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kassandras-one-braincell · 3 years

Text

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.

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.)

#abby anderson x reader #im sorry :(#abby tlou #angst #bad things happen bingo

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tenkasato · 3 years

Text

It’s a Start

Scenario: As a humble store owner in Marley, you get the surprise of your life when the nightmare from Paradis, the one acclaimed as their strongest soldier, drops by to buy tea leaves. Needless to say, you were equally surprised he was strangely mesmerizing. Post-rumbling.

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x reader

There he was.

The strongest known menace from the formerly thought home of devils, Paradis Island. The indestructible soldier who cut through the wonder boy Zeke like he was cutting butter. The unforgiving soul who personally took down numbers of Marleyan men and women. Now an acclaimed hero of this war.

You expected differently.

Of course, you've heard of his condition. He was not exactly crippled, but not exactly in his top shape either. The man looked quite docile in his wheelchair. Quietly, he examined each tea canister from your shop with a scrutinizing eye.

From where you were standing by the counter, you could make out the barely perceptible downward curve of his lips. He returned the tea leaves before he moved to the next shelf.

From the friends you had from the military, you've heard countless horror stories about this man. Versions after the other, a few more grisly than the other. You supposed you should be terrified that a former enemy had come into your store, even if he was unarmed and injured.

Commonsense told you to keep your distance, but curiosity is one enticing lady who relentlessly whispered sweet nothings into your ear.

When he seemed to be having a hard time reaching for the Ceylon tea, you decided to silence these voices and make your approach.

Levi Ackerman immediately bristled when he sensed you coming. You eyed him for a second before grabbing the said canister and handing it over.

"This one's harvested from Ludwig Orchard," you told him. "If you like strong tea, then this is a good choice."

Levi considered you, one eye clouded over while the other layered with intensity unlike you've ever seen before. Scars decorated his face. One long one stretched from his forehead down to his chin. Even so, he was beautifully flawed. These were such odd words to describe him, but at the moment, you couldn’t think of any other fitting description.

You tried not to be rude by staring, so you shifted your gaze to the canister in his hand.

"I do like strong tea."

You were mildly surprised he had a smooth voice. It was nowhere near gentle, but neither was it gruff like you imagined. In fact, it was nice to listen to.

"But I've bought too many of those types already," he continued, weighing the can in his hand. "I’m trying to look for a milder one and appealing to the taste of most people.”

“I see.”

Giving you a small nod, he handed the Ceylon back to you.

“Are you opening a tea shop around?” you asked.

Levi took another canister from the lower shelf and brought it in front of his face. “You can say that.”

You let him scan the descriptions written behind each choice, wondering whether you should just leave him be. But it wasn’t often that a man like him dropped by in a measly store like yours.

“Why are you still here?” you dropped the bomb.

His hand froze midway in the air. He cast you one wary glance before proceeding on returning the tea. “Care to elaborate?”

“Levi Ackerman, the notorious Eldian captain. Once our sworn enemy. I don’t understand why someone like you would want to stay in Marley after all that’s happened.”

He was left in silent contemplation. You could tell he was weighing the words in his mind. Was it safe to speak to a seemingly harmless store owner like you? Or were you a spy? You knew the volatile situation his people were still in. The aftermath of Eren Jaeger’s rumbling was still fresh in the minds of many.

You sighed, “I’m sorry. That was very intrusive of me.”

“I can't go home,” he said, surprising you with an honest reply. “The unrest in Eldia remains unresolved. In my state, I’d probably be more of a liability than an asset.”

You nodded, crossing your arms and leaning towards the shelf. “I understand. Must be rough staying in enemies’ territories, huh?”

“You could say that,” he shrugged, “Although technically, we aren’t enemies anymore.”

“Do you really mean that?” you said before you could stop yourself.

He raised a brow at you. “What makes you think I don’t.”

“Well… it’s obvious, right? There’s no way we could be friends after just one night.”

“I never said we were.”

“You killed many of my people,” you spat, suddenly feeling the lividity that enraptured your heart just a few years ago. “Bombed Liberio. Slit the throat of my friends. Took many innocent lives of your own.”

A glare crossed his face. You’d be lying if you said he wasn’t at all terrifying. Levi placed both hands on the handle of his wheelchair and supported himself up. Eyes widening, you backpedal a few steps when he started limping towards you.

Handicapped or not, you knew he could still effortlessly snap your spine into two.

He stopped a few inches from you, staring you down with a mixture of coldness and despair. You didn’t think anyone could ever stare with such strong emotions. Your blood froze and your heart roared at his proximity, but despite that, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away from this enigma.

“Mister Ackerman---”

“Levi,” he corrected you.

“Levi,” you swallowed. “I apologize. I did not intend to antagonize you.”

“What you’re telling me is valid,” he said. “I’m not about to beg for forgiveness because I believe I can never atone for all the things I’ve done, but I’m asking for understanding. Your people tried to annihilate us, and we had no other choice but to fight back for our own survival. Regardless, I apologize. For all the lives I’ve taken.”

You took in his bowed head, closed fists and tightly shut eyes. The sincerity in his voice was hard to miss, but so was the still blazing rage he had for the spilled blood. You doubted the scars in his face and body were the only scars he had.

Such a strong man. Such fragility he also held.

You took in some air and exhaled, “Please raise your head.”

When he did, your eyes connected. With pursed lips, you took a canister of Oolong tea and shoved it in his palm. He looked at it and shot you a questioning glance.

“A peace offering,” you blurted out bashfully, “It’s on the house. I bet people would love drinking this one. It’s a classic favorite around here after all.”

“Are you sure? For all I know, you could be sabotaging my business,” he muttered.

“Business is business!” you gasped, accidentally slapping his arm purely out of reflexes. “I don’t take things personally, besides…”

You flashed him an accepting, genuine smile, “I understand what you’re saying, Levi. I can’t forgive you or your people. The same for you towards us. But this is a start.”

He didn’t smile. He didn’t nod. He didn’t open his mouth to reply. However, the mere softening of his eyes washed you with warmth. Levi tucked the canister under his arm and ambled back to his wheelchair. He was about to turn when you both heard footsteps approaching.

“Levi-san! I’ve been looking all over for you! Gabi said one moment you were beside her, the next moment you vanished.” The young man frowned deeply at Levi, one hand on his hip. “Please tell us next time if you wanted to go somewhere.”

Levi clicked his tongue, “I did, but she was so busy choosing rings at the stall.”

“Rings?” the kid gasped, blushing. He started wheeling Levi to the direction of the exit when he placed a hand on the kid’s arm and turned to you.

He held your gaze, delicately, surprisingly so, “What’s your name?”

Your heart skipped a beat. When you’ve recovered, you laughed, dazed with everything that’s just happened.

“Go out of the store and check the sign. You’ll see my name.”

“Alright.”

“Levi,” you said, “Come again.”

#levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi ackerman #snk #aot #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #levi x you #levi ackerman x y/n #snk fanfiction #aot fanfiction #slight angst #post-rumbling

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gwynrielsupremacist · 3 years

Text

A COURT OF LIGHT AND SHADOWS

Chapter 2: Reason

Read it at AO3

Masterlist

If it were up to Azriel, right now he would rather be juggling burning knives.

Blindfolded.

And in a dark room.

They were in the huge alcove of the High Lord of the Night Court, as Rhysand removed shirts and jackets from his dressing room that he claimed were appropriate for Cassian's attire at his ceremony.

Although Azriel, sitting in one of the chairs that were nearby, watching the scene with his chin on his hands, he was rethinking why he thought this would be a good idea.

After the 'incident' with Elain and Rhys, he had made up his mind that he would never think of Elain that way again.

Of course, that was rather difficult when she was always where the Spymaster passed.

Was he going to the kitchen? Elain would be there with Nuala and Cerridwen.

Was he going to the living room? Elain would be there with Feyre and Nyx.

Possibly one day he would find her in his bed, wearing lingerie, as a gift just for hia enjoyment, tearing off the tiny pieces of undergarments and-

"Azriel?" The sound of his name brought him out of his trance. "Have you been paying attention to something I've said in the last 20 minutes?"

He knew that his shadows, moving slowly over his neck, covered any variation of his arousal but, just in case, he watched Rhysand's reaction, knowing if he knew the reason for his daydreaming, he would be enraged.

However, Rhys's face revealed absolutely nothing, only joy for his brother and bewilderment on the part of the Shadowsinger.

Usually Azriel was the one who had to warn his brothers to pay attention to him, not the other way around.

He shook his head to Cassian's question, to which he sighed, visibly tired and irritated: "I was wondering if navy would look better than black, but I have no idea what Nesta would like." He muttered. Apparently having a mating ceremony wasn't all the color of roses. "I'll stick with the black one, I don't think the suit will last long after we go to that cabin." He announced as he and Rhys gave each other knowing glances, grinning mischievously.

That was another arrow to his badly wounded heart.

He was happy for his brothers, of course he was. There was no other male who deserved a mate as much as Rhys and Cassian, but ...

What about him?

Azriel stopped intervening in the conversation at that moment. He usually did not want to participate in those conversations, but it seemed that that day he was the worst of all.

"The worst day will be the mating ceremony, Shadowsinger. You must prepare for that day if you do not want to fall from grace" Recommended their shadows.

It was true. There would be no worse day than the ceremony.

With Rhys's ceremony it had been the same. As soon as the ceremony was over, he had to go to a Sex club to get rid of the arousal and despair that he felt throughout his body.

It was not fair. Was the Cauldron so macabre?

Had he done so much harm to the world that they deprived him of the experience of having a mate?

He swallowed silently, keeping his face mask neutral, no emotion leaving his face.

He thanked whoever had given him that ability, it was fucking useful at times like these.

Three hours later, Cassian ended up deciding what costume to wear, the black one, and the conversation between the commander and the High Lord died as well.

Cassian left, muttering that he had forgotten something in the House of Wind, although it was possibly an excuse.

The atmosphere in the room had quickly become charged, before the challenging stares of those two.

Although Azriel supposed that he should stay away from the House as well, since he did not need his shadows to tell him that it had served him with a double purpose, he was probably going to fuck Nesta until they both could not hold on foot.

Azriel started to get up, but was prevented by a force in his chest from Rhysand.

"Maybe he had found out about my scent change, after all." He guessed, preparing his best poker face for the onslaught the High Lord was going to bring him.

They stared at each other, studying possible reactions, waiting for who was the first to speak. Things had gotten tense on their part since Solstice.

Azriel knew, as did Rhysand, that no matter how much he wanted to possess Elain's body, he would never betray Rhysand. Punch him, maybe. But he will never betray his High Lord.

"I notice you are somewhat distracted, Azriel." The High Lord commented, sitting down on a chair and intertwining his fingers, dropping them into his lap. "I hope there were no overnight escapades on either side." Rhysand knew perfectly well what he was talking about.

Like Azriel.

"None. I did what you asked." He secured, leaning back, with the advantage that the High Lord didn't know that in reality, his thoughts were a hell of 'wills and cannot'.

Rhysand nodded slightly, rising from his chair, to which Azriel copied the movement.

Azriel knew he shouldn't be fooling around when Rhysand was in that mode, but he couldn't help but feel like a hypocrite.

"You took Feyre away from Tamlin when she still thought she loved him. Elain doesn't love Lucien, yet you separate her from me." Azriel thought. He knew those thoughts didn't make any sense, but right now he was the only thing he could think about.

His shadows were scattered around the room, ready to attack if something happened to his master, while some were on his shoulders, caressing the area in tension.

"I want to keep it that way." Rhysand emphasized, walking ahead of him, silently asking him to follow. He did it. "Things are going bad, Azriel, I don't need any more trouble than is inevitable."

"What problems?" This one answered. "According to my spies, Koschei hasn't shown any signs of life, so I don't see what a problem there could be."

"That Koschei is not showing signs of life does not mean that he is not operating in secret." He suggested, walking into the nursery, with Nyx in the crib, sleeping peacefully.

The High Lord's face changed dramatically.

It was no longer the face of the most powerful High Lord in history. It was the face of a father watching a son, with awe and love in it.

"I can't bear that my son has to spend his early years with that bastard of Koschei in the middle."

"We will protect it." Azriel confirmed, also looking at the small bundle wrapped in sheets. "I will protect him with my own life, if necessary."

Rhysand looked into his eyes, and in a pleading voice, he said:

"Do you understand then? Why I ask you to separate from Elain?" As much as he hated doing that, he nodded. "I cannot allow jealousy and desires to be put through the protection of the court. Things are bad enough to make them worse."

As much as it was hard to keep his gaze neutral, he continued to nod, but anger crept through his mind, clouding his reason.

"And how much trouble would Elain and I have?"

Rhysand was silent for a moment. Azriel guessed

he was steadying himself so as not to punch him in front of his son's bed. Instead of doing so, he asked:

"I don't want you to avoid the question. You are not going to avoid the question." The High Lord manifested. "What the hell happened with Mor, Az?

That theme again.

"Why whenever we talk about Elain, do you end up talking about Mor?" The Spymaster snarled, the shadows preparing to attack, noting the tension in the environment.

"I do it because you have completely forgotten Mor, Azriel. You have been in love with her for over 500 years." He remembered. "I can't believe you traded Mor for Elain in so little time."

"And why do you fucking care?" He growled again, backing away from the room for fear of waking the boy.

"Mor is my cousin, Azriel, and I think I deserve an explanation. Have you given up? And now I suppose Elain will be the consolation prize, right?

It took Azriel more of the self-control he possessed not to slam his fist into the High Lord's nose. If he hadn't been his superior, Rhysand would be bleeding badly right now.

"Elain will never be a consolation prize." He barked, leaving the house and spreading his wings to fly up, but was interrupted by Rhys's hand on his arm, an anchor holding him to the ground.

"Give me a reason." He started to say. "Tell me one fucking reason why Elain deserves to be your mate, and not Lucien's."

"Are you comparing me to… to that one?" He murmured in a voice icy and deadly, the voice that sent chills to the poor people who had to listen to it. Rhysand didn't even flinch.

"You are both different and equal at the same time." He evaded, then returning to the initial question. "Give me a logical reason, and I will allow Elain to stay with you."

Baring his teeth at him, Azriel leapt, taking flight and away from those feelings, roaring with rage when he realized that he had not a single reason to be worthy of Elain.

TAG LIST: @bookish-isha @imsointobooks @shisingh @feyretale @niaacotar @flora-shadowshine @tealnymph24 @trashforazriel @hlizr50 @meher-sumedha @heyovivi @positivewitch @greywarens-magician @sageofthegalaxy @valkygwyn @verifiefangirl @verifiefangirl-mainblog @snickerdoodlechittybangbang @genya-berdara @katekatpattywack @ddsworldofbooks @secretlovelybeauty @starbornsinger @sv0430

#gwynriel #gwynriel fic #my fic #ao3 #azriel #gwyneth #gwyn #acosf

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fandom-imagines-stories · 3 years

Text

If I Go, I’m Goin

Dr. Spencer Reid x Reader

Words: 1845

Part One

Summary: With the reader’s funeral just days away, the team worries about Reid. Spencer struggles to cope and finds himself going to places he remembers being with you. Inspired by the song If I Go, I’m Goin by Gregory Alan Isakov.

Notes: I know. I’m mean.

Warnings: Character death, grief, depression

More Criminal Minds: HERE

And the photographs know I’m a liar

They laugh as I burn her down

She wasn’t leaving until he opened the door. J.J. knocked again, this time a little louder than the first. She had given him a day to himself, but now she was worried. It had been less than 48 hours since Y/N died. Everyone was dealing with it differently. Prentiss and Morgan went to the shooting range, Hotch buried himself in paperwork, Penelope was running around trying to fix everything, and Rossi was being, well, Rossi.

Everyone thought it was a good idea to let Reid be alone for a while, but they didn’t know what J.J. knew. They didn’t know what Y/N had told her that day. Of course, everyone had their suspicions, but J.J, and maybe Penelope, were the only ones that knew that Spence just lost the woman he’d loved for at least the past year.

The door slowly opened just enough for him to look out. From the little sliver that she could see, he didn’t look well. His eyes were sunken and dark and it looked like he hadn’t changed clothes since the hospital. The sight of his despair nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“Hey J.J.”

“Spence.” She greeted, her voice quiet and empathetic. “Can I come in?”

“Uh, I guess. Sure.” He stepped aside and let her walk past him into his living room. It was strangely well put together. She expected things to be discarded on the floor, for the kitchen sink to be full with dishes. But the only thing that seemed out of place was a single chair facing the window. “Why did you come?”

“I just wanted to see how you were holding up.”

“Did Hotch tell you to come see me?”

“Spence-”

“Because I really don’t need a psych evaluation right now.” He sat down in the chair in front of the window. Honestly, it was where he had been for the hours before J.J. got there. He just sat, looking out like he was waiting for Y/N to come down the street.

“I came here as a friend, Spencer. Not as an agent.”

“Oh.” She watched as the previous outburst lost its effect on him and he slumped forward, leaning his head on the glass. It was like watching a wounded animal stop fighting. It broke her heart.

Spencer didn’t say anything else. When J.J. asked him a question, he responded with either a silent nod or a quiet mumble. Eventually, there was nothing else she could say.

“We’re all here, Spence.” She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “If you need anything before the funeral…” The last word nearly caught in her throat. Funeral. J.J. kept a steady appearance, leaning over and kissing the top of his head. “Bye Spence.”

He didn’t say anything as the door closed behind her. He didn’t even look back. Spencer kept his gaze out the window and watched J.J. get in her car and drive away. He must have sat there for a few more hours because by the time he finally moved, it was dark out.

He forced himself to stand and walk back to his room so he could take a much needed shower. Seeing his still made bed made his stomach twist. His mind conjured the image of a quiet morning, none in particular, where he laid with her. He laid with Y/N in his arms as the sun peeked through the windows. Just as quickly as it had come, the vision left, returning the room to its original empty state.

Spencer moved through his apartment aimlessly, his body moving before his mind could catch up. His thoughts were far away, trapped in those woods with the constant sound of an arrow cracking through bone. It cracked through his chest, leaving only a painful ache. He stepped into the shower with his clothes still on.

This old house, she’s quite the keeper

Quite the keeper of you

He was there before anyone else, sitting in the dim light by himself for nearly an hour. When Hotch quietly trudged to his office, he stopped suddenly, seeing the form sitting at his desk.

“Reid?” He flipped on the main lights and looked warily at the young agent. While he didn’t show it, Hotch noticed Reid’s disheveled appearance and blank expression. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to do some paperwork,” Reid replied, keeping his eyes trained in front of him. Hotch set his briefcase down.

“I told the team to take a few days off.”

“You’re here.”

“I have to deal with…” He trailed off, dreading the report sitting on his desk. Reid nodded, still not entirely paying attention to his supervisor.

“Right.” He continued to slowly tap his pen against the surface of his desk. Hotch knew that the psych evals weren’t until after everyone came back, but Reid was worrying him. Grabbing his briefcase, he kept a close eye on him as he went to his office.

Spencer stared at the desk across from him.

“Come on, there has to be something that you don’t know.” You challenged, chewing absentmindedly on the cap of your pen. Normally he would remark on how many germs were on the average pen, but when you did it, he thought it was cute.

“Of course there are things I don’t know, I just don’t talk about them because I don’t know them well enough to talk about them.”

“I bet you can’t name every character in Star Wars.”

“Alphabetically or in order of appearance.” He smirked smugly.

He blinked and the memory was gone. Y/N was gone and the emptiness returned. Spencer stood up, wanting to find something that would conjure another image of her. He wandered aimlessly around the office, slowly weaving in between desks. He opened the drawers of her old desk, but they had already been emptied. Her parents must have already cleaned it out.

Right. Her parents were here. He’d almost forgotten. They were here for the…

Somehow, he found himself standing in the break room in front of the empty coffee maker. He made himself a pot, not really thinking about his motions as he put the grounds in the filter and poured the water. It wasn’t until he imagined her hand on his arm that he felt anything at all.

“What are you doing?” He asked, an amused smile playing at his lips.

“I’m dancing.” You twirled to the other side of him, your playful laugh filling the small room.

“There isn’t any music playing.”

“Who said you need music to dance, Spence?” You took his hands and spun into him, giggling relentlessly. “Come on, dance with me.”

“Are you crazy? We’re at work.” He tried to sound stern, but he just laughed instead.

“So? Nobody will see us.” You put a hand on his shoulder and moved his arm around your waist. You both swayed to the music in your mind, your hearts somehow playing the same song. For a moment, you forgot where you were. You forgot that there was another horrific case awaiting you in the conference room and all that existed was you and the man that held you.

“Hey Y/N.”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.” It seemed now that the two of you were swaying to the sounds of your heartbeats. You blinked up at him, surprised at first, but soon a bright smile spread across your face.

“I love you too.”

This vision faded slower than the last, Y/N’s face staying until the last possible moment. His arms ached from the emptiness, his feet rocking back and forth like he was dancing all on his own.

“Reid.” Hotch’s voice halted the music in his mind. His voice was grimmer, almost sadder than it was before. “Are you ready to go?”

“Go?” He read Hotch’s expression. “Oh. Right. That’s today.” Hotch nodded and stood aside so Reid could pass by.

“I’ll drive you home so you can change.”

If I go, I’m goin crazy

Let my darlin take me there

It was a perfectly nice day, making him even more sick to his stomach. The sun was out and clouds lazily drifted across the sky. He wished it would have rained. At least then, the world would look like he felt; colorless and dark.

