#And then they turn Jagged into a jerk who abandoned his family

[iwasbored777]

My dumb a$$ thinks ML writers are not so dense to ruin character arcs so much according to the bible but then I remember what they did to Jagged Stone and it makes me genuinely afraid for the future of everyone else again

[soulmate-game]

Hawkmoth was a bitch, and Marinette meant that with every fiber of her soul. Fu was also a bitch, and Marinette actually had good memories of the guy. Not many, but she had some. The fact that the guy got two ten-year-olds to become super heroes and fight a supervillain for him kinda soured those memories, though. But with Chat Noir not allowed to leave his house? Yeah, even as young as they were it only took about a year to find out who HawkMoth was and another year to take him down.

Except, that left Marinette alone. The final battle took her mom away, and Chat had to move out of Paris after his dad was arrested. Luckily Jagged allowed her and her papa to move into his house in Gotham, and everything was…

Well, it was okay. For about a month.

Then her dad was gone too, and she had no way to talk to Jagged, and the police were scaring her—

Yeah, that was the basic order of events that led to where she was now. Pushing fourteen years old, ex-superhero, protector of a magical box of gods, stealing the tires off of a very nice motorcycle.

Marinette was tempted to just take the whole thing, she loved bikes and knew she could drive it. But the thing had more security than she knew what to do with, and the fact that it belonged to Red Hood… she didn’t want to deal with trackers today, thanks. So the tires it was.

Should she maybe care more about the fact that she was stealing from a vigilante with a violent streak? Maybe. Did she? Hell no. For all she knew, maybe Red Hood was a bitch too. (Yes, she was still learning English slang. She was fluent by educational standards, but learning how to curse in a foreign language was fun and she still had a little bit to go. Her few street friends were very happy to help).

A shadow dropped down in front of her, and Marinette’s hero instincts kicked in. The tire iron she was using cut through the air, slamming right into the side of Red Hood’s knee.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Hood,” Batman’s voice grumbled over the comms, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone else who was on the comms. It wasn’t as gruff as he usually sounded, in fact it almost sounded like… he was trying not to laugh?

“Did you get gassed by Joker?” Dick asked before Jason got a chance to respond. “Need backup?”

“No,” Batman responded, sounding a little more composed. “Not a rogue. But Hood, I need you to join me at my location as soon as possible.”

Finally getting the chance to talk, Jason responded a little warily; “Sure, B. Wait,” he blinked at the location that was sent to him. “Isn’t that where my bike is parked?”

Batman didn’t respond at first, only the sound of labored breathing— again, as if he was trying not to laugh. “Just get here, Hood.”

Sighing, but not too mad since the night had been fairly quiet so far, Jason decided to humor the old man and head over. When he could see the cape-clad back of Batman, he easily leapt over the last roof and sauntered over.

“Okay, B,” he had his thumbs tucked in his pockets as he drawled. “What’s the issue?”

Batman was grinning. As in, actually showing amusement. And he just pointed down, straight at Hood’s bike.

Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet, turning to look. At first he didn’t see anything amiss, until he saw movement and looked harder. Oh. Oh, holy shit.

“Is that a kid?”

“Yep,” Batman’s grin grew.

“Is she… stealing my tires?” Hood was so, so glad he wore a helmet that hid his expression. Because… wow.

“Yep,” Batman finally lost his composure, chuckling. “This seems like Karma, don’t you think?”

“And you just watched her so you could rub it in,” Jason groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation. Of course he would. Nobody knew it (except the other heroes who knew him) but Batman was a petty little jerk when he wanted to be. He bought the whole Daily Planet just to spite Clark, for crying out loud.

“Don’t adopt her,” Batman said as he stood up, patting Red Hood’s shoulder. “It looks like she’s almost done.”

“Shit,” Jason hissed, looking down to see that she was, actually, very close to being done. She had already had one tire completely free by the time he had arrived, and now she was only seconds away from getting the other one completely free.

He took a quick assessment— she was tiny, and really thin. Definitely a street kid, he thought, though he didn’t recognize her. He knew most of the street kids that stole to get by, nowadays, which meant she must have been fairly new. But even though she seemed to know what she was doing, her small frame made her take longer unscrewing the tires than it normally would have taken. Sure that she wasn’t a threat by any stretch of the imagination, he jumped down. His plan had been to startle her a little by showing up out of nowhere, but he didn’t want to scare her too badly. Just make her jump a little.

But he had underestimated her, it seemed. Without wasting a second, she jumped up and swung her tire iron at his knee. He cursed, she was a lot faster than her had been expecting. He was able to move so that the weapon only clipped the side of his knee, his knee pad thankfully taking the worst of it. She still hit hard enough to make him stumble and hiss in pain though, which was an accomplishment.

