It had taken years, for you to reach the point where now you would want to bear your soul to him the way you had tonight. Letting him take on one of your problems. When had that changed ? Somehow he’d managed to chip away at that wall.

His small smile on his usual serious face steadied your heart again. He stood up coming closer and you almost had to lean back to look up at him. He cupped your face in both hands that smelled of pasta and kissed you. It was a sweet kiss. The kind you wished would go on forever and filled you up with light.

He pulled back leaning his forehead against yours. “You don’t have to carry everything yourself all the time. Give somethings to me, okay?”

You felt another tear drop down your cheek, surprised you still had any left in you. He whipped it away with his thumb and you matched his smile. “Okay.” —————— “Good, we’ll let’s go eat some pasta.”

[welshoot]

Tears of Themis Dream Prologue Analysis Part 4

So last time we left off with yet another black screen. This is the final section of the dream prologue and this one is the one that confused me the most. This is also going to be the longest post in this series because there is a lot to analyze. 

It starts with someone telling MC “Do not worry. Do not worry...I am here...” You can faintly hear the sound of a clock ticking and, when MC opens her eyes, she immediately sees Vyn. This scene is already very telling. Throughout the prologue MC has been dealing with running into someone she trusts and relies on only for them to disappear suddenly. Now here is Vyn telling her not to worry, that he’s here. He comes across as very comforting and gentle which tells you exactly how upset she must have been by the dream. But, if you think about it, she’s been left a lot already. Luke left for college and didn’t contact her, seemingly falling off the face of the earth. She was likely worried about his safety and wondering if she’d done something to push him away. Her parents are also gone, true it’s on some sort of secret mission (which I’m very suspicious of by the way) but still. Being suddenly left by those who raised you or were raised alongside you will have an effect on a person and with no contact to boot. That has to be upsetting. I’m not saying MC has a fear of abandonment but I do wonder how it’s affected her. The fact they have Vyn being the one to assure MC he’s there is likely no coincidence. In fact it could be indicative that Vyn will be the one who stands by MC when the others are unable or even unwilling for some reason. But who knows.

Moving on, Vyn greets her by saying she appeared to be having a nightmare and she comments that everything was a dream. He responds with, and I quote, “How does one discern dreams from reality? That was a dream, but this may not be reality.” 

Vyn is a psychiatrist, very similar to a psychologist. In psychology, dreams present a bit of an issue. We don’t really know what they’re for but researchers have suggested that dreaming mediates memory consolidation and mood regulation. You can read about all of this on Psychology Today at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dreaming. 

What Vyn says implies that the previous sections of the prologue may have not been just a dream. As I’ve said in other posts, MC has been known to fill the role of Themis. Themis was a prophetess in Greek Mythology so this dream could be some form of prophecy. That would imply that her dream had something to do with the future. But what else might be going on here? Psychology has implied dreams have something to do with memory. So could the dream have been some part of a memory? If that’s the case then this part of the prologue is either happening later in the story or MC is suffering from amnesia. However, Vyn does say that what MC just experienced was indeed a dream but what she’s experiencing right now might not be reality. So what is it? Another dream, or something else?

I wonder if this is hinting at how MC perceives things. While there is a saying “Perception is reality” this isn’t actually true. After all, look at how perception is defined: “a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression” versus how reality is defined: “the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.” Perception is a lens through which reality is viewed. Our perception can distort reality. This could be what Vyn means or he might be talking about something else entirely.

Back to the prologue. MC notes that she’s still dizzy and closes her eyes again. When she opens them you have a better view of her surroundings. She appears to be in an office, possibly Vyn’s since he’s wearing his doctor coat. This makes me wonder if Vyn is now her psychiatrist. But in the same sentence, I doubt this. You aren’t supposed to take care of someone you know in any medical field due to being biased. It can impact your work and your mental health amongst other things. The only way Vyn would treat her would be if her status had to be kept an absolute secret. Vyn is also, disturbingly enough, holding Luke’s key. Vyn precedes to question MC about her dream. “The key to the chest of memories… Did you get to see the answer inside? Was it what you wanted?” MC is confused, she closes her eyes and says she doesn’t understand. I assume Vyn is talking about the chest from Luke’s section. He calls it a chest of memories so Luke may store precious mementos in it. But an answer is inside and Vyn wants to know if it’s what MC wanted. When she opened it all that happened was light poured out and we moved on to Marius’s section. So is Marius the answer? Or did she not see the answer? Another possibility is that Vyn is telling her that the answer to her questions is within the actual physical box but it might not be what she wants. Could something in the box have information about Luke’s illness?