Y/N’s parents both shared a few words and Penelope did the eulogy. Spencer was sure it was nice, but he couldn’t focus enough to really hear any of the words. Hotch kept a close eye on him, though he tried not to be obvious about it. Spencer felt like everyone was watching him, waiting for his numb exterior to break. He knew they meant well, but he’d appreciate it if they were a little more subtle about it.

Somehow, the ceremony felt both eternal and over too quickly. Before he had even moved to put his rose on the coffin, it seemed like everyone was leaving. Maybe it was just him; frozen in time until he could bring himself to step forward. It still felt like everyone was staring at him. How many people even knew about him and Y/N? Maybe everyone, at this point. They were profilers after all and he hadn’t been abundantly subtle on that last case.

That last case.

Suddenly the rose in his hand was an arrow, bloody and splintered at one end. It fell between his fingers and hit the grass as a flower again. A petal fell off and he held it to his lips. Was he going insane? Was this what it would be like from now on? Everything reminding him of that last moment with her? With the blood and the arrow and the screaming?

With a slow, shaky hand, he placed the rose on the coffin. Someone put their hand on top of his, but when he turned, there wasn’t anyone there and suddenly, he felt something… peaceful. Something that told him that all he would need to remember were the good things. The smiles. The laughter. The dances in the breakroom. Despite every logical impulse in his mind, every scientific fact he knew by memory, he knew. It was her. Y/N.

Finally, he started to cry. The numbness was gone and allowed for emotion to finally come to light. Sobs shook his body and nearly made his knees buckle, but he made himself stand. He ran his fingers over the gleaming surface of the coffin and cried.

“I love you. I’ll always love you.”

He must have stood there like that for at least an hour, if not several, but when he turned around, he found his team- his family- waiting there for him. And they walked away together, always to remember the member that they lost. A friend. A sister. A lover. And Spencer would never forget you, as long as he lived.

I will go if you ask me to

I will stay if you dare

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination; @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks; @kendahl0216

Requested Tag: @ lolalee24; @ haylaansmi; @ obsssedwithjustaboutanything;

#dr spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds imagines #Jennifer Jereau #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #if i go i'm goin #song based imagine #Matthew Grey Gubler #angst #sad #character death

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lamelinam · 3 years

Text

The maid and the Cat, Ren and Akira: some musings

What gloomy love brightened the half-lives of the Sohmas’ most Cursed ones?

I often wonder what the relationship between the former Cat and his attendant would have looked like, twisted and sad as it must have been. Precious little is shown about those two, and only through Kazuma’s pov. We know she took care of and pitied the Cat, to the point that she even slept with him and bore his child. This is not unlike Kureno’s relationship with Akito. She might have treated him with the same kindness and devotion, distant, perhaps harmful, yet selfless.

Selfless? I think another way to extrapolate on the story of Kazuma’s grandparents is with Ren and Akira’s relationship.

Many great meta writers have already pointed out that those who fill in the positions at the extremes of the Sohma hierarchy, the Cat and God, or in this case the Cat and the idolized, deified family head, are foils to each other and are the ones that are dehumanized and isolated the most.

But now I think that you can also compare the way the previous Cat and Akira both chose ("chose" being a relative term in the case of the Cat) a romantic partner.

(Akira wasn’t God, but as the family head, he was worshipped just like Akito. His sickness also contributed to making him stand apart. Not only was he kept inside the compound because of his frailty, the hold that death had on him blessed him with this ephemeral, divine aura. “Was it the sorrow that befell him at such a young age that gave him that otherworldly beauty?»)

Both Kazuma’s grandfather and Akito’s father were doomed, Akira to die an early death, Kazuma’s grandfather to live the life of a living dead. Both were buried alive in the Sohma estate, either at the outskirts or at the center of it.

Both reached out to their progeny. (But Kazuma rejected the offered cake, and will endeavour to atone and honour his grandfather’s memory. Akito clung to every memento she had of her father and will need to learn to let go of him.)

And both the previous Cat and Akira found some measure of comfort in the affections and arms of their female caretakers, Sohma servants who saw their loneliness and expressed their compassion, though not in a particularly healthy way: Kazuma’s grandmother acting out of pity, Ren out of obsessive love.

It’s interesting to me how their respective position was reflected in their partners’ feelings : the imprisoned, despised Cat, Kazuma’s grandmother looked down on. The respected, otherworldly beautiful Akira was adored by Ren.

Kazuma sums up his grandparents’ relationship thusly:

Those correspond to the main "duties" that a wife is traditionally supposed to provide her husband.

The day-to-day caring.

Childbearing.

Attending their husband’s deathbed.

Obviously Ren wished she could have skipped the second one and be there for the last one. (I headcanon that she had prepared her last words years in advance, finding small pleasures and comfort, on the back of the wave of despair anticipating Akira’s death, in rehearsing the declarations of passionate love she would address to the dying man.)

The Cat’s companion attended her partner’s deathbed, seemingly very composed, even cold, as seen in Kazuma’s memories, while Ren, deprived of her husband’s last moments, that she felt were “stolen” from her by Akito (in reality by the maids :@), was mad with grief.

"The only one who can save him"

Those parallels make me wonder whether or not the Cat’s companion might not have developed a saviour complex, like Ren, both believing that they were the only one able to save this lonely, condemned person they were taking care of, and relishing it.

“I love you” vs "I pity you"

On Ren’s side though, it seems that she believes she truly saw Akira, as the person hiding behind that otherworldly aura, filled with sadness and fearful of death. Seeing that Akira agrees with her ("Ren noticed I was lonely"), fought against the Sohma leaders and regretted on his deathbed that he and Ren couldn’t reconcile, I believe this is not a delusion of hers. Her love was genuine and passionate, and she and Akira were happy. Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t survive her pregnancy, for she was also jealous and obsessed.

Kazuma supposes that his grandmother believed that she was doing something good. I wonder at her expression. It is shadowed, enigmatic. Is it a smirk or not, is she sad or not? i wonder whether she was selfless in her pity, like Kureno, or selfish like Kagura, perhaps feeling better by «sacrificing» herself in associating with the Cat for the sake of a miserable soul.

(Whatever you can say or imagine about her, Kazuma doesn’t seem to suffer from the stigma of being the Cat’s grandson, nor does he bear any trace of an abusive upbringing - in fact, he was among those doing the abusing - or even the echoes of the previous generation’s, so my guess is that she was an okay mother and grandmother... which would have made Kazuma’s disappointment and hurt at her words all the sharper... Like Tohru thinking of the zodiacs members she finds so kind and adorable secretly looking down on someone else she realizes she cares about more than she thought.)

There is no way to know how the Cat reacted to a pity-love. But considering Kureno and Akito’s relationship, this might also have been but a superficial balm, and potentially just as hurtful. Then it depends on the interpretation. Kureno’s pity cocooned Akito and kept her from moving forward, but the Cat was condemned anyway to an eternity of imprisonment. Moving forward was forbidden to him. And if his self-worth was already completely destroyed as his role and his treatment are meant to do, he might have just felt grateful towards the attendant. There’s no way to say for sure whether he would have been hurt or not by the truth, and I don’t know which option is the saddest!

... but I know what could be sadder. Because is the maid entirely to blame? We know that in Fruits Basket, love requires a measure of selfishness. The one cursed with the Cat has no self, no existence, no wants and no future, and they accept this fate. They believe they deserve it. (Which is why the Cat's Room doesn't need bars in the manga, nor locks. Rin was under lock and keys because either Akito didn't completely trust her to keep her word or she didn't want someone to discover her.)

It would be very difficult for someone to fall in love with a person who has renounced to everything, perhaps including love. Because who's to say that the Cat loved the maid too?

Recognition vs indifference

How depressingly fitting that we don't even learn the Cat's name, while Akira’s is remembered by all and echoes back and forth in the later part of the story.

Ren marrying the Sohma family head was such a big political deal it provoked a family schism. The Cat’s story with the maid gets completely ignored. It is probably known, just not "officially recognized", says Kazuma. Like everything related to the Cat, it was relegated to the back of the minds, in the dusty closet of the things that are uncomfortable to think about but that you tolerate if it doesn’t upend your little world-view. Ugh, some maid is being inappropriate with that monster! Well, as long as she doesn’t free the loathsome creature, who cares. (And she wouldn’t, because she’s no Tohru.)

In contrast, the maids of the main family thought that Ren was stealing Akira from their grasp. Ren didn’t seem to care for the family, and in a way, her love allowed Akira to also escape from them, "snatched away" by "that woman”, for the old attendant. Unlike the Cat’s attendant, Ren felt like a threat to the Sohma strict hierarchical system. (Fortunately, God will be born to bring back the right order of things, phew! Certainly she he will accomplish what Akira-san was momentarily too misguided to do and rid us of that woman!)

Inheritance.

Both women's profession of their true feelings deeply marked their progeny and the way they view relationship, whether personal or not, romantic or filial.

While her mother affirmed that "a woman only needs one man", Akito leaned on the love of the zodiacs ; Kazuma viewed and loved Kyo as a human and dreaded that his son would find himself in the same situation as his grandfather but also with the same kind of companionship. (His reaction to Kagura speaks of a long-held anxiety). But Ren's hatred for Akito coloured the way Akito interpreted her words, while Kazuma’s grandmother’s declaration shook Kazuma, his personal relationship with his grandmother notwithstanding.

This comparison isn't about good or evil, neither to judge those characters. Furuba isn’t about that. Obviously, they are not blameless. But it is very difficult to say whether or not Kazuma’s grandmother was wrong to act out of pity if it provided a bit of comfort to a prisoner. And is it surprising that Ren developed this saviour’s complex when it seems she was the only one willing to breach Akira’s isolation bubble?

Anyway, Takaya-sensei is really good at making foils. Either because she does it on purpose or because her characters are so deeply intertwined with the themes of the series the parallels appear on their own. But in this case, I don’t think it’s for nothing that the chapters recounting Ren and the Cat’s attendant stories follow each other (chapters 114 and 115).

Of course, this meta is less an analysis and more suppositions and conjectures (frankly, I wonder if I might not as well have written a fanfic). From the little we see, the Cat’s companion and Ren work as distorted yin-yang mirrors, their differences highlighting the similarities of their situations, from the ugly effects of the inner workings of the Sohma cult to the messed up inner workings of the heart. Genuine but obsessed, jealous love... Pity, perhaps self-serving, in the guise of martyred love.... One thing I can say for sure is that these two both gave me chills in their own way.

#ren sohma #cat's companion #the cat spirit #zodiacs #fruits basket #fruits basket manga #fruits basket season 3 #fruits basket meta #love vs pity #meta #akito sohma #akira sohma #kazuma sohma

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missinghan · 4 years

Text

caged in this lullaby ⤖ lee felix

❖ genre : assassin au; cop au; action; fluff; angst

❖ word count : 7,2k.

❖ warning : explicit language, mentions of blood, arson & violence

❖ summary : felix ultimately lets go of all and allows himself to drown in the ashes of bitter tragedy to see what stays. the last thing he’d expect is a stranger with his greatest secret.

❖ dedicated to @blueprint-han : a continuation of aria of an assassin. song used — the lullaby by sophism, all credits to the owner.

prologue.

Fire cares not for the time it vanishes, only that it gives the world heat and light.

The entire building burns deeply in red, orange, and yellow. The cries of the neighborhood echoes into the night with sirens blaring in the background. Your frozen figure can only watch in terror as glowing embers dance and twirl, searing through the ground, ripping through the roof in despair. Tendrils of smoke are reaching into the sky desperately as if attempting to escape the blazing inferno below.

“Kid, I wanna have Chinese for dinner today.”

“Okay, and I should care because…?”

“Because I’m housing your ungrateful ass.”

No. No!

You drop the plastic bags in your hand, your muscles move before your mind can register what’s happening. The next thing you know, you’re racing to the heart of danger, utterly unfazed about the fact that fire is the most beautiful weapon of them all. Powerful. Destructive. Heartless. In mere moments, everything you love can be reduced into nothing but sheer ashes.

“But we always have Chinese!”

“Who’s paying again? Was it you? No, I don’t think so.”

Tears blur your vision and you elect to ignore every white noise buzzing at the back of your head. Each step you take is rather a negotiation than an order. Your limbs move like they never belonged to you. This agony has an unpleasant warmth to it, eating at your stomach and searing inside your rib cage. Your body concedes to the torment, unable to bring a single thought into consideration. The entirety of your existence yearns to curl into something fetal, something primeval, and all while the pain burns and radiates.

“Officer! Stop her! She’s running into the fire!”

“Child! What are you doing?! It’s dangerous!”

But what you’re going through is nothing compared to his torment. He’s in there. Writhing and suffering alone. It must be so painful, so cold despite the enraged flames around him.

When a strong pair of arms slip around your body and every motion comes to a stop, there is a scream of the mouth and lungs, the sound of his name lingers on the tip of your tongue. Because a response is impossible, there comes a scream of the eyes and soul, the kind that bypasses the ears and speaks right to the heart.

You forget how to scream from that day on because you are either left with dead silence or punished with cruelty.

Because you couldn’t save him.

one.

The housekeeper wakes with a tight knot in her stomach. Her body topples the sheets over to reach for her nightstand, flickering on some source of light. Only silence accompanies the hard throbbing inside her chest until a loud thud comes from the hallway. Her body jolts up instantly, a hand over her chest as a soft string of melody saunters into the emptiness of the night.

“When the night is falling, and you have lost your way.”

Her quivering figure quickly exits her room with a flashlight. Her right hand clutches at her other one as an attempt to stop the shaking as adrenaline sears through her vessels. With dreaded steps, the housekeeper manages to reach the staircase, approaches the end of it, and proceeds toward the living room.

“When the rain is storming, and your world’s turned to gray.”

The voice smoothly slips through the chilling nightfall like an allure yet there’s nothing musical about it. The lullaby sometimes goes off-tune or comes out in broken waves as though whoever’s singing genuinely doesn’t care. They sound more dead than angry, more tired than irate, making her innards shift uneasily.

“When the wolves await outside, and you feel like you’ve nowhere to hide.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, just remember. Remember when I said.”

And they stop. The housekeeper musters up every bit of courage left. A breath in. A breath out.

In the darkroom, even the ticking clock has a relaxed feeling, as if it’s merely a heart-beat at rest. She feels as though the air moves like cool water and the aroma of the house owner’s scented candles infuse her far more deeply than it did in the light of day. The hollow space is etched with charcoal, the fabrics are muted hues as if they too await dawn to ignite their colors for all to see. The moment she heaves a sigh of relief, her eyes make the mistake of averting to the ceiling, unveiling a scene of unimaginable terror.

Fear floods her system, it pumps and beats like it’s trying to escape. Her heart might as well explode right now because even her jaw is shaking non-stop. Her body urges her to either run fast, away from the horror laid out flat in front of her eyes, or to stay quiet and do the right thing, calling the police. But instead, she remains where she’s standing.

There is Mr. Yuuki, the house owner she’s been working for over three years, hung upon the crystal chandelier. His limp body lets its limbs stick out awkwardly, white eyes rolled to the back of his head as blood drips to the floor, forming a dark pool. The flashlight drops to the floor, and so does her trembling gaze. She gasps sharply when a thick smear of crimson is splattered across the wooden tiles, sinking into the cracks like poison.

Her adrenaline surges so fast she almost vomits, she can taste saliva thickening in her throat and beads of sweat trickling down on her forehead. At some point, she’ll have to move and risk the chance of getting herself killed.

Just then, a shadow comes into view and her legs go weak, letting her body collapse to the ground like a crooked puppet. Incoherent pleas pour from her lips as she screws her eyes shut, bracing herself for whatever comes next. “Please! I’ll do anything! I won’t call the police! Just don’t kill me, please! Please!”

Footsteps are advancing toward her, getting louder by the tick of the clock. They echo listlessly until the sound slowly fades away, only a soft response comes afterward.

“Greetings to his boss for me.”

two.

The mansion has been his home for decade upon decade, embraced by nature on the outskirts of the city, away from all the noises, the buzzing flow of time people have signed their souls up for. It is all concrete and tall glass windows that give overlooking views of the clear horizon, a chance to relax and take in the changing of the seasons from the comfort of an easy chair.

Yet coming from the hollow building is a strange sound, a melodic voice of pain and sorrow, of heartache and loss. The tune is soft, like grass on a summer day, or the tenderness in the air in which only spring possesses. It can fill one with warmth while weaving a sad tale of indescribable, rather forgotten memories.

“Darling, close your weary eyes. Everything will be fine.”

“Let the breeze wipe away your tears. There is no need to cry.”

He’s seated at the edge with his back straight, he no longer feels dwarfed by the grand piano as he used to as a kid. His fingers are limber as they glide on ivory first and ebony after, his neck slightly bent down, tousling his hair to the front while his eyes flutter shut in serene.

“You can lay down. No one will hurt you.”

The music stand lies empty, has been so for years. He only ever reads the notes within his mind because he goes as far as playing the instrument to this day for this peculiar lullaby. Slowly, the music seems to fill the room to the brim, then spills out through doors and windows and the cracks in the walls, while at the source trembling fingers dance sweetly on.

He knows that he needs to calm down.

“Let your fears be carried by the streams. The twilight gleam watches over you.”

In his head, he reads through the music scrupulously as though he’s practicing during the old, innocent days, beat by beat, bar by bar, note by note. His fingers know precisely where to go and how each key reacts when he applies the same, adequate amount of pressure. It’s as though he can make the hammer hit each string in a way to resonate with the most beautiful of sounds.

The thought of playing as a kid eases the spike in his heartbeat and clears his mind. He can still vividly remember the first time he got lifted onto the bench on his sixth birthday, his tiny legs dangled over the edge and his figure completely overwhelmed by the mammoth-sized instrument. His arms could barely span the length of the keyboard, his feet could only do so much as graze the pedal below.

“And when the morning arises…”

He recalls the mounts of sheets cluttering his father’s old bookshelves in such ways that he himself can’t remember their initial color. He recalls the tall figure seating beside him each time, guiding his hands across the keys, ones that were unfamiliar to music and the swell it can bring to one’s chest. He recalls those starry eyes staring down at him, the outburst of laughter, and the cat-like smile that brings love and harmony to his fragile soul.

“I shall be by your side…”

Yet he never recalls a proper goodbye, only tears.

“Minho.”

The melody pauses sharply, his body stiffens at the name. Minho isn’t here.

“Minho, is that you?” Minho isn’t here, a voice inside him snaps.

A deep breath. He elects to ignore the strings that are bound to break inside his chest before pushing himself off the wooden bench. With a swift turn, he sees Mrs. Lee standing by the door with her hair in her face, her soulless eyes lighting up once they graze the sight of him. “Minho, my sweet child. You’ve come home. You’ve finally come home!” Her voice echoes in joy, a hand clamped over her mouth as her eyes brim with tears.

Minho isn’t here! His heart yells aloud, yet his mind can’t comply.

He doesn’t know what’s urging him to approach her, to let her lean on him. Perhaps, it’s guilt. Or the yearning for the warmth of a mother who abandoned him long ago. “Yes, mother, I’m home,” he sighs softly when she clutches at his shirt. “I’m never going to leave you again.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here.”

Hurried footsteps flood the hallway rapidly until the housekeeper barges through the door, simply breaking the agonizing silence. “Good gracious, Mrs. Lee! Goodness, she must have forgotten about her sleeping pills again.” She then hastily rushes to his side, supporting Mrs. Lee by her waist while bowing continuously. “Young Master, please, allow me.”

“It’s alright, you’ve done enough,” he waves his hands with a small smile. “I’ll tuck her back to bed, today is my day off anyway. You may go home and rest now.”

He can’t forget how much lighter Mrs. Lee has gotten, how paler her face has been. He’s afraid that one wrong movement and he might send her frail body flying to the floor. Only when she’s fully covered by her blanket, the stars come out to play and the evening takes on the aroma of a breezy night. He likes this, the softness, the quietness of the sense of resting. Moonlight is streaming through the windows yet his mind, clouded with grey, throbs uncontrollably when he realizes the sudden pang inside his chest.

It’s been fifteen years…

His phone rings. “Sergeant Lee Felix, Seoul P.D,” he keeps his voice from shaking. Suddenly, his eyes grow wide. “I’ll be there.”

And I still couldn’t do anything for you.

three.

Light fog seeps into the depthless night when Felix exits his car, throwing on his blazer in a hurry as he staggers toward a water fountain. There’s barely any vehicles operating at this hour, leaving the streets chilling and empty. He quickly checks his watch one last time. One AM on the dot. Another sleepless night.

“Lix! Over here!”

His blank expression breaks into a grin when two familiar faces come into view. “Changbin? Hyunjin? You both got called in too?”

“Yeah, can’t believe the Chief had the audacity to interrupt my beauty sleep for a simple homicide,” the taller officer, Hyunjin, has his face contorted in faint annoyance, brushing through his long locks of hair with his gloved hand.

“The night duty squad is handling another case on the other side of the city. We know the neighborhood like the back of our hands,” Changbin gives him a hard smack on the chest, only to wince quietly later to himself. Ugh, I’m so out of shape. “If anything, we have the best chance to catch up to the culprit.”

Hyunjin protests with a forced smile, “Shut up, Lieutenant, I know that.”

“Alright, let’s review,” Felix hops into the conversation, clasping his hands together in feigned excitement. “Someone dialed 911 with a murder case on the line. The culprit, escaped or not, we’re still uncertain of. But they did leave behind a witness.”