That’s when she abandoned her weapon and her tires, darting to try and escape only for Batman to drop down and block her escape. Though really, it was the grin Batman had that scared the girl most of all, apparently, making her slowly back away from him.

“Please stop smiling,” she begged with a faint French accent to her words. “It is not natural.”

That made Red Hood laugh, already recovered and right behind her. He plopped a gloved hand on her head.

“I know, it’s creepy right?” He joked. “What’cha doin’ stealing my tires, kid? I kinda need them to drive anywhere,” he was careful to keep his voice light and devoid of any anger. He wasn’t really upset, all told. It would be hypocritical of him if he was.

She looked between the two vigilantes for a moment, clear intelligence behind those bright blue eyes as she seemed to consider something. Suddenly she pulled away from Red Hood and stepped away from his reach, straightening up and trying to look tall.

“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said as firmly as she could. “My father was Tom Dupain, he was killed in a mugging three months ago. We were living in a house that our family friend leant to us after my mother’s death six months ago, and we moved here from Paris. I haven’t been able to contact him, and the police… I don’t trust them,” she admitted, clearly seeing this as the chance she had been waiting for. “I have been living on the streets since my father died. I am sorry for trying to steal your tires, Monsieur Red Hood. But it was a risk I had to take.”

“Did you expect us to catch you?” He asked, crossing his arms as he re-evaluated the girl. She was a lot stronger than he had assumed earlier, both physically and mentally. She seesawed her hand to indicate ‘kinda’.

“Even if you didn’t, I could make good money off your tires,” she justified with a shrug. “To me, I would win either way.”

“Who is your family friend? Can he help you now, take you in?” Batman asked, moving forward and kneeling down to be closer to Marinette’s height. Neither he nor Jason had missed the part where she was an orphan, but they had expected that considering what they had caught her doing. And they both knew that she wasn’t likely to take any apologies they tried to offer very well. It was best not to show pity, or she might get angry.

Marinette frowned. “... Our family friend is Jagged Stone. He lets me call him Uncle Jagged,” she told them, clearly expecting the disbelieving grunts they gave. “I mean it! You can call him, he might even be looking for me! I—“

“We know,” Hood assured her, now kneeling down as well. Man, she was short. “Calm down, we know you’re telling the truth. Jagged has made several public announcements about his missing honorary niece, we just didn’t recognize your name right away. And Jagged doesn’t have access to very many pictures of you, those he does have the Mayor isn’t allowing him to show because that spineless jackass—“

“Language, Hood.”

“—Cares more about keeping bad press off the air than finding a kid, even if it’s a world famous rockstar who’s asking. That’s probably why you haven’t heard anything, the mayor’s keeping it off the radio and not many reporters are brave enough to take the story and get on his bad side.”

“Oh…” Marinette took a deep breath, fighting the tears that were threatening to rise up. “He has been looking…” she sniffled, curling in on herself a little. “Can you take me to him?”

“I think we can do that,” Batman agreed, standing up. “I’ll contact him. Red Hood, can you handle everything here until I give you a place to meet up with Jagged Stone?”

Jason nodded. “No problem, B. Come on, little rabid pixie. Step one of gettin’ you back to your uncle is to help me fix my bike back up.”

Marinette sighed, shoulders dropping. “All my hard work, undone…” she playfully complained. But in the end she didn’t argue or fight against it, she just sat down and helped him reattach his tires.

All the while, Jason’s family kept teasing him over the comms. Clearly they were also thoroughly amused by the cosmic display of karma.

“...Monsieur Hood,” Marinette asked once they were done repairing the motorcycle and he had given her his too-big extra helmet. He tilted his head a bit to show he was listening. She squirmed. “Can… can we stop by my hideout? I have something really important I have to get.”

Jason smiles gently under his mask. She might not have been a street kid for very long, but she really did bring back some memories for him. He got on his bike and held a hand out to her.

“Sure thing kid. Wanna grab something to eat after? Can’t have a reunion on an empty stomach.”

She gave him a lopsided smile— not quite overjoyed, but definitely hopeful and thankful. Maybe this was the end of her streak of bad luck, she could only hope.

“Only if you don’t mind, Monsieur Hood,” she agreed before taking his hand and letting him help her onto the bike.

“No skin off my back, pixie,” he assured her. Then they were off. He followed her directions until they got to an abandoned building about three miles away, not in a good part of town at all but at least not in crime alley. Marinette easily led him through the building, skirting around other piles of ratty blankets and up broken stairs until they got to the badly-maintained top floor. She led him over to an almost invisible door in the concrete wall that pulled out to reveal what was probably a broom closet once upon a time. It was crowded with what looked like junk and empty boxes, along with a few blankets and two or three changes of clothes that were clearly her’s. A few belongings scattered around— a book, a small pink purse, and… Marinette came out of the pile of mess holding what had clearly been a very carefully hidden box. She also grabbed the purse and slung it over her shoulder, but didn’t seem worried about anything else.

