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ichorai · 2 years

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wasteland, baby! ; morpheus.

track fourteen of WASTELAND, BABY!

pairing ; morpheus x bast!reader (gender neutral pronouns)

synopsis ; morpheus followed you as if he were your shadow—silent, yet ever so loyal.

words ; 6.3k

themes ; angst, fluff, egyptian mythology, bast au

warnings / includes ; reader is based on the egyptian goddess bastet, starts before the events of the show but ends right at the beginning, heavy angst, death of an unborn baby (not reader's), blood/injury/pregnancy (again, not reader), allusions to sex, mentions of the other sandman characters, mentions of other egyptian gods, khonshu is your half-brother, dream is the epitome of (-_-), they love each other lots <3 perhaps i'll write a part two to this !!

main masterlist.

She was dying.

There was raw terror within her eyes—uncertain of what was happening to her. She was young—far too young to die, but it seemed that Destiny had other plans for her beyond life.

With gentle movements, you shifted into view, greeting her with a soft beam and kind eyes.

“Do not be afraid. I’ll protect you,” you whispered in their plucking human language. One of your hands extended towards hers, slick with her own blood. “It’s time, darling.”

The faded blue of her eyes warbled. A hot tear meandered down her grimy cheek.

“Can I say goodbye? I… my children…” The words caught in her throat upon seeing your apologetic expression. With a resolute nod, she took your hand, and you helped her spirit onto her feet.

Once she was up, she glanced at her physical body on the ground. “Can you keep my children away from the body? I don’t… I don’t want them to see me like that.”

A protest was on the tip of your tongue, but upon seeing her pleading expression, you couldn’t find it in yourself to say no. Your expression faltered, softening. “I’ll do what I can,” you reassured her, offering a small smile.

And as you guided the petrified woman’s spirit across the threshold between the realm of the living and the Sunless Lands, you let go of her hand, and she began walking into the next part of her journey. You observed for a minute longer, brow creased with worry. That had always been a weakness of yours—you cared too much for the mortals and often found yourself attached. Though, perhaps, affection was not a weakness, but a defining trait of who you were. It was what made you their protector, after all.

The feeling of an unfamiliar presence appearing beside you jarred you out of your thoughts. You turned to see one of Death’s siblings staring straight at you, eyes boring into your very soul.

“What are you doing?” he asked, rather bluntly. His voice was deep and honeyed, soaked in sea water and nestled within the richest of soils. You found yourself blanching at his sudden question, unsure if you’d done something to offend him. He certainly looked offended. Or perhaps that was just the way he always was. “This is Death’s job,” said Dream.

After a considerably long pause, you tilted your head at him. “Death is busy at the moment. I am merely helping her guide souls into the afterlife. I’m a God to them—a protector—the humans, they call me Bast. But my friends call me Y/N.”

Morpheus’ expression remained ever unchanging. He dipped his head, suddenly all the closer to you. You blinked at him with wide eyes—eyes that Morpheus refused to meet. Stoic, he spoke once more, “Do you know where my older sister is?”

“She’s dealing with affairs in Hell. Lucifer has stirred up quite a bit of trouble, I’ve heard,” you told him, pursing your lips at the thought of the devil wreaking havoc in the underworld. “What do you need her for? Perhaps I could help—?”

With naught a sound, Dream brandished a pouch from his dark, draping coat, and disappeared in a flurry of sand and dust. You stepped away with a grimace, waving the particulates away from your face.

“Rude,” you huffed as you brushed sand off your shoulder.

She was hurt.

There was a long, jagged gash splitting her shin open. A pool of dark ichor formed around her leg and soaked into the hardened earth. You stood over her, your chest constricting.

She couldn’t see you, but you knelt down beside her anyways, murmuring a protective incantation, gently running your fingers over her wound. A soft golden glow appeared over the cut, before slowly disappearing. The injury wasn’t completely healed, but you’d made sure it wouldn’t get infected by warding away any diseases and bacteria.

The woman wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and found a cloth to bind the gash shut.

You tilted your head, smiling down at her, before stepping away.

This time, the presence of the Dream Lord wasn’t as much of a shock to you, but still a surprise nonetheless.

“Dream,” you greeted, eyes brightening when you turned to see him. He looked just the same, though not nearly as sour as last time. “What brings you here?”

“The girl you were helping,” he said, slow and cautious, “she’s been dreaming of you.”

Warmth seeped through your form at his words. A grin etched itself beautifully across your lips. “I’ve been watching over her since she was a young child. Her name is Nubia—gold in their language. She saved a family of kittens from drowning in a river when she was merely nine years of age. And me being a God of cats and all—she’s earned herself a special place in my heart. I don’t often show myself to mortals, but I have with her, on occasion.”

Morpheus regarded you with a shielded expression, but it was evident that he was curious in you and your endeavors.

“What do I do in her dreams?” you asked, stepping closer to him. Morpheus seemed unbothered by this, slowly tilting his head to sweep his gaze anywhere but you.

Perhaps it was a trick of the hot Egyptian sunlight, but you could’ve sworn the beginnings of a smile traced over the corner of Morpheus’ mouth. “You do the very same in her dreams as you do in the living world. You help people. You are kind to them.”

Stunned, you let your eyes travel back to the sweet girl you’ve grown so fond of, who was rinsing the blood away from her leg.

“Why?” asked the Dream Lord. It was a tentative question, so simple yet would never have a clear answer.

You glanced back to him, finding his piercing blue irises fixed on you, hardened and stormy as the sea.

“Why what?” you replied, knowing full and well what he was asking, but wanting to goad him on. You rather enjoyed speaking to him. He was a mystery to you—and you loved mysteries.

Dream was silent for a long moment. It had you briefly wondering if he’d just chosen to completely ignore your retaliating question.

Finally, he asked his in return, voice thick and viscous, as if his throat were laced with honey. “Why do you show the mortals such kindness?”

“Because I love them,” you told him simply, an elegant smile gracing your features. “They are beautiful beings, and I wish them nothing but happiness and peace. It brings me joy to be their protector.”

Morpheus didn’t seem too satisfied with your answer, as if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what you said. How could one as eternal and powerful as you love such simple and fleeting life? Despite his evident turmoil, he remained silent.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you said, brushing past him with a hand on his shoulder. Morpheus stiffened beneath your touch, and you were quick to draw yourself away from him, not wanting to anger one of the Endless. Desire had once gotten angry with you centuries ago, and that hadn’t gone down well. The last thing you wanted was a repeat of such events. “I have other duties to attend to. I hope to see you again, Dream.”

Morpheus dipped his head in farewell. From your peripheral vision, you saw him disappear in another whirl of sand. You shook your head in amusement, before heading off to help another precious soul in need.

She was heartbroken.

There were scalding tears dripping down her sunken cheeks, following the curve of her jaw, and falling from her chin onto her blanket. Sobs wracked her skeletal form, and there was a pallid color to her skin, as if completely drained of energy. You watched from beside her bed, feeling thorns crowd about your heart at the sight. You sensed great despair rolling off of her in large tidal waves, nearly overwhelming you into the same feeling.

Morpheus was there, you knew, but you had yet to speak to him. He’d been following you for a while, silent as the night, merely watching as you went about your day helping women, children, and people alike. It seemed that he’d taken a keen interest in you and your duties as a protector of the mortals.

“This is the doing of a man,” you said to him without turning around, anger clouding your expression. “She professed her love to him and he did nothing but scoff. He scoffed at her, Dream. I mean, look at her—she’s beautiful and she’s kind and she’s so very intelligent. Men certainly are the bane of my existence.”

When you finally turned your head, you were surprised to see Morpheus right beside you, not having registered him stepping closer.

He had his eyes trained on the weeping woman. “She is tired,” he observed calmly.

A soft sigh fell from your lips. “She hasn’t slept a wink in three days. The poor thing has been doing nothing but lament over this buffoon of a man. I’ve tried consoling her in many ways, but her grief is strong. She loved him very much—though I can’t quite understand why.”

“Perhaps,” said Morpheus, pulling out a pouch that you were now well acquainted with, “all she needs is a bit of rest. Three days is far too long for a mortal to go without slumber.”

With that, he blew a fistful of sand into the crying woman’s face, and her raucous sobs began to subside, and eventually slowed down to deep, rhythmic breathing.

You looked to the Dream Lord, a grateful smile to your eyes. “Thank you.” As ever, he stared ahead and nodded, avoiding looking at you.

With fleeting, soft touches, you gently shifted the woman so she wasn’t curled in an awkward position and wouldn’t wake up with aches all over. You laid her back against the bed’s springy mattress and adjusted her head onto the feather pillow. The pads of your thumbs gently wiped her tears away, and you murmured a quiet protective enchantment to keep her safe through the night.

“Come along now,” you told Morpheus, getting up and striding out the door.

He looked at you, finally, mild confusion painting over his features.

“You’ve been following me all day,” you said, a laugh caught in the back of your throat. “I have much to show you.”

There was a twitch to his jaw, as if he wanted to say something. But still, he remained mute, before striding forward to join you by your side.

She was sick.

There was an unusual murmur to her heart, disrupting an otherwise perfect beat. It broke your own to realize that Death would be coming to visit her soon. You could only hope that the journey to the Sunless Lands would be kind to her.

With little else you could do for the beautiful, sickly girl, you leaned down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead, brushing a stray, wiry curl of hair away from her face, softened with sleep. Your kiss made her stop twitching and sweating so badly, and you were glad you could lessen her suffering in some way, even if it was minute.

You weren’t at all shocked to see Morpheus behind you when you turned, and you crossed your arms with a teasing grin. It’d been several decades—nearly a century—of constant visits from him, and you weren’t ashamed to say that you’d grown very fond of him.

“Why, if it isn’t Dream of the Endless,” you greeted, taking a step closer to him, so that he was forced to look at you, and no longer avoid eye contact. The blue of his irises seemed even sharper up close. “Is there something you need this time, or are you here to follow me again?”

There was a crack to his stoic facade, a small smile whittling into his expression. A thrill spidered up your spine.

“I’m intrigued by you,” he finally professed, albeit still guarded and wary, even after all this time.

Much to his surprise, you reacted fairly lightly to his statement, throwing your head back as peals of laughter fell from your lips, the corners of your eyes crinkling with mirth. “Dream of the Endless, intrigued in me? It’s truly an honor,” you said, slightly breathless. Morpheus carefully watched the way you beamed so wide it was a wonder your face didn’t split into two.

Dream hesitated for a moment before saying his next words. “Come with me.”

You faltered for a moment. “What? Where?”

“The Dreaming,” he said simply, as if it were obvious.

You blinked at him owlishly. “Your kingdom?”

“Yes,” he said, already drawing out his pouch of sand. “I’ve seen what you do on Earth. Now I want you to see what I do in my realm.”

“They’re beautiful,” you said, watching in awe as Morpheus fashioned dreams and nightmares out of thin air, brow creased ever so slightly in concentration. Bits of earth and bone and something far more ethereal floated around him as he assembled the pieces—creating an entirely new being.

Dipping his head graciously, Morpheus stepped away from his craft, still in progress.

“Come,” he said, without a glance to you. “I shall finish this later. I have much else to show you.”

He took you to see the House of Mystery, also known as Cain’s home. There was a sweet gargoyle there—Gregory, his name was, and he seemed rather fond of you, constantly nipping at your ankles and grunting in delight when you tossed a ball over for him to catch. Morpheus watched from afar, with only but a shadow of a fond smile gracing his face. He took you to the House of Secrets as well, and introduced you to Abel, who was ever so kind and refused to allow you to leave without drinking a fruity, nectarous tea first.

The two of you strolled through the Dreaming for a while after that, discussing everything and anything that came to mind. More accurately, you’d be the one animatedly telling stories and Dream would listen with a fond glint to his gaze. Dreams and nightmares alike stared at the two of you, partially because they’d rarely ever seen their King out and about, much less with somebody, and also because they were merely curious to know who you were.

After, he brought you to the library and introduced you to Lucienne and Mervyn—the former a spectacled librarian and the latter a pumpkin-headed janitor with a cigar wedged within his mouth, who both seemed pleasantly surprised to see Morpheus bring in a guest.

“There will be a celebration in the Dreaming tonight,” said Dream, quiet and contemplative. Then, he looked at you, and this time, you were sure it wasn’t a trick of light—he smiled at you. It was small and fleeting, but you’d caught it nonetheless. “Seeing as Y/N is a God of celebration, joy, fire, and music—have all those ready for our guest, Mervyn.”

“Yessir,” the pumpkin coughed out a plume of smoke, before saluting with two gloved fingers, and strode away with his hands shoved into his overalls.

Once Mervyn left in a hurry, you turned to Morpheus, eyes wide. “Dream, really, you don’t have to throw a party or anything for me, you’ve been more than kind enough—”

“I am merely repaying you for all you’ve done for mankind,” said the Endless, which made you step back just a bit in shock. “I must deal with some private matters—feel free to stay as long as you want—you are now a welcome guest in the Dreaming.”

“I… okay, thanks, Dream,” you said, trying your hardest to contain your excitement.

He nodded, before turning on his heel and marching out of the library.

Shelving the books in her arms, Lucienne interrupted the silence with, “There hasn’t been a celebration in the Dreaming in centuries.”

You blinked. “Really?”

“None at all. In fact, this is the happiest I’ve seen him in quite a long time. You’ve really done a number on him,” said the librarian, regarding you with a curious look.

“This is him happy?” you gasped, feeling bad for laughing slightly. “I wouldn’t want to see him angry, then.”

Lucienne scoffed at the thought. “Oh, I doubt it. He’s taken quite a liking to you.”

Your mouth opened and closed as you tried to reply with a coherent response, but found your tongue void of one. Morpheus liked you? All this time, you were only assuming that he was just tolerating you—interested, perhaps, at the very most.

“Well, I’ll see you at the party, then,” said Lucienne, finding your stunned expression mildly amusing. She sent you a kind smile. “Let me know if you need assistance with anything.”

Not even three hours later, the castle was brilliantly lit with floating candles and dewy bubbles that emitted hazy, multi-hued light. There was upbeat music echoing throughout the expansive chambers, a rich accompaniment of wind instruments and chiming bells and thrumming beats of drums—though none of said instruments were anywhere to be found. Along with that, there was a large variety of snacks and nibbles arranged on a long, intricately designed table, including dates, cheese, and buttery pastries that practically melted in your mouth. Golden chalices overflowing with wines and honeyed ales alike were passed around like a contagious flu. The castle was packed, dreams and nightmares and gods (yes, even some that you recognized—Dionysus drunkenly greeted you with a hug and a slap to the back) were milling here and there chattering excitedly. From what you gathered whilst mingling with everybody else at the party, the entire ordeal was huge—evidently, Morpheus wasn’t quite the partying type. It came as a shock to everybody when they received prompt invitations to the castle.

Speaking of which, you hadn’t seen him at all since the celebration commenced. Which was strange, considering he was the one that set it all up in the first place.

“My, my, my, aren’t you a beauty? Have we not crossed paths just hours before, Lord Bastet?” a nightmare purred into your ear, roping you out of your thoughts. His name was Corinthian, one of the many that Morpheus had introduced to you on your little tour through his realm. You turned around, a flirtatious grin to your lips, hooded eyes flickering over to meet a pair of black shades. You were well aware that Morpheus would most definitely not be pleased with you seducing one of his nightmares, but he wasn’t even here at his own party, so you didn’t quite see a problem. “No wonder the Dream Lord’s gone full out—he’s aiming to win somebody over, ain’t he?”

A hum fell from you, and you stepped forward, cocking your head. “Do you always speak in questions, my sweet Nightmare?”

“Only works if you answer them, doesn't it?” he retorted, a handsome grin to his features. Corinthian was well aware that you were flirting around with him and had no issues with reciprocating the energy, but he also knew that it was all fun and games—nothing serious. Besides, he wasn’t particularly keen on getting in between whatever it is that Morpheus and you had going on.

Rolling your eyes, you huffed, “Speaking of—do you know where he is? Don’t get me wrong, he’s thrown a splendid celebration—and this is coming from the God of celebrations—but I do have to admit that it puts a damper on the mood if the host himself doesn’t make an appearance.”

A laugh rolled off of Corinthian’s tongue. “Why don’t you turn around, darlin’?”

When you did, you were met with the sight of the Dream King, draped in his long coat, hair as scraggly as ever. He was watching the two of you with a sharp gaze, jaw squared. Though he let little slip past his guarded features, you were beginning to read him very well. He wasn’t angry, no—in fact, he was amused, but was furiously trying to hide it. “I’m pleased my presence matters so much to you, Y/N.”

You bit down on your lip to stave away your growing grin. “You’re late to the party.”

“I wanted to allow you space to enjoy it,” he graciously said. “The rest of my subjects would hardly speak to you freely if I was glued by your side.”

“True,” you admitted. “Though, I wouldn’t really mind being stuck to you.”