His coworkers nod simultaneously as he recaps what Seungmin told him on the phone earlier and the three of them find themselves standing right before the provided address. The house seems oddly quiet for someone getting murdered. “Right, chances are they’re still in there. We’d better-”

The front door comes flying open. A woman dressed in her nightgown collapses to the ground instantly, fear echoing through the rumble of her voice. “Help! P-Please! Mr. Yuuki! He-He’s dying! Please, I beg you! Save him!” With her face buried in her hands, a wave of laughter bubbles up her windpipe, shaking her core tremendously. “They did it again! They’ve claimed another victim!”

Changbin is the first one to step up, helping the housekeeper to her feet. “Miss, please try your best to stay calm. Everything is alright now, we’re here because you did the right thing of calling us. You’re safe with us,” he gently supports her by the shoulders, his voice soft but serious. “If it’s okay for me to ask, what exactly happened to Mr. Yuuki? Is there anyone else inside?”

The housekeeper seems to still be shaken. Tears are threatening to fall but she bites them back, shaking her head to answer the second question first. “N-No, Mr. Yuuki has a son but he’s currently studying in Europe so I’m the only one other than…”

Her voice trails off, the pools of tears in her eyes are clouded with those moments of horror she wishes she could erase forever. “It was horrible! I-I was having trouble sleeping before a strange sound woke me up completely. Someone was singing. Th-The culprit was singing. And there was s-so much blood. Mr. Yuuki was hung upon the chandelier when I went downstairs! So-So much blood. I didn’t know how- or why- I- I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“Miss, please try to stay calm. I won’t ask you any more questions, I am not here to interrogate you,” Changbin exhales deeply, looking over at his underlings. “Hyunjin, go check up on Mr. Yuuki. Felix, look for the culprit. I’ll call Seungmin for more back-ups.”

The two officers comply, “Roger that.”

Entering the house, Felix is bathed in a whirlwind of chilling silence and utter darkness. The smell of blood makes something inside him twitch, prompting him to look over at his friend. “I’ll go upstairs, you stay down here and handle the body until Jisung or Seungmin comes.”

The Sergeant advances up the long flight of stairs with his gun clutched between his hands. Almost immediately, he takes notice in the stream of moonlight illuminating the end of the hallway and rushes toward the wide-opened door. His figure barges into the room with caution and is met with the night breeze kissing his face and white curtains fluttering gently.

Just then, a loud bang is heard in the distance.

Felix feels himself tense up, eyes darting from one place to another in hopes of finding- there! On the rooftop from across the streets.

In a heartbeat, he picks up his transceiver and speaks, “I have eyes on the suspect. Pursuing on foot.” With his feet on the window frame and his arms on the tiles of the roof, he manages to lift himself while his muscles contract in pain. Facing forward, Felix begins to sprint.

The wind screams into his ears, his feet flying over steel and leaves. His shoes pound heavily across the hard surface, causing what’s remaining of the downpour this morning to slash up his legs. From one rooftop to another, his calves burn tremendously yet he keeps darting past houses, buildings, and trees with his eyes glued onto the shadow before his eyes.

Adrenaline courses throughout his system; he can feel his whole body working, his leg muscles running warm, a thin layer of sweat covers his nape. The cold air keeps biting at his blood and lungs but he keeps his breaths as steady as he can, pushing harder and going faster. For a split moment, his foot slips when his mind is frantic with cloudy thoughts. How is it possible for one to move this fast?

The hooded figure a few feet ahead of him speaks volumes in the silence; they’re running. They’re running like the devil himself is in pursuit. Only it’s worse because the felon is flesh and blood and means to send people straight to hell just the same way. His breathing quickens at the thought process, trying to appease his need for oxygen.

Several thuds of footfalls later, he finally decreases the proximity although fresh air now shocks his lungs, making him want to spurt and pass out in exhaustion. His body trembles from the consistent pace he’s forced himself into, yet his hands lift the firearm swiftly, his gaze shaking with the pounding inside his chest.

It only takes so much strength to pull the trigger. He shouldn’t be hesitating like this. Felix stops himself completely, regains his composure, and raises his gun once again. He elects to ignore the blood roaring in his ears, the throbbing of his anxious heart, and squeezes the trigger.

The bullet cuts through air and comes flying toward the wanted figure, missing them by a strand of hair. His face contorts in anger as he mumbles out a curse word. He missed. He shouldn’t have. He can’t miss. Missing isn’t an option.

Felix pumps his legs, gaining momentum with each push. But it feels gut-wrenching all of a sudden after a few thrusts forward—his body is giving in. He watches the culprit quicken their pace until their steps turn into leaps. Just a few more feet and they’ll jump the other side of the neighborhood.

He won’t make it in time.

Three. Two. One. The figure gathers enough strength and takes one final leap into the night. His heart immediately drops to the pit of his stomach, every movement comes to a full stop like the sudden stretch of silence within his rib cage.

“Shit!” He perks up at the scream and glass shattering. “Ow! Ah! Ouch! Ugh…” And...dogs barking?

“Oh come on!”

four.

His feet slip outwards on the wet autumn leaves as he rounds the corner, his breaths coming out in spurts, hot and nervous as he inhales deeper, faster. With each footfall, a jarring pain shoots ankle to knee, ankle to knee. Perhaps jumping off someone’s rooftop in a time crunch wasn’t the smartest decision.

“Give me a break. Do you have any idea how much time it took me to outrun those dogs?”

“I won’t let you slip away. It’s best for either party if you cooperate. Don’t do anything foolish and mercy might be an option,” Felix clicks a bullet into the chamber, gaze falling onto the hooded figure.

In the dim light that oozes through a narrow gap lies the alleyway. It's the underworld of any town: gloomy and unpleasant. Darkness is lurking in every corner inside the labyrinth of narrow passages and dead ends. Litter is dumped on the street and birds nest amongst the sprawling rot. Moonlight lights up the pathway for him, making it easier to back the felon up into the corner.

“One more step, officer, I dare you.” A warning like poison pours into his ears.

Although something seems different this time. They sound more frantic. Is there something that’s bothering them? “You just committed murder, you filthy scumbag. One more step, I dare you.”

“Oh, you’re so unoriginal,” they clutch their right arm and chuckle lightly. Felix squints his eyes with the limited source of light; inevitably, they go wide upon seeing crimson dripping to the ground. But as the second ticks by, less and less blood pour from the wound as though the muscles and skin are simultaneously closing up the seams.

What the hell am I looking at?

A smirk. “Don’t mind if I do.”

What are they... Wait, shit-

At the kind of speed he never thought humans could acquire, the hooded figure approaches him in what seems like seconds. The sudden whiplash blows the hood back and allows them to bathe in the moonlight raw.

“Say, what are you going to do with a filthy scumbag like me again?” Something sharp and shiny comes into contact with the warmth of his flesh but he can’t bring himself to register or counter it.

Your features flash before his eyes, glowing from within, leaving him in complete awe. Although you’re talking nothing but venom, pain is evident in the crease of your lovely brows and the way your lips are pressed into a straight line. Your eyes are deep pools of restless gold, an ocean of hopeless grief. There’s something so damn familiar about you. Felix almost finds himself resonating within your agony. He almost gasps.

In this growing light, your dark silhouette becomes full colors.

But why aren’t you moving? He’s completely open like this.

“You!” Your voice suddenly trembles and so do your pupils. “You-You’re-”

Snapping back to his senses, Felix leaves no time for you to finish your sentence and grabs your armed limb with one hand while striking a harsh blow at your stomach with the other. You let out a hushed wince at the impact, falling to the cement ground along with the blade in your palm. He swiftly flips you over, cuffs your hands, and puts his gun at the back of your head.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

“Oh, spare me, Robin,” you involuntarily snort. “I’ll be gone before you can finish reading my rights.”

He nearly sneers, “Move an inch and I’ll put a bullet through your head. Your hands are cuffed, don’t you try to make your face worse than it already is.”

“I’m an Ace, darling. It’d be insulting if a pair of handcuffs and your scrawny little ass could stop me.”

His grip on the gun grows a fraction tighter, his heart starts beating faster at the name. “You work for the House of Cards?” The name rolls off his tongue bitterly, leaving a lick of fury consuming the rational side of his brain.

House of Cards—thieves, terrorists, assassins, dealers—the largest criminal organization that has been the dread of the country for decades. Just like the playing cards, the organization consists of four main groups: Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts, and Spades. The Kings and Queens lead these groups for they’re either new or incompetent for the higher ranks. The Jacks come second in commanding and are often advisors while the Jokers remain anonymous to all as messengers. The four Aces are the most trusted by the chairman and only take orders from him themselves.

“I do,” you reply flatly, a sigh going unnoticed. “Shouldn’t you be fleeing by now upon receiving this information?”

“A murder. A gunshot right across the street. A living witness,” he grits with a timid smile. “All that and you call yourself an Ace? We’ve encountered worse than amateurs like you. You’ll be rotting behind the bars before you know it.”

“I like your optimism, officer. Genuinely, it's a blessing for you to bring us light in this time of darkness,” you turn sideways, smirk, and make sure that he sees it. “Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes.”

Something inside him snaps, water overflows the cup and he instantly grabs you by your head, burying it further into dust and cement. “I don’t know who you think you are. But you clearly don’t know what I’m capable of and the fact that I will stop at nothing to bring your boss down. I will make him face justice as you’re hearing it from the news in prison. I’ve promised. I’ve sworn.”

“Oh?” You dare to glance at him again. “I never knew cops detested my boss so much. Or is it just you? Is your hatred personal? You’ve broken a protocol from the get-go, haven’t you? Is it the reason why you even became an officer in the first place?”

Shit, Felix curses inwardly as your words stab him in the chest, twisting the tip of the blade deeper and deeper as though you’re not allowing him to breathe properly. His hands start shaking; the vibration against your nape makes you exhale, drawing yet another grin on your lips. “Tell me, who did they kill?”

To hell would he ever tell you.

“A family member?” Focus.

“Your loved one?” Cover your ears.

“Or a close friend, perhaps?” One wrong move.

His shaking freezes midway, his voice comes out monotonous. “Shut up.” And you’ll die.

“Bingo,” you feign excitement before clearing your throat. “Also, I wouldn’t pull the trigger if I were you. Because I am your best asset to get to my boss. You and I aren’t so different, trust me. After all, we both want his head.”

He yelps in surprise when you twist your back slightly, swinging your arm and elbowing his jaw while disarming him simultaneously. With a swing of your leg, he loses his balance on the knees and lands harshly on his back.

With your knife pointed at his neck, your orbs bore onto his like you’re about to set him on fire. He gulps nervously, “What? How did you?”

“Listen up, I have a deal for you.”

You were injured, how could you risk tearing your wound up like that? His chest rises then falls inconsistently, eyes darting to your forearm. It’s no longer bleeding. There’s no way!

“...what are you?”

“Call me what you want. Murderer. Killer. An assassin. A monster.”

Felix squirms under your grip, spatting in aggression, “If so, you’re daydreaming if you have the audacity to believe that I will get my hands bloodied with you.”

“I’m not telling you to pick a side, officer. I’m just trying to say that I know something you don’t and you know something I don’t. If we pool our information we might actually have a good shot at capturing the bastard. If you brought me back to headquarters now, I’d escape either way and you’d get nothing from me. But if you pretend like our encounter never happens, you’ve got yourself a new partner.”

“What feud do you have with your boss so bad that you’re willing to work with a police officer like me?”

“I never considered him as my boss. I never considered the organization as a place that I belonged to. No one knows who the leader is. I’ve been tracking him down for years already.”

“...what? That’s-“

“They killed someone very important to me, too.”

five.

Chan murmurs tiredly at the knock on his door, “Who’s there?”

“Sergeant Lee’s present to report on the assassin from last night, Chief.”

“Come in.”

Chan fixes his collar as Felix closes the door shut, strides straight into his office, and collapses on the nearest armchair. Usually, he’d be complaining about the lack of sunlight in the Chief’s working space. Because like any other civil office, there are enough windows for one not to choke to death but Chan has made a habit of keeping them close. Now, he decides to open the blinds and lets the light in completely, prompting Felix to throw an arm over his eyes dramatically.

“Shut it. The lights are killing me,” he groans aloud, forehead creasing in frustration. Focus.

Chan says pointedly, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms, “But you look like shit.”

“Of course I look like shit. You should try chasing down an Ace yourself some time. Really, it’s been a pleasant distraction from my unfinished paperwork and impotent stress,” the junior officer mumbles, dropping his arm and staring blankly at the space ahead.

“Yeah, I’ve heard,” Chan sighs, sitting back. “It just makes sense, you know. Yuuki and his neighbor were moles the Yakuza planted in that filthy organization. No wonder their leader had to send one of the four Aces to finish him off.”

Felix closes his eyes for a moment, resting his arms on his knees, the muscles are still aching from last night’s incident. His fingers unconsciously reach for his bare neck, tracing the shallow cut as goosebumps bubble upon his skin. Focus. “Enough being mopey,” Chan grins and slaps something cold against his cheek, causing his friend to jolt up in surprise. “Aren’t you here to report?”

He flashes Felix a cheeky smile when the younger clenches the cold towel on his face in annoyance. Nonetheless, there’s a twinge of faint nostalgia and affection lighting up inside his stomach—the kind that comes from long-time friends. “Alright, I gotta come back to my desk before Changbin goes off about my productivity anyway.”

“Good, elaborate,” Chan whips out a pen with his crusty notebook, eyes narrowing and turning serious.

“The Ace escaped,” Felix starts, “After checking in with Yuuki’s housekeeper, Hyunjin and I went inside the house. He handled the body while I was heading upstairs. I pursued them as soon as I heard the gunshot from across the streets. I only managed to wound them from afar, but it’s not enough to slow them down. They were too fast so I was outpaced at the end.”

The Chief raises a dark brow, eyeing the cut on his throat, “I can see that you’re injured, too. Did they shoot you? Seungmin only found a semi-auto pistol next to the second victim.”

“No… I did this to myself during the chase,” Felix touches his wound again, gulping, “They only carried a knife, of all the things.” Don’t be obvious. You can’t risk getting them to suspect you.

“You couldn’t get close enough to see if we’re dealing with a man or a woman, right?” Chan then casts a meaningful look at the mountain of unfiled paperwork upon his desk, feigning interest in the light reading that awaits him for the rest of the day.

“Unfortunately, no. They have a good physique, clearly well-trained and more skilled than the little fries we’d managed to throw behind the bars,” Felix shakes his head, eventually pushing himself off the black armchair. “What about the housekeeper? According to what I’m able to recall, she did, in fact, see the Ace.”

Chan wants to scream at the mention, fingers massaging his temples. “That woman is far too traumatized to even speak a word right now. She’s been giving Seungmin headaches all morning.”

“Yeah, about that...sorry, I couldn’t be more helpful,” Felix bites his lips as he can feel his own lies suffocating the space around him, filling his lungs with water and squeezing at his windpipe. He needs to get the fuck out of here.

The Chief chuckles lightly and waves his hands, “No, no, we’re all kinda impressed, actually. No one has ever been able to propose a mere chase with them before. It’s already a miracle that you came back alive.”

His heart instantly sinks, his fists curl up unconsciously. Felix could have died. He should have died last night. But you hesitated. Why? Why would you spare him? And why were you looking at him like that? “Hey.” A hand on his shoulder snaps him out of it. “Don’t worry about it. You should take a day off today. You look unwell.”

“But-”

A figure lands soundlessly on Chan’s balcony, swiftly turning around to face Felix.

His brain stutters for a moment and his eyes take in more light than they should, still, they widen when shock riddles his senses. Every part of his body tries to catch up and his thoughts go on a dreadfully long pause. It’s you. Standing in broad daylight without anything to cover up. Distanced a few feet from his grasp.

One shout and you’ll be cuffed in mere moments. It’d be insulting if a pair of handcuffs and your scrawny little ass could stop me. His precinct has been desperate, ramming into one dead-end after another for a single lead to House of Cards.

Felix can turn you in right here. Right now. If you brought me back to headquarters now, I’d escape either way and you’d get nothing from me.

“That is an order, Sergeant,” Chan grins, not noticing how pale his friend has gotten in such mere moments. “You’ll collapse the moment you head out for patrol, trust me.”

“No, Chan! You don’t understand, I-”

“Do it,” you mouth, sealing his lips instantly.

“I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. I’ll take a nap in the infirmary.” You slap on a devilish smile at his words, wiggling your phone high enough for him to see.

As soon as Felix closes the door behind him, the spike in his heartbeat finally falls with the stiff smile on his face, his breaths short and uneven. The urge to punch something is cut short when his phone vibrates timely. A message from an unknown number: “Ten PM. The waterfall in Yellow Woods. You’ve got one chance.”

six.

Felix has underestimated the cold since nightfall. His muscles ache and shiver all at the same time, momentarily yelling at him to turn around to head back to the comfort of his family’s mansion. Yet the dark Yellow Woods seems to silence time and space, only leaving him with the urge to march forward.

He lied to Chan about your encounter, lied to Changbin so he wouldn’t have to go on his night shift, lied to Hyunjin that he’d go home and rest like his friend always told him to. Humans have been taught not to lie but deception still exists and one cannot escape its grasp. Even Felix never knew there would be a day where he’d become this desperate. Just thinking about it makes him want to vomit, utterly disgusted.

Clutching his gun tightly, he begins walking faster into the light fog.

“My my, look who it is.” His frantic steps come to a halt, his head snapping back immediately. “Someone was so hellbent on giving me a headshot the last time we met. What changed?”

Felix raises a brow in confusion. “What the- Didn’t you ask me to meet up at the waterfall?”

“The waterfall is the other way, you fool,” you jerk your head back, clearly unimpressed.

“Cut me some slack, my phone was dead! Wait, how did you- were you stalking me?!”

You can’t help but stifle a chuckle; his face is priceless. “Tracking sounds more appropriate, don’t you think?”

“You-”

“You’d better pick up the pace if you want to survive this little partnership of ours, officer.”

Eventually, he complies and stumbles through the woods with you, his feet feeling like they’re being dragged across cement. During the day, Yellow Woods is alight with the serenity one yearns for at their lowest, birds chirping and leaves rustling to one united song of Mother Nature. In contrast, it is now hollow, colorless, almost empty to a sense with all this darkness around him.

“I never said that we had a deal,” Felix says while trailing after you, cautious not to trip over any branches.

You turn around for a meager moment, giving him that sly grin of yours. “Suppose that you do, we need a contract. Some simple protocols between comrades. What do you expect from me? Keep it simple. Excessive details bore the shit out of me.”

“First, no with-holding information. If you know something, I need to know it and vice versa. Second, no personal questions. I don’t want you in my life nor do I want me getting my hands dirty with you.”

You hum in response, “Hmm, short and sweet. But I have my own as well.”

He gulps, “Go on.”

“I don’t work with dogs. I don’t care if it’s licensed as emotional support. I won’t hesitate to shoot if you even let one do so much as breathe in the same room as me.”

“...that makes way too much sense.” So that explains why-

“What about you? Afraid of the dark?”

“I wasn’t born this morning.”

To the East lies the waterfall you’ve mentioned this morning, which you lead him down a dirt road and right behind it, straight into a small cave. There are two paths diverged that catch him by surprise but there’s nothing he can do other than taking the left side, hastily following the source of light from your phone. Your final destination unveils before his eyes as a small, underground lair.

Felix suddenly feels cold for no reason. “How do you even sleep?” He scrunches his nose while rubbing his hands together.

“I don’t,” you say without looking at him, exhaling and shrugging off your coat. “Make yourself at home. I’ll go heat up some tea before you freeze to death.”

Not knowing what to do with himself, his eyes roll around the seemingly confined but commodious space in curiosity. Your working desk is as big as the one in the conference back at headquarters, mounted with an overwhelming amount of files. To the right, the wall is lined with weapons, target boards, and rag dolls; you seem to prefer blades over firearms. The whole place is lighted up with candles all around, giving it that eerie feeling like something straight out of an old movie.

Still, not bad.

His careless feet drag him across the concrete, subconsciously reaching out for the files on your desk. He can’t fight the urge, he can’t resist it. Before his mind can register and his conscience can yell at him, the plastic binder is already yanked open. Experiment #180108–Y/N, it reads. “What the hell… Enhanced strength and agility… Instant self-healing… Metamorphosis? Is this what they’ve been doing under our noses all this time?”

“No, only my parents.” Your voice snaps him out of it, prompting him to drop the files. “Your office was giving me anxiety, by the way. Thank god for home sweet home.”

“What the hell were you doing in my-“ A dagger flies past his head, missing him by a strand of hair and ending up embedding itself on the bull’s eye of a nearby target. “Daughter of a bastard,” he breathes out in disbelief, eyes boring holes on you. “What kind of tea was that?!”

“Lee Felix. Only son of the Prime Minister. Ranked Sergeant at the eighth precinct, Seoul P.D. The precious heir to one of the five great families.” Words leave you. You only stare into those bright, brown eyes burning with anger, his heart almost falling silent. “Gosh, you’ve got quite the profile. Shouldn’t you be worried about the image of your family instead of shaking hands with the devil like this?”

Felix clenches his jaw, everything is slow and warbled as he looks down, shaking violently. “And yet you still thought I’d be crazy enough to make a deal with an Ace?”

“You’re not crazy,” you sigh, grinning internally. “Just extremely desperate-“

“I am not desperate!” A lie spats out, leaving him with a bitter aftertaste. “I have no reason to be.” Focus.

A mocking shrug. “Right, you’re not desperate. You just followed me all the way here without taking out your gun or rambling on with your boring death threats. Like a little, perfect pet. Exactly what I needed.”