Jason frowned at the box. It wasn’t that big, but it was clearly made of old wood. There were intricate carvings that were painted pink, in a symbol that was itching at the back of his mind. He recognized that symbol, but from where?

“Ready to go, kid?” He asked as he thought about it, getting a nod from Marinette. Twenty minutes later they were at a Batburger, sitting in a shaded booth that couldn’t be seen from the street.

She never let the box out of her sight. She kept it on the seat next to her, and Jason noticed that she tried to keep one hand on it at all times. But when she spoke, now her French accent stood out to him even more than before. But why—?

And then it clicked. Paris. Hawkmoth. Ladybug, Chat Noir, magic artifacts called Miraculous. Wonder Woman had raised a fuss when the heroes disappeared, declaring that something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Then the magic users they trusted were called in, and returned from Paris with the grim news that the former Guardian of those artifacts had activated a failsafe and passed the guardianship on to someone else while erasing his own memories at the same time. But nobody knew who he could have passed it on to, so Batman had been given the green light to do all the research he and his team could into the Miraculous box to try and help track it down.

And here it was. The carvings were in pink now, which might have been the “cosmetic change” that Constantine had mentioned might happen when the box changed guardians. He had found the box full of super powerful magical artifacts… in the hands of a newly orphaned street kid who couldn’t have been older than fourteen at best.

What the hell?

“...” Red hood reached into his pocket and pulled out an old receipt and a sharpie. He scrawled on the back of the receipt and handed to Marinette. The girl was halfway into a bite of her burger when he did, and blinked at him owlishly before swallowing and cautiously reaching out to grab it. She frowned at the numbers scrawled there.

“What’s this?” She asked.

“My contact info,” he explained. “I won’t ask questions about why you have that box,” he watched her instantly stiffen but continued as casually as he could; “but it doesn’t matter. You can call me if you ever need help with anything, kid. Help with that box, help if you get in trouble in Gotham again, or even if you’re having a bad day. You can call me for whatever, got it? I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, if you can’t talk to anyone else in your life you can always call or text me and I’ll do whatever I can. Got it?”

“...” Marinette sniffled for a second and looked down at the table in silence for a second. “... what if I want your motorcycle?” she joked, but the watery tone of her voice gave her away.

Jason laughed, patting her head. “I need my bike, but we can talk about getting you your own once you are old enough to get a license. You almost done? Bats says that Jagged is ready to meet you, I can take you to him right now.”

“Yeah, lets go!” she was newly energized and shoved the last bite of burger into her mouth greedily. “And Red Hood?” She asked as they headed out to where he had parked.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Thanks.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Permanent tag list (I remembered it this time!)

@rosalineandrosemary @neakco @justanotherfanficlovinbitch @trippingovermyfeet @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @bigpicklebananatree @fantasylover-92 @prongs-flowers @jumpingjoy82 @prettylittlebutterflie @queenz-z @literaryhiraeth @waffelyunsure @deathssilentapproach-blog @waiting247 @theirlmikan @unoriginalmess

[from-a-reckless-writer]

read on ao3

Kara’s time in the Phantom Zone has always been labeled into two parts. The Going There and The Leaving. In part, because those two things are the things that she was coherent enough to remember but mostly because she doesn’t like remembering the time in between.

Not liking it, was an understatement. Kelly would probably call it trauma. Yeah. That was the word. Trauma. It was 24 years of traumatic experience but it was easier to just refer to it as The Going There and The Leaving. Simply put, just a part 1 and a part 2.

Kara didn’t even know when The Going There began. All this time she thought, Krypton exploding behind her pod was the beginning of it. But later, when her aunt comes back for her, when an entire fleet comes for her new planet, when her hero dies by the hand of her sister, she will learn: The Going There started the moment her mother thought of using Kara to arrest her aunt. That realization was something she didn’t like. Some days she wishes she’d never come to that realization at all.

The beginning of The Leaving on the other hand was something she was awake to remember. She remembers the rumbling, she remembers the hum of the engines as it powers up, she remembers the pod slowly coming to life and then the whoosh!.

The exhilarating, wondrous woosh! that roared into Kara’s ears. Filling her with hope after sleeping a slumber of despair for so long. Of course, she wouldn’t know that ‘so long’ would translate to 24 years till she arrives on Earth and Kal rips her door open. Of course, the hope wasn’t replaced with the utter feeling of failure and defeat, till Kal flies away from her. Some days she wishes she was never awake for any of it.

There were two parts to Kara’s experience in the Phantom Zone; The Going There and The Leaving.

She’d never expected that there would be a Return.