The scene continues when MC opens her eyes again. Vyn is now holding the painting of her from Marius’s section, more specifically the smiling one. Here he says: “Using a painting to conceal the truth? Perhaps you can fool the eyes but not the heart.” The question here is who is concealing the truth, Marius or MC? Marius did make the painting but it was MC’s dream. If Marius is the one concealing the truth then that means the crying MC is the more honest version and her heart revealed it. If MC is concealing the truth that implies her happy demeanor hides a sorrowful nature that Marius has seen despite her efforts to hide it. 

MC blinks and when her eyes open Vyn is now holding Artem’s bouquet. This time he says: “Ironic is it not? Adhering to your convictions but betraying your heart… In the end it was all for naught.” Again the question is, who is Vyn talking about, MC or Artem? If it’s MC then the second part of his statement coupled with the graves from Artem’s section implies it was her grave and everything was for naught because she died. If Vyn is talking about Artem though… Maybe the grave was Neil Hume’s and Artem’s tireless searching was for naught since Neil is already dead. Also, betraying your heart makes me think someone showed their feelings without meaning to. But again, is it Artem or MC?

MC begs Vyn to stop talking, complaining that her head hurts. Her vision blurs as Vyn watches her silently and once her eyesight clears he starts talking again. “Even if the world were against you… Would you still stand by your choice?” What choice is he talking about and is it a choice she’s already made, one she is currently making, or one she has yet to make? MC struggles to answer and Vyn stops her. “Shh. You need not answer at this time. Come, look at me… You are very sleepy right now…” This part sounds like hypnosis which could be why MC is struggling so much. She may have been hypnotized this whole time. It’s important to understand that hypnosis isn’t actually a bad thing. Technically, you can’t be hypnotized against your will, you have to agree to it. Though it is true some people seem to have less immunity to hypnosis it is possible they are agreeing without entirely realizing it. Hypnosis causes increased attention, concentration and suggestibility. When hypnotized, you’re hyper-aware. So, if this is hypnosis, why was MC hypnotized? She must have agreed to it, even if it was without entirely realizing it. Also, despite her agitation she isn’t shown to be breaking out of the hypnosis. This implies she really trusts Vyn. The idea that she trusts Vyn that much furthers the thought that this happens a little ways into the plot of Tears of Themis rather than at the very beginning since she didn’t even know Vyn existed till around till chapter two. Hypnosis is very useful for analysis so I really wonder if that’s what’s happening here. But what is Vyn, and possibly MC, wanting to find out?

MC opens her eyes to see a clock hanging in front of her face which gradually begins to swing side-to-side. Another heavy implication for the hypnosis theory. As MC closes her eyes again Vyn speaks once more. “Words are empty. Deeds over words. Let time reveal the answer.” This sounds like parting advice given to her while she hypnotized and more likely to listen. Don’t trust what people say, instead look at what they do. Don’t rush, time will reveal everything.

All in all, this prologue is really quite ominous. It poses many questions for the future plot of Tears of Themis, especially for the characters involved. How many secrets do the love interests and MC have?

[vampiregirl1797]

Hoodies & Lacrosse

Peter Kavinsky x Reader

 GIF Not Mine

 For my Masterlist, Click Here.

 Word Count: 1,566

 A/N: This one was requested by the awesome @mychemicalimagines​. I hope this is everything you imagined it to be, lovely! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get this done for you, but I’ve been so swamped with uni work and placement that I’ve just had no motivation for writing. But inspiration struck tonight and I decided to put it to good use.

A/N/Pt2: If you’re in to Friends and Twilight check out their imagines! The series’ are so good and addictive, I cannot recommend them enough! Leaving a link to the Masterlist HERE.

 I blinked owlishly, trying to make my eyes feel less exhausted, but it was to no avail—I’d been unable to sleep last night and I was unwilling to admit that it was because Peter had asked for his hoodie back. I’d taken it months ago, well not purposefully, he’d just left it behind one day after we’d been hanging out. I’d been chilly that night, and I figured I’d throw it on, only to discover it was the comfiest thing ever—it was huge on me and it smelled of him, and so I’d grown accustomed to how content and safe it made me feel. Obviously I hadn’t realised how much I’d grown to rely on it to sleep until last night at around three in the morning, when I realised it was the first time in months I’d gone to bed not wearing it.

 I yawned, pulled my cardigan tighter around me, and took a large gulp of the coffee I’d poured myself before leaving the house to head to school. I’d managed to drop off around five in the morning, which led to me sleeping through my first four alarms. By some grace of god, I’d made it to first period as the bell rang. I finished off my coffee, and threw the disposable cup into the recycling bin on my way out of the room—thank god I’d had the beverage as my first period had been math; I’d have definitely dozed off without it.

 ‘Hey, Y/N! Wait up!’ I paused at the sound of my best friend’s voice, mixed feelings erupting through me. Tiredness made me clingy, which Pete was used to, but I was also a little pissed being as in my mind it was his fault I was tired to begin with.