“Death threats don’t work on monsters,” he croaks, fists balled and eyes wide. Even so, the way you gaze darken still goes unnoticed. “I’ve seen your kind kill anyone without hesitation. Getting blood on your hands without even blinking. You, all of you, aren’t humans anymore. You’re all a complete write-off of a species.”

Felix lifts his head, pupils trembling at the sight in front of him. For a moment there, you look sad and broken. Raw, naked, and vulnerable like the rest of humanity. It makes him ponder, how can humans be so weak yet so cruel at the same time?

“...why? Why are you doing this?” he inquires shakily, head racing with a thousand thoughts. “I don’t understand. Actually, there’s a lot that I don’t understand about you.” No! Focus, you idiot!

“You don’t have to.” Finally, you speak after the long dread of silence, combing a hand through your hair tiredly. “You know. It’s funny how the same thing happened to us. And now look at where we ended up individually.”

His brain pauses and chokes up. “What are you saying?” Cover your ears. Do not be misled!

You look away, simply knowing that you won’t be able to hold it in if you’re making eye contact. “I know you’re not the rightful heir of the Lees. You weren’t part of the bloodline in the first place. You’re simply a replacement. A second option. Nothing but an afterthought-“

“No! Shut up! Just shut u-“ Cover your ears. Do not trust anyone!

“—the real heir supposedly went missing during the Eiji Station tragedy where my organization ordered a bombing fifteen years ago. It’s been over a decade and they’ve already concluded his death even though a body was never found. Am I right, officer?”

Choose the wrong path.

Felix buries his face into the palms of his hands as streaks of silvery tears burn his cheek. His exhausted shoulders shake in each rake of emotion through his frame, the fire of anger and despair boils past the seams he can no longer hold together. With his knees weak, he can only sob and drops down on his knees, screaming with all his might.

And you’ll die.

But even you, the devil itself, can’t save the man who’s drowning himself in his own tears of hell.

“Welcome to the team. The name is Y/N,” you offer him a hand, blankly eyeing his quivering figure. He finally picks himself up with difficulties, eyes glowing with tears and fury. After a split moment of hesitation, his hand reaches for yours, firmly clasped and sealing your deal.

Because he’s falling down the same bottomless abyss with you.

Because you both couldn’t save him. You couldn’t save Minho.

epilogue.

__ fifteen years ago

“Hey, Minho, you’re really good at playing the piano. Are you gonna be a musician?”

“Hmm, I do like music. But I’d rather become a police officer.

“Why? Didn’t you say that you like music?”

“I’ll become anything for my mother.”

“Then, I’ll be a doctor when I grow up! And we can save people together.”

“Okay. It’s a promise, Lix.”

168 notes · View notes

sagamemes · 4 years

Text

the sheridan tapes 📼 part one. here and under the cut, you can find a little under 120 lines of dialogue from the horror podcast the sheridan tapes, specifically from episodes one to three, edited for roleplay purposes. tw: police, murder, supernatural elements, mentions of apocalyptic scenarios, near death experiences, injuries, vehicular crash, recreational drug and alcohol use.

❝ jesus, [name]. you’re not making this easy, are you? ❞

❝ makes you wonder... do these things follow me because i chase them, or were they always following me? ❞

❝ darkness and complete disorientation does a number on the human brain. ❞

❝ i don't think he was a werewolf. ❞

❝ i’d call it the customer service smile. you know, the one that says ‘ thank you for shopping with us, please die now ’. ❞

❝ i’ve found the more showy the text, the less impressive the actual phenomena. ❞

❝ my job here is kind of… shaky at the moment. ❞

❝ [name] was also engaged in the study of the impossible in his free time. ❞

❝ so it’s just me who drives you up the wall then? ❞

❝ well, you’ll be happy to hear i haven’t been having any fun. no weed, no ghosts. ❞

❝ there hasn’t been a new lead on her case in more than half a year. ❞

❝ so here i am, wrapped up in a blanket, staring at my little fireplace, so bored i actually decided to call my sister for once. ❞

❝ it’s a little town near bandon. very little. nice little mini-market, and that’s about it. ❞

❝ i doubt i’ll sleep much tonight. that’s okay. i just feel like looking at the stars for a while. ❞

❝ it's probably for the best. i am simultaneously exhausted from the drive and absolutely wired from the coffee. ❞

❝ i wonder if there will still be ghosts out there when that happens? when the earth is gone? ❞

❝ glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself, then. ❞

❝ knowing doesn’t make things any easier, but it does make them a little less frightening. ❞

❝ that’s all just a lazy way of saying that the real explanation is too difficult—or too horrible—for them to accept. ❞

❝ it almost killed me, but in the end it settled for putting me in pt for a year while i figured out how to use my hands again. ❞

❝ he muttered something about my time being up. or maybe he said it wasn’t up. ❞

❝ i don’t really care that i didn’t get any writing done today. ❞

❝ nothing. not a single idea worth writing down, no itch i needed to scratch or question i needed to answer. ❞

❝ guess there really is no such thing as bad press. ❞

❝ i have no idea what a writer’s ‘ process ’ usually looks like, but i’m pretty sure it’s not this. ❞

❝ see what i have to deal with? god… siblings, am i right? ❞

❝ what can i say? i have a soft spot for gothic architecture. ❞

❝ computers have never been very good at reconciling paradoxes. ❞

❝ they’re pretty much over funding my little expeditions. ❞

❝ that kind of smile doesn’t normally show that many teeth. ❞

❝ you know, that’s only scary the first few times you do it. ❞

❝ one day, it will be dead. one day all the stars will burn out, go dark and silent. one day, everything will be so dark and so cold that no new stars can ever be born. the old ones will blink out one by one, like candles going out, and then… nothing. silence. darkness. void. ❞

❝ the simplest explanation is almost always the right one. ❞

❝ i don’t remember getting in my van, putting the key in the ignition, or speeding away from that house, but i must have. ❞

❝ no, no, i’m fine, i’m fine, just go bother someone else. ❞

❝ i haven’t eaten, moved, or written anything all day. ❞

❝ but maybe that's just the fact that it is two in the morning and my brain is running mostly on caffeine. ❞

❝ given how good a [job] he is, i know it’s not the first time he’s done it. ❞

❝ i escaped, but i knew that whatever was in that house has just marked me as prey. ❞

❝ calm down. think. you’re just going to confuse yourself. ❞

❝ just wanted to tell you a couple of us are headed out to marvin’s for drinks if you want to come. ❞

❝ one of the most disappointing things about living in america is the lack of genuinely haunted houses. out of all the supposed haunts i’ve visited, maybe one in ten seems like the real deal. ❞

❝ sounds… peaceful. not many distractions, then? ❞

❝ something tells me this tape wasn’t played in court. ❞

❝ one of the neighbours must have called 911. ❞

❝ my infamous accident. it almost killed me. ❞

❝ i just woke up to footsteps in the kitchen. i don’t know who, or what, but there’s someone in here with me! ❞

❝ could you shut the door on your way out, please? ❞

❝ uh, wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon. ❞

❝ the fire that i said went out? yeah, it just started burning again. ❞

❝ so i asked him to lie. ❞

❝ it'd really be just a few of us. maybe me and [name] and one or two other tagalongs… ❞

❝ apparently, the press had a lot of questions too. ❞

❝ i’ve driven more than 8 hours and drunk enough bad coffee to give an elephant heart palpitations. i’m sure as hell going to get my money’s worth. ❞

❝ oh sorry, am i bothering you now? what happened to ‘ call anytime you want, [name] ’ or, ‘ you’re always welcome here, [name] ’ ? ❞

❝ i’ve forgotten to charge my phone. again. ❞

❝ i… think i’m going to turn around now. ❞

❝ well sorry if i wanted to have a nice talk with my sister for a change. ❞

❝ will it just be left there forever? our legacy? look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair? ❞

❝ no matter how far away from home you are, no matter how different the constellations might look from where you’re standing, you can always look up on a clear, dark night and feel like you’re about to fall right into it—the terrifying, endless expanse of nothingness. ❞

❝ i know authors can do some crazy things to get out of writer’s block, but i’ve never heard of one resorting to arson. ❞

❝ why do you always think there’s something wrong? ❞

❝ ours is not to question why, ours is but to digitize and stay the hell out of trouble. ❞

❝ so let’s try walking backwards. just keep an eye on it. ❞

❝ i got lucky. or maybe i was just fast enough to escape. ❞

❝ maybe there are secret passages behind the walls and corridors. ❞

❝ no matter how far i walked, i couldn’t find the way i came in. ❞

❝ well, i /know/ i’ve had worst nights. i just can’t think of any right now. ❞

❝ i do want you to have fun, [name], i just don’t want you to get yourself killed doing it. ❞

❝ i mean, obviously, i do care, that’s the whole reason i made this trip. to get away from the noise and focus. ❞

❝ i might have… forgotten to tell anyone where i was going. ❞

❝ before i get started, there’s just one thing i need to say. i have absolutely no patience for the unexplained, or the things people call ‘ unexplainable ’, ‘ supernatural ’, or ‘ paranormal ’. ❞

❝ i told [name] that i needed to get out, to get inspired. ❞

❝ okay, if someone is messing with me, they’re going to be very sorry, very quickly. ❞

❝ [name] lied his ass off to save yours. ❞

❝ a crash like that does funny things to your head. ❞

❝ i still don’t know how he got there without me noticing. ❞

❝ any plans i had to travel abroad went up in smoke. ❞

❝ i thought of pulling out the bad cop routine. ❞

❝ strange how something so dead can be so beautiful. ❞

❝ it hated me: hated what i do, and more than that, hated who i am. ❞

❝ lots of tall tales. and more than a few ghost stories. ❞

❝ oh good, you’re still here! ❞

❝ reviewers absolutely grilled it: said it was a nonsensical rip off of the dark tower, whatever that means. ❞

❝ i jumped out the window. cut my hands on the glass, but thankfully not bad enough to need stitches ❞

❝ i told her, tonight. ❞

❝ for a minute, i wondered if that would really be so bad. it was a fitting way to go, given my… well, everything. ❞

❝ i suppose that’s a universal constant—maybe the only one. ❞

❝ i never let myself get this turned around. especially not at night. ❞

❝ i don’t know if it’s actually haunted. but if not, then it was sure as hell convincing. ❞

❝ i’m not one of those people who thinks she’s the spawn of satan or something ridiculous like that. ❞

❝ unless i’m prepared to accept that she was murdered by something that crawled out of a funhouse mirror, this isn’t much help with the case, either. ❞

❝ i have to try and work some actual cases the rest of the time. you know, cases that might have some answers i can find. ❞

❝ it's cold, damp, and dark as night. i'm in my element, at least. ❞

❝ your place is waiting for you. ❞

❝ yeah, i’m all good. great… hanging in there, you know? one day at a time. ❞

❝ oh, i see you. you think i’m still scared of [thing], huh? think you can freak me out? ❞

❝ trust me, i’ve had a hell of a day, and you do not want to mess with a pissed off… ❞

❝ and tell my sister i'm sorry. ❞

❝ oh god, it's cold. ❞

❝ the night sky really is beautiful out here. ❞

❝ tell him he shouldn’t have been such a good liar. ❞

❝ i’ve been listening to this for the last two weeks now. ❞

❝ it’s not even that i’m having bad ideas. i’m not having any at all. ❞

❝ can’t get away from the work, no matter what i do. ❞

❝ i made sure i switched off my phone before i came up here, just in case. ❞

❝ god, these things smell of weed. ❞

❝ yeah, well… just wanted to make sure you’re okay, you know? ❞

❝ [name] is dead. that's all there is to it. ❞

❝ no, i need to get out of here. it’s been a long day. ❞

❝ a lot of the art i found was just paintings of a night sky full of stars. ❞

❝ my job is to look the facts dead in the face and find an explanation. one that will hold up in a court of law. ❞

❝ personal and career choices, i guess you’d call them. ❞

❝ damn. i could’ve sworn i felt something strange about this place when i hiked through this morning… or maybe it was a different part. hard to tell this late at night, anyway. ❞

❝ well, let’s just say a middle-aged man-child running out panicked and tearing at his eyes would hardly be a marketable image. ❞

❝ i didn’t mind that i’d be alone—i always expected that to be how i went. ❞

❝ i’m sure that’s on my personnel file by now, as if it could get any more problematic. ❞

#sentence starters #sentence meme #rp sentence starters #rp sentence meme #starters #rp starters #* sentences.#* meme.#sheridan

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honourablejester · 3 years

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Homebrew Thief Deity

A little bit of an expansion on one of the homebrew gods from this post, building him and a few of the others into a bit of a history and a pantheon. A god for rogues, thieves, urchins, exiles, travellers, and clerics of the grave, trickery and twilight domains:

OREM, THIEF GOD OF THE BOUNDARY

Alignment: True Neutral/Neutral Good

Domains: Grave, Trickery, Twilight

Symbol: A Hooded Lantern

A gentle shadow padding silently through the twilight, his hooded lantern held aloft, Orem is the thief god of the grave, the boundary and the night. Believed to have once been a mortal man, he is the guardian of lost souls, all those who die alone or in dark places, the dim light of his lantern guiding them to their rest. He is the messenger between the lands of the living and the dead, and may be implored to carry messages past the bounds. He is the god of thieves, watching over all who find their comfort and their livelihood in the shadows. He is the gentle warden of the outcast and abandoned, granting shelter and comfort to any who pray in desperation. Orem is the god of the in-between, the guardian of all that is lost or fallen through the cracks of the world, and all who seek them.

TALES OF THE THIEF GOD

God of Thieves

Orem is the god of thieves, and believed to have once been a thief himself, when he was still a mortal man. He is the god of shadows, of seeking, of hidden places and forbidden things. He encourages exploration, trespass and the seeking of knowledge. He protects those who making their living in the shadows. Thieves pray to him for luck, for protection, for that wisp of shadow or sudden noise from another direction that will keep them safe from discovery, and he is often known to grant it. Many a thief has a tale to tell of a desperate kiss pressed to the sign of the lantern, and a sudden stroke of luck that kept them from the eyes, the prisons or the knives of their opponents.

Nor does Orem shy from theft himself, even still. Of knowledge, most particularly, and of opportunity. The Thief God travels the planes at his will, and suffers no power to keep him out. He has walked the planes of the dead and brought secrets and mementoes back to those who seek them. He has walked the hells and the abyss and stolen souls and knowledge and some more intimate things from devils and demons alike. From Oromasdes, the Lord of Wisdom, the Holy Fire, he stole a tiny, flickering flame of magic, and taught it to his chosen, granting them the small but necessary magics of thieves, the slender wisps of illusion and see-me-not. Oromasdes, curiously, was not offended by this, for the Lord of Wisdom is rarely opposed to those who seek and spread knowledge. Had Orem kept that flame for himself, perhaps the Light of Truth might have judged him more harshly for it, but Orem chose to teach it instead, and thus did Oromasdes forgive him. After, it is said, reminding the Thief God rather gently that he could have simply asked instead.

To which Orem is said to have replied, but where would the fun be in that?

God of the Grave

Orem is the god of lost souls and those who die alone, their shepherd and guide to what lies beyond death. He is fiercely and dangerously protective of this duty, and a hidden, implacable enemy of those who would steal souls for their own use. As such, he and his chosen people are ferociously opposed to liches, necromancers and other soul-stealers.

It is said that once, in the early days, when Orem was only newly a god, a great and terrible archlich sought to devour enough souls to fully destroy the boundary between life and death and unleash a plague of undeath across the planes. While the other gods and champions took up arms and stood to fight this black menace, Orem instead took a more secret path. While the lich stood against his fellow deities, blazing with necrotic power, Orem sent a small, fragile party of his own champions to seek the archlich’s phylactery instead. Though almost all of his champions died in the attempt, the last managed to seize the object and bring it to her god’s temple, bleeding and near death herself. Safe and reunited with her fallen companions under the shadow of the Grave God’s cloak, she watched as Orem reached into the phylactery and drew forth and reconstructed every soul that had ever been fed to it, slowly and viciously unmaking the lich to repair all the damage he had caused. When the lich had been broken and siphoned down to only the tiny, stained remnants of his own original soul … Orem gathered it up, quietly and carefully, and stowed it in his own lantern, there to be kept safe and warm for all eternity. His three champions, who had died for his cause, he gathered also, and tucked them gently into his cloak to take them wherever they need go. Even, along with all the souls the lich had stolen, back to the realm of the living, if they wanted to.

It is unknown how many souls are stored in the Grave God’s lantern. Only those that he wishes to keep close, either for their own protection or for the protection of everyone else. The lantern is not a fearful prison, however. Orem is the god of lost souls, and there are none more lost than those who seek to destroy others. Perhaps he hopes that in time, in his company, seeing all that he sees, in the dim light of his hooded lantern, they will come to think as he does.

God of Outcasts

Orem is the god of the outcast, the abandoned, and all those who have fallen between the cracks of the world. He is the god of the lost, both living and dead, and all who have lost their way in the world or in life may pray to him, for the dim light of a god’s lantern to guide them onto the path once more. Even those who do not venerate Orem himself, those who despise him as the God of thieves and the lawless, sometimes tell tales of a light in the darkness when they were alone and terrified, and a tall, grey figure who guided them to safety. Of a grey cloak, warm and welcoming, that draped over them where they scrabbled, freezing and abandoned, and brought them warmth enough to survive that little bit longer. Those who survive where they should have died, who walk away from swamps and battles and slums and mass graves, often whisper of the quiet god who helped them, who warmed them and sheltered them and showed them the way to freedom.

It is also said, however, that there are other entities, spirits and demons and creatures of illusion, who have used the God’s image falsely over the years. Will-o-wisps who have used the hope of his lantern to lure travellers to their deaths, demon lords of illusion who have taken his guise to sow false hope and entrap souls into their webs of deceit. There is nothing, save perhaps the trapping of souls, that will earn the Thief God’s enmity faster. There is no demon he hates more than the Lord of Lies, who has used Orem’s image far too many times to betray those Orem would protect, and done so knowingly, with aim to taunt and wound him. Only the lords and masters of undeath are as antithetical to him, and he hates them with equal passion. If there is one creature in all the planes that the Thief God has sworn to see destroyed, it is this demon.

Those who wield the Thief God’s powers, therefore, those who have learned the magics of illusion and the turning of eyes from him, must be careful to what purposes they put their powers. He does not forgive those who use his power, his lantern or his image to betray those he protects. For this reason, among others, certain fey and demons remain extremely cautious of him.

God of the Boundary

For all else that he is and was and will be, however, Orem is first the God of the Boundary. Between life and death, between light and darkness, between danger and safety. Orem is the god of trespass, of exploration and intrusion, of crossing the line, and there are few beings in all creation as conscious, therefore, of where those lines actually are.

Once upon a time, the story goes, a mortal man met a trapped and dying god. A god of death, who could not die. An ancient, desperate being, alone and in agony. The name of this god is unknown, long lost to time, remembered only by Orem and by those gods who mourned or despised its passing. That god pleaded with the mortal man to take its immortal soul from its body and carry it beyond the bounds of death, into the quiet lands where it could, if not die, then at least know rest. The man was a thief, you see, a wily, dauntless creature, and the god knew that if anyone could find a way to free it from these immortal chains, it was this tiny, curious, fearsome little man. Duty demanded that the god stay, endure, but desperation and despair pleaded that it be allowed to rest. Against all the laws of good and all the forces of evil, it pleaded with this man to bring it rest.

So the man named Orem took the god’s soul, its divinity, and hid it in a lantern, the better to carry it unseen across the dividing line. For who looks for a hidden thing in the light? Who looks for a secret thing in that which reveals the darkness? Orem hid the god’s soul in small light of a lantern, and smuggled it gently into darkness. Into peace.

And when he returned, that thief, from the lands of the dead, he found himself changed. A piece of the god he had helped to die had remained in his lantern, and a piece of the god’s divinity had remained in him. Not a god the dead, not fully, but a god of the boundary. Of the line, of the gate, and of the ability to move across it. Orem became the god of the boundary, the god of lost souls, the guide between the lands of the living and the dead. He became the god who carries those who need it into rest, and the god who, sometimes, allows those who deserve it back to life. The god of thieves, yes, the god of outcasts, the god of the dead, all of these. But first, and foremost, before all things, the god of the boundary. The god of the in-between.

And here, in this, he has his allies. Even among the lawful. He has a strange and special relationship with those other gods who guard the boundaries, who endure when nothing should be forced to endure. Elaia Siveth, who offers respite, healing and death in equal measure, whichever should offer freedom from suffering faster, and who approved of the actions for which he became a god. And Yorm, the Unyielding, who guards the light against darkness, who fights demons and devils, who protects the vulnerable beneath his shielding cloak and his watchful remaining eye. They have a strange bargain, those two. Yorm, bound by law, turns his blinded eye to where Orem needs to tread unseen, and will not leave him to die undefended should the thief be caught. And Orem will not leave Yorm to endure alone, nor Yorm’s people to be ravaged after death. The souls of all Yorm’s paladins who fall to demons are ever safe in Orem’s care.

Notes:

There’s a lot of inspiration from Hermes in this, god of thieves and travellers and guide of souls, with a little bit of Prometheus as well. Oromasdes is taking a lot of inspiration from Ahura Mazda, while Orem and Elaia Siveth have a bit of Janus to them. And I threw in Yorm from this story, because they felt like a nice fit, two gods of the boundary, one lawful, one not, but united in a common purpose. Also, I like the rogue/paladin dichotomy. Heh.