Morpheus offered no reaction to your words, save for a glimmer of mirth behind the blue of his honed irises.

“Were you waiting for me?” he asked quietly, barely audible over the raucous upswing of the celebration.

Feeling bold tonight, you could only sidle closer to him, the cold golden jewelry of your party attire brushing against the very front lapels of his dark coat. Morpheus’ gaze flitted downward, soaking you in your entirety, before returning back to your face just as quickly. “You threw a party in my name and disappeared without a trace! Of course I was waiting for you, Dream.”

For a moment, Dream had the gall to appear mildly apologetic. He didn’t seem to mind that you were much closer now, watching the way your searching eyes reflected the fires of the floating candles, like burning stars within the vast galaxy. “I am sorry for keeping you waiting, then.”

“Nothing a couple drinks can’t remedy,” you assured him, about to reach out to grasp his hand and pull him to a table of self-refilling refreshments, before hesitating and pulling your hand back.

Whistling loudly, Corinthian suddenly pulled both of your attentions away from each other. If you had to be completely honest, you’d nearly forgotten that he was there. In fact, you’d nearly forgotten there were hundreds of other beings in the room. He was grinning wolfishly, hands propped on his hips. “Well, aren’t you two a swell pair of lovebirds? It was lovely meeting you, eh, Bast? Take care of dear old Dream, will you?”

You waved him away with a grin before he sauntered off into the crowd, disappearing amongst a throng of boisterous dreams.

The party had waned away to a couple of drunken gods (which took about a pond’s worth of fluid to get them to such a state) stumbling about in the halls, and a few straggling nightmares still trying to squeeze out the last remnants of the party. Everybody else had gone back to their respective homes or realms, exhausted and in need of a long rest.

Much to your delight, Morpheus hadn’t left your side once the entire night. He stuck by you as if he were your shadow—silent, yet ever so loyal. However, you found that he’d been right—nearly all of his subjects that had initially been so friendly to you were now intimidated by their creator stonily staring them down. It was worth it, though. You liked Morpheus’ company, even if it was mostly silent and warded people away. Lucienne, however, practically immune to Morpheus’ temperament, spoke to you for a lengthy amount of time about the most interesting books she’s come across in her library, and you made her promise to lend copies to you whenever you returned for your next visit. Morpheus seemed to just barely smile when you mentioned that you were keen on returning to his realm.

You’ve spent far too much time away from the living realm, and you wanted to return back to your duties, you really did—but you were finding it hard to say goodbye to Dream. Especially when he was watching you with such attractive, hooded eyes.

Had his eyes been like that the entire time, or was he just looking at you like that now that the two of you were alone, in front of his bedroom? How in the world did you get up here without realizing?

“What is it like? To have your subjects love you?” asked Morpheus, nearly startling you out of your dazed reverie.

The question was an unexpected one, but you were quick to respond nonetheless. “It is perhaps the best part of serving them. I do not exist without them. I am nothing without them—and for that, I am grateful.”

Morpheus dipped his head, as if in thought.

“The humans have named you a God of many things, because they love you so,” he said. “Is it not tiring to juggle so many conflicting duties at once?”

“It’s not tiring at all. I like a bit of variety in my work. And I love them just as much for it, if not more—after all, I am a God of infatuation,” you replied, lips slanting up at him.

Something changed within his scrutiny. It was minute, but you still noticed it. His jaw relaxed just a bit, and he angled his face to better look at you. Suddenly, your first few meetings where he had completely refused to meet your gaze whatsoever felt so very long ago. Not at all subtly, Morpheus’ stormy eyes glossed down to your lips, which were just slightly parted with want.

Your breath hitched within your throat.

Emboldened, you spoke again, voice an octave lower. “I am also a God of pleasure.” Ever so slowly, you reached out to graze your hand over his. His eyes remained on you, unblinking. When he didn’t jerk away, you threaded your warm fingers through his frigid ones. “Perhaps I can show you?”

There was a stormy grumble to Morpheus’ chest when his arm darted out to snake over your waist, pulling you close. He swallowed your pleased gasp when he sealed his lips over yours, noses bumping against one another amidst your vigor. Finally, finally, your hands reached up to bury within his unruly dark hair, sighing into him. There was a furiously desperate nature behind his touches, and you were nothing if not a match to his intensity. When you softly bit down on the bottom of his lip, a dangerous color melded over his features, and he made a suppressed noise of torment in the back of his throat, before kissing you again—harder this time. You most certainly didn’t mind.

In tandem, you stepped back into his bedroom, and he kicked the door shut behind him. It closed so loudly, the very walls rattled—no doubt the entire castle had heard it. Neither of you seemed to care.

She was screaming.

There was a long litany of crying pleas falling from her lips, hair plastered to her quickly paling skin with sweat. Tears rolled down her plump cheeks as she cradled her swollen stomach, where her unborn child was slowly dying within her.

She was losing her baby.

You were standing beside her, casting as many protective healing enchantments as fast as you possibly could, breathing labored. The very beginnings of panic seized your heart when none of it was enough. You weren’t enough.

“PLEASE!” she screamed her voice raw to any God that would listen to her. “PLEASE, HELP ME! I BEG YOU! I BEG YOU, PLEASE! I can’t lose them, I can’t lose my baby!”

“I’m trying,” you croaked, strained, even though she couldn’t hear or see you. You were trying—but it was too late.

Death appeared in front of the bed, serenely calm, resting a comforting hand on your shoulder.

You only shrugged her off, hurriedly casting more enchantments, more incantations, more protective shielding. You were a God of fertility, a protector of women and children—how could you let this happen?

“Y/N,” your old friend said, not unkindly.

You ignored her.

“Y/N,” she repeated, a touch firmer. “You cannot bring back the dead.”

Another enchantment. Another incantation. Another spell. A scalding tear fell down your cheek. Your hands began to shake.

The child was still dead. The mother’s wails echoed shrill in your head.

“I’m sorry,” you hiccupped, your vision obscured with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

You didn’t even register when Dream gently pulled you away from the woman, so his sister had some space to properly do her job. Because you had failed at yours.

A sob thundered through you, shaking you to your very core. “I’m sorry,” you cried, turning away from the body. This wasn’t the first time you’d gone through this, but it only seemed to get more and more painful each time.

Morpheus, grim-faced and solemn, brought you closer to him with soft touches, guiding your head to rest into the crook of his neck. You cried against his skin, fistfuls of his coat gathered tightly within your palms. He murmured a short sentence of comfort into your ear, but you didn’t quite catch what he was saying, ears filled with static.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated over and over again. Morpheus tenderly stroked the back of your head, falling silent, and tugged you all the closer to him.

She was asleep.

A man laid naked beside her, his arm thrown loosely over her waist as he snored so loud it was a wonder she didn’t jolt awake.

With a beguiling smile, you looked over your shoulder to Morpheus expectantly. A miniscule glimmer of amusement warbled within his eyes, and with a flick of his fingers, the slumbering man’s arm fell away from the woman, and he turned over with a grumble, falling deeper into a dreamful sleep.

“Thank you,” you told him, affectionately grazing the tip of your nose to his cheek. “You should come along with me more often—it’s fun having an assistant to help me with my duties.”

“I’m only but a call away, my love,” replied the Endless, an unmistakably doting edge to his words.

Your grin grew double its size. Morpheus slowly gestured to the sleeping couple with his head, reminding you of your duties.

“They’ve been trying to conceive for months,” you told him, waving your hand over the woman’s belly. A soft aureate glow touched the ends of your fingers, and fell to her in periodic droplets. “Today’s their lucky day.”

With a final protective casting, you stepped back, satisfied.

“She won’t know she’s pregnant until two or three weeks’ time,” you said, making your way back to him across the room. “I’ll be back by then to make sure she’s doing alright—will you come with me, Morpheus?”

The Endless regarded you with a soft, fond gaze, one that was reserved for you, and only you. He gathered your hands within his.

You arched a brow when he didn’t answer your question. “Morpheus—?”

“Marry me,” he cut you off quietly, voice saturated with feather-silken endearment.

There was a beat of shocked silence, and you had to pause for another two to make sure that he wasn’t jesting with you. Then again, Morpheus was never the kind to jest in the first place.

Then, your expression cracked into one of joy, positively radiant. The moonlight streaming through the window cast mellow shadows over the slopes of your features, shifting as you smiled ever so brilliantly.

“On one condition,” you murmured, drawing yourself closer to him and dragging a glowing finger down his jaw.

“Anything, my love,” whispered Morpheus, his lips but a hair’s breadth from yours.

“You must know that my duties to the mortals will always come first and foremost.”

The Endless dipped his head in understanding. “Every passing moment with you is only something to be all the more grateful for.”

“You certainly have a way with words, don’t you?” you whispered, amused. Morpheus stole your smile away with a kiss, indulgent in nature and devastatingly gentle.

Khonshu thought you were a fool. A mindless, bumbling fool.

“You married Dream of the Endless?” your half-brother harrumphed. “What of your courtship with Ptah? He is in love with you, sibling-mine.”

At the mention of your previous lover, you bristled, glaring witheringly at his bird-skulled form. “That was centuries ago, Khonshu. Perhaps if you’d bothered to keep in touch, you would know that. Besides, Ptah is madly in love with Sekhmet, and she with him. I have no interest in rekindling whatever it is we had in the past. I love Morpheus, and that is that. Now I’m very much glad you didn’t bother showing up to our wedding.”

“There was a wedding?” he snarked, which made you square your jaw.

The two of you had always had a love-hate relationship, as most siblings often did.

“Even Anubis showed up,” you retorted, mind wandering back to your first love from long ago, and the awkward introduction between him and your husband. “Though, Morpheus wasn’t particularly happy about that.”

“Anubis has always been a sniveling, groveling simpleton,” your brother snidely remarked. “I am ever so busy, as you can see—I have no time for frivolous events such as weddings.”

Knowing it was pointless arguing with him, you simply blew out a sigh, and watched as he carefully shifted the moon into appearance amongst the stars of the night sky.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a sharp, searing pain tore through your chest, and you let out a choked groan, falling to your knees at the sudden sensation. Khonshu’s large head rounded to look at you, a litany of sharp, berating words on the tip of his tongue, but he held them back upon seeing you on the ground.

“Y/N?” he asked, deep voice bellowing.

It felt as if a dozen knives were plunged within you, twisting, twisting, twisting—

Morpheus.

You didn’t know what was going on, but something was happening to him. You could feel it. He was in danger. Panicked, you called for him in your thoughts, and received no response. With a trembling voice, you called for him out loud.

Nothing.

Khonshu was beside you by then, helping you up, asking you about a dozen impatient questions at once, but you had no time to answer any of them.

“I have to go,” you told him, before stepping away, determined to get back to the Dreaming to find your husband.

“Lucienne!” you called, running into the library after scouring the castle, finding it completely empty. The librarian looked up from her book, a smile on her face upon seeing you. It was quick to melt away when she noticed your terrified expression. “Where’s Morpheus? Where is he?”

She looked taken aback by your frantic nature, before she calmly replied, “I’m not quite sure, he was here recently—I thought he was with you?”

“So he’s not here?” you asked, breath hitching. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Lucienne, I have to find him. I’m afraid something’s happened to my husband!”

Concerned, she tilted her head. “What makes you think so?”

“I just—I felt this searing pain within me, and for a moment I could feel him, like I… I could feel his pain, as if it were mine—I felt his anguish. And then it was just gone.”

“Alright, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I’m certain he’s perfectly fine,” Lucienne placated, a comforting hand on your shoulder. “We can wait until nightfall—Morpheus is sure to return from wherever he is by then.”

He didn’t return.

Not at nightfall.

Not the next day. Nor the next week, nor the month after that.

Not for years, not for decades.

The living realm was in shambles without him. Some went for days without sleep, collapsing only out of pure exhaustion, and others slept in a comatose state for weeks on end.

Dreams and nightmares looked to you for guidance at first—but you weren’t equipped to rule an entire realm on your own, much less one that wasn’t yours to begin with.

And not long after Dream’s disappearance, they began to leave the Dreaming, in search of something else.

The kingdom was crumbling apart, and you tried your best to keep it together at first, you really did. But with so much of your time devoted to the living realm, you began to weaken, and you couldn’t uphold both strenuous duties at once. With time, the Dreaming began decaying and breaking down, until all that was left was ash and rubble.

Lucienne was one of the only ones that stayed in the broken realm, and it shattered your heart to see her so dejected, living amongst the ruins that she once called a home.

And what made it all worse was that you missed him. You missed your husband. His comforting presence, his smooth, melodic voice, his muted kindness, despite his cold exterior. You missed him, terribly so, and to see his world crumbling away filled the cracks within your chest with a thick, tar-like despair.

During your time in the living realm, when you weren’t helping out the frantic mortals, you spent your time scouring city to city, country to country, tribe to tribe—and nowhere was Morpheus to be found. You’d even gotten so desperate to ask your brother, Khonshu, to help, and he’d reluctantly agreed, using his poor sleep-deprived avatars to help search for him. Perhaps you didn’t search hard enough.

Or perhaps… perhaps he was simply gone.

No. No, it just couldn’t be.

Morpheus wouldn’t up and disappear like that—he loved his subjects, his dreams, his nightmares, all of them—and he loved you, more than anything else.

He wouldn’t do this to you on purpose, you knew that. He was somewhere out there, in the vast cosmos.

And he needed your help.

“I’ll find you, my dearest Dream,” you whispered, still trying ever so desperately to reach him through thought. “Wherever you are… wherever you’ve gone…”

I’ll find you.

#morpheus x reader #morpheus fanfiction #the sandman x reader #the sandman fanfiction #the sandman fanfic #morpheus fanfic #morpheus x you #the sandman morpheus x reader #the sandman fluff #morpheus fluff #morpheus angst #the sandman angst #morpheus imagines #morpheus drabbles #morpheus smut #the sandman smut #the sandman imagines #the sandman drabbles

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unusual-raccoon · 1 year

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@greeksorceress, a snippet of my JaceLuke v. Lucemond fic idea where the Blacks won the war:

“Where are the girls?” It is the first question from the king’s mouth upon entering Lucerys chambers.

The queen let’s out an amused hum, his needlework set aside in favor of chastising his husband.

“I believe it is customary to-“

His smile fades quickly upon to turning to face his lord husband, Jacaerys’ expression was startlingly severe. The king’s hand, the Lord Cregan stood behind the king, blustery silver eyes narrowed without an ounce of the mirth Lucerys had learned the wolf of Winterfell discreetly possessed. Luke’s stomach dropped.

“Rhaelle is in the library, Aemma is in the gardens - my love, has something happened?”

When no answered came, Lucerys rose from his seat, hands trembling.

“Jacaerys?”

“They are to remain under guard at all times,” Jace instructed Cregan who marched from room with a nod.

“Jace, what in the seven hells is going on?”

His brother-husband exhaled a sigh, wordlessly apologetic as he extended an arm for Luke to curl into; a gesture he gladly sank into.

“The girls are well,” Jace assured instantly, rubbing a soothing broad palm up and down Luke’s arm, staving off the prickle of gooseflesh. Lucerys exhaled a warbled wet sound, grateful.

“I’ve received a letter,” Jace murmured against the dark spill of Lucerys’ loose curls. The queen sniffled a small snort.

“‘Tis common for kings, is it not?”

Jacaerys didn’t laugh.

“Well, who is it from?” Luke asked, teasing lacquered nails at the right furl of his brother’s fist for the parchment hidden in his grip.

Jace’s jaw tensed.

“Our uncle.”

The fearsome Aemond One-Eye. He shivered.

Lucerys’ blood throbbed cold in his veins.

“Impossible.” He hissed, pulling himself from Jacaerys’ grasp to pace across the floors in slipper-clad feet.

“We always knew his survival was a possibility.” Jace reminded, voice measured, diplomatic.

“Yes, of course - I’ve tolerated his survival on the other side of the Narrow Sea.” Lucerys hissed, a hand tangling anxious knots in his dark curls.

“What does he believe he is entitled to now? What is it he hopes to gain by writing to you?”

His heart plummeted as he considered his husband’s words to their lord hand.

“Has he threatened our children? Jace-“

“Not as of yet, but I wished to have girls protected as precaution. Our uncle has only asked for one thing.”

He blew out a breath, a trembling hand pressed to his lips, chewed raw from his frayed nerves.

His husband paused, dark eyes so very earnest.

“My love,” Jace called, his voice tender, “what happened at Storm’s End?”

The question is so disarming that Lucerys nearly stumbles. He hadn’t thought of that fateful night in…years.

“Aemond has asked about Storm’s End?” Lucerys repeated carefully, sweat sticking to his nape.

“No,” Jace replied, “I am asking about Storm’s End.”

Lucerys felt his throat sting dry and his palms turn slick.