******

Loss was something the universe had given Kara at 14 years of age. Others received dreams or new siblings but Kara? The universe handed her loss and then left quickly before answering any of her questions. The universe handed her the burden of an annihilated planet’s legacy, a race of dead people that only she can remember.

It was something she’d learned to live with, had moulded into her every day life, a permanent mark on her soul.

In her hands loss used to be a strange thing.

She used to be a daughter of one of the respectable families of Krypton. A high born. The progeny to Zor-El’s brilliance, the successor of the El’s legacy. She had never known loss, until one day she woke up and nothing was left. At first, she didn't know what to do with it except for crying and screaming and waking the entire house of a family she didn’t belong with, night after night after night. But soon, it became a part of her, became a kindling to a roaring fire.

Nobody had expected the last daughter of Krypton to burn, but when she did, it was brilliant and bold and the world had stood in awe of her flames.

And so, as she watched herself lose her father for the second time. She snatched loss from the universe’s hands before it even had the chance to hand it to her, she snatched it and claimed it for her own. That was where this was going all along wasn’t it?

Another loss, another mark, another kindling.

The only difference this time though, was, she isn’t sure whether she wants to burn brilliant, bright and bold or set the entire universe on fire for what it’s done to her for the second time around.

These were the thoughts that chased each other around in her head as she breathed heavily; sagging against the walls of a cave she’d found shelter in. Aside from misery and agony, caves are also one of the most abundant things in the Phantom Zone. The jagged spikes and hard rocks are slowly becoming home to her now.

No, not home. This isn’t home. Home is-

And then her brain stalled. Home is…

Home is?

Home is—

It felt like a headache was ripping her skull. The more she thought about it the more it hurt.

She knows where home is. Home isn’t this place, home is— home is— home is—

It was at the tip of her tongue at the edge of her brain.

She can’t remember. Didn’t she just see home not 30 minutes ago? An hour ago? Two seconds ago? Time doesn’t pass the same way, her brain throws at her and the pain starts anew.

But she refuses to give in. She knows where home is. Home is...is...is

NOONAN’S!

Noonan’s is home! Or at least, it was a part of it??? Kara thinks and thinks and thinks.

And for a moment, Kara could swear that she smells the familiar aroma of coffee beans and sweet sugar in the air but then the thought vanishes just as quickly as it came.

She was grasping at the edges of that little snippet. She tries to picture the logo of the store, tries to recite the branches littered around National City, tries to remember how she had worked there once, tries to remember her order, tries to remember Alex’s order.

Alex!!!! Her brain lights up at the thought.

Alex is home too.

At this point, the pain was unbearable, she was barely breathing. It feels as if the more she’s trying to remember, the more something, someone?? Is blocking her. The chances of it being something seems more likely than it being a someone.

She remembers her father’s words of warning from just days before. Hours before?? Weeks before?

Before.

Just before she’s lost him again.

How this place will drive you to the brink of insanity, Kara held her tongue but she wanted to scream that she knew that. She knew what the Phantom Zone did to people. She knew what it had done to all those Fort Rozz escapees, what it had done to Astra, what it had done to her. She was fucking insane for 24 years! 14 year olds weren’t supposed to go through that.

The worst part is, it was her parents who put her there, her mother, her father. The same father she mourned and who not only minutes ago was telling her to give it up.

The same father she’s lost, again.

Pain flares at the back of her head, from her nape slowly snaking its way to behind her eyes. Kara suspects it’s something to do with the cave and the silver glow around the cave’s awning that she’s only just now noticing.

But it was too late now. Too late to get out nor to retreat even further. She has used the last ounce of energy she has in that fight with Nyx and this headache was only making her weaker. Headache, feels too juvenile a word to describe this feeling, this cleaving of her mind from the inside.

Alex, caramel macchiato and sticky buns were the last thoughts in her head before everything turned dark.

******

She steps out of the portal and the moment her foot touches The Tower, weapons and superpowers alike suddenly poise to strike at her.

Until, Alex whispers, “Kara,” lowers her gun slowly, arms shaking from shock and then she loses track of who crashes unto who first.

Just that she’s home and Alex is sobbing but so was she, and she’s never seen J’onn cry like this before but he cradles her and his sobs rumble out of his chest and into Kara. She can feel it rumbling between their embrace. The three of them stay in that position for what feels like hours until the voices of the others filter through and then next thing she knows M’gann is hugging her.

Brainy lifts her off the ground and it should surprise her that he could do that, but it doesn't. It feels like the most natural thing in the world as Kara laughs and Nia squeals at Brainy to put Kara down so she can hug her too. Nia’s squeals turn into quiet emotional sniffles the minute Kara’s arms wrap around her. And in that moment Kara realizes it isn’t just one sister she lost for a while there, she lost Nia too.

And then, her eyes land to the person in the back of the room. The person who didn’t run at her like the others. Whose heartbeat is now thundering so loud in Kara’s ears, now that her eyes have found her.