And I like the lantern imagery, the hermit from the tarot, the god carrying souls in his lantern, the thief smuggling things in the light, because who goes looking in what you look with. I can’t remember what book or story I came across that concept in (possibly Discworld?) but it stuck like glue. Not least because I remember an episode of Wild Wild West where the shoddy lighting on that show threw a shadow of a lantern that a character was holding, and that was supposed to be throwing the light, against his shoulder, accidentally highlighting the fakeness of it all. Playing with light and dark and reality and illusion is a bit of a theme for me

#long post #worldbuilding #deities #d&d #homebrew #thieves #clerics #rogues #mythology

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suburbanbeatnik · 4 years

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The short and very miserable life of Napoleon II, aka the Eaglet, aka Franz, Duke of Reichstadt: PART THREE

So there’s a lot of controversy over the exact nature of Franz and Sophie’s friendship. At the time, it was was rumored they became lovers. Satirical prints of the two were even published. But I’ve browsed a few recent-ish books about the Habsburgs, and they don’t seem to think the idea of a Franz/Sophie affair holds a lot of water. However, Aubry thinks it’s possible— even probable.

He took refuge in his tenderness for his young aunt, Sophie. She was still the woman whom he preferred. Perhaps she was his only love, the one to whom he owed his first embrace and the one who best satisfied him. She had been at first nothing but an elder sister. In his empty boyhood she had given him the only warmth of friendship he had known. Become a man he had asked for more, and Sophie consented, it is said.

They saw each other everyday at the Hofburg, in the little salon belonging to the Archduchess. It was always towards evening when he was tired from his work or his horseback rides and she relaxed from duties of the court. Oftentimes they would be alone, and they would take their tea by lamplight, reading aloud or talking over the happenings of the day. Reichstadt gave Sophie his full confidence. She knew his anxieties and his bitternesses and she gave him back his courage. She would place her fingers on his forehead, and stoke his hair, which shone like silk in the dim light. He would look back at her with quiet happiness, and she would smile back at him as she sat there in a low-cut gown, the coils of her hair caught up in a veil of white lace, and around her throat a ribbon of black velvet with a pendant, which was a miniature of her father, King Maximilian of Bavaria. [Aubry pg 215]

Aubry paints a compelling picture of Sophie’s restless, clear-eyed youth, intelligence, strong will, and free, simple, natural ways, which stood out like a star against the stultifying pomposity of the Habsburg court. Not surprisingly, she hated her husband, a coarse blockhead mainly obsessed with hunting. She spent every hour she could with Franz, driving in the Prater, breakfasting together, or walking in the garden, often accompanied by Sophie’s son Franz Joseph (Sissi’s future husband). Like his father, Franz loved children and was great with them. Add his intelligence, passion, and incredible good looks, I would not blame Sophie one bit if she’d had an affair with Franz.

Aubry also points out that at Schoenbrunn, Franz’s quarters were directly above Sophie’s, and connected through “a little staircase unknown to any chamberlain.” They also spent many afternoons completely alone.

They would venture through the Tyrolian garden to the limits of the vast wooded park and on out into that smiling countryside where vineclad hills gently rise above meadows, patches of woods and cultivated fields. There they spent the most beautiful hours in their lives, talking less of the future and of glory, we may be sure, than of the present and of love. No definite information as to these meetings have survived. All that is known from authentic documents is that they were frequent in the summer of 1831. Nor is there any trace, either, in spite of careful searches, of a correspondence between Reichstadt and Sophie. The Archduchess died at an advanced age, after a checkered career. She must have taken care to leave nothing behind her. The archives of the Hofburg show only the mother, and the princess interested in questions of State. [Aubry pg 217]

Aubry then considers the contention that Sophie’s son Maximilian was actually fathered by Franz. Aubry thinks it’s at least possible, but I don’t think it is. Just look at pictures of the guy— he’s 100% Habsburg. He looks exactly like Franz Karl. The Bonaparte seed is strong; if Napoleon was Maximilian’s grandfather, you’d be able to see it somewhere. But you can’t.

Anyway, after the golden summer of 1831— probably the second happiest period of Franz’s life, after his childhood—it was all downhill from there. Very, very downhill.

Franz’s lung issues came back with a vengeance. It didn’t help his main doctor at this point was a foppish Italian obsessed with liver ailments— he thought all of Franz’s problems stemmed from— what else?— the liver. That winter Franz became major of an infantry regiment stationed in Vienna, and distinguished himself drilling his men to perfection. Which is kind of sad, really; but that’s all he was allowed to do, be a parade-ground soldier who never got his uniform dirty. He ate little, and slept less, so eager to show that he could be a real soldier, like his father. His health plummeted, and he contracted a catarrhal fever. The Imperial family gathered around Franz— except for Marie Louise, who was too busy back with her little court at Parma, “nibbling bonbons at the Opera.” Of course she protested her “cruel anxiety” about Franz’s welfare, but she wasn’t about to go anywhere. After all, she couldn’t think of endangering her own “precious health” journeying to Vienna.

Reichstadt must have felt the desertion keenly, but he voiced no bitterness. He had grown accustomed to suffering in silence, and those who forgot him, he tried to forget. [Aubry pg. 224.]

So, once again, Marie Louise disappointed her son. But Franz had Sophie; and he also had Prokesch back, who had happily returned after Metternich forced him to go to Bologna (Metternich didn’t trust Prokesch, and did his best to keep the two friends apart). The two men now knew the full stranglehold that Metternich had on the monarchy. Franz would not even be able to take a single trip away, not even for his health. It was do or die.

The two concocted a plan, and it was a decent one. Once he’d recovered, at winter in Vienna, he would be able to slip away from the secret police, as he had when romancing Naudine Karolyi. “He and Prokesch would reach Styria or the Tyrol in disguise and from there, taking advantage of connections which the major would try to establish in a preliminary reconnoissance, they would reach the Papal States where the Duke would ask asylum of the Pope.” Letizia Bonaparte and Lucien, who lived there comfortably, the Pope deferring to them, had money and connections. “Sheltered by the head of the Church and his grandmother, on a soil not only neutral but sacred, he would be free to complete his novitiate for the throne. Prokesch foresaw that it would be not a very long one. He predicted the fall of Louis-Phillippe in two or three years at most, and after a period of anarchy, the return of Napoleon II by agreement between France and the Powers.” [Aubry pg 232]

Alas! Metternich caught wind of the scheme, and banished Prokesch to Rome in January of 1832. What a blow this was! But the major agreed he could use the circumstances to do the agreed reconnoissance and meet in secret with Madame Mère. The two men parted with great emotion.

But this is the last time they would ever see each other. By the next summer, Franz would be dead.

* * *

After the departure of one of his only friends in the world, depression overwhelmed Franz again. It didn’t help when he received a letter from Napoleon’s last valet, Marchand, who had been trying for years to contact Franz about a few items of “sentimental value” that Napoleon had left for his son. But there was a note from Metternich on the letter, that briskly said “no attention could be paid to Marchand’s request.”

And that was it. Franz knew had no recourse. He wouldn’t even be able to get his father’s coffee service. How petty, how disgusting, how mean Metternich was! Napoleon had been dead for over a decade; why couldn’t he have one single sentimental item left to him in his will? Was it that important? That much of a matter of importance to the State, to the bloody Holy Alliance, that he couldn’t hold the same coffee cup that his father held?

And bitterness ate away at him. He was only 21, but he felt so old. He hated humanity. He hated himself. He wondered why he was still alive. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had died as a child. He had expected so much of the future— but there was nothing but the coldness and emptiness of an eternal prison.

Despair ate at him like a worm. And he grew sick. And sicker. He coughed and sweated and grew weaker by the day. His doctor’s liver medicines did nothing, and then bleeding did less, and Metternich kept refusing to see Franz moved to a warmer climate.

The Chancellor was pleased by the turn of events, of course. “He sent world to all the embassies, and Marshal Maison was asked to inform his government, that ‘the condition of the Duke of Reichstadt was so serious that his mother has been informed.’” [Aubry pg 244]

A pregnant Sophie, at last returned from her tour of Hungary, did her best to nurse him. “She sat down at his bedside and hushed him whenever he tried to speak. She would read aloud to him and it was she thereafter who gave him his medicines and guarded his door from any importunate intrusion.” [Aubry pg 245]

Franz still worsened. The Emperor was not present; he was detained in Trieste, and when he returned to Austria, he avoided Vienna, staying at the summer castle of Persenbeug, along with the “ninny” Ferdinand and the blockhead Franz Karl, while Francis’s wife claimed that seeing his dying grandson would have a deleterious effect on his health. Count Dietrichstein also decided to leave, on the excuse of his daughter’s confinement. Aubry says:

He must have known that Reichstadt was lost. Could he just have been an indifferent soul underneath his courtesy and his outward expressions of affectionate anxiety? He may have been. Count Maurice Dietrichstein was born a sensitive man and an artist, but life at Court had dried him up, undoubtedly leaving him in the end with the heart of a chamberlain. He forgot his former pupil at his daughter’s bedside and allowed him to die without a word of friendship. [Aubry pg 250]

For Franz, it was a slow, agonizing death march, punctuated by an an abcess in his lungs rupturing— and a final communion taken with Sophie at his side, in what Aubry compares to a “mystic marriage.” Louise arrived at last, after dithering over her departure, claiming “slight indispositions” as a reason for not leaving sooner, and then coming to Vienna via “easy stages” over the course of a fortnight. Of course, when she saw how badly off her son was, emaciated and hacking up blood, she began to cry.

There with that spectre of the hollow eyes before her she may perhaps have understood at last the true identity of that youth whom she had neglected for two years, and how guilty she had been all along toward him. She alone could have protected her child against Metternich’s policy and against himself. She could have saved him from those years of moral anguish and that tragic solitude which had ruined his health sooner and even more than any disease. That in her weakness she had lost him a throne might be excused, but however cowardly as an Empress, she might have shown herself a good mother. Vienna was her true place but she had preferred Parma with its ease, deserting the son of the greatest man in her age to sate her voluptuousness in the arms of her lover, nibble bonbons and preside over well-served dinners. [Aubry pgs 252-252]

Of course, Metternich made sure to look in on Franz while he was dying.

Through a half-open door however the Chancellor was allowed to see the patient in his bed. He gazed for a moment, then turned and walked away without a tremor, without a word of sympathy for the mother and doubtless without any remorse. [Aubry pg 255]

Franz knew he would die. “Must I end so young,” he said, “A life that is useless and without a name? Ma naissance et ma mort, voilà toute mon histoire. Entre mon berceau et ma tombe, il y a un grand zéro.” He did not quite say that on his deathbed, but it was close. Very, very close.

It took monumental efforts to keep Franz alive at this point. He was a barely breathing corpse. He could not swallow food; his throat had swollen up; his coughing seem to tear his body apart; and he could barely sup barley-water and milk. He had even been given mother’s milk at one point. His legs were swollen, and he was cold as ice. Deprived of his dearest friend Prokesch, who was meeting with Letizia and Lucien in Rome, his fellow captains in his regiment stood by his bedside.

The end came on the morning of July 21st— a thunderstorm brewed in the air, the air damp and thick and charged. He cried out— “death! I want nothing but death!” — and then— “Harness the horses! I must go to meet my father! I must embrace him once more!”

Then he whispered: “How I am suffering! When will this sad existence end?” [Aubry pg 260]

At last, he called, gasping, sweating, for his mother. (Sophie, still recovering from childbirth, was left to sleep, something which she never forgot.) Louise was brought in at the last minute, and managed to faint dead away in the middle of the room, completely prostrate on the floor. I’m imagining the priest having to step over her for his last rites, but apparently she managed to get to her knees by the bed just in time for Franz to look at her. That, one instant, and then he stopped breathing altogether.

Franz’s grandfather, back in Persenbeug, away from any inconveniently dead grandsons, called Franz’s death a possible blessing for Europe.

As for Sophie, once the news was broken “delicately” to her…

…she lost consciousness for several hours and the attack was followed by a high fever. Her milk dried up. For several days her life was despaired of. She gradually recovered. Those who knew her thereafter no longer found the gay and simple Archduchess. All the gentleness seemed to have left her. There was a sting in everything she said. The truth was that her youth had died with Reichstadt. She was to have intrigues, love affairs, ambitions, cares of State. But she had changed in spirit, or rather she had attained in a few days the mood of her maturity, with, in her heart’s depth, a regret and a bitterness which would endure until her death, five years after the disaster of her son Maximilian. [Aubry pg 265]

* * *

And so ends my recap of Aubry’s King of Rome. Ugh, this could have been more depressing!? Anyway, I’ll write an epilogue soon explaining what happened to everyone after Franz’s death.

Part One

Part Two

#napoleon II #sophie of bavaria #marie louise #napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #l'aiglon #eaglet #duke of reichstadt #octave aubry #francis II #habsburgs #count dietrichstein #archduchess sophie #prokesch #metternich #depressing stuff

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littlefreya · 4 years

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The Way to Hell - Part 4

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it or parts of the source material and claiming it as your own*

Summary: Post Mi6 - August manages to escape with his face intact and just won himself the title of being the most dangerous man on earth. With every agent in the world on the hunt for him, life became a living hell, but that’s okay because hell is where he reigns.

Too bad for the woman who’ll stand in his way.

Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild)

Word count: 6K

Warnings: Explicit Smut, dark themes, male/female masturbation, bodily fluids, mentions of sexual encounters, dirty words, sexual threats. It’s August, he’s the baddest of bad boys!

A/N: Soooooo this chapter was fun to write, I hope you guys like it :)! Thanks @agniavateira for being my editor and my emotional support!

Title: Memento Mori

Funny, he’s never seen someone drown in icy water before. With her injury and massive blood loss, the struggle doesn’t last longer than a minute. This is beyond her natural survival instincts, gradually her muscles give up, running stiff as the blood in her veins chills.

August stares with rapt. Not once did the Valkyrie scream for help, or even begged him to save her.

Truth be told, it kinda pisses him off as much as he finds it admirable.

‘Such a strong-willed girl. Would be a shame to rid the world of her so soon.’

“Whatever,” he mutters and carefully steps toward the crack in the ice. His hands hoist the body up before she sinks below the surface. With water in her lungs and her muscles rigid, she’s impossibly heavier.

A red path of blood tarnishes the ice as he drags her body toward the edge of the lake. There is no urgency in his behaviour, relaxed he kneels to stare at the lifeless woman and wonders if in her hubris this is how she believed this day will end.

Her skin is pale blue, lips dark purple. Drained out of wit and life, those delicate Scandinavian features look like something out of a fairytale and he muses whether a kiss will wake her up.

It won’t make any difference to the world if she’s dead or alive, it certainly won’t make any to August Walker.

His digits stroke her frozen cheek, sensing the skin is stretched over the hardened muscles. He tilts her head up and presses at the hollows of her cheeks to force her lips open. For some reason, he thinks of a different dead girl, though they are nothing alike.

Planting his mouth over hers, he breathes oxygen into her lungs. Her chest rises, filling with the air he breathes into her. He repeats the process four times and then begins compressing her heart, watching her corpse lie peacefully on the snow.

Never in his years of service had he needed to perform CPR on another person. It’s not as melodramatic as shown in the bullshit movies he’s seen; no one’s shouting “C’mon girl! Breathe!!!” and hits her chest in despair. The owls and bats that chant between the large trees and the wolves howling at the moon from a distance couldn’t care less if Ingvild, whatever her-last-name-is lives or dies.

On the contrary, they’ll be thrilled to eat her eyes out.

He pauses on his attempt to resuscitate her and watches as no change appears in her face. His hands rest in the air, hovering above her for less than a second, considering if to give her another chance. He leans to capture her mouth again when Ingvild suddenly twitches, gagging as water seeps through her mouth and nose like some decorative fountain.

August observes quietly. Her eyes are shut, her body is only reacting instinctively, coughing out the water in her lungs. He nudges her to the side, draining the water out until she stops coughing and lays unconscious on the ground.

He moves his ear closer, listening to her soft breaths. He wonders how long will she survive in such a condition, suffering from hypothermia and massive blood loss. Letting her drown might have been a favour, he might have just granted her a cruller death.

Blackness surrounds her, chaining her to the ground. An excruciating pain blossoms in her lungs, as if someone placed a massive weight that smothers her while her throat and her nose sear with pain. The rest of her body feels numb, someone might as well leave her limbless.

The image in front of her appears blurry as she attempts to open her eyes and hang on to the tendrils of reality, uncertain when and where she is and what happened at all. Was life just a dream?

Or was it a nightmare?

‘Liam?’

No voice is produced from her lips, she is not even sure they’re moving.

The face that greets her is certainly not Liam. It’s the man who granted her this agonizing death. He looks at her with silent curiosity, not saying a word as her glassy eyes become more and more vibrant.

Her hands suddenly reach to his throat, clutching him with all the energy left in her traumatized body. As battered as she is, he still has to use force to peel her claws off of him. She struggles, grunting and hissing, her nails leave bleeding scratches over his cheek.

“Remember you are only alive for as long as I permit it.” August speaks to her calmly, impressed by her stubborn will to kill him even when she’s hanging by the last thread of her pathetic life.

The struggle takes no longer than a few seconds as her eyes roll back and she falls to the ground, unconscious again.

August collects her in his arms and rises, carrying her through the woods. “Better this way, princess,” he whispers to the sleeping beauty in his arms. The temperature of the water has slowed the bleeding, causing the blood vessels to clot and reduce the pace of her heartbeat. It benefits in keeping her alive, but it’s also slowly killing her.

He returns to the bed and breakfast to be greeted by the receptionist who stares at him, baffled.

“Too much to drink,” he explains, offering her a charming smile as he continues marching toward his room with the unconscious girl in his arms.

~*~

“Fucking mess,” he mutters as he enters the room and shuts the door behind him with his leg. That stab wound may be bleeding slower now, he hasn’t ruptured any viable organs. However, the gash in her flesh is large and still needs to be dressed.

He drags her to the bath and puts her on her feet, letting her limp body lean onto his while he unzips her suit and boots, stripping her to her undergarments. A crescent-like slit gushes blood at the side of her abdomen.

August places her in the empty bathtub before grabbing the first aid kit he bought at the hunters’ shop. Being a wanted man now, he had to be prepared for everything.

It was nearly him tonight that needed that first aid kit.

The scent of alcohol fills the room as he pours it onto her open wound. He waits for a response from her, maybe a twitch from the excruciating pain, yet Ingvild is so far gone she doesn’t react whatsoever. His finger presses to the tendon in her neck, only to make sure he is not taking care of a dead girl.

A faint pulse is there; her heart still beats. Yet her body is as cold as ice, and he knows that if he won’t take care of her soon her systems will begin to shut down one organ after the other. He sews her wound shut quickly, making unfashionable stitches across the wound.

“Sorry love, no more bikini for you.” he mocks the sleeping girl. “Although porn sites must be filled with scar-porn, so you’re good.”

After stitching her up and dressing the wound, he carries her back to the bedroom and lays her on the bed. Her skin is shivering, frozen and pale as death itself. She has hypothermia and needs to have her body temperature stabilized before every one of her major organs will go into failure.

“Not how I pictured us getting into bed naked,” August jokes without humour while beginning to peel off his clothes until he is completely bare. He towers over her trembling form and watches how helpless she appears. His hands run down her spine, reaching to find the hooks of her bra. It takes no effort to unclasp the flimsy soaked fabric and discard it on the floor. Next, he coldly and methodically slips her underwear off.

He takes no pleasure in stripping an unconscious woman who can’t defend herself or struggle, yet he cannot resist observing what’s laid right in front of his eyes.

The sight is indeed pleasing.

‘Hate me later, princess. I am just a man.’

August climbs onto the bed and lies in front of her. He pulls her toward the warmth of his body until her forehead is pressed against his chest and every inch of her skin is covered by his own. With a clenched jaw, he holds her close.

In his arms she trembles, teeth chattering, while her heartbeat is feeble and can be hardly felt against his chest.

He thinks of nothing while holding the cold, half-dead girl against him.

Nothing at all.

Not the memory of another dead girl.

~*~

Ingvild scratches a scab on her knee, watching the other girls as they play without her. They stick their tongue at her and call her a freak. She doesn’t cry, only sniffles gently while her small fingers pry at the itchy skin.

“Ingvild,” Sister Marja walks toward her, making a sour face as she sees the girl. She never liked her either. “Someone is here to pick you up, finally.”

Little Ingvild jumps from the dirty log she is sitting on, brushing her skirt and arranging her braided pigtails before joining Sister Marja. ‘That uptight crone, all she needs is a good fuck.’

The sister hurries toward the orphanage while Ingvild runs after to keep up. Her heels echo on the floor through the arched hallway of the facility.

A man waits for them in the office of the Mother Superior, Yet another crone who looks like she never had a good fuck. But there is a smile on her face, making her loose skin become all creases and wrinkles like a dried rotten potato.

Ingvild looks at the man who stands with his hands behind his back. His hair is black with few threads of silver. She is uncertain if he is smiling or not; the expression on his face is of a person who’s trying to appear pleasant but in a very contained way.

“Ingvild, this is Liam.” Mother Superior speaks in her terrible heavy smoker voice. “He is your new adoptive father.”

~*~

Warm light strokes her face, forcing her eyes to blink open slowly. A basic function that suddenly feels oddly painful. Her eyelids are too heavy as if she never opened her eyes before in her life. The scenery around her is still too vague; she doesn’t recognize the room at all, wondering if she is in another dream.