“You have never asked about this before,” Luke murmured, anger withering only to be replaced by dread. They had been but young and courting in secret and madly in love at the outset of their mother’s war of succession. Jacaerys had never pried into the happenings of that night, only relying on the belief that Lucerys would tell him all when he was ready to do so.

“I have not felt the need to until now.” Jace admitted, slouching in the way he is never permitted to while wearing the Old King’s crown.

“I don’t understand, what does Storm’s End have to do with our uncle’s missive?”

Lucerys can feel a knot in throat, tense, a strain to breathe around.

“Does he believe old feuds will put him on the throne?”

“He does not want for my throne,” Jacaerys says, jaw flexing tense.

“What does he want then?”

His husband’s hand coiled tight around the creased parchment, knuckles white.

“You.”

“Aemond has asked for you.”

#my writing #ficlet #JaceLuke #jaceluke agenda #jaceluke babies

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lemonluvgirl · 10 months

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The Mockingjay Cries at Midnight

So, here I am again with another weird Everlark Christmas-themed story. This time I decided to go way-waaay out of the box and try a Christmas/mystery/thriller. Yeah. I know. Should be fun lol. Very festive. Hope you like the first 2 chapters.

Chapter One: The Journalist and Slippery Slope

The winding roads were icy and seemingly endless. Not another car was in sight on the lonely stretch of highway he was traveling. His legs had lost feeling from continuous driving, and his fingers were starting to feel a bit numb too, but not from lack of movement. It was the seeping cold that seemed to pervade everything, despite the heater being turned up to full blast in his old Jeep Cherokee. Bing Crosby’s velvety voice was “Pa-rum, Pum, Pum, Pum,”ing along on the radio, and Peeta Mellark was humming along off-key in a desperate effort to stay awake.

He had been driving for too long, he knew that, but he was very near reaching his destination. He was used to going to uncomfortable lengths to get the story he was after. He had done this before many times. Wisconsin for instance, he drove 9 hours in the rain to make it to Steven’s Point, and it had been hell on his back but he got there, and he got his story. They had to run second and third prints to keep up with the demand. And in Villa Ridge Missouri, he had to stake out an abandoned stretch of road for two days, but he got the story on that one too.

This one would be just like all the rest. A little discomfort, a little lost sleep, but ultimately worth it in the long run once he printed a full expose about the mysterious murders that rocked a little no-name town fifty years ago.

“I am a poor boy too…” His voice warbled tiredly as his eyes searched for the mile marker that would tell him where to turn, but there was a steady sleet building outside and it was getting harder and harder to see in the worsening weather.

He was looking for number 113 and going by the map he was forced to use after he lost GPS service, it was bound to be around here somewhere.

“I have no gift to bring, Pa-rum, Pum, Pum, Pum” He had already passed exit 18 aways back. That meant 113 was coming up any minute now.

“That’s fit to give a—shit!” He caught sight of the reflective marker with the numbers 113 and tried to turn, half a second too late and much too sharp, but the tires couldn’t find purchase on the slick road on such short notice.

The car started to hydroplane.

“Fuck, FUCK!” Thinking quickly, he did what all the experts said was best, which was to turn into the spin.

But he was going too fast. The row of snow covered trees that lined the highway like silent guardians blurred and drew closer in his vision.

Suddenly he couldn’t remember what was so important that he drove out to the middle of nowhere a few days before Chrsitmas to find. Surely it wasn’t this. A quick and violent end on an icy road with no one who even knew where he was this time of night.

Only his editor knew where he was headed and she probably wouldn’t report him missing for days.

All of these thoughts flew into his mind and flew out just as quickly, as fast as the old jeep spun out of control and headed for the treeline.

The last thing he saw was what looked like a woman.

A woman in a faded ruffle dress, with long dark hair, standing on the side of the road. Almost close enough to touch. Time seemed to slow-and stop altogether as she held his gaze. She had a sad, forlorn look in her large brown eyes, that were almost pleading with him. It looked like she was trying to say something, but he couldn’t make it out. It seemed important if the desperate look she was giving him was anything to go by, and he thought that look would be impressed upon him forever should he live past this terrible night.

Then the car made another revolution, and she was taken out of his sight.

Quicker than a blink everything was back to the breakneck speed of reality as the car careened completely out of control. Then there was the sound of breaking glass, the impact of wood on metal, and the sharp flash of pain that radiated through every inch of him.

And then all was darkness.

Chapter 2: The Angel with the Permanant Frown

The beep-beep-beep-beeeep of her minitor almost caused her to knock over her peppermint tea. Almost, but Katniss Everdeen caught the tipping cup at the last second and righted it. She unclipped the mini-monitor on her belt loop, nicknamed ‘minitor’ for short by all the local EMT’s and held it up as the device beeped its special four note tone again. It was the tone reserved for immediately life-threatening situations and it meant she didn’t have a minute to lose.

She grabbed her truck keys off the top of her desk, tossed on her coat, didn’t bother with her hat or gloves, and threw open the door to the office of the local quick-mart.

“Sae! I got a call!” She hollered as she rushed past the woman ringing up customers at the counter.

“This time of night?” The grey haired older woman asked in surprise as Katniss flew by.

“Rules are whoever gets the call has to head to the garage! Call Darius to cover my shift if you need extra security! Or Rory if need someone to help close up!” She shouted over her shoulder as she ran out, the chime of the bell ringing loudly behind her as the door snicked shut.

Panem county was one of the smallest counties in the continental United States. The small townships of the Seam, Hob, and Panem Town proper, or just Town, as the locals called it barely drumed up a population of 4,000 residents combined. The only EMTs the county could afford to keep were volunteer ones, and they didn’t have regular shifts or wait at the station like their big-city counter parts. When someone called 911, dispatch paged everyone within a certain radius of the emergency. Special pre-recorded tones caused their minitors to beep loudly, alerting them to the emergency.

They had different tones for ‘urgent response’, ‘potentially life-threatening’, and ‘immediately life-threatening’ situations. The call she received was the former. Luckily everyone at dispatch knew where to find her on a Tuesday night.

She usually picked up a couple shifts a week working security down at old Sae’s quick-mart. The nights were long and tedious and she spent the majority of them watching the security cameras in the office on the look out for shop-lifters or teens trying to buy beer with fake IDs. Nothing serious, at least, nothing she couldn’t handle with a stern look and few sharp words.

But this—this was a not not nothing. She hadn’t had a call this serious…maybe ever.

Working at Sae’s put her within a mile of the garage so that meant she was going to be one of the first responders to make it there. She needed one other person with her before they could leave, as per the rules. More licsenced EMTs could show up and could ride along but they would have to get there before the ambulance took off.

Her train of thought refocused as she pulled up to the old garage that housed the only ambulance and two working fire trucks that serviced the entire county. She pulled into the closest spot and hopped out down from her truck, ice crunching beneath her boots as she hurried into the garage.

She was indeed the first one to arrive and she busied herself with pulling on her EMT uniform, getting the ambulance ready to go, making sure the tires were inflated, and chained properly for ice and snow, and turning on the engine and checking that the tank was full-which it was, thankfully.

Just as she had finished taking a quick inventory of the medical supplies in the backseat she heard a voice call out from the entrance.

“Always first to answer the call huh, Catnip?” The voice of her oldest and best friend, Gale Hawthorne rang out clearly amidst the rumble of the ambulance’s engine. Of course he would be the second one to the garage.

“Early bird, and all that yada yada,” She replied as she shut the back doors and strode out to the front. Gale was already shrugging off his old coat and pulling on his EMT coveralls.

“Hurry up will ya? Any longer and the stragglers will start to show and then we’ll have to let them ride with.” She shouted as she tossed the keyes to the bus over to him before she pulled open the passenger side and slid in. She didn’t really dislike the other EMTs but her and Gale had been friends and partners for years. They had a system and they knew each other like the backs of their own hands. She preferred working with him if she couldn’t work alone, and adding other EMTs just complicated things.

Gale caught the keyes smoothly, like she knew he would, and he sent her cocky grin before he followed suit and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Didn’t think you’d be up for letting me drive.” He commented as he strapped in and adjusted the mirror to fit his above average height.

“I wanna be first out when we get on the scene.” She said quickly as she pulled on her seatbelt and then turned on the ambulance radio. It was programmed to tune into the local police frequency and there was already some chatter going on about an accident out on the highway.

“‘Course you do.” Gale said with a shake of his head. She ignored him in favor of listening to the information the dispatcher was relaying.

Katniss’ grey eyes narrowed as she heard more details come through.

Jeep Grand Cherokee 1998 crashed out on the highway—around mile marker 113—One driver spotted inside the vehicle—unconscious

“Hurry your ass up!” She hissed at her partner when she heard the last descriptor. Gale shot her a look, but she didn’t even glance at him. She was staring ahead at the road that waited outside the garage as if she could will herself onto it faster. Without further prodding Gale flipped the lights and the ambulance siren on with a flick of his fingers and then they were off, practically peeling out of the garage in the next second. Under different circumstances she might have chewed him out for reckless driving but the roads were practically abandoned tonight and they needed to get on the scene fast.

Besides, she couldn’t shake the antsy feeling she had since she’d gotten the call. There was something inside of her that was telling her that she just needed to get there as soon as possible.

The drive out to the highway usually took fifteen minutes. Gale got them there in nine.

The ambulance finally came to a stop just a few yards past the mile 113 marker.

Up ahead she could make out the mangled up shape of a jeep that had gone head to head with an old spruce and lost. Unfortunately they weren’t in an ideal position to get the injured party inside the ambulance unless Gale repositioned the vehicle.

“Hey you said you wanted to be first on the scene.” Gale replied with a shrug as he moved to undo his seatbelt. Katniss shook her head at him.

“Stay put and back this thing up properly. Doors first!” She bit out tersely as she undid her belt and cracked open her door. She hopped down and shut the door closed on Gale’s complaints, ignoring him completely as she pulled her EMT pack higher on her shoulder and started to march forward.

Sleet was still coming down heavily, and the road was slippery under her boots but her feet pulled her forward as quickly and surely as a lodestone is drawn to a magnet.

Before she knew it she was right outside the driver side door, looking in on the man who had been behind the wheel. His face was turned toward her and she could distinguish his featured clearly.

He was young, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties, he had ashy blond hair that fell in waves over his forehead. She could tell one other thing about him immediately by just looking—he was damn lucky.

The airbag in his car had properly deployed, from her vantage point she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was knocked unconscious, but not dead. The airbag and the seatbelt he was wearing had most likely saved his life, even though he drove an older model jeep and that sometimes meant that air bags didn’t always work like they should. The only visible injury she could see on him was a gash on his forehead.

She needed to get him out of the car though, so she could assess the rest of him, check his torso and legs, but he looked kind big. Not as tall as Gale, but broad and stocky, with wide shoulders that were going to be a bitch to manover out of the mashed up wreck of his car if she guessed correctly.

She tried tapping on his window to get his attention. It would be easier to move him if he was conscious, also he could unlock the doors instead of them having to shatter the window or the windshield and pull him out. But the man in the car didn’t stir. She tapped louder, as she noticed the car’s radio was amazingly still going and it was still playing music.

Very familiar music.

Earth stood hard as iron

Water like a stone

Snow had fallen

Snow on snow on snow

In the bleak midwinter

Long, long ago

The version playing was a little known and even less played solo sung by a local artist. It brought back the sounds and stories of her childhood. It brought back the knife edge of pain and loss. That beautiful, effortless voice that sailed over the notes and floated down to mesh with the music was a sound so steeped in memory that for a moment she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, she was so caught off guard.

Then there was a pop and a whoosh, the sound of the air bag deflating, and with it the radio sputtered out and died. The disturbance finally seemed to arouse the unconscious driver.

The bluest eyes she’d ever seen blinked open and locked on her. She stood there staring right back at him, caught up in the bizareness of the situation.

Then her training kicked in.

She knocked on the window again and said in her most stern but calm voice, “Sir, you’ve been in an car accident. I need you to unlock your door and roll down the window so I can help you.”

The man stared at her, in confusion for a second, but then his left hand reached out to do as she had asked. The first thing he said to her when the window came down was not what she was expecting.

“Am I dead? Are you an angel? Do all angels frown like that?”

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spacesapphi · 2 days

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"Moving Forward, Spiraling Downward Chapter 7- Nothing I Won't Understand"

AUGHHH CHAPTER 7... A bit of a shorter one, but an important one too!

CW for this chapter include talks of addiction

Summary: Shane and Marnie finally talk after a year of no contact, discussing all that's happened, and trying to figure out what lies ahead in the future.

AO3 Version Here

Was this real? Was this actually happening? It was all so sudden, so unexpected, Marnie didn’t know how to react. Neither she or Shane did. They both were stuck in some state of shock, pure disbelief. All they could do was stare at each other, the words they wanted to say refusing to come out. It just felt so surreal, like it was a dream. As much as they had a hard time wrapping their heads around it, he was home. He was finally home.

She paced the floor in the kitchen while Shane was laying Jas down in the guest room. Her mind was going through a million thoughts a minute, every emotion she could possibly feel cycling its way through her. Grief, elatement, rage, everything. She folded her arms across her body, feeling herself shaking from how overwhelming this all was. It had been over a year now, a damn year! And he just shows up in the night? No warning, no chance to let her prepare? She felt faint.

The guest room door shut softly, Shane standing just in front of Marnie now. He looked so embarrassed, like a guilty child waiting to be scolded. He couldn’t even look her in the eye. Fumbling with his hands and looking to the floor, he began to speak, “I-I know you’ve got to be so angry at me… you probably hate me, and I deserve it. I know I do. I don’t have an excuse or explanation… I’m just so sorry,” his voice cracked at the end, his eyes growing glossy once more.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, bracing himself to be screamed at, to be told how selfish he was, to be told that he wasn’t forgiven. Hell, he was half expecting Marnie to tell him to leave and drag him out the front door. But that never came. The anticipation rattled him, but the screaming never came, the door never slammed in his face. Instead, he felt Marnie’s arms wrap around him tight. Her embrace was strong and steady, as if she was worried letting go for even a moment would mean she’d lose him again. The contact made him freeze in shock for just a moment before he finally melted into her arms, hugging her tight as he sobbed away. He didn’t realize just how much he needed this until this moment.

“Why aren’t you yelling at me…?” he cried, resting his head on her shoulder, “Why aren’t you angry?”

“Oh, believe me, I am angry at you…” Marnie warbled, “So, so angry…”

She pulled back from the hug, holding him by the shoulders, squeezing him tight. The frustration bubbled to the surface, audible in her tone, “Shane Abram what is wrong with you?! Do you know how worried I was?! For all I knew you could’ve been dead!” she scolded and shook him back and forth, her expression exasperated, almost terrified, “Why?! Why did you just disappear like that, where were you?!”

“I’m sorry… I fucked up so bad, I’m sorry…” he warbled, still refusing to look her in the eye. Marnie still held him tight, “You did! You took away the only family I had for a year! And for what? For what, Shane?! Do you know how lonely it’s been? Do you know how hard it was to go into town and see Robin and Jodi doting over their boys when I didn’t even know where you were, or if you were safe?!”

Marnie could see the distress in Shane’s face, the absolute fear he felt watching her carry on like that. It made her feel so guilty, so heartbroken. She wished she had taken Pam’s advice long ago, to just go to the city herself and drag him back to the valley, whether or not he wanted to. He was home now, but he obviously wasn’t the same. Marnie worried he would never be the same. That light in his eyes was gone, the youth drained from his face. What had the world done to her boy? She took a deep breath, releasing her tight grip on his shoulders as she softly spoke.

“So yes, I’m angry…” she sobbed, feeling her anger subside, “But I’m so happy you’re home… I missed you so much, schatz…”

“You did..?”

“Of course I did! I prayed so much for Yoba to keep you safe wherever you were… I’m so happy they lead you back home,”

She sighed, giving him one more tight hug before motioning her head towards the table, “Come, tell me everything.”

Shane silently nodded, reluctantly following her to the kitchen table. He still wouldn’t look her in the eye, staring only at the wood grain. He had the words he wanted to say in his mind, but his mouth refused to open and let them out. It was like his jaw was locked in place.. Perhaps it was his pride again, perhaps the embarrassment. Marnie reached out to touch his hand, giving him a surprisingly understanding look, “Whatever happened I’m sure I’ll understand… Even if it takes time, I know I will in the end. Just tell me what happened,”

That’s all it took for Shane to crumble. He burst into tears, rambling on and on about everything. He told her about the debt, the crippling amount he was in. It had to be in the hundreds of thousands of g now, possibly even higher. Then he admitted to how he’d resorted to stealing to get groceries in the house, about how behind he’d gotten in rent and bills to the point he was always on the verge of eviction, only saved through the grace and kindness of his landlord. Marnie listened on in horror as he recounted the events of tonight, every little detail he could remember. Everything that had haunted him this past year came to light, everything rose to the surface, unable to be bottled up or repressed any longer.