Lena.

She looks as beautiful as ever and Kara feels her heart swell so hard she fears it could burst. For a moment, she thinks she’s survived the Phantom Zone just so Lena Luthor could kill her with one look.

The moment their eyes meet, Lena’s body lurches forward only to stop awkwardly halfway through, leaving her standing there, twiddling her fingers, eyes shining with tears, her whole frame shaking from holding back.

Kara is two steps away from running to her and she was absolutely going to. She realizes Lena is doing the thing she does best.

Shrinking herself.

Kara was about to run to her—

But a shrill ringing breaks through their staredown, Lena breaks away from Kara’s gaze to look at her phone and then she is turning away; phone to her ear.

Later, Kara will think she should’ve run after Lena. She should’ve run after Lena, snatched the phone away from her and wrapped her arms so tight around her and told her how much she loved her, how much she missed her, how hard she fought just to see her again.

If she did, maybe they wouldn’t be here now. They wouldn’t be running inside an abandoned warehouse, trying to find where Lex had hidden Lena.

She wouldn’t be too late.

Maybe, if Kara did things a lot more different, she wouldn’t be here now; clutching Lena’s broken, bloody body to her chest and screaming at the sky.

How dare the universe hand her another loss?

******

When she opens her eyes, she gasps out Lena’s name. She jerks so suddenly, her head hits a low stalagmite and rattles the ground she’s currently lain on.

It takes her a long time to collect her bearings. She stares long and hard at her hands. It felt so real.

Lena’s blood on her hands. Lena’s pale face getting paler and paler. Lena dying.

She gets approximately two minutes of reprieve. These 120 seconds she uses to breathe in deep, lets herself feel the extent of her fear. The anger seeps deep into her bones but it was nothing compared to the grief in her heart at the thought of losing Lena.

Lena!!! Her brain screams, LENA IS HOME!!! Lena is ho—

And then the moment the thought comes barreling at her, the pain returns. It returns tenfold and Kara doesn’t even try to move.

She knows what’s going to happen next.

******

Alex finds her unconscious on the ground.

She yells for back-up in her comms.

Dreamer and Brainy and J’onn run to the portal.

J’onn fends off the Phantoms circling Kara long enough for Dreamer to create one of her forcefield tunnels in order to get Kara from the ground and unto the portal entrance unharmed.

These are the things they will tell her once she wakes up.

They will tell her how hard it had been for everyone, how perpetually dim those days without Kara were.

Kara will cry upon hearing all of it. She will cry because she saw her father again and she couldn’t save him, she will cry because why does it always keep happening to her?

What could she have possibly done to the universe that it would give her something this cruel?

She will cry because it’s been so long since she’s heard Alex’s voice and now she is right here, telling Kara that she did nothing wrong, that the universe just sucks. But it’s okay, because the universe can suck all it wants and Alex will always be there through all the sucky parts.

After the teary reunion, Brainy will come running into the room, just as the two of them are untangling from their embrace.

Brainy will then tell them that Sentinel needs to suit up. Brainy will be too emotional to say the words, “It’s Lena- Lena has- Lena’s been-”

“Brainy what is it? What's wrong with Lena?”

M’gann will say it for him.

“Lena has been killed.”

Kara will cry and cry and cry.

******

You know that painful lump in your throat that makes it hard for you to breathe because you are holding your sobs in?

That was how Kara woke up, with a painful lump in her throat that made her want to throw up. She didn’t even get to see her this time. She just woke up to a world where Lena was killed, and all she could do was cry about it.

And so, she cried. She cried and cried and cried and punched the walls of that cave. She screamed so loud and let the echoes of her screams resonate all around the hollow space.

The hollow space so similar to the chasm inside Kara’s chest.

Her screaming is cut off by a sharp pain shooting from her temple and immediately spreading. This time, the spread was much faster than the last. It knocks the breath out of Kara, steals the voice out of her shout and makes her submit.

She curls into herself. She struggles to fight off the call of slumber. Her eyes close against her wishes.

******

There are no portals this time.

All Kara remembers is that she touched a glowing stone on the murky soil west of her cave and then the next moment she is standing in The Tower.

Something was wrong.

Kara knew something was wrong, because the moment she was zapped in. Alex didn’t come running to her. Nobody did. They just stared at her. All of them wearing black.

“I’m back, I-I’m home.”

It alarms her that she felt the need to verbally say it. J’onn comes up to her, “Kara,” he says and he swallows, puts a hand on her shoulder.

J’onn looks like he’s going to tell her something. And that this something isn’t easy for J’onn to say. Alex takes one look at J’onn, realizes what J’onn was going to do and walks out.

“Wait— Alex! What- Where are you— J’onn what is happening?”

She wishes she never asked.