A word in her own language blurts out of her mouth as she tries to sit up, accompanied by a small groan. Everything feels out of place as if her limbs have been misplaced and her internal organs exploded inside her body. Pain begins to course through her body, starting with the muscle of her right forearm which now feels extremely strained.

“Ah…” she grunts out, tugging at her arm which is in an odd position.. But for some reason, her arm won’t budge. It’s tied to the bedpost above her head by a tight rope.

‘This is hilarious. Like watching a dog wake up from anaesthesia.’

“Hva?” she asks in her mother’s tongue. “What?”

She gives the bind a few good moments of struggling before giving up. It’s when the heavy blanket that covers her slightly descends from her chest. She realizes she’s been completely stripped of her clothes.

Panicked, she hugs the cover to her chest with her free hand. Her eyes were looking around with slight anxiety while she continues to pull her right hand in an attempt to free herself.

The scent of coffee tickles at her nose, alerting her that she is not alone.

August appears in front of her with a red cup of coffee in his hand. He wears that familiar arrogant look with a hint of a smile, so vicious and cold it makes her feel she wasn’t only stripped off her clothes but of her skin and muscles as well.

Would have been better if I was stripped and bound to the devil’s bed.

He takes the wooden chair, dragging it on the floor which makes her cringe at the screeching sound. Fragments of the night before begin to fill the gaps in her memory. She tied him to this chair.

Placing it in front of her, he sits down, legs spread widely with confidence she can only describe to herself as irritating as fuck.

She hugs the cover tightly to her chest, her legs curling toward her torso to shelter herself which suddenly inflicts an excruciating pain in her lower abdomen making her moan involuntarily . Peeking beneath the thick blanket, she finds the large bandage on her torso, stained with a few drops of brownish-red blood.

“Good morning, love, we’ve had quite the night.”

More shards of memory begin to cut through her mind. Like remembering an event that happened so long ago, it almost feels like a dream. Her mind fights to make sense, to grasp at the fuller image. She recalls gasping through the woods at night with weak limbs and a hand full of blood. Then a shot that ripped through the night. Bats were flying everywhere and then her body was cold for some reason.

No, she was freezing.

Like a videotape that’s cut off and glitches in the middle, her memory stops there. Making her stare at the Scandinavian pattern on the blanket as if she will find any answers there.

“Who is Liam?” August asks, taking a long sip from his coffee. There is much amusement in seeing her cowering before him looking so helpless right now. Stripped, unarmed, and bound to his bed after he took her life and gave it back.

He licks his lips at her which only makes the alarmed look on her face become more distinguished.

“You’ve undressed me?” she asks, finding out her voice is aching and hoarse, as if something seared her throat. “And tied me to the bed?”

August’s teeth are exposed to her as his smile widens. She makes a note of two sharp fangs, it makes him look like a vampire. “Perceptive, aren’t we? Wasn’t for any personal interest, you were in hypothermia.”

He gives a small pause, his eyes travelling across her covered body, unable to deny how nice it was to wake up with a naked woman in his arms. “Not that I didn’t enjoy having your tits pressed to me for an entire night.”

Even as lost as she is, she can’t help but roll her eyes at him and groan with hatred.

‘If anyone in Icarus hears of this, I’m done for.’

Was the stinging pain in her chest failure or sepsis? Either way, it stung. This was far from how she imagined this mission going along. Ending up as a captive of psychotic target, tied to his bed as a future sex slave or heaven knows what.

‘How the fuck did I end up here? Like this? Why?’

August watches as she frowns with deep concentration, forcefully trying to evoke some memory of all the lost hours from last night. He wonders if she knows he killed her. He’d very much like to remind her of that, of how she was at his mercy and the only reason she’s alive right now is because he allowed it.

‘And still she tried to kill me right after I gave her back her life. What a woman.’

“Who is Liam? And please don’t make me ask again, given the poor situation you’re at right now, princess.”

More echoes begin to float in her mind. It’s the look of superiority on his face, the piercing gaze that threatens to cut right through her.

“You tried to kill me!”

“No. I have killed you,” he corrects her.

“You were dead for at least 5 or 7 minutes.”

She stares at him completely bemused, her eyes seeking answers on the lines of his chiselled face. There is no remorse, no care, no mercy in it. She doesn’t even bother to look for affection, whatever that looks like. He is as cold as Helheim.

“But you saved me. Why?”

His jaw clenches, the muscles in his face straining as he remembers that idiotic idea he had last night, that mistake that’s now lying naked on his bed. For a man who plans ahead, he hasn’t thought this one through, not even for a second.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I only need you for intel. One wrong move and I’d be glad to put you back to the bottom of that lake.”

“You know who sent me, CIA, Erica Sloane.” She shrugs, staring at him oddly.

He leans forward in his chair looking deeper into her eyes, trying to invoke fear in her. Yet she remains stoic, only her eyes glaring at him like two icicles.

“How did you know I was here? Who else knows?”

“I’m a good tracker,” she answers, doing her best attempt to shrug her shoulders with one hand latched above her head. “And you are not as smart as you think you are, August Walker.”

August offers her a dangerous stare, crossing his arms around the wooden backseat while his feet push from the ground to lean closer to her. He doesn’t like to be challenged, especially not by silly little girls.

“Why is that?”

A small smile spreads on her face. “From all the vehicles you could have taken, you stole my bike.”

A hiss of disbelief leaves his nose but the answer doesn’t please him. He leans back on his chair until it lands forcefully on the ground, making a loud thud through the moderate silence in the room. His hand reaches toward her, grabbing her jaw and cupping it crudely.

“No, how did you know I was in Norway?”

She clenches her jaw, trying to escape his touch but his grip becomes firmer, his fingertips painting red marks on her sickly pale skin. “Answer me.”

“I didn’t-”

“Bullshit.” he challenges her, now closer to her face than she would have ever wanted. His hot breath is a breeze on her skin. Her natural instinct to learn details kicks in, forcing her to pay attention to every freckle s on his nose, his bottom lip, and the lines and small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

‘So much anger’, she analyzes. He is not even furious yet it seems he keeps so much bottled up.

‘Does he ever get tired?’

“I didn’t know,” she finally answers, both sincerity and scorn in her voice. Then, a small provoking smirk appears on her lips. “It was destiny that brought you to me.”

He snorts, shaking his head at her with disbelief, recalling their little flirtatious run-in 2 days ago. His eyes observe her while a smug smirk spreads across his face. He allows his gaze to travel further down her neck and her chest, attempting to peer beneath the blanket to get a reminder of what was pressed to his body the night before.

“Telling you the truth, August Walker, would have killed you then in the ladies room,” she provokes, aware of the fact that he’s staring at her chest even though she keeps it covered.

“Oh?” he returns his gaze back to her, a single finger now takes a hold of her chin, tilting her head up violently. “How would you have done that? I’m intrigued.”

Ingvild licks her lips, drawing attention to her mouth. It’s seduction that she offers but with that same cold, now vicious smile.

“Slicing your throat, while you’re were washing your stupid hair below the tap. I’d then shove a tampon up your ass and send a photo to everyone in Icarus and to Sloane so they can have a good laugh.”

‘My phone, shit.’

The mobile device is traceable, if Liam hasn’t heard from her in a few days he could find her. But now August has it, with the rest of the stuff he confiscated from her. She looks around, trying to find where he placed her items.

August interrupts her inspection, his hand wrapping around her sore throat with a menacing gaze. “Don’t give me any ideas, princess. I’m not the one tied up and naked here.”

“I need to go to the girls’ room,”

She ignores his threat, remaining calm despite the hand that can easily snap her neck.

He looks at her dumbfounded, clenching his jaw once more. “What?”

“I need to go…”

“I heard you.” he frowns, letting go of her throat forcefully and then shoving the chair back, making it screech against the wooden floor while pacing the room, irritated.

‘Great, now I’m a fucking babysitter?’

He begins to regret ever saving her pathetic little life. What is there to gain anyway? A guy named Liam? Whoever that is to her. She mumbled that name in her dreams when her body was struggling to fight for survival.

August finds the bathrobe in the shower room and throws it on the bed next to her, before hovering above her chest to cut her bindings with the same knife he used to stab her last night.

She tries to remain as relaxed and brave as she can, wanting him to think she is not intimidated by him and what she believes to be his empty threats. But every time he makes sudden movements. the intimidation shows in her beautiful grey eyes. Her body flinches and squirms helplessly.

If only she knew how aroused it made him, she’d be terrified.

“Try anything and I’ll unstitch you and let you bleed to death.”

Her wrist burns, the narrow rope has chafed her skin so badly there are deep purple marks on her flesh. She rubs it gently, trying to soothe the pain before grabbing the white cotton robe and staring at August with hatred.

He stares back at her while playing with the knife between his large hands. He slides a finger carefully on the edge of the sharp blade, making a harsh statement. No, he is not going to turn around.

Rolling her eyes she hides beneath the cover, pulling the bathrobe beneath and wearing it quickly, the relief of having something other than a blanket covering her feels almost astonishing.

At last, she throws the heavy blanket away and kicks her legs out of bed while wearing his oversized bathrobe. August remains silent, his eyes fixed upon her while the knife is pressed between his teeth.

Trying anything like killing him or escaping is far from realistic as she finds her legs hardly able to hold her own weight. The hardwood floor beneath her feet feels soft and mushy, if someone would have told her she’s stepping onto marshmallows she might have believed them.

She only manages to make two feeble steps before black spots appear in her sight and she falls forward with a pained grunt. She never makes it to the ground. Odd, she hasn’t noticed how big and strong he is when wrestling him on the floor. It seems that August has doubled in size.

“Who was it that didn’t love you, August?” she provokes coldly, grunting as she tries to lift her torso from his elbow. “Was it your mother? Or your dad?”

Silence and indifference is his answer to her query, with only a muscle that twitches in his cheek. He observes quietly as her hands grasp his biceps desperately and pathetically, trying to stabilize herself. It must make her hate him even more right now, to need him as much as she does.

He recalls how much he hated himself when he needed someone.

“Both then…” she answers, slightly panting.

“Did anyone ever loved you at all? Ingvild?” he taunts her back while helping her get to the toilet. He notices how her eyes look around while they move through the room, looking for her things, no doubt. She is smart, he’ll give her that, she is cunning and calculated even in her weakest moment.

But he’ll always be a step ahead.

“More than they loved you, I am sure.”

He lets her into the small room and shuts the door, leaning against it and patiently waits with his arms crossed. The sudden silence and her short absence begin to cloud his thoughts. It’s almost as if he’s dreaming awake, seeing her again, her hair falling from her decaying scalp like leaves falling from a tree.

‘Not more than you.’

The crude vibration of his phone snaps him back into reality. A message from one of the apostles, stating nothing but a location and an hour. He smirks to himself, glad to be soon away from this freezing hell. Now the question left is, what he should do with the little problem he created for himself?

Snap her little neck? Strangle her to death? Make it intimate, she deserves as much. He can already see his body hovering on top of hers, his hands wrapped around her, tight like a lover’s embrace. The robe opens as she struggles, exposing much of her naked flesh.

The thought makes him hum with delight but once again he is interrupted. This time it’s by her face that stares at him, blank of emotion, with eyes like two empty crystals. She leans against the door frame, her face tilted up to meet his gaze. “I need to shower. I smell like you.”

He wonders at all why he should fulfil her request. She’s a prisoner, not a guest, and far from being someone, he’d care for. His eyes run up and down her body and finally at the cold unreadable expression on her face.

“Whatever.”

The bathroom is rather large, surrounded by cream-coloured marble tiles that adorn both the walls and the flooring. There is a large, fancy bathtub in the middle of the room, one that is made to look old and classy with golden taps. An additional shower is placed at the other side of the room, surrounded by a thin wall of glass.

The bath looks so tempting, her eyes fixate upon it, fantasizing about slipping into a warm bubble bath with one of those pink and purple bath bombs.

August notices her fascination and snorts, edging her toward the shower instead. “You should’ve taken my offer back then, princess. Be thankful that I am allowing you the luxury of showering at all.”

For all, he cares she can die of infection, who knows what bacteria these lake water she bled into had.

“I’d take the shower over-sharing anything with you,” she spits back, her hand grasping the golden handle of the glass door. August remains facing, leaning against the marble tile with ease while sucking on his bottom lip with anticipation.

“Aren’t you going to at least turn away?” she asks naively, crooking her eyebrow up, bewildered by the large man who’s standing there with sheer confidence on his face, not bothering to give her an inch of privacy.

“No,” he smirks cockily, licking that small freckle on his lips. “You tried to kill me, I don’t trust you. But don’t worry, won’t be anything I haven’t seen before, princess.” he shrugs and tilts his head. His eyes gesture at the robe as he awaits for her to slip it off her body.

Ingvild chews the inside of her cheek with the fury that courses through her veins. He seeks to humiliate her even more, to show her again how little power she has.

But men are fools, a woman has more power over a man, especially when she is naked. She doesn’t mind what he sees and if he likes it or not anyway. Also, nervousness is not in her spectrum of emotions.

The white cotton robe falls off her body, landing at her feet with a soft thud. There she is standing completely bare before the man who tried to murdered her and who for some sick, twisted, megalomaniac reason nurtured her back to life.

Unlike last night, he has the freedom to linger on what stands in his sight. Milky white skin, stretched taut over an apt figure. Athletic; formed by years of whatever combat training she has endured. There are no scars on her body save for the new one he gave her which is hidden behind gauze. The thought of letting her survive just so she can curse him every time she sees the hideous crescent scar is quite the temptation.

He further inspects her body, imagining cupping her small breasts in his large hands, they will not fill his palms completely, but it will suffice. He was always more into women’s behind and the rounded shape of her tight ass is indeed pleasing.

“As I said, nothing I haven’t seen before,” he speaks out, letting his gaze travel back to meet her face again.

She hisses through her nose, rolling her eyes as she walks inside the translucent room and turns the stream of the water to wash over her body.

The heat of the water immediately makes her groan loudly with pleasure; it echoes through the entire room. Her body is far more battered than she even realized, it feels as almost as if she is being redeemed, baptized, or whatever other religious allegories she could think of.

She leans against the wall for support with both her palms flat against the surface. Her back arches and she lets her head tilt back with her eyes tightly shut. The damp hair sticks to her spine, while she lets the droplets of water slide between her perky breasts and down her torso.

Sweet moans escape between her lips with every second, accompanying the water that soothe her aching muscles.

August can feel the fabric of his trousers tightening as blood stirs through the veins of his cock. She squirms beneath the stream, moving so sensually while making these “fuck me” noises all too clear. It’s meant to tease and provoke him. He is tempted to march in there and fuck the living hell out of her.

Fucking her to death, now that one I haven’t tried before.

“Enjoying the show?” she asks, turning to face him while the water trickles down her back. She can see the hardness in his groin, growing larger and larger with every second she stands there wet and naked.

“I am, actually,” he answers, not bothering to hide his desire.

She turns to face the shower tap, one hand plastered to the wall while the other leisurely runs down her chest. Smooth and slick, she allows it to circle her breast, making sure August can see how her finger brushes the hardening peachy nipple before descending along her flat torso.

His breath becomes rigid, his eyes furiously focusing on how she praises her own body. Her lids are half-hooded, hazy with lust and her mouth is reddening and slight swelling as she bites into her plush lips with delight. He dares, taking a step closer, allowing himself to have a better view of the show.

It is for him after all, is it not?

Tender and slow like honey, she lets her fingers creep between her thighs. In her mind, she fancies larger hands taking control over her body. A man’s hands, hands that are rough and callous, counter to how she is built, yet they caress her gently, working their way up between her inner thighs and spreading her open.

A feverish moan escapes her tightened lips as her fingers rub against her clit. She opens her eyes with her head thrown to the side. Giving August a lustful stare, cruel and full of snide she begins working herself with sensual strokes. She can feel her own wetness, thick and oily against her delicate fingers.

August’s nostrils flare, the bulge in his groin now enormous and aching for release.

Does she think she is torturing him? Does she even know men?

He inches closer toward the shower, close enough until so his hand can touch the glass which is now covered with tiny droplets of water and a thin layer of steam. His hand falls toward the zipper of his trousers, letting it sink before reaching out to pull his erect cock.

There is a smitten look upon her face, and an unpleasant chill runs through her spine as if she is intimidated by the sheer sight of him. Obviously, he is very much aware of how impossibly large he is. She gathers he is used to the look she is giving him, knowing exactly what’s going through her mind.

“Why are you stopping then, princess?” he asks with a cocky smile, his large hand wraps around the base of his hard cock, immediately beginning to stroke while eliciting deep, low groans.

Ingvild finds it surprisingly arousing, unable to help herself but stare at how his fingers engulf the fleshy shaft, feeling herself throb at the sight of the thick bulging veins and the ridges that run across his erection. When she started this little game it was in order to abuse him. But now, there is a certain desperation in her spiteful urge.

Looking at him as if driven to insanity, she lets her fingers massage her mound with increasing force, hard yet slow while her thumb traces the engorged nub. With every intent to let him see what he cannot take, she leans against the wall and parts her legs wide for him, letting him see her pink cunt and how her fingers play and tease while her other hand moves to squeeze her breast.

Her mind escapes into fantasies again, to urge the tingling sensation that burns between her thighs. Betrayed by lust, it’s him that she sees, holding her down as he did the night before, only that instead of trying to kill her he tears off her panties and splits her flesh open with his enormous cock.

The yelp that escapes her mouth is barely human, the image triggering something dark and unfamiliar and despite its wrongness now all she can think of is him.

August, on the other hand, is anything but inclined to indulge this. Pumping his cock urgently, he imagines pounding the little valkyrie against the wall, his grunts so low and loud he is certain the neighbours renting the room nearby can hear.

‘Have you ever fucked an undead girl? Imagine how sweet that wet little cunt must be after coming back to life… milking around you as if you are her saviour, your cock a gift sent from heaven…’

‘Or hell.’

Leaning his forehead against the glass, his breath leaves a veil of steam against the surface while he glances at Ingvild climbing toward her climax.

“Fuck!” She shudders, trying to fight the burning image of him in her mind, but these forbidden fantasies continue to assail her; all the different ways he could take her, exploit and humiliate her. How his body would feel atop of hers while he holds her down and hammer her into the floor.

Her battle wanes, heat spills between her legs as she falls into dark euphoria.

Seeing her arch against the tiles, naked and showered by ecstasy, his control finally snaps. August slams a hand against the glass, spourting white ribbons of cum all over the surface.

‘Oh to see her die and then burst with life…’

They stand in front of one another, both with heaving chests and frowning faces.

Finally, she turns the stream off and opens the glass door while August tucks himself back in. Apparent sweat covers his forehead while his chest is still heaving. She crouches to grab the robe, wearing it again while moving next to him with a teasing look on her face.

Although her legs feel feeble, the adrenaline made the blood kickstart her body again, her heart pumping with excitement as life returned to her system. She pushes past August scornfully, letting him follow her as she walks out of the bathroom.

He grabs her elbow, shooting her a warning glare. “Where do you think you are going?”

She tries to fight him but his grip is fierce and she is too weak.

“You are still a prisoner here,” he warns her and begins to lead her back to the bedroom and toward the bed while grabbing more rope on the way. He notices once again how she desperately seeks her personal belongings, gun, and phone.

“Don’t bother, angel, it’s all in the bottom of the lake.”

______________________________________________

Disclaimer: I don’t own Mission Impossible or August Walker

#Henry Cavill #August Walker #August Walker Fanfic #August Walker Fic #August Walker x ofc #Henry Cavill x ofc #Henry Cavill fanfiction #mission impossible fallout #mi6

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even-after-a-millennia · 4 years

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the water will not claim me (she already has)

Andromaquynh fic about them and water throughout the years. Huge thanks for 1k followers!

Read below or on ao3 here.

Water was hard to come by in the desert, but Andromache couldn’t let the woman she had found die from dehydration again. Tilting her head back, she gave her the last bit of water from her waterskin. Andromache watched as the woman swallowed weakly, eyes fluttering.

Standing, Andromache grabbed one of her arms and hefted her over her shoulders. She felt the woman’s weak exhalation of breath against her arm.

And she walked.

Step after step, she moved closer to her destination. On the way to finding this woman, unable to resist the despair she felt from her every time Andromache dreamt, she had found a small green area a day’s walk away. With the added weight on her back, it took two mind-numbing, grueling days to return.

Andromache kept moving, even as she felt the woman waste away on her back. It would do no good to stop and check on her. What could she do to help now?

She kept walking.

Finally, they arrived. Andromache laid the woman gently propped up against a rock, then went to refill her waterskin. The woman didn’t wake as she returned.

“Hey,” Andromache said, shaking her shoulder lightly. No response. Putting some water into her hand, Andromache brought it to the woman’s lips. They parted, taking in the drink.

Dark eyes drifted slightly open, unseeing. Undeterred, Andromache lifted the waterskin to her lips and tilted it, letting the water dribble in.

The woman coughed, eyes coming alive as she realized what was happening. She lifted an arm to reach for the skin, but Andromache easily batted it away.

“Slowly, slowly,” Andromache encouraged.

Her voice must have cut through the haze of the woman’s mind, as she looked up at Andromache.

Their eyes met and Andromache felt the loneliness that she had worn as a shroud for centuries fall away as they gazed at each other.

II.

After the battle, they were all covered in filth and sweat. Lykon was the only one of them that hadn’t suffered a fatal blow at some point and he loudly complained about their stench, laughter in his eyes. They were all so used to one another that it was nothing to all undress and climb into the gentle river they found together.