“You were right… you’re always right…” he sniffled, “It’s been so hard… I can’t stop drinkin’, I try but I can’t. Whenever I try I feel like I’m losin’ it. I can’t keep control of myself, I can’t handle being on my own! I just… I just wanted to prove to you that I had it under control, like you did. And I failed.”

“Shane…”

“You handled everythin’ so well… How…? I can barely go a day without breakin’, I can barely keep my head above water. You had it all figured out. You ran the ranch, raised me, did everything and on your own!” he sighed, hiding his head in his hands, “I can’t get through the night without at least a drink anymore… I don’t know how you did it.”

Marnie was silent for a moment, pouring over the memories of the past two decades, “I… wasn’t as put together as you thought, I promise that.” she stated in a morose tone.

“Come on, yes you were…”

There was another silence, Marnie shaking her head, drumming her fingers on the table, “.. I had my own struggles then, I just hid them from you, as much as I could. I was so young, so naive when everything happened and I didn’t know how to cope. I made bad choices, and I wasn’t the smartest, but I got through in the end.”

She looked to him with a determined expression, “You’ll get through this too, especially now that you’re home, and home to stay. It won’t be easy, and it’s a rough road ahead, but you have everyone right behind you… Oh, I wish you had let me be there for you... I’m so sorry, for everything…”

Shane shook his head and sighed, “I’m the one who should be sorry… Do you even want me to stay? I put you through so much, aendi… I didn’t think you could forgive me. I haven’t forgiven myself.”

“It’ll take much more than that to get me to never forgive you, schatz,” Marnie gently took his chin in her hand, facing him towards her, “I may not be your mother, but you are my son … You and Jas, you’re the only family I have left in this world. And though I’m upset, I could never hold a grudge against you like that…”

“That being said…” she continued, her tone verging on a scold, “There will be rules here. For starters, you will always be honest with me. No more secrets, no more running away from your problems or me. And as much as I’m happy to have you here, I can’t afford it for free…”

“I’ll pay rent, as much as you need,” Shane offered, “Anything you want, I just… I need a job,”

“There aren’t many, but… Jojamart is looking for a stockboy. They haven’t had much luck with staffing. I think there’s only two people there now. Some out-of-town girl and the Neilson’s older boy,” Marnie mused, “Not many folks want to work there, I suppose,”

“Fuck…” a realization came to Shane, “With my work record… Yoba, I don’t think I could get a job like that again, they’ve gotta do reference checks...”

“... Tell them you’ve been working with me here the past few years,” Marnie stated, “If they ask, I’ll tell them you’re a hard worker, that you’ve always done everything you needed to.”

“Aendi, I can’t ask you to lie…”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. And if it gets you the job, I’m willing to… Head over in the morning and ask about it, okay?”

“And before I forget…” she continued, her voice growing stern once more, “there will be no alcohol in this house, none. If you want to go to the saloon I can’t stop you, but until you’ve gotten better it will not be under my roof. Understand?”

Reluctantly, Shane nodded, an embarrassed blush creeping onto his cheeks. He felt like such a screw-up for needing restrictions like that. He felt so immature. Never in his life did he imagine he’d get to the point where he was the reason drinks were banned in the house. Marnie could sense his embarrassment, giving him a sympathetic glance, “It’s just for a while, until things are better, okay?”

“I know…”

Marnie took another good, long look at him. His face was so pale, eyes sunken and adorned with heavy, dark bags. His hair was shaggy and uneven, turning silver at the roots. Overgrown stubble covered his jaw and cheeks, only amplifying the haggard look he had. It made her stomach turn, all she could think about was one thing. That exhausted look in his eyes, the early graying of his hair… It made him look so much like his mother in her final days. Everything about him reminded her of Mona, more now than ever, and it scared her. She was going to fix this, she had to.

Grasping an overgrown lock of purple hair, Marnie tsked and stood from her seat, “Wait here,” she rummaged through a drawer in the hutch, grabbing at a few small items, “We’re going to get that mop under control,”

Shane didn’t even respond, just waiting for Marnie to walk back to the table. She returned with a pair of scissors, a mirror, a brush, and a blank tablecloth. Tapping his shoulder to cue him to sit up straight, Marnie wrapped the cloth around him, tying it loosely at his neck. Shane just stared ahead, face still as stone. He watched as little bits of hair fell onto the cloth covering him. The squeak of the scissors opening and closing rang in his ear, the bristles of the brush dragging through his hair. There was a cold silence between them, until a warm, almost laughter-like sound came from Marnie.

“What’s so funny?” Shane questioned.

Marnie just shook her head with a smile, “Oh, nothing funny, just… this reminds me of a good memory,.”

“What is it?”

“The day you- oh, what’s the word… the day you came out to me,” she mused, “We sat down right here to give you your first haircut, with these same scissors! I remember how much you loved it,”

Shane bit back a laugh, thinking back to that first cut. In the moment he did love it. He felt like himself for the first time when he looked in the mirror after. But looking back on childhood photos now made it clear just how choppy and amateur it was, “I remember… it was kind of bad though,” he laughed.

“Oh it was! I went to school for art, you know, not cosmetology,” Marnie laughed, “But I learned! And I’d like to think I’ve gotten good… Besides, the important part was that it made you happy.”

She wiped some stray hairs off the base of his neck, reminiscing fondly on that day, “I remember when we chose your name too… How many I sifted through until I found the perfect one for you… my little gift from Yoba.”

Placing down the scissors, Marnie grabbed the mirror and turned back to Shane, “No matter how upset I am with you, or how bad things get, you will always be my treasure and my gift… I want you to always know that,”

She handed over the mirror so he could see himself. His hair was short once again, cleaned up nicely thanks to Marnie’s work. She was right, she had gotten good at this. He felt her place gentle hands on his shoulders, seeing her look into the mirror alongside him with a smile. The cut did little to take away the age on his face, but it helped him look just a bit more put together, the sharpest he’d been in a long while. He looked more like himself.

“There’s my boy…” Marnie mused sweetly, “You know… I remember seeing your eyes light up for the first time that day. It was the first time I’d seen you so happy, so alive… I hope I can see that light again someday, once things are better.”

Shane couldn’t understand why she was being so kind. He’d ruined things so much, he’d been such a terrible nephew. How Marnie could be so forgiving, so understanding of him, he would never know. Perhaps it was his own inability to forgive and love himself. After all, if even he couldn’t do it, how could others? But in this moment, he truly felt cared for, and he didn’t push that feeling away for once. It was like someone had finally lifted all the weight from his shoulders, letting him stand tall for the first time in years. Everything had been so awful he could hardly imagine a reality where he truly had solid ground under foot. But he didn’t have to imagine anymore.

The valley was going to be a fresh start, a safe and steady environment to improve, to find a new path forward for him and his family. It was such a happy thought that it overwhelmed him, made his heart feel ready to burst. He could hardly handle it. All he could do was hunch over in his chair, sobbing once more. It was a bittersweet cry, both mourning his situation and feeling so much relief that he had another chance to get on track again.

Marnie wrapped her arms around him as he cried, holding him close and letting him get it all out. The future ahead of his family was uncertain, and the path in front of him was rough and uneven, that much was true. It was going to take time, and a lot of it, to get to anything close to normal. But maybe he wouldn’t need to do it alone anymore.

Maybe a good life was finally waiting for him just around the corner.

#sdv #stardew valley #stardew valley shane #sdv shane #sdv jas #sdv marnie #mfsd #fanfic #stardew valley fanfic

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veeagainsttheday · 11 months

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After some discussion in a gc I ranked the OFMD soundtrack choices for each season.

Season 1:

Gnossienne No. 5: I have a Pavlovian response to this song now. I hear it and a little movie reel in my mind starts up with The Kiss (Season 1 edition).

The Chain: This was my most played song of 2022 on Spotify for a reason. The choreography: immaculate. That shot where the small boats are approaching the Revenge and it skips to the beat? Should have won an Emmy on its own. And Stede and Ed looking at each other as the music and the world fades away leaving only their love? Yeah, that’s the good shit.

Avalanche: This music overlaying Ed’s transformation into the Kraken, the shots of Stede’s books falling into the water? “I have begun to long for you/I who have no greed/I have begun to ask for you/I who have no need/You say you've gone away from me/But I can feel you when you breathe” It takes a scene that could have been campy or funny and with the power of Leonard Cohen elevates it to the most emotionally devastating shit you’ve ever seen.

Our Prayer: It’s so brief but it’s SO good. The blissful music overlaying Stede’s smile at being known.

Miles from Nowhere: Beautiful song, beautiful sentiment, Stede is finally, truly free of his old life and is on his way to discover what his new one will be: “I have my freedom/I can make my own rules/Oh yes, the ones that I choose”

High on a Rocky Ledge: I loved this choice as an opening and hearing it over the shot of all the flags always makes me so emotional.

Perfect Day: I can’t believe I’ve put my dear Lou Reed so low on this list but that’s what the impeccable choices above do for me. Obviously the crucial lyrics here are, “You made me forget myself/I thought I was someone else/Someone good” and juxtaposed over Ed rowing alone and Stede returning to discomfort in a married state it’s just so much.

The Empty Boat: I actually LOVE this choice, the lyrics are so good for Ed’s expression and feelings in this scene, but it just doesn’t feature as strongly as the others.

Bonus shoutout to Il triello: Olivia, give him the old fuck eye!

Trailer interlude:

Because the Night: This choice made me absolutely deranged. Hearing this was when I was like oh they are going to fuck and I am somehow going to be seeing it in a few weeks on my screen. The night before the premiere I was so full of emotions that I took a drive and played this over and over again while screaming along to try to get some of them out.

The Beautiful Ones: My brain became an endless loop of Baby baby baby for a week with Stede’s words and the cake toppers overlaid.

Season 2:

This Woman’s Work: This is THE song of the season to me. We all wanted a reunion, we wrote something like 10,000 versions of it, I personally wrote something like 10 versions of it, and then the actual reunion was SO gorgeous and SO perfect and soundtracked by this and “all the things I should have said that I never said, all the things we should have done that we never did” and that piano and the build and and and I will never recover.

Pygmy Love Song AND Seabird: I put these two as one because they’re the crux of Ed’s journey in this season and they work so well together thematically. First, the Impossible Birds - imagine hearing that there’s a piece of media about Blackbeard, infamous pirate, where one of his lines of dialogue is, “We’re never going back to land. We’re gonna sail, rob, raise hell, forever and ever without end” and instead of these words being delivered as a tough war cry they’re instead spoken in utter grief in a voice made nasal from tears. Taika’s delivery is so good it makes me want to eat through a brick wall (and all shout outs forever to Joel Fry for playing off him in this scene and several others). Playing in the background, its music lilting and warbling just as much as Ed’s voice? “My heart, my heart is full of love, I have nothing else.” So then a bunch of stuff happens (see the aforementioned reunion above) and we’re in episode 4 and Ed sees Buttons turn into an actual Impossible Bird, choosing to transform himself for love, and as Ed says “Fuck yeah brother, fly,” his face shining with revelation, we get, “There’s a road I know I must go/even though I tell myself that road is closed/like a lonely seabird/you’ve been away from land too long” MAGGIE PHILLIPS YOUR MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Run From Me: I was already a big Timber Timbre fan so when I read that one of their songs was in the show, I got very excited, and this did not disappoint. Its use to bookend this episode was incredible - the jilted wedding theme and the slow beginning of the song at the beginning as Ed is clearly in such a low place contrasted with the faster end of the song at the end of the episode as Ed enters this manic state during the storm - double Maggie Phillips your mind!!!

Strawberry Letter 23: The opening chords of this starting right after Ed introduces himself as the devil - just perfection. Ed’s sending 88 letters in his own way.

Road to Moscow: This one feels like a real “I just heard it last night and if anything happened to it I would kill everyone and myself” situation. Fascinating use here because the song is about a Russian soldier witnessing the ultimately-failed German invasion of Russia in WWII - a notoriously bloody campaign with massive losses on both sides, which is of course what happens to our crew and the soldiers they encounter as well. This line gave me chills in the context of the crew fighting through the trees: “Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees/Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees/And all that I ever was able to see/The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze”.

I Love My Baby: Perfect double use. Also further wedding foreshadowing: “Just say you love me

And we'll go to the preacherman/Just say you love me/And before him we'll stand/We'll live our lives together/As we go hand in hand.”

Baby: Can’t believe this is so low but the other ones were all so good!!

The Times They Are A-Changing: Great use, loved that they used the Nina Simone version, it’s just not as significant to me as the others.

Callback Gnossienne No. 5: this playing while Stede’s looking through the cabin in episode 3 made me want to lay down in the road.

#ofmd 2 #ofmd music

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honeyoru · 2 years

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resonance (steve harrington x superpower! reader) chapter two

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The sound of the television woke you up with a jolt. The static-filled warble added to the migraine you had been blessed with this morning, it seemed.

You’d been placed on a couch in a decently-sized, albeit weathered, cabin. Based on the array of shadows you saw streaming in from outside, it was located somewhere in the forest.

Weird, you thought, peering blearily at the strange amount of vintage-looking decor around the space, wondering if you were in some new Airbnb. I’ve never seen a cabin in these woods before. You’d walked to and from the lab for years now without stumbling upon anyone.

A wave of hunger overcame you at the smell of bacon that was wafting in from the kitchen. Ignoring the pang you felt at the thought of food, you wondered if you’d be able to split before anyone noticed you had woken up. Overstaying your welcome wasn’t in your nature, and as a thank you to the man and his kid (who you assumed was who brought you here) for not killing you in your sleep, it was probably time to leave.

You were still required to visit the lab today and Melissa wasn’t the type to excuse tardiness, especially not from you.

Sitting up, you pushed a thick blanket off your legs, overhearing what sounded like a man and woman arguing quietly in the kitchen.

Must be the guy’s wife, you thought. Wondering why he brought a random teen into their home.

You noticed your backpack placed neatly beside the TV, which drew your attention away from the hushed conversation. The old, vintage-looking set making you pause with what was showing on the screen.

It looked like a retro Coke commercial was playing, the graphics every bit as aged as the furniture itself.

Strange.

You slowly stood up, wincing at the pain, presumably the aftermath of last night. You felt like you had gotten hit by a truck and then thrown off a cliff. What did that guy do to me?

Sparing another glance at the TV, you couldn’t help but think of how accurate it looked to the 1980s. Must be a new nostalgic campaign they’re running. You wrinkled your nose at the terrible pixelated visuals. Well, they really nailed it.

Trying to stretch out your sore muscles, you groaned, your body practically pulsing. The couch, apparently another genuine relic of the past, groaned with you as you left it.

“That you, kid?” A male voice called out from the kitchen.

“Yeah,” you answered after clearing your throat, padding into the room in your socks.

Smirking a little at the thought of the screech you knew your mother would emit if she saw you in yesterday's clothes, you were greeted by the sight of the two people from earlier as well as a petite, wide-eyed woman, who smiled hesitantly at you.

The girl sat at the table with a massive plate of waffles, staring at you unblinkingly. “You’re awake.”

“I am,” you replied, a little uneasy at her stare. “Surprised I’m not dead, to be honest. Feels like it."

“You had one hell of a morning, I’m surprised you're walking.” The guy poured a cup of coffee into a weathered-looking mug and snorted. “Coffee?” He gestured to the old Sunbeam coffee machine in the corner. “Might be too late in the day for it, though.”

Jesus, they really like vintage stuff, don’t they?

He handed you a Hawkins Sheriff’s Office mug with a faded “1982” on it.

Quirking an eyebrow at the cabin’s theming, you thanked him quietly and poured a cup, dumping an unhealthy amount of sugar into it. He pointed to the empty seat at the small round table, across from the girl. “Feel free to sit.”

“So,” the woman began once you’d sat down slowly with a wince, coughing slightly and grabbing her own mug from where she leaned against the counter. “What’s your name?”

You told her, pulling the sleeves of your sweatshirt down over your wrists. The girl had been staring at them intensely which made you nervous. It was obvious she was searching for something you didn’t have.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” you tried to smile. “Your husband and daughter must have been quite startled to find me.”

She blinked twice, glancing at the man before sputtering. “Oh! Oh no,” she laughed awkwardly. “They’re not, I’m not, that is—”

“Not my wife,” the other adult said, rolling his eyes and coughing (you noticed his ears were turning red). “Not her mother.”

"Oh." You apologized with a burning face, internally screaming at the tension you’d just created.

“Don’t worry about it. You have a very beautiful name. I’m Joyce,” she said, smiling. “This is Jim Hopper,” she pointed at the man before chuckling. “Although, we all call him Hopper—”

“— Call me Hopper—” Hopper interrupted stoically.

“—Call him Hopper,” Joyce shot him a glare. “And this is El.”

You looked at the girl, El, whose wide eyes made you uneasy again. “El,” you repeated with a soft smile. “That’s pretty.”

Her lips turned up a little. “It’s short for Eleven.”

“Oh,” you blinked. “Like the number?”