 ‘Hey, asshat’ I grumbled, wrapping my arm around his waist and melting into his comforting warmth.

 He chuckled, ‘such wonderful greetings from you, Y/N. It’s a wonder my head fits through the halls with how much you boost my ego.’

 I rolled my eyes, an involuntary smile forming on my face, ‘I’m tired, I think I got thirty minutes of sleep last night. I can’t to go home and sleep until Sunday.’

 ‘Why didn’t you sleep? Is there something on your mind?’ I felt my irrational irritation with him soften at the concern in his voice; he knew me well enough to know if I had trouble sleeping, it usually meant there was something on my mind causing my insomnia.

 ‘No, I just didn’t realise how much I’d come to rely on your hoodie until you took it away.’ I felt my lips form into a slight pout, and had I not been exhausted and as a result, needy, I would have been embarrassed.

 My head was tucked into his side, my face against his chest, and so I missed the soft, fond look that overtook his expression. I did notice the new girl giving us a look of longing and jealousy, but I ignored her. The other students would clue her in soon enough—we were friends, best, best friends. It may look like we were more due to how touchy we both were with each other, but our relationship didn’t extend beyond a deep, meaningful friendship. It had taken a while for everyone to understand it, and to stop giving us the same look the new girl was giving us now, but they learned eventually.

 ‘How about this…’ Peter’s voice bought me back to the conversation, ‘you come to my game tonight, and I’ll give you my hoodie to keep forever.’

 I bit my lip to hide my smile; it was typical Peter Kavinsky. He knew I wouldn’t miss one of his games—I was always there, rain or shine, wearing his jersey and cheering him on. But he was sweet enough to make it sound like I was doing him a favour when in reality, it was him who was doing something nice for me, by making sure I got his hoodie doing something I was planning on anyway.

 I looked up to him, ignoring how my heart fluttered when he tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear when it fell in front of my eyes, ‘you’d give up your favourite hoodie, for me to come to your game?’

 I felt my heart melt at the bashful expression that overtook his features, ‘of course I would. I mean it took me months to realise you had it anyway. Clearly it means more to you than it does to me.’

 ‘You make a good point.’ I teased, biting my lip as I thought and missing the way his eyes followed the movement, ‘okay, if you’re really okay with it, you have a deal.’

 ‘Awesome.’ He grinned, and I found myself subconsciously beaming back at him, powerless to not return his happiness.

 //

 ‘Come on, Peter!’ I mumbled under my breath, the tension in the air palpable and affecting everyone, it was as if we were all holding our breath in anticipation, ‘you’ve got this!’

 Peter ran forward, passed the defence and took his shot at the goalie. It was so quiet I could hear the puck hitting the back of the net and I was unable to hold back my cheer of happiness, which seemed to snap everyone else out of their shock and they joined me. Brown eyes found mine and I felt my heart skip a beat as he unclipped his helmet, tucked it under his arm and made his way over to me, easily bypassing the rest of the audience who’d flooded the pitch. I felt my heart beat pick up and by the time my best friend reached me, my heart was pounding against my ribs. He was watching me with such intensity, that it made my knees feel weak. His beautiful brown eyes were soft with an emotion that I couldn’t identify, as well as fondness, happiness and determination. I had no idea what to expect when he finally joined me on the stands, but when he tossed his helmet aside, and placed both of his hands on my cheeks, I knew that everything was about to change. And when his lips met mine in a tender, tentative kiss, I threw my arms around his neck and succumbed to it. It was meant to be, and I was powerless to fight the passion, and the intensity that moved between us. But more importantly, I didn’t want to.

 //

 Third Person POV

 Daisy Hank didn’t know what to think when she attended her second day of school. It seemed that there was a buzz in the air from the moment she walked through the doors, as if something had happened and everyone was talking about it. She felt a nervous knot form in her stomach, worried that it was somehow about her, but after a few deep breaths and reassurances it dissipated. There was no way it could be about her; she’d only started yesterday and she hadn’t spoken to anyone for long enough for her to accidentally reveal anything embarrassing.

 She frowned and walked to her locker, trying to focus her hearing to pick up what was going on from the group of girls that were gossiping next to her locker. She opened it up and pretended to search for something as she managed to get close enough to listen in.

 ‘Is it true? Peter and Y/N are actually together?’ one of the girls murmured, Daisy didn’t know any of their names, but she could easily hear the disappointment in her voice.

 ‘Yup, apparently it happened last night at the lacrosse game. He scored the winning game and ran on the stands to kiss her.’ This girl sounded dreamy, and Daisy felt herself instinctively relax a little at the absence of aggression in her tone.

 ‘It was like a Cinderella Story. So romantic.’ The third girl mirrored the second’s tone and even sighed.

 ‘So unfair. Kavinsky is the most attractive guy at this school, now what—‘ the first girls bitterness was cut off by an elbow to her abdomen.