******

She wakes up again. This time she doesn’t bother to get up, doesn’t try to scream, doesn’t try to cry.

She just lays there.

The ceiling of the cave is the same shade of grey as of Lena Luthor’s tombstone. Never would she have thought that Lena Luthor and tombstone would be two things she says in the same sentence. It was J’onn who flew her there. In the dream? In the vision?? Kara doesn’t know anymore and frankly, Kara doesn’t care anymore.

Somebody left plumerias at the foot of her grave.

Plumerias.

Plumerias, like her mother’s favorite flower. Like—

Like the one in Lena’s office.

Like the one back home.

Home.

She lets the dark claim her willingly.

******

The Tower is destroyed. There are no survivors. Just Kara. Standing there in the ruins of what once used to be their hideout. Behind her the still gaping portal is blowing puffs of cold air from the Phantom Zone.

******

It’s Alex, this time. A role reversal. Lena breaks the news to her.

“S-she died, Kara. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Kara wants to die too.

******

It’s Lena and Alex.

Kara wants to laugh.

Of course, there would be a version where both Alex and Lena would be taken away from her. There was already a version where nobody survived. Why not this one too, right?

She should’ve known.

******

Eventually, she comes to one where it’s her who dies.

Isn’t it funny? That the thing she’s wanted—has been begging for—has come to life right in front of her, and Kara realizes, turns out it wasn’t what she wanted after all.

From where she's fallen on the ground she sees Alex bark orders. She hears hysterical screaming. She feels Lena kneel by her side.

Nia is slowly crumbling next to Alex’s side; she’s removed her Dreamer mask to let her tears flow freely.

“Don’t leave us, please, don’t leave us. Fight back, goddamnit, Kara fight back! We just got you back. Please, please, Kara, please. Not yet.”

She feels Lena’s tears fall down on her own cheeks.

She looks beautiful even with tears in her eyes.

Kara wishes she can move her thumb to wipe the tears from Lena’s eyes.

******

“I found her!”

Nia shoots up from where she was sleeping. Alex runs into the room. Brainy steps aside and lets her punch in the coordinates.

“Where is she?” Lena asks, suddenly materializing out of nowhere, startling Nia, green eyes frantically darting around at the monitor, waiting for the map to appear.

“There!” Nia shouts and points. There’s a little red dot blinking on the screen.

Lena shoves her, fingers flying across the console, zooms in and makes a 3 dimensional version of the landscape appear.

It’s a cave.

Kara’s inside a cave.

“I believe that’s what the Klamarian’s refer to as Caverna Tim-or,” Brainy states upon closer inspection.

They hadn’t noticed Alex behind them already gearing up.

“Then what are you nerds gawking around there for?! Suit up. Come on, let’s go!”

It spurs the whole team into action.

Nia was already in her Dreamer suit. She’s been sleeping in it for 2 nights in a row, now. Refusing to be woken up, just getting up to eat a power bar or to go to the bathroom. It was slowly nagging at Brainy, the way Nia wouldn’t move for extended periods of time until she jerks awake, exhausted and depleted from overusing her powers.

But this time, this time Nia doesn’t feel tired at all. She is pumped. She is hyped. She knows where Kara Danvers Zor-El is and they will bring her home.

The only one not running about the place in a flurry of guns, ammo and armor is Lena.

She is sitting perfectly still, in front of her monitor. She has to stay back, that has been the plan. If they ever find Kara’s coordinates, someone has to stay back and prepare The Tower for their return.

Lena knew it was going to be her. She didn’t have training to fight. She didn’t have any powers. All she knows is to throw a punch and she guesses that wouldn’t be helpful when faced with soul sucking creatures.

So, there she stays; controlling everything with her just a flick of her fingertips.

Besides, all their suits wouldn’t be upgraded if it weren’t for her. It was fine that she had to stay. She’s waited for Kara long enough, what’s a few more minutes of holding down the fort, right?

******

Lena might not have superpowers but she’s been gifted with enough intelligence to build the Superfriends trackers into the fibers of their suit, even have all of them linked directly to Lena’s supercomputer.

The one she’s had installed in The Tower much to J’onn’s protests. Lena didn’t have a job. She didn’t have responsibilities, she didn’t have to wake up at 7, go to work at 8 and be stuck in stuffy meetings.

She has free time and tonnes of money to rebuild The Tower’s entire tech department.

Brainy almost drooled when Lena pitched the plan to the team.

Lena also brought them Jess.

Or rather, Jess brought herself and nobody was man enough to tell her no. Who says no to a formidable American-Asian woman anyway? After Lena had emailed Jess about the recent developments regarding LuthorCorp. Jess had emailed her back almost instantly, telling her that she’s also just turned in her resignation and before she starts applying for another job, she asks, Ms. Luthor, do you need help with anything else?