She nodded, pulling up the sleeve of her sweater to show you something, a tattoo, you realized.

011

What the fuck? “Uh,” you glanced at the adults before looking back at her wrist. “Is that real?”

At her nod, you sat up straighter with your eyebrows furrowed, unsure how to respond. You knew how to mind your business but it seemed like a child with a number branded on her wrist wasn’t something you should really gloss over.

“So you don’t recognize it?” Joyce asked thoughtfully.

Recognize it? You couldn’t help the dumbfounded stare you shot at her. “No, I don’t.” Confusion flooded you at their frustrated reactions; should you recognize it? “Why would I?”

A small voice answered. “They thought you might be like me.”

El’s eyes met yours and God you wished she’d blink every once in a while. “What do you mean?”

"No!" Hopper shuffled panicked towards the table, arms up in an attempt to stop her. “Kid, don’t —”

She ignored him, adjusting in her chair and moving the bottle of maple syrup in between you. With a well-focused stare and ignoring your confused expression, she glared at it.

A gasp escaped you when the bottle shot off the table, hurtling straight towards Joyce. You reacted before you could think, thrusting out your hand and pulling it back with your mind.

Silence filled the cabin when you caught it.

You and El stared at each other, your eyes equally as large. Hers in curiosity, yours in fear.

“Like you,” you stated, turning to eye the other two people in the room. Hopper was rubbing his face while Joyce had her hand over her mouth.

“So, you’re like me,” you finally said to El. “You’ve got better control than I did when I was your age.”

She shrugged and picked up her fork, focused on shoveling Eggos into her mouth again. “I’m strong.”

“Where’d you learn?”

“Papa.” She shuddered in a way that had you instantly regret asking. “At the lab.”

The coffee you had just taken a sip of was promptly shot out of your nose across the plastic table. “Sorry, do you mean Hawkins Lab?”

El nodded, causing you to gape stupidly at her. "No." You shook your head, wiping your face with a napkin. “That’s not possible.” No one younger than you had attended in years.

Joyce knelt down next to you. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I would have seen her before,” you insisted. “And I’m the youngest person there.”

"How old are you?" El asked.

"I'll turn seventeen in December."

“Wait a minute,” Hopper said, his demeanor somehow growing even tenser. “So you are from there? From the lab?”

“I mean, I’m from Hawkins,” you laughed, nervous about why he suddenly went still. “But I go to the lab when I’m not in school, yeah. That’s where I was heading home from last night.”

Dumbfounded couldn’t even describe what was currently on his face. It’d be funny if the atmosphere wasn’t so stiff. “You’re saying you’re from Hawkins?”

Unable to contain your annoyance at his tone, you straightened. “I’m sorry, how are you confused? I was born and raised in Hawkins.” You sort of hoped Joyce would jump in, maybe to agree that he was being weird, but she remained silent, biting her nails aggressively. “Is this some kind of joke? Because I don’t understand—”

“—No, no, no,” he firmly said, getting closer and pointing at your face. “You see, I’ve lived here for quite some time, been Chief of Police for five years now, and I can guarantee I’ve never seen you before.”

Narrowing your eyes, you flickered your gaze between his finger and his eyes. “You, Chief of Police?” you scoffed, your irritation evident (Mother would have scolded you) “You’re not Chief of Police.”

“Oh really?” Hopper shot you an incredulous look, waving his hands around rather dramatically. “Then please tell me, who is?”

“Uh, duh!” You glared at him like it was obvious. “Steve Harrington.”

All three of them gasped. Hopper looked downright offended. “What the hell did you just say?”

“Chief Harrington?” you repeated, eyeing them all. “He’s been the chief for like, twenty-something years now. If you’ve really lived here for longer than like, a week, how wouldn’t you know that?”

“Because it’s not true!” He yelled, finally fed up. “Joyce!” He pointed at her, then back at you in frustration. “Joyce, you know that’s not true!”

"Obviously I know that Hopper!” she shook her head exasperatedly. “Something is really wrong here.”

“Steve Harrington,” Hopper laughed in disbelief. “You're saying the rich kid I just busted for a party last week is a cop?”

You paused from your glaring contest with the grumpy man. “What do you mean?”

“Sweetie, Steve Harrington,” she shook her head again, clearly baffled. “He’s still in high school. Definitely not Chief of Police.”

Your jaw dropped. “What ?” The man had visited your school for career day just last month.

Joyce continued, looking at Hopper and back to you. “To be completely honest, it's hard for me to believe that you're from Hawkins, too. I’ve lived here my entire life, I would recognize you. You're around my oldest’s age.”

“I’m being pranked, right?” You laughed in disbelief, looking around the kitchen for any hidden cameras. Pushing a loaf of bread out of the way, you peered at the coffee pot. “Is this some kind of test for Melissa? I’ve lived here my whole life, too. And I’ve never seen any of you before!”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive!” you nodded, unable to find any blinking red lights. Your gaze swept to the fridge. “Us Hendersons have been in Hawkins for decades.”

If you thought they were confused before, that had them downright stunned. “Did you just say Hendersons?”

“What, now you’re gonna tell me I’m not a Henderson?” you scoffed and threw your hands up at their silence, looking at them. “Great! Does anyone want to tell me why you think I’m not a Henderson?”

“It’s just… that’s not possible!” Hopper sputtered, looking absolutely bewildered. “I’ve known the Hendersons for years, and while you sure as shit seem to have their audacity, there’s no way you’re one of them.”

You huffed and looked around again, doing a double take and freezing when your eyes landed on the calendar hanging on the side of the fridge.

October 1984.

“Uh,” a choked sound fell out of your mouth. Feeling dizzy, you headed to the window, peering outside.

“Let’s start with how you ended up in the forest,” Joyce interrupted from behind you, pushing Hopper back. “What were you doing before you got there?”

“I’m really not being pranked?” you said weakly. “Didn’t they just reboot Punk’d?”

“What’s that?” Hopper asked gruffly.

You placed your head in your hands, trying to ground yourself before your panic blew the windows off the cabin. “Yesterday, I was in the forest, walking home from the lab,” you said breathlessly, mind whirring. You turned around. “Is that calendar correct?”

“You said ‘last night’ earlier,” Hopper snapped his fingers, looking at Joyce. They didn’t seem to notice you were struggling to remain calm. “But we found you there this morning, after the boom.”

The boom? “No,” you shook your head, making a mental note to ask about that later after you inevitably had a meltdown. “No, I know for certain I was walking home in the afternoon yesterday. The calendar,” you repeated, walking over and grabbing it urgently. “Is this correct?”

“What?” Joyce frowned, distracted by the sudden question. “Yeah, October 1984, that's the right month. So you were walking home, then what?”

“Then,” you stopped, still staring at the calendar before you froze, remembering just why it was that you felt like roadkill. The blood drained from your face. “Oh shit.”

“What?” Hopper said, in a demanding tone you assumed he used often. “What happened?”

You wondered if Henry was here, watching you silently like before. Maybe he was enjoying this chaos he had thrown you into. “I’ve got a theory,” you whispered. “But you won’t believe me.”

He glanced at the girl, then to Joyce. “Try us.”

--------

It was nearly five in the afternoon when silence fell upon the group once more.

You sighed, the events from last night, no, this morning catching up to you once more. I need another nap.

Hopper and Joyce had each chain-smoked enough cigarettes to warrant opening the windows in between their flurry of questions.

“So this man, the one who you said spoke to you,” Joyce started, looking at El. “Was he a doctor or something?”

“No way,” you shuddered. “I had only heard his voice once before, I would've recognized it if he worked at the lab.”

“So you're saying you think he has… powers,” she gestured broadly. “And he sent you back forty years to…” Joyce trailed off.

“To help him end the world or something, he was vague but he definitely said that part,” you finished, nodding. “It’d explain how we don’t know each other. Not to mention your taste in interior design,” you wrinkled your nose.

The Chief took another drag of a cigarette, looking increasingly more stressed.

“And,” you hesitated, nervous about explaining just how you had traveled to their time. “I also think he tricked me, in order to send me back.”

“He tricked you?” Joyce repeated, clearly confused.

“I’m able to do more than,” you glanced at El. “Than what you saw earlier, than the psionic powers. I can, well,” you sighed. There was no easy way to say it. “I can teleport too. It’s how I ended up here.”

El sat up in her seat next to you on the couch. “Prove it,” she said, speaking for the first time since you’d moved to the living room.

You turned to her. “Really?” you asked incredulously. The girl looked a little too excited in a conversation about the world ending.

"Yeah." Hopper nodded. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do it.”

Rolling your eyes and muttering something about being a circus animal, you inhaled before popping over to him, appearing right next to his chair.

“Jesus!” He shouted, jerking backwards.

You sat down again with a huff. “Before last night, I thought I could only teleport to places I’ve been to. When we were talking, he showed me a place I liked to go to, in the forest. The same place you found me at, but I didn’t realize it wasn’t my memory.”

“So you think he, what?” Joyce said, waving her cigarette. “Planted it?”

“He showed me a memory of the same place, but it must have been a different year. This year,” you confirmed before deflating. “I panicked when I broke free from him so I went to the first place I could think of.”

“Which was the memory he had shown you, but it wasn't yours,” Hopper said slowly. “That’s one hell of a trick. So you can, what, time travel too?”

“I've never done that before” you bit your nails. “Teleporting across time, that is.”

“Do you think you could go back?”

Gesturing to your body, you scoffed. “With how I feel now? Hell no. I've never had my eyes bleed from using my powers before. Besides,” you groaned, trying to stretch out your arms. “Aren’t I morally obligated to stop whatever that shitbag is planning? Not sure how I’ll help though…”

You thought back to what he had said before you escaped.

“You’re not thinking of the big picture. But you’ll see. Give it some time.”

“Whatever his plan is,” you said seriously. “I fit into it, somehow. And I don't think it's happening any time soon. ”

“Well, I don't know any Henry's in town,” Hopper muttered. “I wonder where the ass is hiding.”

“A guy planning for the end of the world,” Joyce flicked the cigarette with a wry grin. “He sounds like one of the boys’ comic book villains,” she snorted. “Been there already with the supernatural stuff, gotta say I’m not too keen on doin it again.”

“Your family,” Hopper said to you, concerned. “Won’t they care that you disappeared—”

“—Hopper,” Joyce blew a plume of smoke, aware of the way you had just grown still and let your gaze drift to the floor. “You said that boom… it happened before you found her?”

“We thought something exploded,” he nodded. “And El felt… well shit,” the man sighed, looking at you. “I guess she felt you. It was like a sonic boom or something.”

“Like something new entered the... atmosphere,” the girl agreed, looking proud of saying the word. “It felt strong.”

“This Henry wanted you to come here,” Hopper looked at you. “To this year. So he must have let you break free on purpose.”

“And here I was thinking I was just really badass,” you muttered before blinking. “Wait,” you laughed in disbelief. “You really believe me? This all sounds insane.”

“Kid, we’re not lying, we've seen stranger things just in the past year,” Hopper laughed. “Like you said, it explains why we don’t know each other, and why you think the Harrington boy is Chief of Police, which,” he snorted. “is probably the most insane thing you've said all day.”

“It makes sense for the lab, too,” Joyce added. “There are doctors there now, treating my son, supposed to be anyway,” she explained to you before sparing a glance at the man. “And if you were going to the lab for training, well,” she scoffed. “Then we definitely can’t be from the same year.”

You stood up and walked over to the window, your arms crossed protectively over yourself. “In my time, the lab operates more like a private business, of sorts, not similar to whatever is happening, or what’s happened, here.” You weren’t entirely sure what El had gone through, but it definitely didn’t seem good.

Joyce rubbed her eyes. “How so?”

Running a hand through your hair, you couldn’t help the nervous feeling that swept through you. You turned back to face them. “It’s not exactly legal.”

“Neither is the one here,” Hopper laughed, falling quiet at your expression. “What is it?”

“They get paid a lot for providing certain… services,” you said, not wanting to explain in front of the girl. “For the government.”

He glanced at El. “What, are you like an assassin or somethin?”

“They have those,” you said sheepishly. “But I’m not a killer, not exactly, anyways,” you stated before wincing. “Not that what I do, what I did, is any better in the grand scheme of things,” you said guiltily. “But I don’t kill, that was my one stipulation when I agreed to start working for the lab.”

Joyce gasped quietly. “You chose to go there?”

"Kind of." Swallowing, you nodded. “They gave me an offer I wasn't able to really refuse.”

Hopper had grown deadly calm, his eyes narrowed. “And what was that?”

You steeled your gaze, that was something you refused to feel any regret about. “I didn’t know how to control my abilities when I was younger. I was offered training. I was only twelve when the lab officials came to my house after the neighbors called the cops on me,” you explained. “I blew the windows out by accident for like, the third time.” You still remembered the fight you’d had with your dad that caused it.

Swallowing, you continued. “It felt like I finally had something, someone, that could help me get control over these powers that I felt controlled me, not to mention,” you laughed without humor. “I was only twelve years old for Christ’s sake. I would've gone with anyone who said they could do that, morally just organization or not. It might have been wrong, but it’s not like my mother cared as long as she wasn’t the one who had to deal with me. Secondly,” you looked at Hopper, unwilling to break your gaze. “They offered money. A lot of money. Enough to move us into another tax bracket and take care of the bills when my father left. And lastly,” you trailed off, wondering why Hopper and Joyce seemed so disturbed by that particular sentence. Maybe they know my Dad.

“Lastly,” you repeated. “It meant I rarely had to be home. My mom likes, liked?” you asked, unsure of the proper tenses you should be using before shaking your head. “She liked the money, sure. But she preferred me being out of the house even more. I made her uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Joyce said, her eyes sharp.

“Well, yeah,” you coughed awkwardly, wishing you didn't have to talk about her at all. “She wasn’t really Mother of the Year or anything, but to be fair, my parents weren't exactly prepared to have a kid who could move shit with their mind. It was hard on them, and so my dad left,” you cleared your throat, feeling guilty all over again. “And then my mom got stuck with me until Melissa showed up.”

“Melissa?”

“Melissa Brenner, the director of the lab,” you supplied, continuing even after you clocked the way all three pairs of eyes went wide. “People with our,” you gestured to El, “special skill set aren't really appreciated in my time, not that there’s a lot of us who are open about it. Our powers,” you paused, scoffing. “It’s not exactly something you want to share with your neighbors, you know? So they find us if we've got powerful abilities, make us an offer they know we won't say no to, and then we get experimented on and put through enough training until Melissa deems us advanced enough for missions. That woman is batshit crazy, though,” you laughed, genuinely amused at the thought of her discovering your disappearance. “She’s probably tearing through my home as we speak trying to find me,” you snorted.

“Melissa Brenner?” Hopper asked quietly.

You turned to look at him, surprised at the question. “Yeah, that's her name. Granddaughter of the guy who started the lab. He was ah… what was his name again?” you muttered to yourself. “Marvin or something.”

“Martin.”

You snapped your fingers. “That's right! I only had to look at his portrait every day when I entered, you think I’d remember it,” you said, rolling your eyes before pausing. “How do you know his name? You know him?”

He looked at Joyce, who looked at El, who closed her eyes with a pained expression.

“Papa.”

------------

You were, quite frankly, horrified at what they had just told you.

After hearing about the hell Martin Brenner had put little El through, you supposed Hopper and Joyce considered you close enough to fill you in on what had happened the year prior. Closer than most, even, since you were now one of four people who knew El was alive.

“What, too crazy?” Hopper chuckled, guffawing at your blank stare.

You'd experienced a lot of fucked-up things during your time working for Melissa. Shit, with the stuff you've done you knew there'd always be a piece of you that wished you’d never said yes to her all those years ago. Still, you’d bet seeing the alternate dimension hellscape they described would make all of that seem like a day at Disneyland. How none of them seemed utterly traumatized was beyond you, quite frankly.

“I’d say that’s a good stopping point for now. Chili sound okay?” Hopper asked you, finally getting up and heading towards the kitchen.

“Shit, I gotta run,” Joyce said, checking her watch and jumping to her feet. “The boys are expecting me home for dinner.”

“Oh,” you breathed, suddenly aware that it was nearing sunset. “I should get going too.”

That made them both freeze. “And where is that?”

“Uh,” you weren’t sure. “I can probably find a motel or something. Maybe find whatever family members of mine are here, they seem to have a stellar reputation.”

“No chance in hell,” Hopper put a hand on his hip. “If you show up to the Hendersons claiming to be one of their own out of the blue it’ll just raise questions. Besides, you think we're just gonna kick you out?”

“I don’t have a timeline on when this dude wants to end the world," you frowned. "He sounded like this is a long-term goal he's been planning for a while. Even if I knew how to get back to my time, I'm not really in a rush.” you smiled slowly, the thought just occurring to you.

Mom is probably relieved I’m gone.

“My contract with the lab was for another decade at least, and now…” trailing off, you weren't quite sure what you'd do now.