“I will look for a meal,” Lykon said, clean long before either of them.

“Thank you, brother,” Andromache replied, taking a moment to just float in the slow movement of the water.

“I expect to see you for food before sundown! Do not get so distracted you disappoint me!” he called as he walked away. Andromache may have taken him more seriously if laughter hadn’t rang through his voice.

“Yes, yes, we promise…”

As soon as he was out of sight, Quynh pushed through the water towards Andromache, who turned instinctively to receive an armful of her love.

“Do you think we will actually get back for the meal?” Quynh asked.

“If not,” Andromache said, pushing Quynh’s long, wet hair away from her face, “we are lucky Lykon is more forgiving than we deserve.”

III.

The fact that Cairo’s public baths were divided for females and males was not a deterrence to Andromache’s little band of immortals. In fact, it was somewhat of a blessing. Despite loving each other for over three hundred years now, Yusuf and Nicoló still acted as if they had just wed yesterday.

After they parted at the entrance, Andromache turned to Quynh and asked, “We were never so caught up in each other, were we?”

Quynh smiled, but her eyes were sad. Andromache knew what she was going to say before the words left her mouth, as she knew who brought that look to her love’s face.

“I think Lykon would disagree with you, trái tim,” she replied.

Andromache scoffed, but moved to hold Quynh’s hand only to have their hands meet halfway. They looked down, considered their intertwined fingers, then burst out laughing.

“Very well, I am bested. We are just as bad,” Andromache said, pulling Quynh further into the bath.

IV.

England was dreary. There was no other word for it. Clouds hung above them with weak sunlight poking through. It drizzled most days without end. And people were dying of false accusations of witchcraft.

Their tiny house in the woods was their only sanctuary from the madness of the world around them. Every day, they tried to help those they could. And every night, they retreated back to their small one room with walls and a roof and collapsed together, soaked through and exhausted.

In the middle of the night, Quynh shook Andromache awake.

“What? What is it?” Andromache demanded, instantly awake and weapon in hand.

“It is finally really raining, ánh nắng của tôi. It is like a monsoon out there,” Quynh said, looking outside with a soft smile gracing her lips.

Andromache groaned and fell back into bed, dropping her ax back onto the floor. “Wonderful, I am very glad. May I sleep now?”

Quynh turned to her and shook her head, pulling her long nightgown off until she was just in her shift. “We should not waste this weather.”

“What do you mean?” Andromache asked, instantly more awake.

Quynh walked slowly towards her and leaned down to whisper in Andromache’s ear.

“Dance with me.”

She turned and walked out the door. In a moment, her shift was soaked through but she merely lifted her arms and face to the sky, letting the rain cascade down her.

Then she turned her head to look back at Andromache, sitting stunned in their bed as she stared at the woman who held her heart.

“Are you joining me?” Quynh asked.

Andromache had lived over five thousand years and over the millennia, she had developed a grace in her way of moving that came from battlefields and training. That said, she scrambled out of bed and her nightgown in her rush to get out to Quynh.

In that moment, the ugliness of their day to day work faded from mind and all Andromache knew was Quynh’s laugh, her cold lips curled into a smile even as they kissed, and her arms around Andromache as they danced in the downpour.

Andy hated coming back to England. The rain seemed to mock her.

Of course, their assignment had been on the coast. It was finished now, but still, she had come back to the water. The vast ocean stretched out in front of her, crashing into the shore and soaking her bare feet. Her shoes lay forgotten in the sand.

It had been two hundred years since they had given up the search. More than that since she and Quynh had danced in the rain that night. The ache was old, but here, in the ocean where somewhere in its depths, Quynh lay trapped and dying… that ache turned into a burn in her chest.

The waves at her feet were the closest she had gotten to touching Quynh in a very long time.

She knelt in the water, uncaring about the ridiculous clothes this century required her to wear. When she got back to their safe house, she would don trousers and be freer. For now, she let the layers of fabric soak through around her, weighing her down with each wave.

“Anh nhớ em,” she whispered, and the burn in her chest flared into an inferno.

Joe and Nicky found her there hours later. The tide had gone out but still, she sat, soaked through and staring blankly out towards the ocean.

As she settled into the jacuzzi bathtub in their latest Air D and D, or whatever Nile called it, Andy let out a deep sigh of relief. While her muscles had already recovered from the strain of the mission, she still let the warmth soothe away any remnants of pain. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

The bathroom door opened and closed but she didn’t have to look to know who was there.

There was a rustle of fabric and that, that made Andy turn to watch as Quynh took off her dirtied outfit. Some things never grew old, no matter how much time had passed.

“Baths have truly come a long way in the time I was gone,” Quynh said, settling into the v between Andy’s legs. The water splashed a bit as she moved, but as she settled, so did the small waves.

“The world is definitely better for it,” Andy agreed, dropping a kiss on her love’s bare shoulder.

It took them a long time to get here, Quynh’s back to Andy’s front, submerged in warm, scented water in the 21st century.

Andy may always resent the centuries taken from them and the pain they had both gone through to get to this moment. But now, her arms around her heart long gone from her, she let those feelings fade away in the water and pulled her closer.

They soaked together, unspeaking, as calm as the water around them.

Translations thanks to @hottopicmonk on tumblr: trái tim - heart

ánh nắng của tôi - my sunshine

anh nhớ em - I miss you

#andromaquynh #andy x quynh #joe x nicky #in the background #the old guard #the old guard fanfic #fanfic

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westerhos · 4 years

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Our Story: Chapter 5

Here marks the middle of our tale, that vast, perilous land between the beginning and the end. The going is treacherous in these parts—the wayward couple must heal on their own, tread the sea of two decades with arms and souls akimbo—but still, it is not unnecessary. The middle is never aimless. Always, always, it has one goal: the ending.

When the lights go up and the curtains close, you clap—perhaps, should the couple reunite (which, of course, they will), you shout “Encore, encore!” But then, at last, you return to your car. You catch the train, or you grab a taxi. At last, having started at the beginning and waded through the middle, you reach the final destination. The night is over; you go home.

Home. Whether a place, a person, a feeling, or a thing—it does not matter. Home is always the goal and the ending, the northernmost star we pray to and walk towards.

[December 24th, 1996]

Two weeks’ vacation in a cabin, tucked deep inside a fold of mountains. Here, amongst the stretches of living nothingness, even the silence has a voice. Owls hoot in the night. The pines’ chatter, their needle-whispers pierced by caws and shifted air—a hawk swooping to ensnare her prey. And if one listens closely enough, one can hear the hunter's a shaky, traitorous breath, which launches the doe across the snow—the echo of his heartsong, the drum to which the doe’s hooves beat. Come back, come back, come back.

This is why Jamie has come here: for the endless conversation between man and mountain, more steadfast than the chill in his heart. In the past four years, Jamie has sold the twin cot (it lies in a salvage yard somewhere, all broken springs and dreams). A different couple has moved into the studio, and when they had spoken of paint jobs—“Perhaps mint green, what d’ye say, hon?”— Jamie had thought, Thank God. He’d happily offered them the keys when they turned to him, pupils dilated with youthful optimism. By that point, there was no space for Jamie and Claire inside that Edinburgh Eden, and so he’d chimed in, “Aye, a bonny color.” (Indeed, the walls are mint now, though a forgotten strip of marigold shines in the northern corner.)

For two years, Jamie has lived with Murtagh in Glasgow, having shed not just his home but his editorial career in publishing. He has grown tired of fixing other’s mistakes—too many of his own in need of correction—and so here he sits on this Christmas Eve, writing towards redemption.

The Grampians are a peaceful place, big hulks of rock scattered with trees—bouquets of fir, oak, and pine cradling other cabins. At dark, their windows flicker, candlelit with the dreams of the aspiring novelists, essayists, playwrights therein. Men and women, all bowed before the cleansing hum of nature’s speech. Like Jamie, they had seen the fliers: WRITER’S RETREAT, TWO WEEKS IN THE MOUNTAINS—and so it was. They were small colony taking its temporary leave, hoping to reconstruct the world according to their own, more favorable terms.

Over supper, the group gathers and shares their ideas: outlines, pieces of dialogue, an inspiring poem they’ve loved since childhood. And while Jamie is generous with his advice, he holds his notebooks against his chest. Enraptured by this warm aloofness (for is it not the way of all great wordsmiths?), the others whisper behind their palms, “Have you read Fraser’s story?” Into napkins, “No, have you?”

But among the fifteen guests, only one has read Jamie’s story—and tonight, Jamie waits for her inside his cabin. His latest draft is fanned around him, some sections highlighted and others slashed. They are not unlike Claire’s old strike-throughs, which had snipped the would-be Dalhousie and eventually, Jamie’s own name, from her life (a reclamation of Beauchamp, a transformation to Randall). Among Jamie’s scribbles are his friend’s edits, which are much more forgiving, much less forceful than the lines of his own red pen. Each comment reads like a bashful request: “More clarity?”, “Switch the verb here?”, “Too many adjectives?” as if she needs permission to occupy the margins. Should I really be reading this?, she seems to say, the bare-backed rawness making her squirm.

But she is helping him, his friend. And so she sees Jamie’s drafts before John, his agent, and before Fergus, his assistant and most loyal advocate. With each comment, she brings him closer to understanding, to the better beginning, middle and end. Note by note, to the way his story (their story, for it can never be Jamie’s alone) should be. All rhymes and logic, had it not veered off-course.

Is Alexander too cold here? Shouldn’t he say something? (He should have.)

It seems out of character for Alexander to never visit his daughter’s grave? (Grief carves cowards out of heroes.)

Shouldn’t he try to win Elizabeth back? (God, yes. He should have tried harder.)

The knock comes three minutes later, as expected.

“Hello?”

“Door’s unlocked.”

“Oh!” A muffled apology, embarrassment for the delay. “Sorry,” the visitor says. “It’s late. Didna ken if ye still wanted to talk or not. I brought—well, I finished reading your last chapter.”

And now another player enters this fifth act, tip-toes quietly onto the stage. Only a slip of a thing in the cabin’s doorway, cheeks pinked by the storm’s sharp nip. She is Jamie’s friend-slash-critique partner, and even her entrance is punctuated by a question mark. The score of owl, pine, hawk and hunter swells, buffeted now by new notes: the crack of chapped lips smiling, the anxious shuffle of papers, and—

“Dinna fash, I couldna sleep anyways,” Jamie assures her. “Did ye like it, though? The new ending?”

His friend inhales sharply, stealing as much oxygen as the room will allow. Everything—the threadbare futon, the TV’s antennae, the welcome mat and Jamie’s body—bends towards some invisible presence. A ghost between between all.

“It was…a bit different from the last one.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘Nay, I didna like it.’”

She looks shyly at the ground, one foot treading nervous circles into the planks.

“It was a bit too sentimental is all. After everything. All that time and silence…D’ye really think Alex and Lizzie could make it?”

Her words are a blow to Jamie’s stomach, and the pages are fire in his hands. He puts them down, wants to thrust himself under a blanket of snow to freeze the flames.

“In a fairy tale, maybe, but life isna a fairy tale. And d’ye no want to write truths?” She looks up, and her eyes gore him. “This story isna a fairy tale either, Jamie. Yours never are.”

“Aye…aye, I s’pose they’re not,” he replies, thinking of his other novels and short stories, essays and poems. Each accepted by John’s gimlet eye, only to meet their end in a publisher’s slush pile. (“Too dark, too wallowing,” an editor once wrote.)

“Give it another go. I’ll help ye tomorrow, if ye’d like,” his friend offers. “Three days left. I reckon we’ve time to sort the kinks, right the wrongs.” (Three days will never be enough for Jamie’s wrongs.)

“I’d appreciate that, lass. Verra much.”

His friend looks behind her and at the moon, a shy sickle in the sky. It draws her toward the door and the snow-covered mountainside.

“Weel, it’s a long walk back,” she says. “Wanted to give ye that before the morning, so I guess I’ll just…”

“Will ye stay with me tonight?” Jamie blurts. And he hates himself for saying this, the way it sounds outside his mouth and inside his cabin, landing on the unmade bed. Its despair makes it ugly. But.

But if his friend stays, Jamie thinks, perhaps the emptiness will leave. If his friend stays, perhaps his story will correct itself, falling into its natural rhythm, by the force of whatever solace she can give him.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he continues, “and I…I dinna want to be alone.”

She pauses, thinks it over before saying, “Okay. Just for a bit?” (Just for a bit? Another loaded question, and one he doesn’t want to answer.)

“Thank you,” Jamie whispers, and Mary McNab removes her coat.

____

Long before daybreak, Jamie wakes. He gathers his draft, made complete by that final failing chapter, into a single stack. He retrieves a box from his suitcase, which is swathed in his old holiday sweater, and it speaks to him. A quiet loudness, like the murmur of the Grampians. You mean your lager-stained pullover? With the Santa looks that looks like he’s got vomit in his beard?

Inside the box is a gift—a vase, azure porcelain—though Jamie has no plans to send it across the Atlantic, to the Boston apartment where his ex-wife kisses another man. No. This vase will stay with Jamie, forever hidden on the high shelf of a closet, or exiled to the back corner of a desk drawer. Like his grief, it is something that he owns—this small cut from a cloth of unraveled dreams—to be kept and locked safely away. There, there, always there. All fancy people have vases.

Jamie wraps the box with his manuscript. One by one, he folds the pages over and under, seals the edges with tape to form an inch-thick layer. So much history around this small, delicate thing—their story, with the ending Jamie cannot use and which cannot be the truth. At last, he cuts the string of wool, which still drips from his sweater after all these years, and it rasps, Do we have time? Of course we do.

Finally, Jamie weeps—a mournful sound that joins the chorus of this great, big mountain—and ties a frayed, red bow.

____

(Jamie does not realize that Mary watches him from the bed. “Tell me about her,” she wants to say—for once a statement and not a question—but she does not. Instead, she calls to Jamie, presses her goosefleshed nakedness to his. And as they move together, slow but unfeeling, she pretends she is a vessel. Closes her eyes. Makes room for the ghost. I’m Claire Beauchamp. Just plain Claire Beauchamp.)

____

Here, the idea of a writer’s retreat, the introduction, and the parentheticals (although those are also inspired by one of my favorite authors Kate Atkinson) are my lame attempts at trying to be Lauren Groff. Actually, the next handful of chapters are the result of my obsession with her novel Fates and Furies—which you should absolutely go read, right now.

One of my favorite parts about writing a modern AU is finding ways to fit in canon characters or references. I started this chapter having no idea who Jamie’s critique partner was, but it very quickly came together once there was a remote cabin, Jamie inside it, and a woman coming to visit him. I hope the reveal is at least somewhat...fun? The vase is also obviously a nod to Outlander, and, well, I’m assuming y’all caught on to Jamie’s character names (a bit on the nose, lmao).

I’m not crazy about this introduction (it’s...a bit much...but it’s meant to tie into the introduction of Chapter 1), but the final paragraph from Mary’s POV is actually one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole fic.

I also think I wrote this during a snowstorm, wheeeee!

#myfic #outlander #claire beauchamp #jamie fraser

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 26: Jon

When Jon’s grandmother passed away peacefully in her sleep, not long after his twenty-fourth birthday, he quickly discovered that her life insurance and savings weren’t enough to cover all the bills that needed to be covered and put the house he’d grown up in on the market. He only vaguely remembers the whole procedure, as he was in something of a state of shock at the time, but he does remember accepting the first offer presented to him despite the realtor’s comments that he could “probably hold out for a bit more” if he wanted. Thus, he’s the only one not really startled at the speed with which he, Martin, and Tim find out that they’ve got the house.

To be clear: He’s not startled at the speed. He is, however, startled that they got it. Surely someone must have been willing to pay more for it, been better qualified. But no. They learn their offer has been accepted less than a week after the Primes’ disastrous encounter with Basira’s partner and the closing is scheduled for the following Friday. Martin theorizes that their position at the Magnus Institute gave them some extra clout. Tim jokes that it’s his charismatic personality. Jon frets that Elias might have had something to do with it for nefarious purposes.

Sasha finally does some research and tells them that it’s being sold by a pair of siblings barely out of their teens whose parents died unexpectedly and probably just need the money fast.

Martin doesn’t have much, just the little he managed to bring with him to the Institute when first escaping Jane Prentiss and the few things he’s re-acquired since then, and Jon’s things are still packed up from when he declined to renew the lease on his flat in August, so it’s mostly just Tim who needs to decide what he’s keeping and what he’s ready to part with or needs to replace. It takes them the better part of two Saturdays, but they manage to get everything boxed and sorted in time to move out the last full weekend of September.

The moving-in process is surprisingly fun. Sasha and the Primes even come to help (Tim suggests the latter so that Martin Prime knows his way around the house from the get-go, which is actually really sensible) and they make a party of it. Tim insists on setting up the sound system first, then gets everyone to contribute a certain number of songs to a playlist on some app he has on his phone. He puts it on shuffle and lets it play while they work together on the various rooms.

“Oh, my God,” Sasha moans after the eighth song that she evidently didn’t pick comes on. “Do any of you listen to a single band that’s put out an album since 1984?”

“Yes,” Martin says indignantly, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“Remasters don’t count.”

Martin Prime grins. “None of mine have come up, either.”

“What did you put on?” Sasha asks suspiciously.

She gets her answer a few minutes later when, after shuffle coughs up a Spice Girls song they all tease her mercilessly about, an honest to God sea shanty comes on. Tim and Jon laugh at Sasha’s dramatic, despairing groan, but it’s hard not to respond to the Martins’ enthusiasm as they—surprisingly—harmonize along with the recording while they set up the living room.

They’re almost done assembling the new bed Tim bullied Jon into buying (“You’re not in uni anymore, you don’t need to be sleeping on a futon, and anyway, when was this made, the Thatcher premiership?” “Brown, and shut up, Tim.”), which is the last piece of furniture they need to put together, when there’s a sound from the front door—two firm, solid knocks, audible all the way upstairs. Jon nearly drops the screwdriver as his heart kicks against his ribs. It’s stupid, and he knows it’s stupid, but two knocks like that always makes him think of that book.

Tim makes a noise in the back of his throat. “God, hope the music isn’t too loud.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Martin says, but he sounds uncertain. “I-I mean, it’s been ages.”

Jon pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll check.”

He hurries out of the bedroom before anyone can comment on the clear break in his voice. He is, and there is no way to deny it to himself, legitimately afraid of what might be outside. The likelihood of it being a being of another entity is slim, but…well, there was Mr. Spider, and Jane Prentiss knocked on Martin’s door more than a few times to keep him off-balance, so there’s always the chance. It’s something he feels he can deal with, though, so he heads out to face it.

He does not, however, expect to open the door and be faced with what is either a small child or a casserole dish with tennis shoes.

“Hello,” a tiny voice says brightly from behind the dish. There’s a bit of shifting, and then two big brown eyes and a mass of curls appear over the rim. “I’ve brought you a cake.”

Jon will deny to his dying day that those words freeze his blood in his veins and make his heart stutter to a stop, but since this might actually be his dying day, he’ll be lying if he tries. His lips part, but no sound comes out.

“And a casserole, too,” the child continues, completely oblivious to Jon’s unwarranted panic attack. “That’s not as much fun, though, but Nan says it’s important to eat good, hearty food when you’ve been doing lots of work and that cake shouldn’t be a whole meal. I think there’s no point in being a grown-up if you can’t eat whatever you want, but…” The child heaves an enormous, dramatic sigh that seems too large for such a small body. “My Nan’s very, very old, and you don’t get to be old if you don’t do something right, so she must know what she’s talking about. Anyway, we made the casserole with lots and lots of cheese and she said that was okay, so at least it’s a little better.”

“Ah—thank you?” Jon manages. “H-here, let me…take that.”

He manages to extract the casserole dish, which certainly feels as if it’s laden with cheese; it weighs the proverbial ton. Quite possibly a literal one. It’s solid enough to anchor Jon to reality, though, and he studies his benefactor. The child can’t be more than seven or eight, at the most, with a round face and limbs hidden in an oversized, threadbare sweater that looks like it’s been handed down through more than a few generations. Dangling from one arm is a wicker basket that does indeed appear to contain a cake.

“It’s a chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting,” the child says. “I tried to write ‘Welcome to the neighborhood’ on it, but I didn’t put the tip on the piping bag right and it came off, so now it’s just a mess, but it’ll taste just as good, I promise. My Nan makes the best cakes.”

Jon smiles in spite of himself. “I don’t think I have enough hands to take it from you now. Would you mind bringing it into the kitchen for me?”

“Oh, sure!” The child practically hops over the threshold. “I always wanted to see what this house was like on the inside. Tibby used to babysit for me sometimes, but she always came over to our house, never me coming over here. Nan says it’s better that way, and Tibby always said it was laid out exactly like all the other houses, but it’s not the same as seeing it for yourself. Firsthand knowledge is best, that’s what I think. What do you think?”

“I—I think I agree with you,” Jon says. He also feels a bit like he’s staring at his younger self. “I assume you live in one of the other houses on the row?”

“Two doors down,” the child agrees cheerfully. “With the window boxes. My Nan likes to garden a bit, but she can’t bend over so much anymore, so Toby set up the window boxes for her a couple years ago.”

“And, uh, who is…Toby?”