Lena was floored with the loyalty that Jess had shown her. Instead of replying to the email, Lena called Jess. Upon answering, Jess expected many things from her boss, an eloquent thank you, a huge last pay, but she never expected to hear Lena Luthor sobbing into the line.

Jess asks if she could visit Lena in her flat.

“Like I mean, right now Ms. Luthor.”

“Lena, please, call me Lena.”

“Okay, Lena. Can I please go to your penthouse? Because, no offense, but you obviously do not sound okay, and I think I can help.”

“I’m actually not at my penthouse as of the moment.”

And that was how Jessica Huang was brought into the fold.

And also, if it weren’t for Jess, Lena thinks the rest of them would be lost.

As much as Lena was the brains of this operation, logically and legally speaking she wasn’t doing well.

The woman wasn’t eating and sleeping for fuck’s sake. For a woman who built a state of the art tech system in under three days, you’d think she’d realize that humans need to be healthy in order to function.

And so, it was Jess who handled Lena like she's done so many times before, handled all finances, handled all the press that all of them were bringing unto themselves. Jess enforced a No Flying Through the Balcony Unless Absolutely Necessary Rule and thus far it has worked.

Nobody was also allowed to use the main entrance. Only J’onn, the owner of the building, was allowed to be seen coming and going.

There were rag reporters at every turn and just one photograph of Dreamer, Sentinel and Guardian all going into the same building, would be a catastrophe. The young woman wanted to tear her hair out when she pointed it out and everyone was like, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Oh my god, yes, that makes sense.” As if the thought had never occurred to any of them before. Although, they were distracted with tracking a missing hero after all. So, Jess lets it go. She just shakes her head and makes sure each one of them has access to the secret entrance Lena designed.

Jess had also taken the time to go into the building opposite them, talked to the tenants and bought their silence. And then at the last minute, Jess thought, Hm, why not buy the whole block's silence?

The last thing these people—this team—needs right now, is a media frenzy.

She’s had enough practice with the youngest Luthor on that front.

Jess was also the one who organized them into shifts, pushed Alex to try to find a job at a local research center or even teach a bunch of self-defense classes. She made Nia go to CatCo on time and actually monitored all her deadlines, told J’onn to go do his private investigation stuff and made Lena eat three meals a day and sleep for about 6 hours every night.

Her and Kelly shepherded the team into a more reasonable routine.

Alex took the longest to warm up to her, though. Until the day Lena and Alex had a fight on whether or not they should tell Eliza.

It was a brutal screaming match.

Alex shouting that Lena has no right telling her what to do when it comes to her own mother. Lena screaming back that Alex has an obligation to tell her mother what really happened to Kara.

They all knew what it was really about, though. It was about Alex still being in denial. It was about Alex’s fear of Eliza labelling her a failure for not protecting her younger sister.

She didn’t want to tell Eliza. Because telling your mother news is one of the best ways to make that news a reality.

It was Jess who offered to find accommodations for Eliza once Alex finally found the courage and called her.

She bought Alex a six-pack of her favorite beer and sat with her till 4 am.

“Just once,” Jess says, “You get to drink this away, just once. And then you talk to Kelly about it, okay? I know we’re not really close, but well, I’m no stranger to family drama.”

“Thanks, Jess.”

Jess was not a stranger to loss too. She knows none of them are in their right minds with Kara gone. Everything happened so fast. And it really didn’t help that on every billboard and every LuthorCorp commercial you’ll hear about how perfectly perfect Lex Luthor is.

Everything happened so fast that Lena didn’t even question when she had known about Kara being Supergirl.

As if a ponytail and glasses would ever fool her, not to mention she’d seen Kara use a bit of superspeed now and again when she thought her best friend’s secretary wasn’t looking.

And so, the moment the Superfriends left for the Phantom Zone to find Kara. Lena Luthor immediately dialed one of her most trusted people in the world.

“Jess, I need you in The Tower, now.”

******

In twenty minutes, Lena was monitoring the team’s progress a thousand lightyears away, in the other room Eliza and Jess were preparing the med bed and the sunlamps.

It is now, in this moment, that it sinks in to her. This is real. This is real, they’re really bringing Kara back. They’ve found a way to find Kara, built a safe transport system into the Phantom Zone and if things go well, in less than fifteen minutes she will see Kara in the flesh again.

And she can’t help but feel the stirrings of fear begin in the pit of her stomach.

Sure, Kara had said that she trusts her again, but where exactly do they stand?

Does she even have the privilege of Kara’s friendship? Or are they merely allies?

It’s ironic, Lena knows exactly where her place is with the Superfriends, it took a long time and a lot of long talks but Lena now knows without a doubt that she belongs here, but well, now she doesn’t know where she belongs when it comes to Kara.

Kara’s been coaxing her to join them for years and now that Lena has, she’s now uncertain of their friendship with each other.