“Now you're here,” Joyce finished with a warm grin.

“Even so,” you smiled back. “I don't want to burden you any more than I already have. You already saved my life once.”

“All the more reason to keep an eye on you,” Hopper shrugged. “I’ve already got one girl with superpowers staying here, why not another? You’ll be safe here.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“For now? Nothing, you’re hurt.” Hopper raised an eyebrow. “Once you’re better and we know your little sonic boom didn’t catch the eye of the lab or the government we can talk more, but until then, you should stay inside.”

Joyce pulled a jacket on, eyes kind as she went to hug El goodbye. “You’re not a burden, sweetie,” she stated firmly, moving to pull you into a hug as well. “I’m a hugger, sorry!” she said when she felt you stiffen.

“It’s… fine,” you said finally, scolding yourself for looking pathetic. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been hugged.

“I’ll be back later this week,” she waved. “Work has me putting in overtime to make up for taking Will to the lab so often. Get better and be good!”

After she had carefully stepped over Hopper’s array of tripwires and alarms set in the yard, you and El talked a bit more.

“I watch TV,” she said quietly when you asked her what she does for fun. “And do homework.”

“You think homework is fun?” you snorted. She nodded eagerly, jumping off the couch to retrieve a worn-out workbook.

You frowned, combing through the pages of sentence structure lessons that she had already completed. “What about your friends from last year?” you asked, remembering the flurry of kids they told you were involved. “You don’t like to hang out with them?”

She scowled. “They think I’m dead.”

“What?” you were stunned. “Why ?”

“Hopper,” she mumbled. “Says it’s not safe. The bad men, still looking for me. That’s why I can’t go outside.”

“Hold on,” you shut the book, setting it down on the coffee table. “You’re not allowed to go outside, like ever ?” She shook her head. “El,” you said. “How long have you been inside?”

“Three hundred and four days.”

You gaped. Jesus. You understood to some extent, Hopper wanted to make sure the government didn’t know she was alive, but you didn’t know how you’d do if you had to stay in the cabin with just Hopper for company for that long. She must be lonely.

“Well,” you said. “I’m here now, until I can figure out what the hell I should do anyways. We can hang out together, I’ll even help with your homework,” you nudged her.

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

At the sound of Hopper’s voice calling the two of you to dinner, you allowed her to slowly pull you up.

You mused over the insanity of the day while spooning chili into your mouth. One thing’s for sure, you thought. Even knowing what I do, I’d still rather be stuck in 1984 than back home.

#steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington/reader #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington fic #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington x you #stranger things au #fnlyroe

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breakfastteatime · 2 years

Text

Comfortember Day 27: Proud

Cal’s dozing on his bed when Cere approaches. She doesn’t want to disturb him, but she needs to check the lightsaber wound and change the dressing. BD-1 stands watch, and guard, and looks up at Cere with a suspicious beep.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she tells him, keeping her voice low. She holds up the medical kit. “Let me check him over and then he can get more sleep.”

BD-1 agrees and steps aside. Cere approaches the bed and projects a gentle nudge through the Force. Cal stirs and opens his eyes, blinking up at Cere. One hand shifts protectively to his injury.

“Sorry,” she says. “You can go back to sleep once I’ve checked it over.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Figured it was that time anyway.”

Putting the kit on the other end of the bed, Cere helps Cal up. He swings his legs over the side. Sure, he may have walked right out of here shortly before destroying the holocron, but any Jedi will tell you adrenaline’s a hell of a drug. When that wore off, he’d realised just how much rest he needed.

Cal’s wearing a loose-fitting shirt and Cere lifts it to check the bandage and, far more importantly, the wound beneath. To save Cal from holding it up, she ties the shirt over his shoulder to keep it out of the way as she works.

“How’s the pain?” she asks as she carefully works the bandage loose. There’s a bacta patch beneath it that needs replacing. “On a scale of nothing to feeling like you’re on fire, where are you today?”

“Uh…”

“And be honest,” Cere tells him as the bandage comes loose, revealing the bacta patch beneath.

“I’m not on fire but it still hurts to laugh and yawn. Oh, and I can’t use my arm that much.”

“Good thing you can use the Force,” Cere teases.

Cal smiles at that.

“Feeling feverish?” she asks.

“Not so much now.”

She checks anyway. He’s still a little warmer than he should be, but nothing like those first few days.

“Alright, let’s get this done. Deep breath,” Cere cautions. “As deep as you can.”

Cal does as he’s told and she pulls the patch off. BD-1 warbles sympathetically as Cal hisses. The wound beneath looks a lot better than it did when they treated it initially. Between medical science and Merrin’s magick, they’d cleaned it out and encouraged Cal’s body to begin the arduous task of healing. It’s still angry and inflamed, likely to leave yet another scar, but they are through the worst of it. There’s no sign of infection, much to Cere’s relief. The monster that had inflicted this injury on Cal could have done far, far worse. It led her to believe that his intention had not been to kill but incapacitate.

He had been toying with Cal.

Cere will not allow herself to dwell on the fate that would have befallen Cal has she not caught up in time. She has spent a lot of time in deep meditation to release her fear and anger. She has a lot to work through if she is to find her way back to the Force.

And it is Cal she has to thank for that. His words that enabled her to make the right choice, at the right time, that saw them both out of that Fortress. Facing down a monster like no other, he had not given in. He held true to who he was, what he was. His fear hadn’t overwhelmed him, and that strength allowed her to follow his example.

He is a remarkable Jedi. Jaro Tapal would be proud.

Cere places a fresh bacta patch over the wound, replaces the bandage, and unties Cal’s shirt, letting it fall back into place. She rests a hand on his shoulder, unable to think of what to say.

He looks up at her. “What?” He sounds worried.

Her hand cups his cheek. “I am so proud of you.”

In a heartbeat, Cal is on his feet and hugging Cere tight. “I’m proud of you too, Cere.”

She can’t help hugging him back, albeit gently. It gives her a moment to gain control over her emotions before she makes a scene and starts to weep. He pulls back first, giving her a smile, before sitting back down on the bed.

“Get some more rest,” she says. “Otherwise I think BD-1 will come after me.”

BD-1 hops up on the bed and informs Cere that not only will he come after her, he’ll come after anyone who doesn’t allow Cal to nap for as long as he needs.

Settling himself down, Cal gives BD-1 a gentle nudge. “Play nice, BD.” He yawns – carefully. “I probably should eat later.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Greez is already on it. He’s making some kind of soup that he swears heals all ills,” Cere says.

Upon hearing this, BD-1 announces he will only accept someone coming to wake Cal when the food is ready.

“Thanks, BD.” Closing his eyes, Cal pulls his blanket up to his chest. “Cere?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for everything.”

“Anytime. Sleep well.”

#comfortember 2022 #hi we are always having cere feels over here #star wars jedi: fallen order #jfo minific #jfo headcanon #cal kestis #cere junda #cere junda needs a hug #cal kestis needs a hug

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danosrosegarden · 1 year

Text

dust bunny

{trigger warning: this writing piece recalls my experience with drugs, overdose, self-harm, and suicide.}

I'm going to pass out in a pool of my own frothy spittle while my bloodshot eyes roll back and my weakened heartbeat withers. Either somebody is going to find my limp, bloodied body on the carpet in enough time to take me to the hospital, or I'm going to die here. I don't care anymore.

What's more freeing than being released of the need to keep going? I was ready to lay down and rest, sink into the infinite black of sleep. I'd had just about enough of swallowing a handful of Benadryl each morning and driving to class, feeling crusted, thorny sleep poke at the corners of my eyes while my stomach gnawed on the pink pills and sloshed its acid around side to side, hungry for anything other than half a bottle of over the counter medicine.

I didn't give a fuck what I had to take, what old, probably expired prescription I had to dig up in the depths of my pill collection. My old bottle of Xanax was probably somewhere at the bottom of the drawer being eaten alive by dust. I'd find it.

When I come to in the dark, moonlit early morning, a short-haired, tattooed nurse is wiping my thighs with something that burns like hell and my parents are staring at me from small chairs across from my cramped bed. They look crunched in and uncomfortable. They look impossibly tired, ashen bags nibbling at the skin underneath their eyes. I burst into tears, and it's like my throat is a skipping record; I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. They say nothing, so I keep repeating it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

There's no manual on what to say to your heartbroken and no doubt traumatized family after you survive an overdose, and that's all I could think to fill the air with. A thousand apologies soaked through with a warbling voice, salty tears racing down my pink cheeks, a bubble of snot popping from my right nostril.

I don't know what to feel now, recalling that late night/early morning with just a few scars left on my skin to heal and fade. Most of them are a burned, charred memory stuck in the back wrinkles of my brain.

I'm allowed to close my door and be alone now. I've been good. I went back to work at the end of the month. They say they missed me, give me cards filled with glittery, encouraging words and a pretty bouquet of blushing pink tulips.

I like to drive to the activity center and run on the track these days. I like to feel beads of sweat dangle from my hair and my heartbeat race, remind it that it's still here and kicking. Thank it for serving me so well when I cruelly raked it through the mud and carelessly picked at its veins.

I do what I can to remind myself I am alive, I am no longer collected dust at the bottom of the pill box. I am not the blackened rot that once ate away at my flesh, I am not the slashed skin or the chain-smoking on an empty stomach or the hungry acid eating away at my body. I am the cool autumn breeze blowing the tangerine orange leaves onto the yellowed fields of grass. I'm the tears welling in the eyes after a breath-stealing belly laugh. I am the light and the dark and before anything else, I am proud. Proud of where I go and what I do, proud of how I continue to exist despite it all.

I am here, and I have a life worth living. That's all I've ever wanted.

#eli's writing #personal writing

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cavalierious-whim · 11 months

Text

Golden Hours (XiaoAeXiao)

When casting a location spell to find his sister, Aether accidentally brings back someone back from the Abyss instead. Written for Aliferous, a XiaoAetherXiao Zine.

Read the fic here on AO3. You can also, follow me on Twitter, and here on Patreon!

Leftover Sales for Aliferous are still open and you can grab a copy here!

The book sits on his desk, the yellowed pages dingy in the low lamplight. Aether drags a finger down the spine, pressing it flat.

“Useless,” he mutters, flipping a page, then another, the crinkled parchment crackling in the quiet of his home. “This shouldn’t be that difficult.” He groans, pressing his hand to his brow. “A location spell—that’s it. This is beginner stuff.”

Perhaps if he were trying to find apples or oranges. The spell is simple enough depending on the application, but it’s not as though it was designed to find people. In theory, it can, but Aether is still working out the kinks.

“You’ve never made anything easy for me, have you?” he murmurs, thinking of Lumine. It’d been an accident—a spell gone wrong. Lumine was sucked into the ether, blipped right from this existence. Aether spends his moments outside of work looking for her. “Well, wherever you are, you’re giving them hell, that’s for sure,” he finishes, voice tilted by amusement.

And so, the spell.

Something that is alike. Aether fiddles with a bundle of Lumine’s hair, pilfered from an old box she’d stashed underneath her bed.

A stone that is alive. Mr. Zhongli was a curious man who didn’t have much in the way of money, but Aether traded a spell for a rock that pulses with Geo, tuned to the ley lines of Liyue itself.

A feather, even slightly crooked, will do. It’d taken some coaxing, but Fischl eventually agreed to let him pluck a few from Oz, much to the chagrin of her familiar.

Aether reads over the spell again. “Won’t know unless I try, right?” He rubs his brow. At worst, the spell fizzles out and he’s back to square one. It’s nothing so powerful as to cause an actual issue, but magic is finicky at its best and fickle at its worst.

“Alright then.”

Aether falls quiet as he concentrates. He plucks at the universe and draws power from the ley lines. He’s used this spell before. Just like all the other times, he thinks. Focus and think. We’re finding her, that’s all—just look for Lumine.

The ley lines are sleepy, sluggish, almost. He tries to focus his search through what looks like muddy water. There’s nothing, no inkling of Lumine; no sight of her, or the sound of her pealing laughter. It’s like slogging through a marsh.

So, he pulls harder. Aether sinks into the power as everything else fades away. He no longer stands in his home, he walks those lines personally, edging closer and closer to the Abyss. Worth it, he reasons. The risk. A moment near the edge of the world won’t do any harm. Near the veil is one of the places that he hasn’t looked.

Darkness creeps closer and Aether skirts it—but then, a tendril reaches out and curls around his arm. Everything shifts. No longer is it the warm magic of the earth, it’s the bitter cold grip of the Void. Something beyond the barrier cries out in a wrenching, warbling noise. Whatever grasps him digs in with its claws.

Aether panics. He yelps and pulls away, scrambling against the ground as he tries to remove himself from the magic. He falls through the frozen air and trips. His back hits the ground hard and the air is no longer crisp. A fire blazes to the right of him, and the kettle that hangs over it whistles.

He rolls over to find the worn wooden planks of his cottage. Aether presses his forehead to the ground and sighs. He could kiss the floor. Too close, he thinks. Far too close to the edge, but—

There’s a rattling breath that gasps beside him. Aether jerks, snapping to attention, clambering back against the wall, a hand outstretched with magic swirling about his fingers. “What—”

“Where am I?”

Aether blinks. The man that stands before him is unearthly, slender, and lithe, with choppy hair like an oil slick. He watches back with a piercing, golden-eyed gaze. Aether opens his mouth and says, ineloquently, “Um, Liyue?”

“I had thought…” The man closes his eyes and inhales, nostrils flaring. “It felt familiar. It has been…”

“It’s been?”

“A long time.”

Aether’s gaze then turns curious. He can feel that power that thrums through the other man’s veins.

“Apologies,” continues the man. “I’m unused to sharing conversation, not that I’ve ever found it easy. You—” His eyes narrow, and suddenly, the air turns sour. Aether’s arm doesn’t shake, but his toes curl in his boots. “What were you doing so close to the veil? That isn’t a place for—” He pauses.

“For?”

The man sighs. “It doesn't matter.” He stands but tilts, unsteady on his feet. “I need to—there’s work to be done. I have to—”

Aether should send him back. He certainly doesn’t think straight when he reaches out to pull at the ragged shirt the man wears to help steady him instead. The man pulls away as if he’s been burned.

“Don’t touch me!” His hiss dies out in a soft whine. “It isn’t safe for you. Can’t you feel it? The karma that bleeds from my veins?”

Aether blinks. “No?” He feels power that is no doubt old and ancient, but nothing so implicitly evil.

The man blinks back at him, his brow furrowed. “What kind of sorcerer are you? Are you so unskilled you cannot see that I’m a yaksha?”

Oh. Well, that certainly explains things. Old warriors who fight off our evil, only to become it themselves, read Lumine once. Definitely not the type of story most children fall asleep to but they were always an odd pair.

Aether rights himself. “Yaksha or not, you’re in no shape to go anywhere.”

“I’m—”

“Barely able to stand. You should rest for a bit.” Aether doesn’t know why he’s offering. The last thing that he should do is let a man he dragged from the Abyss stay in his home. He sighs and says quieter, “I’m Aether. At least let me get you some fresh clothes.”

“I’m…” The man looks at himself awkwardly, dragging a bony hand over his ragged shirt. “Xiao.” When he pets the fabric, it crumbles away. His flat expression turns into a scowl, lips curled into a sneer.

Aether thinks it is cute.

Xiao is an awkward man both when it comes to being back in the normal plane of existence and when engaging with others. “I’ve never been good at it,” he mutters.

Aether is busy cleaning his desk, putting away spelling materials, and dusting off books. “I’m not saying you need to be friendly, I’m just saying…” Aether shrugs. “You’re stuck here for the time being, so you might as well make the most of it.”

As it turns out, Xiao is tethered to Aether. He did as was suggested—he rested and took an outfit of Aether’s before being on his way, only to step outside the door and wind up right back in the kitchen. He tried again. And again.

It is a week later and he still tries when he thinks that Aether isn’t looking.

“You are not my friend,” hisses Xiao that day, reminding Aether of a feral cat.

Aether just glances at him. “Do you feel better?” Judging by Xiao’s frown, no. “Look, I’m not trying to be your friend—”

“No, you insist upon it.”

“—wouldn’t it be easier if you just… settled? The Abyss was a terrible place, right? Relax.”

Xiao cannot relax. He fidgets when in place for too long. “Those old gods,” he starts, “I can feel them. They’re still deep in the ground, leeching evil as we speak. I have to go fight it off.”

Aether has never met a yaksha before Xiao but he’s impressed by the level of dedication he’s seen thus far. “Because that’s what you used to do, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why were you in the Abyss?”

The question catches Xiao. He sits on the stool and tilts his head, discomforted. “It is where we go when we…” He trails off and Aether can assume the worst. “It is meant as a mercy.”

Aether turns to him at that, leaning against his desk and shooting Xiao a curious glance. “And was it?”

Xiao takes so long to answer that Aether thinks that he won’t. But then, ever so quietly: “No.”