“Oh, sorry, I thought you knew. Toby McGill. He and Tibby—that’s his sister Tabitha, but everyone calls her Tibby—they were the ones selling this house after their parents died. He’s at Surrey University now and he says he’s going to stay out there when it’s all said and done, and Tibby got a job on a boat.” The child sounds deeply impressed. “I want to be a sailor someday, too. Can you imagine getting to see the whole wide world by water and getting paid for it, too? I’d never want to leave. I told Tibby she has to save a spot on the crew for me and she laughed and promised, so I can’t wait. I’m going as soon as I grow up. I’m not going to university. You don’t need to go to university for everything, you know. I know Nan really wants me to go ‘cause Mum didn’t and neither did Dad and she doesn’t want me turning out like them, but you can turn out well even if you don’t go to university, can’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Jon says gravely. He casts an involuntary glance in the direction of the stairs, thinking of Martin. “One of my housemates didn’t go to university, and he’s one of the most brilliant people I know.”

“How many of you live here, anyway?”

“Just three of us.” Jon has no idea how much this child has seen and how many people he knows are in the house at the moment.

“Oh. There used to be three of us in my house, too.” The child scuffs a toe against the carpet just before they step into the kitchen. “And then there was going to be four, but Mum died and the baby did, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says softly, feeling a pang. “I grew up with my grandmother, too.”

The child looks up at Jon and smiles, in such a way that Jon can’t help but smile back. “And you turned out okay.”

“Debatable,” Jon says. He sets the casserole dish on the counter. “I’m Jon, by the way. Jonathan Sims.”

“I’m Charlie. Charlie Cane.” The child smiles up at him and hands over the basket. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. Tell your grandmother we said thank you. I don’t know that any of us will have the energy to cook tonight. We’ll bring back the dishes tomorrow.”

“There’s no hurry. Nan doesn’t go anywhere.” Charlie flashes Jon a grin that’s missing two teeth, then turns and waves to the doorway. Jon glances up to see Martin, looking somewhere between worried and amused. “Hi! I’m Charlie Cane. Welcome to the neighborhood. Do you live here, too?”

“Um…yes. I’m Martin Blackwood. It’s…nice to meet you?” Martin raises an eyebrow at Jon.

“Charlie and his grandmother made us a casserole,” Jon says, gesturing at the counter. “And a cake.”

“That’s very nice of you. Thank you.” Martin smiles at Charlie and winks, although Jon doesn’t quite understand why.

“Welcome.” Charlie’s beaming smile could probably light the house for a week. “I’d best go before Nan thinks I’m doing something stupid again. See you later!”

He’s out the front door before Jon can respond, or even blink. He looks back to Martin, who isn’t even trying to hide his amusement. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Jon. We were just wondering if you were okay. You were gone for a while.”

Jon gestures vaguely at the front door. “I don’t think that child has many people to talk to. Or at least not many people who will listen to him.”

Martin snorts. “I think you’ve got yourself a new best friend.”

Jon almost wants to say something flippant like Just what I need, but thinking on it, he actually doesn’t mind all that much. “Considering how much I would have given to have an adult pay that kind of attention to me when I was his age, I think I can handle that.”

Martin reaches over and pulls Jon into a hug. Jon lets himself be comforted for a moment, then extricates himself gently and smiles. “Come on. Let’s see if the others are ready to eat.”

As it turns out, the others finished putting together the bed and even made it while Jon talked to Charlie, so they’re all too happy to come into the kitchen for a hearty meal. It’s exactly as cheese-laden as Charlie promised. Jon recounts his conversation, to general amusement, although something flickers briefly across Martin Prime’s face and Jon Prime shoots Jon an understanding and slightly frightened look when he repeats Charlie’s opening words. If anyone else notices, they give no sign of it.

Tim lets the music keep playing while they eat. Jon mostly tunes it out, no pun intended, and he rather suspects the others do too. But just as they’re scraping their plates clean—the food is delicious, and Tim declares he’s going to try and charm Charlie’s grandmother out of the recipe—Martin Prime suddenly tilts his head to one side, as if trying to catch a sound. A smile twitches at his lips, and he stands up and holds out a hand to Jon Prime. “May I?”

Jon Prime looks startled for a split-second, then smiles—no, grins—and places his hand in Martin Prime’s. He lets Martin Prime pull him away from the table and into his arms, and the two of them start slow-dancing.

Jon pauses, fork suspended over his plate, and watches them. Jon Prime lets Martin Prime lead him in a simple box step, one arm draped casually over Martin Prime’s shoulder, while Martin Prime’s hand rests firmly at his waist; their other fingers are laced together in a way that would make it difficult to telegraph intended moves if they didn’t—probably—know each other so well. The space between them is so little it’s a wonder they don’t constantly trip over each other’s feet, and before long their foreheads touch. The song is gentle and plaintive, encouragement from one partner to the other to trust and relax and allow the first to take care of the second, a promise that the second person won’t be considered weak or lesser if they allow themselves to be comforted.

I promise you’ll be safe here in my arms…

Martin Prime lifts his arm and spins Jon Prime around gently, and when Jon Prime comes back into the closed frame, he leans his head against the shoulder where his hand isn’t resting and closes his eyes. Martin Prime pulls him closer and rests his cheek alongside Jon Prime’s as they continue dancing. It’s one of the most intimate and romantic things Jon has ever seen, and he almost has to look away from it.

Almost. Not quite. Something keeps him drawn, and there’s a tiny part of Jon’s brain that suggests it probably isn’t just the pleasure at seeing someone who’s basically him safe and happy and in love mixed with the vague sense of longing for something like that—maybe not that exactly, but something like it. It may also be that watching the Primes slow dancing means he doesn’t have to look at anyone else.

The song plays itself out. Martin Prime turns his head slightly; Jon Prime turns his at the same time, and their lips meet gently in the middle. This time Jon does look away. He’s never quite been able to figure out how he feels about kissing, to be honest; it’s one of the things that sent his and Georgie’s relationship down in flames, was the fact that he always acted like you think I’ve got poison in my lip gloss, according to her. But he finds himself wondering for a moment what Martin’s lips would feel like against his, if they’d be as soft and warm as the rest of him. If it might make a difference to kiss Martin instead of Georgie, or Meredith, or Kelly. And that’s not a question he’s comfortable asking himself just then, let alone trying to answer.

The scrape of a chair breaks his attention, and he looks up to see the Primes sitting down like nothing happened, although they’re still holding hands. Tim clears his throat. “Who wants cake?”

The cake is, as promised, a bit of a mess—it looks like someone tried to tease out the blob created by the icing tip popping off with a toothpick or something, but the resultant design looks like the pictures someone showed Jon once of a web woven by a spider that had been fed caffeine, and the fact that the icing is bright red doesn’t help—but it is absolutely delicious.

Afterward, Tim and Jon store the leftovers while Martin and Sasha start on the dishes. Jon Prime glances at the kitchen clock and touches Martin Prime on the shoulder. “We should probably go. The later it gets, the more likely that…someone might cruise by the Institute, and I’d rather not risk that.”

Martin Prime squeezes Jon Prime’s hand gently, and Jon swallows on the sudden surge of nausea. They haven’t seen anything of Detective Tonner, and Basira didn’t say anything about her when she showed up last week to switch out the tapes, but the memory of the Primes’ faces when they stumbled back to Tim’s place to change and return his car is a hard one to shake. Even though Jon Prime swears he and Daisy eventually became friends, it’s the eventually that sticks out, and Jon isn’t sure what he’ll do if Daisy turns up at the Institute. It’s also obvious that the Primes are more afraid of her than they’re letting on.

Tim opens his mouth, probably to invite them to spend the night or something, but Sasha beats him to it. “Can you wait a few minutes? I’d rather not walk to the tube station by myself, if it comes to that, and I think you said there’s an entrance to the tunnels near there.”

Jon Prime frowns slightly. “I…don’t think I did, but there is.”

“We’ll walk with you, Sasha,” Martin Prime assures her.

Tim sighs theatrically. “I feel a little better, which is a relative statement not to be taken as approval.”

“Your objection is duly noted.” Sasha hands Martin a plate to dry.

All too soon, everything is cleaned up, just as the playlist comes to an end, and there’s really no way of stalling them further. There’s a round of hugs and see-you-Mondays, and then Sasha and the Primes head out the door, leaving Jon, Martin, and Tim alone in their new house.

It’s not that late, comparatively, so Jon suggests a card game. They’ve played most nights since Sasha went back to sleeping in her own flat; they’ve played a couple of games of Rummy or Go Fish, and Tim once tried to teach Jon and Martin a game he learned from his grandparents that uses a forty-card deck (Martin picked it up quickly, Jon did not), but most of the time they play Crazy Eights. Tim declares that they’re going to keep playing until either he or Jon or both manage to overtake Martin’s score, which is clearly going to be an impossible task, as he’s up by nearly a thousand points and consistently wins at least three or four games a night. Still, they give it a valiant effort. After Martin manages to go out while both Tim and Jon still have an eight each in their hand, though, they decide to call it quits for one night.

“Someday I’ll figure out how you keep doing that,” Jon says, shuffling the deck lightly before putting it back in the box.

Martin shrugs. “Practice, I guess? I used to play with my granddad a lot when I was younger. We kept a running total, too, and I think I was up three thousand points or so when he died.”

Tim gives a low whistle. “How old were you?”

“Nine. We’d been playing pretty regularly since I was five. At least one game every time I went to visit.”

Jon thinks back to the conversation he and Martin had in Tim’s kitchen the morning after Prentiss’s attack. “Is this the grandfather who had the cherry trees?”

“You remembered.” Martin looks pleased. “Yeah, he was my mum’s dad. I never met my dad’s family, that I remember anyway.” He pauses. “You, uh, you told Charlie you were raised by your grandmother. Was that…?”

Jon didn’t know Martin was there, but he’s kind of glad he doesn’t have to figure out how to bring it up. “My father’s mother. She was…formidable. My father died when I was two, from an accidental fall, and my mother died a couple years later. Surgery complications.”

“I’m sorry,” Martin says softly. “That must have been hard on you.”

“Harder on my grandmother, I think. I was barely old enough to remember them.” All Jon remembers of his father is his laugh, and he’s fairly certain that most of his memories of his mother come from his aunt.

Tim leans forward, resting his arms on the table. “Is she still around? Your grandmother?”

Jon shakes his head. “She died just before I started working at the Institute. What about yours, Tim?”

“My dad’s dad is the only grandparent still around. I think.” Tim worries at his lower lip with his teeth for a moment. “I’d like to think someone would call me if something happened, but I don’t know.”

Martin hums sympathetically. “Is he…in a home?”

“Not as far as I know. Last I heard, he was still living with my parents. Moved in when Granny died, just after I left for university.” Tim sighs. “We’re not…close. After Danny…”

Jon reaches over and touches Tim’s arm gently. “It must be hard on them, losing a son. No parent expects to outlive their child.”

“That’s just it. Mum refuses to believe he’s dead.” Tim smiles weakly. “No body, you know? Dad isn’t sure, but he also thinks I know more than I’ve told them. Grandfather all but accused me of having a hand in Danny’s disappearance.”

“What?” Jon blinks, shocked. “How could anyone think you’d—you would never.”

“I know, but…well, Dad’s family was always a bit conservative, blue collar and all that, and I’m…well, me. I think that’s why Dad encouraged my hiking and camping and all that. Hoped it would knock some ‘sense’ into me,” Tim says with a wry twist of his lips. “Once I came out as bi, though, I think they decided there was no hope left for me. It just got worse after Danny died.”

Martin’s expressive face closes down, and Jon’s stomach lurches. This is the most they’ve talked about their families in…ever, he thinks, but from the little bits of information Martin—and Martin Prime, for that matter—have let slip, Jon has formed a very unfavorable impression of Martin’s mother. He’s always kind of had a hazy idea that Tim’s family situation was better, especially after he heard the pride in his voice when he talked about Danny when giving his statement, and finding out that it wasn’t much better than theirs…

“How old were you?” he asks, not sure why. “When you—told them.”

“Seventeen. There was a guy I’d been seeing—nothing serious, really, but we had fun together—and we went out for Valentine’s Day. My parents were confused because they knew my girlfriend and I had just broken up before Christmas and I hadn’t mentioned another girl, so I told them about Steve.” Tim gets quiet for a second. “Mum cried. Dad just…told me to stop upsetting my mother and never brought it up again. Not until Grandfather started in on me.”

Jon swallows. “You’ve a great deal more courage than I have. I—I never admitted to my grandmother that I ever had any interest in boys, let alone dated one.”

“Only one? You’re missing out.” Tim’s grin is a pale echo of his usual one, but it is at least genuine. “How ‘bout you, Martin?”

“A few.” Martin relaxes with a visible effort that makes Jon’s heart ache. “Been out since I was fourteen. Mum reacted…about as well as she reacted any other time I told her something she didn’t like or did something she wasn’t expecting. I never brought anyone home to meet her or…really talked to her about my dating, and she only ever brought it up in relation to herself. Like saying it was a good thing there wasn’t any risk of me passing on any of my numerous undesirable traits to a helpless child.”

“I don’t think your mum understands what ‘bisexual’ means,” Tim points out.

“Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. I’m gay.” Martin grimaces. “I’m also ace, so no risk there anyway, but…”

Jon wants to say any child would be fortunate to count you as a father or I can’t think of a single undesirable trait about you, but what actually comes out is, “Ace?”

“Uh, asexual. It’s—I don’t…get attracted like that. Romance, sure, aesthetic stuff and all that, but not…” Martin gestures vaguely. “Tried it anyway, for a couple of guys I was with, but i-it didn’t go well.”

Jon’s world view shifts abruptly on its axis. Tim, though, looks suddenly worried. “Are you okay? They didn’t—”

“No, no,” Martin says quickly. “It wasn’t—I just don’t like it. That’s all.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Never bothered telling Mum that part. She wouldn’t…I’ve done enough damage.”

Tim pulls Martin into a quick one-armed hug, and Jon reaches across the table to squeeze his hand as gently as he can, but they change the subject after that.

They end up sitting up for a while in their new living room, relaxing. Tim props his feet up in the recliner and works on a crossword; Jon curls up at one end of the sofa with a book he’s been meaning to read for years that Jon Prime assures him he’ll love; Martin sits at the other end and knits. It about bowled Jon over completely when he learned that Martin made most of the sweaters he wears, but the sight and sound of him working away has become increasingly familiar in the last few weeks, especially after the Primes and the rest of the crew collaborated to get him an array of needles and knitting wool in all colors of the rainbow for his birthday. Jon usually finds the gentle clicking of the needles soothing, but tonight it’s just a hair distracting, and he keeps glancing up from the page to watch Martin’s fingers as they expertly manipulate the yarn or Tim tap the eraser of his pencil thoughtfully against his jaw while he contemplates an answer. He’s not even quite sure what he’s looking at.

Finally, Tim lays down his puzzle with a sigh. “I think I’m gonna turn in,” he says, sounding oddly reluctant. “Long day and all that.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna—” Martin works a couple more stitches and folds up his project. “Probably a good stopping place for tonight.”

Jon considers saying he’s going to stay in the living room and finish the chapter he’s on, but if he’s being completely honest, he’s been on the same page for however long it’s been and hasn’t taken in a single word. Silently, he slides the scrap of paper he’s currently using as a bookmark back between the pages and closes the book. “Well. Good night, then.”

“’Night, Jon.”

The bedrooms are all upstairs, two on one side and one on the other with the bathroom handy, and the three of them wish each other goodnight again before disappearing into their rooms. Jon closes the door and looks around the room, his room.

There’s not much to it, to be honest. A nightstand, a dresser, a battered desk he’s had since he was a child, a lamp and the bed. He sets the book on top of the desk and changes into his comfortable sleep clothes, then crawls into the bed and pulls the covers up over his shoulders.

It’s…odd. No, not odd. Jon can’t quite think of the right word for it. But the sheets feel unfamiliar against his skin, and they don’t smell right, either, probably because they’re new. The mattress that felt perfectly comfortable when he tested it out in the store doesn’t seem to afford the same comfort now, and he wonders if the floor model has simply had much of the stiffness tested out of it over time. Even the pillows, which he did retain from his old bedroom setup, seem determined to thwart his attempts to find a comfortable position.

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, arm draped over his midsection. He won’t fall asleep like this, he’s always been a side-sleeper, but his mind is a seething roil of emotions and he needs to get his thoughts under control before he can even have a hope of getting comfortable enough to sleep, he guesses.

Asexual. Jon probes at the word, at what it describes. I don’t get attracted like that. I just don’t like it. Honestly, until meeting Georgie, Jon had no idea that sort of attraction really existed; he thought it was just something out of the lurid romance novels his grandmother favored and he’d read once or twice in sheer desperation. It was something she’d wanted, though, so he’d tried a few times, but his efforts hadn’t satisfied her and he never really saw what all the fuss was about. He can take it or leave it, preferably the latter.

He never knew there was a word for it.

Suddenly, he wants to talk to Martin about it, about how he realized, how he knew. Where he found the word. If there are many more like—well, like them, he supposes. If that’s one of the reasons he was reluctant to tell Jon how he felt. He wants to ask about Martin’s experiences, if they were bad just because his body didn’t want them or for some other reason. A part of him also wants to cry from sheer relief. He isn’t broken. There’s nothing wrong with him. Well, not in that respect, anyway.

He sighs heavily and rolls onto his side again, plumping the pillows and curling one arm around them. They’re too flat, he thinks idly, too soft and yielding. Which is odd, because that’s never bothered him before. He can’t seem to get warm, either, which is also bizarre because it’s been an unusually mild day for late September and he’s under the duvet he’s had for years, which suddenly seems too light and insubstantial. The room is too quiet and still. It all feels…wrong, somehow.

Jon closes his eyes and stubbornly tries to force sleep, to no avail. The sense of wrongness pervades his being, curling through him and keeping him tethered to consciousness. He runs through the list of problems he seems to be having and tries to come up with which one might be keeping him awake. The only thing he can think of is the unfamiliar mattress. Everything else is exactly the way it was in his old flat.

And when was the last time you slept there? The thought hits him all of a sudden, and his eyes snap open. He forgot. The last time he slept in his apartment was the night before Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute. Ever since then, he’s been sleeping in Tim’s living room…or in Tim’s bed. With the others.

That’s all it is. He isn’t used to the silence of being alone. He’s not used to not knowing, right away, exactly where Tim and Martin are and if they’re safe. He’ll just go and check on them, see that they’re safe, and he’ll be able to get to sleep just fine.

He throws back the covers, slides his glasses back on, and heads into the hallway. Jon somehow ended up in the room by the bathroom, while Tim and Martin are on the other side of the hallway. Martin’s room is first, though, so Jon heads there. He’s as careful as he can be. Martin is probably asleep by now. He definitely seemed tired while they were still in the living room, and Jon wonders if he lingered because the other two were still sitting down there. It makes him feel slightly guilty, like he should have called it a night earlier so Martin can get some sleep. And after all, they did have a very emotionally draining conversation, which probably exhausted him as well. All that runs through Jon’s mind as he slowly, slowly eases the door open and peers around it to see into Martin’s room.

It’s sparsely furnished; nothing but a bed and one of those flimsy pop-up cloth jobs bisected into cubes, which is serving as his dresser. Martin’s laptop and phone sit on the floor, both connected to their chargers. The bed is mussed slightly and shows signs of having been occupied, but Jon’s heart rate accelerates when he looks at it. It’s empty.

There’s no sign of a struggle, he tells himself, and he heard nothing, so surely everything is fine. Martin’s probably just in the bathroom, or downstairs getting a glass of water or something. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Jon will just…go check on Tim and Tim will be fine and then he’ll go find Martin and make sure he’s fine and it…will…be…fine. He pulls the door closed and turns to Tim’s room.

The door is slightly ajar, and there’s a faint glow coming from the room. Jon hesitates, then taps lightly on the door three times before easing it open. Tim is sitting up on the bed, cross-legged and leaning forward slightly. And—Jon’s shoulders slump in relief—Martin is there, too, on the edge of the bed, one leg hanging off the side and the other tucked underneath him. They’re talking quietly, but both obviously exhausted. They look up at the sound of the door opening and watch Jon stand in the doorway. He opens his mouth, then realizes he doesn’t know what to say and closes it again.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Martin asks gently. The circles under his eyes are almost black.

“No,” Jon admits. “I—I just wanted to—” He breaks off, still not sure what to say.

Wordlessly, Tim holds out a hand. Jon lets the bedroom door shut behind him as he comes forward and takes it. Martin wraps an arm around him from behind, and the two of them pull Jon onto the bed and into a lying-down position. Tim rolls over and snaps off the lamp by his bed, then pulls the covers up over all three of them. Jon manages to reach down and snag the middle to help.

“Better,” Tim murmurs.

It’s not a question, but Jon hums in agreement anyway. Trying for levity, he says, “Shame to waste money on new beds, though.”

“We’ll be able to sleep there eventually,” Martin says. Jon only realizes how much stress was in his voice when it’s drastically lessened. “At some point we’ll probably want the space. But for now, there’s this.”

“For now, there’s this,” Jon agrees. He tilts his head back briefly to rest it against Martin’s shoulder, and Martin scoots in closer.

Tim does, too, the two of them sandwiching Jon securely between them. “Get some sleep,” he says. “It’ll be all right tomorrow.”

Jon yawns and closes his eyes, and it doesn’t really surprise him when he falls asleep straightaway. The nightmares are as present as ever, but in the morning, he can almost fool himself into believing they weren’t so bad.

Almost.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #referenced homophobia cw #internalized aphobia cw #panic attacks cw #please click that link and listen to the song #it'll make that bit so much better

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