  Daisy frowned, until she followed their gaze and saw the aforementioned couple walking down the hall. They were in the same position as yesterday; her arm around his waist, his over her shoulders and her face tucked against his chest. And yet, there was a definite change between them, Daisy noticed. Maybe it was because Y/N was wearing a hoodie that was obviously his, or because he now had her backpack slung over his shoulder along with his own, or maybe it was the soft, fond and loving way they looked at each other. But either way, a change was definitely there, and Daisy once again found herself wishing that she had someone who looked at her the way they were observing each other, just like she had yesterday when she’d first laid eyes on them. Except now, she only wanted it more, because unlike yesterday the love and affection they had for each other was radiating from them without restriction. It was as beautiful as it was mesmerising and Daisy released a dreamy sigh of her own as she slammed her locker shut at the sound of the school bell. As she made her way to English, she hoped one day, she would find someone who loved her like that.

[ezraspiderwick]

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: Forced to Kneel/Bow

Fandom: His Dark Materials

Characters: Lee Scoresby, Hester, Marisa Coulter

Word Count: 745

Warnings: Death (not Lee’s)

Also on Ao3: Guns for Hands Ch.7

Previous chapter: Russian Roulette

MASTERLIST

     Lee’s blood runs cold. He looks up and finds the woman standing in front of the soldier, wearing a charming smile. 

“I have a couple more things I was hoping to discuss with Mr. Scoresby. If you don’t mind, of course.” Mrs. Coulter flashes him another smile as she makes her way into the room. Lee hugs Hester closer while watching everything unfold. If he wasn’t so tired and hurt, he’d be making witty comebacks or trying to figure out the reason behind the woman coming back, but all he wants is to catch a break. 

“Of course Mrs. Coulter,” the soldier tells her, turning around to follow her, “but I assure you, any information he might have had is now useless, and Lee here isn’t much of a talker.” He places his hand on Lee’s head who immediately tenses up and moves his neck but is unable to escape the soldier’s grasp.

“I still have a couple of questions, captain, so please humor me?”

“Certainly.” The soldier yanks Lee’s hair forcing the aeronaut to look at him. “You should show the lady some respect. Kneel.” As he says this, he taps the holster on his belt where the gun with the remaining bullet is. Lee feels so much hate for the soldier and the smirk of enjoyment on his face. Every part of him wants to put up a fight, and defy any order given to him even after all that has happened, but the thought of the daemon in his arms stops him. So he ignores any feelings he has and after carefully placing Hester on the floor, he shifts from sitting into kneeling. Lee’s face is burning and he keeps his eyes on the floor, unwilling to see either of their reactions.

“You sure did a number on him,” Mrs. Coulter comments, crouching in front of Lee and lifting his chin with one of her fingers. The aeronaut tries his best to avoid her examining gaze.

“Just doing my job” is the soldier’s answer and Lee could swear he hears a little chuckle when he says it. Marisa lets go of Lee’s head and looks at the soldier.

“I’d like to be alone with him.”

“He might be dangerous ma’am, I don’t think it’d be a good idea.” In reality, Lee isn’t sure he can even stand, he’s not much of a threat to anyone.

“I’m sure you have places to be, Captain, so really there’s no need for you to stay. You could even leave me the gun so I can feel safer,” she suggests.

“As you wish ma’am.” The soldier hands her the gun and turns around, walking past both of them towards the door. Mrs. Coulter quickly raises the gun and shoots at the man. Lee flinches at the sound and sees the soldier’s body fall to the ground and his daemon becomes ashes. He doesn’t have time to feel relieved at his captor’s demise because he’s now alone with the woman who just shot him in cold blood.

“Can you stand?” Mrs. Coulter asks while she goes to the body and searches for something. Lee moves slowly and with the help of the nearby wall, he manages to get to his feet. He knows it must be the adrenaline allowing him to move despite his injuries. The woman hands him the keys to his shackles and then proceeds to check how many bullets are left on the gun. Seeing it’s empty, she throws it on the floor and opts for taking her own gun out. “We need to get going.”

     Once Lee is freed from the shackles he picks his shirt and jacket from the ground and despite the pain in his back, he puts the latter on, as he knows the shirt is more likely to stick to his wounds. Once he’s done Marisa motions for him to go first. As he moves he does his best to stop the grunts from coming out. Hester is silent beside him, she has always been better at pretending to be okay, but this time anyone who sees her can tell she’s also injured.

     When they’re at the entrance of the cell Lee turns to Mrs. Coulter, asking the question he isn’t sure he wants an answer to. 

“Why did you come back?”

“Turns out you’re useful for something after all Mr. Scoresby, even if you don’t know it. Now stay silent, we wouldn’t want to attract the Magisterium’s attention.”

.

NEXT CHAPTER