Aether hums and returns to his tidying. “Well, you aren’t there anymore. My house, my rules—which are simple. Consider this retirement.”

Xiao looks at Aether as though he’s mad. And maybe he is. But Aether has grown attached to the strange yaksha, and he’s curious to see just what some peace might do for him.

The rapport they build over time comes with startling ease.

Xiao is touch-starved, friend-starved, and generally, just starved. It doesn’t take long for him to grudgingly accept Aether’s friendship. He helps around the cottage, picking up things and doing chores. He isn’t a good cook but he makes a mean pot of tea, which eventually turns into him boiling up potions for Aether’s day job as a sorcerer for hire.

After some time, Aether tells him about Lumine. “She’s my other half,” he says one night as they're tucked into blankets to keep out the biting fall chill of the coming winter. The fireplace roars and they watch the embers, shoulder-to-shoulder and comfortable. “That’s what I was doing that day when walking the ley lines. I was looking for her.”

“That wasn’t smart,” says Xiao.

“No,” agrees Aether.

Xiao’s mouth parts to speak but he hesitates. “I am… glad that you were stupid. Otherwise, I’d still be…” He gestures vaguely.

Aether leans over and nudges him. “I’m glad too. It’s better with you here. I’m not so lonely. Are you enjoying your retirement?”

“As much as one can when brewing up spells every day.”

Aether’s mouth curls into a grin. “Xiao, was that a joke?”

“No.” Xiao grins back, though, which leaves Aether in a fit of roaring laughter.

Weeks pass into months. It takes a crisp winter morning nearly a year later for Aether to realize he’s abandoned his search for his sister.

He thinks of Lumine, yes, but his thoughts are preoccupied with the newfound life he’s cultivated. Same old cabin, same old place; but the person is different, and Aether finds himself thinking of sharp golden eyes, and a subtle smile hidden behind a palm.

Xiao has figured out retirement. He’s found value in his simple life here, and Aether thinks that he can do the same, instead of clinging to the past.

“What’s with that look?”

Aether jumps at his voice and turns to find him leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom. “Nothing, I just… lost in thought.”

“Lumine?”

“The both of you.”

Xiao crosses the room then to pour himself a cup of tea. “Sounds like a punishment.”

Aether snorts and sips his own cup. “Nothing like that. Just… I think that finding her isn’t necessary anymore. I realized this morning that I hadn’t thought about it recently. I’m too busy with work and with—” Aether grins, “—you, of course.”

The energy in the room shifts. Lately, Xiao watches him with lingering stares that creep into his soul, and for a moment, it’s easy to think that, perhaps, he might feel the same.

“You’re happy, then?” asks Xiao quietly.

“Yes.”

Xiao licks his lips nervously. “And there’s nothing more that you’d want?”

A year ago, Aether would’ve said his sister. But at that moment, in the cold kitchen with a steaming mug of tea in his hands, the answer is clear.

Xiao closes the distance between them until Aether’s settled between his arms. The counter digs into the small of his back, but Aether forgets about it when Xiao kisses him. It is sweet. Lingering. A little awkward and fumbling.

Aether laughs as he sets his tea aside in favor of wrapping an arm around Xiao’s neck. Then, he learns that kisses are the perfect deterrent for any cold and blustery day.

#Cavalierious Fanfic #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin fanfic #genshin #xiaoaether #xiao/aether

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scifrey · 1 year

Text

Keepsakes: Postcards

Status: Ongoing Ficlet collection; unbeta’d

Series: the Hob Adherent series

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature-ish.

Warnings: Discussions of death and the afterlife.

Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)

Characters: Hob Gadling, Harriet Butler

Summary: Short ficlets set in the Hob Adherent world, based on prompts received from readers. Feel free to DM me or leave prompts in the comments, and if it resonates with me, I may write up a ficlet! Thank you for the inspiration in advance.

Set directly following Carpe Diem.

READ ON AO3 OR READ BELOW:

Postcards

Inspired by a comment from Yoon_joee.

"So, a sword in Buckingham's army, a bandit, a printer, a shipwright and then a merchant middleman for the dockyards, a knight, a beggar, investment broker--"

"Slaver," Hob interrupts Harriet as she counts off his professions on her fingers one slow, sunny afternoon at The New Inn. "Call the thing what it was."

Hari offers him a sympathetic smile. They're the only ones in the pub proper today, as Patrick is off to tend his ailing mother, Dee doesn't come in Mondays, and Morph is having lunch with his editor.

"After which you were an MP and staunch abolitionist, a soldier again in America for the North, an industrialist and labor rights advocate, a yuppie and silicone valley early adopter--"

"Apple paid for most of this," Hob agrees, selecting a glass and checking it for water spots or lipstick stains.

"--and now a professor and publican. Am I missing any?"

“Oh!” Hob remembers as he pulls a pint for her. "And I was ruler of Hell."

She leans across the bar from her stool, and thwacks his arm. “Fuck off, you were not, you old liar,” Hari laughs.

“Was so!” Hob protests, setting her beer down in front of her. “Ask my husband. He was there. I was ruler of Hell for thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds on my six-hundred and sixty-sixth birthday.”

Hari raises a challenging eyebrow at Hob over her pint glass as she takes a sip. “I won’t believe a thing the Prince of Stories tells me,” she says decisively, when she sets the beer back down. “And I don’t believe you.”

Hob pulls a postcard from L.A. off the bar back, where it’s been pinned to a corkboard among a handful of invoices and shopping lists. This card depicts a cartoon devil drawn over a photo of the Hills, lounging on the iconic Hollywood sign. It says “Greetings from Sin City!” in bright yellow font.

Hob hands it to Hari to inspect. She flips it over. Her face grows drawn as her eyes flick over the handwritten note on the back.

“To my fellow former ruler of Hell; I opened a nightclub, just like you suggested. Visit me at LUX any time you’d like, Hobsie. xxx Lucifer Morningstar,” Hari reads in a voice that grows increasingly strangled.

She hands the card back to Hob with trembling fingers. Then she shotguns the rest of her pint.

“So hell is real, then,” Hari warbles, wiping a trace of foam from her fear-thinned lips.

Hob shrugs. “Everything is real. Humans create gods, not the other way around. If someone believes in it, it exists.”

Hari nods thoughtfully. “I suppose you would know, being married to a god.”

Hob chuckles and tugs his ear shyly. “Well, former god. Ish. And don’t worry, only people who believe they deserve to go to Hell actually do. It's all about self-punishment or self-fulfilling prophecy, or something. I try not to think to much about that Celestial stuff, to be honest with you. What happens after... well, after, isn't something I need to worry about.”

Hari nods again, and without asking, Hob refills her pint glass. He has a feeling she’s going to need it.

"But it is something I'm going to have to worry about," Hari says softly, accepting the drink with a nod.

"Not any time soon, I hope," Hob says, folding his arms on the bar top and leaning close to offer her a comforting look. "And when it does happen, I can promise you that my sister-in-law is gentle and kind. You have nothing to worry about."

Harriet runs her arthritis gnarled finger up and down the side of the glass, collecting up the condensation. "You know, that is actually a comfort." She looks up at Hob with a wicked little grin. "Especially knowing your husband."

Hob throws his head back and laughs.

PREVIOUS | NEXT

#The Hob Adherent Series #Hob Adherent #Cling Fast #Carpe Diem #Keepsakes #Dreamling #Dreamling fic #Dreamling Fanfic #The Sandman #Sandman #Sandman fic #Sandman Fanfic #hob gadling #hob x dream #dream x hob #Lord Morpheus #Lucifer #gaimanverse

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tarisilmarwen · 11 months

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Whumptober 2023 - "Tokyo Blue Rose"

(Yep, more fic from the Re.alization Fix-Fic universe. I am not hurting Inaho this time though, lol.

Prompts used:

No. 20 "People don't change people, time does": Blanket/Found Family/"You will regret touching them."

Alt. 5 Body Modification.)

---

She stared through the glass numbly, looking in on the ICU recovery room.

They'd put Inaho in a medically-induced coma for his recovery. Asseylum could see the thick bandages wrapped around his head, over his left eye, and burned with grief at the sight.

She watched his chest rise and fall, trembling with anger and guilt and shame.

She had done this. By being selfish and choosing the boy she loved over her friend, she had condemned Inaho to months of torture and hell at the hands of one of her own Martian Knights, condemned so many of their pilots to a brutal and swift end at the hands of Inaho's remote-guided Tharsis.

There hadn't been time, Yuki had assured her, over and over. You had to make a choice.

She'd made her choice. And she'd hated it. And hated herself for it.

Even more so now.

By her side, her fist clenched tightly. Her lip trembled, heat threatening to well up in her eyes.

She wished Slaine were there, to put his warm hands on her shoulders, slip his fingers into hers. Make her feel less awful.

She tugged on the connection between them, reached out through the Ea that entwined them, and felt an automatic and instinctive reassuring mental touch back. It was enough.

She inhaled slowly, forcing herself to turn away from the window. Her mind replayed the rescue, all the horrible details playing fresh against her eyes. The dark control room where he'd been stored. The wires plugged into his head. His shrieking as the Versian AI took control of him.

The door on the far side of the hallway opened with a metal clatter. Asseylum looked up to see Inko trotting through, a heavy folded blanket clutched in her arms.

The other girl stopped awkwardly. "Oh! Princess!" She hesitated for a moment, clearly wrestling with whether or not to curtsy.

Asseylum smiled ruefully, expression warm. They had dispensed with such formalities months ago.

After a moment Inko shook herself. "How is he?" she asked anxiously, as she came up to the window.

Asseylum swallowed back a bitter pill of anger, dropping her eyes towards the floor. "Stable," she said. "They were able to remove nearly all of the implant."

"Mmm," Inko just hummed, looking through the observation window with wan, worried eyes.

The princess raised her head, and pointed at the bundle in Inko's arms. "What's that?" she asked.

"Huh?" Already deep in her distracted thoughts, Inko blinked in confusion. "Oh!" she exclaimed, her brain catching up. She held up the thick folded cloth. "It's... it's his favorite blanket," she explained, her voice beginning to tighten as she spoke. "Lieutenant Marito let the 34th Unit sneak me into Shin-awara so I could go find it." Her hands were clenching into its soft folds, Inko's gaze growing distant and unreachable. "He's never liked the texture of hospital linens so I thought... something from home might..."

She trailed off, gasping shortly for breath and composure, almost warbling by the last words, and Asseylum's heart wrenched for her. She and Inko had grown quite close in the months since the disastrous attack on Saazbaum's landing castle. Asseylum counted her now as one of her dearest friends, closer than a sister. She looked at Inko and saw her like a mirror image of herself, intimately understanding her uncertainty, acquainted with her pain. Inko's feelings for Inaho were painfully obvious, her devotion to him as deep and as strong as Asseylum's for Slaine, even without the tether of a literal soulbond connecting them.

It was a minor miracle Inko didn't hate her, for the choice she had made on the landing castle.

Asseylum offered a thin smile, and pinched, encouraging eyes. "Ah, I see." They stood in silence a moment and then Asseylum urged, "Go on, I think the doctors will let you in."

Inko didn't need to be told twice, clutching the blanket to her chest and rushing stiffly towards the ICU doors.

Asseylum's smile faded, anger pulling at her again as she watched Inko speak with the head surgeon, watched her be allowed into the recovery room and hesitantly approach the sleeping boy on the bed.

Gripping her fists, she turned on her heel, and stalked with purpose out from the hospital wing of the base.

She visited her room first, pulling off the plain soft long-sleeve blue shirt and tan slacks that she regularly wore these days. She reached into her closest for her ruffled white dress. What she was planning to do required full formal Versian regalia.

She dressed swiftly, if struggling a little bit due to Eddelrittuo's absence. (Her handmaid had been put into a schooling course with a private tutor, and was busy being instructed in math and science and literature, which Asseylum of course made her share with her when they were reunited at the end of the day.)

She marched straight into OPS when she was finished, announcing her plan at once. The UEF military hierarchy was skeptical at first, but Marito backed her up—as she knew he would—and moments later Asseylum was sitting poised and composed in front of the cameras, preparing to deliver another announcement and wartime status report.

Her stomach fluttered nervously, hands shaking where they were clasped on the table, but Asseylum forced herself to be the perfect picture of grace and calm as the TV cameras were pointed towards her, a makeup girl powdering down her face.

This was her arena. And she would fight with the weapons she had, with her words and face, her ability to call to arms or cool tempers.

"All right, Your Highness," the man behind the camera told her. She nodded at the man, watched him count down the seconds on the hand he held aloft. "In three... two..."

She heard the cameras click on and knew she was being broadcast all across the UEF feeds, piped into the TVs of civilians across the globe, and even—they often hoped—reaching up to the moon base and the landing castles still in orbit.

She inhaled slowly, then launched into the speech she'd prepared.

"This is Asseylum Vers Allusia, Princess of Mars, true heir to the Versian throne," she began, reciting her standard greeting with firm authority. "I am coming to you live from UEF headquarters, with an update on the war efforts."

She paused a moment, gripping her hands together tighter.

"Two days ago, at approximately oh-seven-hundred-hours, I led a small team of insurgents on a covert mission to breach the moon base where the Versian traitors have dug in," she said. A little bit exaggerated from the truth, but her handlers had assured her all good propaganda had a bit of embellishment involved. "On that mission, we recovered the kataphrakt pilot Inaho Kaizuka, formerly presumed missing in action after the Battle of Novosibirsk."

Bile flooded her mouth, but she swallowed it down and continued, seamlessly.

"We believe Kaizuka was being used to remote-pilot the Tharsis, the flagship of the Versian invasion fleet, which has caused devastating losses to us in our fight to restore peace between Mars and Earth. He was not doing so willingly, but under extreme duress, as a prisoner of war."

She let the horror of that revelation settle for a moment before continuing.

"I urge any Knights still loyal to Count Saazbaum to answer honestly if they can tolerate the torture and imprisonment of a child, if they are willing to have that blemish on their names and tarnish their honor so, simply for the sake of continuing this pointless conflict."

The words came so naturally to her now. Before all of this, she could never have even conceived of calling out the men she'd thought loyal to her, to the throne, questioning their motives and character. The war had made her cynical, turned her hopeful calls for peace into bitter condemnations of her own men.

Her face stayed the same, even as the anger and despair and grief stormed inside her.

"Inaho... was my friend," she said. Her voice softened, and she had trouble looking into the camera instead of past it. "He was fearless, and clever, and fought bravely. Even though he was no older than me..." she trailed. Her momentary show of vulnerability was playing well to the audience, apparently, because the producer was gesturing at her urgently, letting her know someone on the Versian side of the conflict was listening.

Asseylum hardened her eyes and looked directly into the camera, as if she could see Saazbaum's face before her. She pictured his smug, disdainful smirk and addressed her next words directly to him.

"To those who had a hand in turning him into a weapon against our peace efforts, who mercilessly used him against his own people and friends..." Her eyes burned. "You will regret hurting him," she promised. "We will continue and redouble our efforts to end this war and arrest Count Saazbaum and any of his accomplices for his crimes against the Emperor and the Versian crown, against human decency itself," she declared. "Make no mistake; those who would do such horrible despicable things are no people of mine. They bring shame to themselves, and to Vers."

Her throat was starting to tighten, but she made herself speak the words with firm clarity.

"And they will face a reckoning."

She let that hang in the air for a few portent moments.

The producer gestured for the feed to be cut, and after a moment the cameraman complied, everyone sensing the broadcast was done.

Asseylum let out a heavy exhale, her palms turning flat upon the desk she sat behind. She tugged again on her bond with Slaine, felt his automatic response back, and couldn't hide the relief that she sent out, tingling, over their connection.

He was alive and whole—both her boys were, now, her soulmate and her friend, the one she loved and the one she had to sacrifice, and she thought she finally understood Rayet's desire for revenge, to hurt someone responsible for her pain, because all that comforted her now were pleasant thoughts of a bullet in Saazbaum's skull, for what he'd done to Inaho, to Slaine, to her, what he'd made her choose, what she'd had to scramble frantically to fix.

You did this, Princess, she heard him say like an echo inside her mind. You, not me.

Asseylum shuddered, and held back her tears, staying a perfect porcelain picture of composure even as she died inside once more.

The murmuring voices and shuffling in the room were background noise on her numb ears and senses as heavy, dark guilt gnawed her from the inside out.

#aldnoah.zero #slaine x asseylum #inaho x inko #whumptober2023 #prompt fics #fanfiction #whump

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druidx · 10 days

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Her Countenance was Light - Chapter 32

CW: None AO3 ; Chapters: 01. 10. 20. 30. 31. Tag list (ask for +/-): @aquadestinyswriting, @hannah-heartstrings, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary, @babyblueetbaemonster @mr-orion

The Eshen help her down into the safety of the canopy and settle her on a sturdy branch. "The hell just happened?" she warbles, when she can finally find her breath and her voice. 🙢Smart girl, you are, and figured out your riddle!🙡 The elder is grinning ear-to-ear. 🙢You did not let Kasskekadmas take the golden eye of Aukštasvilkas from you, and did not wilt and die. You will be well-rooted against the approaching frost, standing tall and sturdy.🙡 Elo gives the elder a blank look. With vehement enunciation, she says, "What the fuck?" Behind the elder, the younger Eshen gazes at Elo with something she perceives as awe. 🙢Aukštasvilkas filled you,🙡 the Eshen girl says, in a hushed tone. 🙢It has observed your being and found you worthy, and It has made you bloom.🙡 Elo turns her attention away from the elder. The younger stands with clasped hands, her shining eyes creased at the corners but smile tight-lipped. Elo doesn't understand. They told Elo to let Aukštasvilkas' light help her bloom, so she did. The exact same thing happened to the Eshen girl mere moments before, so why does she appear so jealous? Elo doesn't like the suspicion that curdles in her gut. "What exactly happened to me?" 🙢You are ready now,🙡 the elder says, still grinning. "Ready for what?" 🙢To face him again,🙡 the elder says, as if this was self-evident. 🙢You allowed Aukštasvilkas to bring you to bloom. This is a blossom that will last a goodly long time. It will allow you to use the golden eye against Kasskekadmas when you save us.🙡 Elo gapes. "What!" The two Eshen exchange a glance. 🙢You did not know Kasskekadmas plans to seal away the golden eye of Aukštasvilkas?🙡 the elder asks. "No!" Elo's voice rises in pitch. "No one said anything about going against that thing again." 🙢Oh. Oh dear,🙡 the girl murmurs. 🙢We were told by Willowsprout,🙡 says the elder, 🙢that your Dvasia subjugant had explained all this to you.🙡 "Who, Snotgrut? He told me some creation story, but nothing else. He said you'd explain it." The elder opens their mouth, then closes it, ducking their chin. 🙢I see we may have our work cut out for us.🙡 Elo starts to scrub a hand over her face when the wind gusts. The tree shakes, and she's violently reminded of where she is: up a tree, hours after fleeing from her friends and family, who are probably out of their minds with worry. "Forget Kasskekadmas, Merri's going to kill me first," she murmurs. Then, louder, "I have to go." 🙢But what about–🙡 "That asshole can wait. I've got more immediate concerns." The elder tilts their head, mossy brows coming together and gaze becoming steely. "I am taking this seriously. But first I need to go reassure the people who love me that I'm not dead." Elo takes a breath. "If I'm going to help you, I need to understand everything. Do you know the bridge at Silver Hooks? It's near where I live." 🙢I know it.🙡 "Can you meet me on the towpath there at dawn tomorrow? I'll make sure the green-skins know too. Then you can explain everything you need to, and what you need me to do about it." The elder draws in a breath, exhaling it in a slow, disgruntled huff. 🙢Very well then, Blossom. We shall meet you there. And the Dvasia subjugant besides.🙡 "Great. Do you think you could help me down?"

By the time they reach the bottom of the tree, Elo is tired and shaky, but surprisingly not in pain. Gingerly she lifts her shirt and peaks under the bandages to find her wound is healed, shiny pink scar tissue instead of the raw and bloody gash. An extra gift from Aukštasvilkas, she supposes. She has stopped trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of all the strangeness happening around her, deciding that it suffices to call it 'magic', accompanied by the contemptuous flick of a wrist. She says farewell to the Eshen and after repeating her promise to meet with the green-skins, they melt back into the tree as if they are part of the same bark and leaf.

Her boots are missing from where she left them under the tree. Merri must have passed this way and collected them… The night is closing in around her, as Elo stands staring at the leaf litter. Her family will want an explanation and Elo has none to give. She starts walking anyway, cold pickling up her arms and twigs pricking at her feet. It makes her want to call Farren from the safety of some anonymous bar, then see how much bottom-shelf liquor she can down before he arrives. She rubs at the spot between her eyebrows then drags a hand over her face. It's been a long time since she felt the desire to get so utterly trashed. Not since Daraja, and fleeing to the relative safety of Iceland. Her vision clouds as she thinks back to that time, of the Alþingi's orders and the Inuit people the team met during their trials in the tundra. How, during that whole foray past 70° North, she'd barely slept, always hyper-alert in that hostile territory. She thinks of the shell shock Aunt Alexis came home with, the nervous vigilance she clung to between bouts of drunkenness. Elo huffs past the pain clenching in her chest and supposes she has her excuse.

The meadow is empty by the time she reaches it. Unsurprising, but it was worth checking. The cold grasses are a balm against her feet. She may be used to running through the streets in wet or missing clothing, but asphalt is kinder than a loam path. Elo turns aside. If she cuts through the orchard, she'll come out on the lawns near the main entrance. There's a payphone in the corner of the car park down there, and having to make a collect call to the station is much more appealing than heading to the manse and getting a lecture from Father Goodwin.

#oc elowyn o'toreguarde #writing #HCWL Chapters only #WIP 'Her Countenance was Light'#titan fighting fantasy #fighting fantasy #ttrpg fanfiction #wandering words

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lovelytheangel021705 · 7 months

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the Devils deal

"For fucks sake! Why the fuck are you so-agh!"I scream in a mix of lividity and pleasure as the man ontop of me rams his fingers into me, finding my G-spot in two seconds flat.

"Because."He whispered Hollowly.

"You sold your soul."His head right next to my ear as my eyes roll back, riding his fingers like they're a bull. He keeps doing this shit and I'm gonna kill him myself. I think as I desperately try to get off on his hand. He chuckles low and sultry. Noticing what I'm doing, he pulls his fingers away slightly everytime I try pushing on his hand.

"I didn't know you where the fucking devil."I say clamping my legs around his shand trying desperately to get the ache between my legs to subside. His hand holds my wrists above my head as the other expertly rubs my clit, making my core heat and vibrate. Goddamn it. Just my luck. The fucking atheist gets fucked by a damn Demon from The Devil himself.

He keeps edging me, his breath colliding with mine until all I can see is the shine of sweat drops on his skin. His dick isn't even out yet. I was just planning to make a few bucks to pay rent. Not get a fucking Devil Diety Sugar daddy goddammit!

I think as I feel him curl his fingers and twisting them like pretzels. They're longer than and mine BY ALOT. Colors danced in spots as a truck went by on the street, illuminating his face, deep skin, Devils Claim Mark (as I've come to figure out), and his piercing Green eyes like pools of jade, mixed with amethyst. Fucking hell those eyes. They practically glowed as he said.

"Im not the devil. He's just my boss. But I promise you, he can fuck you a whole lot better than I can. And he's alot less gentle." His voice is deep and husky with a hint of gravel, immediately making my stomach do a flip.I whine as I feel him pump and curl his fingers, holding my G-spot and pressing furiously hard.

"Uaaaaah- fuck fuck fuck." I cry out. This man. No this DEMON is ravaging me for all I'm worth and it's fucking gloriously painful.I fall over the edge of an orgasm held over my head for the past hour, and spasm on his hand, groaning as he legs go of my hands and I fall face forward into (you guessed it) his groin.

Now, with a face full of man hood, and panting like a dog, I try my best to catch my breath while trying to ride out the rest of my post-orgasmic rush, he continues to pump me, he straight up licks my back.The FUUUUCK?!?!?!?

He slowly moves his hand from me, flicking my clit with his finger before lifting his three fingers-that just gave me a run for my money-into his mouth. Dragging his tounge across his lips to suck up every Heady drop of me off of his fingers.

"You humans are always so salty. In sweat or fluids."I am officially messed up.

What the fuck is happening?! I'm being fucked by a Demon who just gave me the best and worst handjob I've hand in my entire life within the span of HALF a typical masturbation session and all I can do is warble like a baby?!?!?! I'm a fucking weekend stripper!

"Damn. Shut up. Your thoughts are loud as fuck." I'm shocked, still breathing heavy, bare chest in his lap.MY THOUGHTS?!?!?! THEYRE LOUD!?!??!!?I think trying to wrap my head around it.He gently lifts my head, facing him.

"The boss is gonna love you. And yes. They're loud. So shut up and dont let your brain go lucid. You taste way worse then." He says with a low tone, making my skin goose pimple and crawl.

"But, that doesn't mean I can't have some fun before everyone else. I'm more of a one on one guy. Incase you couldn't tell." He says, the hollowness in his voice giving me a feeling that I'm gonna need to catch my breath quickly. He moves slowly, torturous, until I'm upright facing him, he removes the panties pooled around my knees, and presses my legs wider, pressing me against the bed. He unclips the bra, dragging his tounge along his bottom lip when my body is fully exposed, my hair partially covering my face, giving an unintentional jessica rabbit kind of vibe.Within a second his belt is unlached, dangling around his hips as he slowly moves to me crawling across the bed.I scoot back, trying to regain some kind of mental control. He immediately snatches my ankle and drags me until I am face to face with him, my ass flush against his hand, unzipping his pants and shaking them off.

Oh mother of Marry and Joseph.The bitch is smiling.

"Yeah, try calling to God. I dare you. Your property now, good luck getting your soul out of this one~"He says as he rubs the-huge-tip of his cock against my entrance, still warm and slick from riding his hand a minute ago.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡

A/N: welp I hope you have fun. Keep updated for more stories❤

#spicy books #Smut #Hot #Sexy #legs #Devils #Devils deals

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3xm-draconic · 9 months

Text

Honnor & Glory (A Werebat Cyris and Astarion Story)

Summary: It's time to kill the nether brain.

“You sure it’s a good idea to get married when the apocalypse could start any minute?” Gale turned to Wyll, “any day is a good day for a wedding when the world is about to end!” he grinned.

Karlack and Wyll’s wedding was wonderful, it was held in the garden at the manor, Cyris being a cleric officiated the whole thing. Karlack, knowing that they would be in battle at any moment, opted for white wedding armor instead of a dress…she did have a cute flower vail made by Cyris though, it was white daisies and orange tiger-lilies.

“You may now kiss the bride” Cyris smiled, Karlach and Wyll kissed and everyone showered them in birdseed as they ran through an archway of raised swords to the other end of the garden.

“Well, Wylly-Billy to our new life!” Karlach toasted as she raised her champagne…

BOOM.

The city descended into madness and chaos, the nether brain had finally made it’s arrival (fucking took a while) and was wrecking havock.

“Everyone ready?”, Cyris turned to his team: Wyll, Karlach and Astarion (Lucy the owlbear now all grown up, leggy and scratch), “Minsc, Jaja, Lae’zel and Halsin I want you to get survivors out of the city as fast as possible. Gale, Shads you Roger and Allegra will help guard the path for civilians. As for the rest of you…”

He turned to Zevlor, the Ironbreaker Gnomes, the Fist, Wyll’s dad, Shadowheart’s parents and all their friends who they helped along the way…

“Together on this day we stand united, brothers and sisters of all creeds and backgrounds. We stand together to defend our home, our lands and our city. We fight and move as one…now…let's bash some brains in!” he roared.

They charged out into the city, slaying mind flayers left and right, They climbed to the top of the old fort where they would board the nether brain.

“Surrender…” it’s warbly voice commanded, “only in your dreams!” Cyris snarled back as he hurled himself at the brain, his new longswords, gifts from Yondalla, burning with holy moon-fire from Entumbru’s blessing.

They had to fight mutants and a mind controlled dragon…

“You will be part of the grand design…” the brain warbled, “you talk too much…” Cyris growld as he partially transformed.

The brain tried to force them to submit but Cyris blocked it with the stones, tethering the brain with his own will…there was a 99% chance that could have ended badly…but Cyris thank the gods it didn’t!

There was a boom from behind him and the Emperor and Orpheus arrived just in time “the fuck took you so long Charlie?” Cyris grumbled at the Emperor, “we…had a prior engagement” the emperor looked to Orpheus with a tentacled grin, “...you two were having sex again and lost track of time weren’t you?” Cyris mumbled.

The Emperor gawked, “yes but we are here now so let’s finish this fight” Orpheus laughed.

The brain self-deleted and came crashing down from the sky where it landed in the bay…then exploded.

Cyris fully transformed and caught Karlach and Wyll while Astarion turned into a little bat and flew next to him, they saw throughout the city people were fighting against the mind flayers together and winning!, they landed safely on the docks where everyone was waiting for them.

“Well this is a bigger mess than ever we made in the old days, my congratulations!” Jaheira smiled, “I finally feel the last of my warlock powers are draining” Wyll sighed contently “all thanks to you”. “We did it…the brain is dead!” Shadowheart cheered, “the parasite is withered…I am free” Lae’zel turned and kissed Halsin. “I’am ready for a meal, rest and a nightcap to round it all off” Gale yawned, “ah and Boo wins the bet, Wizard is not entirely boring” Minsc grinned. “I'm glad I’m never going back to the hells” Karlach smiled as she kissed Wyll.

“I’ll celebrate once I’ve helped clean this place up a bit, I can hear and smell the wounded…I, we need to go help them…then we can party” Cyris smiled.

“Yes, once that’s done we should see if the Elfsong is still standing. I won't imbibe, but I’ll be happy to be away from here and in your company” Astarion happily turned to his friends “I honestly don’t mind what we do once we-OW!” he shrieked. He then ran off into the shadows “I’am sorry, I’ve got to go now, it was fun while it lasted!” he lamented.

As Cyris dug through the rubble, helping bring the wounded to healers and medics, he saw someone…

Her long ebony hair was tied up in a bun so it would not get in the way of her work as she used her skills as a seamstress to sew up the wounds of the injured, her seafoam green eyes framed by large box spectacles never losing focus on her craft, ever diligent, fast-paced and careful in her work meany men and women's lives were saved by this kind a sweet Halfling who jumped into action.

Astarion, who was helping as much as he could from the safety of the shadows, watched as Cyris ran up to the little halfling woman. At first they just…stared at each other, then Cyris dropped to his knees and hugged her.

They were both sobbing happy tears uncontrollably and laughing.

Then Cyris said something that warmed Astarion’s undead heart so much he swore he felt it beat again…

“Hey…mom”.

That night at the Elfsong tavern Cyris introduced his mother to everyone.

“Ma these are my friends: Gale, Wyll, Karlach, Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Roger and Allegra” he then turned to Astarion “and Ma…this man is someone special I’d like you to met”, Hanna turned to Astarion with a smile, “Ma” Cyris smiled as he held Astarion’s hand “this is Astarion…my betrothed”, Hanna when nuts.

She tackled Astarion in a hug and laughed and cried with joy “oh my big sweet boy is getting married AND TO SUCH A HANDSOME MAN!” she hugged Cyris “Oh I can’t wait to tell your father oh the whole village is going to be excited!”

Astarion wheezed, being tackled by a halfling at full speed could REALLY knock the wind out of somebody…

As they settled down for the night Astarion and Cyris talked about where they went from here...

“So what happens next?” Astarion sighed, he missed being out in the sun, “first I find you a way to walk in daylight again, then…we plan our wedding”.

Astarion perked up “you really think there is a chance for me to walk in the daylight again?”, “sugarfangs…I WILL make it happen” he smirked and hugged him tightly.

Back at the manor, officially fully refurbished and renamed from Szarr Palace to Sunstar Manor, Cyris and Astarion were about to sleep when a knock at the door came…

Cyris answered it and found Yondalla and…SEVERAL other gods with her.

“Um…hey…other mom..er..Yondalla…” Cyris awkwardly said “what are you guys…doing…here?”, Yondalla smiled “well son…er…kid…it’s time”

Cyris cocked his head confused “time for what?”, “for you to become a god silly”Sheela Peryroyl giggled, Cyris gawked “I…I AIN'T READY FOR THAT…not, not until I’ve lived a full life…I wanna be mortal frist”, Moradin stepped forth “if that’s what ye want laddy we won’t force ye” he nodded.

Yondalla sighed…then smiled “but there is one thing I want you to have from your Godly powers son” She touched his chest and his tattoos began to glow “the ability to perform a miracle…basically an UBER powerful wish spell” she said “call it an early wedding present” she smiled.

Cyris grinned.

Astarion awoke the next morning to see Cyris had opened the windows…and sunlight was pouring inside…

However…it…it did not burn him.

“Am…am I dreaming?” Astarion pondered, “nope, you aint Darlin” Cyris smiled from the doorway with a tray of breakfast in hand, “Cyris…HOW!?” Astarion gasped, “remember how I’am part god?...well darlin” Cyris leaned in and kissed Astarion “I told you I would make it happen”.

6 months later Withers invited them to a party back at the grove where everything started, they met back up with their friends and invited them all to their wedding.

And now…

Now it’s time for their wedding to get started…

#dnd character #dnd #werebat #baldurs gate astarion #astarion x oc #baldur's gate 3 #au #wedding #wedding planning #balders gate 3 #astarion ancunin #wyll x karlach #wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll

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