That’s always been the question with Kara isn’t it?

Are we really friends?

The red dot on the screen is joined by six more others on Lena’s screen.

They’ve arrived. They’ve located Kara. They’re right there with her right now.

Lena’s heart starts to race in her chest as the moment.

She tries not to imagine what Kara looks like once they find her there.

She tries not to imagine all the times she’s had nightmares about her being the one who finds Kara in the Phantom Zone.

Nia has been learning to project her dreams. Lena’s seen glimpses of what that piece of the universe looked like. She didn’t like what she saw, not one bit. She remembers how casually Kara had talked about it.

Whenever Alex asks Nia to project her dreams or asks Brainy to run the simulators, Lena walks out.

She takes it as her cue to leave. Don’t get it wrong it isn’t that Lena is afraid of the Phantom Zone. Oh no, if she could she had long rode a rocket ship there and rescued Kara.

It’s the visual coupled with the feeling of powerlessness along with the thought that Kara is out there, she’s there in that hell in outer space and it’s all Lena’s fault that she can’t stand.

That last one took a long time to shake off, it took a lot more than shaking off actually.

So, Lena leaves when they start to explore more about the Phantom Zone in VR and Nia’s dreams. She gets all of her information about the place, reading atlases from Brainy’s 31st century archives and other alien records, instead.

She has no idea what her friends are seeing there right now, what kind of creatures and all kinds of traps are set up for them. She hopes and prays to whoever it is up there that they bring Kara safe. That none of them gets hurt in the process.

She prays her family returns home to her in one piece.

******

Lena was brilliant enough to fix their suits with trackers that can remain linked back to her even if they were literally in outer space, but she didn’t have enough time to build a secure communication link.

Which means that the three of them, Eliza, Jess and her are staring at the screen. Watching seven multicolored dots move across the map, while they hear absolutely no news of how the team is doing.

The red one, Kara, remains unmoving, Lena notices, while the other colors circle around her. Lena does not want to think of the implications of that visual.

It either means Kara has been seriously injured and isn’t well enough to fight or Kara is…

She doesn’t dare finish that thought.

No, they will bring Kara home. They’ve got two Martians, a twelfth-level intellect Coluan, a human-Naltorian hybrid and two of the most elite human soldiers to fight for Kara.

They will save her, not to mention all of them are armed with tech made by Lena Luthor. There is no way Kara wouldn’t return home if she knew how hard they’ve been fighting.

Eliza must’ve noticed how tight she’s been gripping the edge of the console, because the older woman puts a hand atop hers.

“They’re going to be fine. We’re going to get them back. Don’t worry.”

Lena gives her a smile.

And then a portal opens in the middle of the room.

A strong woosh! comes out of the portal and immediately the three of them are running to the center of the room.

Inside, Lena sees Nia holding an entire ten yards of force field between where she's standing and the entrance of the portal.

J’onn is zipping around them fast, throwing off and assaulting Phantoms, Brainy is holding the portal open and there, in a dark awning of a cave she sees Kelly shielding Alex and M’gann.

A figure on the ground. Kara.

There was Kara. Kara was right there, lying unconscious on the ground and it’s taking every ounce of Lena’s willpower to not barrel through and carry her back here herself.

What good would she be if those creatures catch her? So, she stays there and she shouts, “Brainy, do you need help getting the portal stable?! I can hook you up to a closer power source if you keep it open long enough till all of you get back here!”

Brainy shouts something back but he is being drowned by the howling wind, so Lena takes it upon herself to do what she told Brainy.

Runs to the console with shaky fingers and with just a series of clicks and codes the portal opens much brighter and glows much more stable.

“THANK YOU!”

She hears Brainy shout and she smiles. Until she hears Nia say something that sounds like -can’t keep it up any longer, Alex! Alex! Now!

And then M’gann is heaving Kara unto her shoulders and Alex and Kelly are running for the portal, J’onn covering the four of them, Brainy waiting for Nia.

For a moment, Lena thinks, “This. This is what my life has become. I have alien friends. We are saving a superhero and there is a portal right in front of me right now. This is my life now.”

She shakes that epiphany out of her head

Alex sees her mother and shouts, “Mom, gurney! Gurney, she’s unconscious!”

Jess and Eliza run to fetch the gurney and Lena meets the four of them at the portal’s opening.

God, Kara was so pale, she was so pale being carried like that on M’gann’s back. Her cape is in tatters and her suit is soiled and dirty, there were cuts all around and her face, her wondrous beautiful face was so grimy and so was her hair.

There was nothing else in the world Lena wanted more than to cradle Kara in her arms.

******

Kara’s consciousness comes to her slowly; piece by piece. A bright light, a buzzing room, the quiet hum of an air-conditioner, and oh, her back is on a mattress, a soft, soft mattress. It makes her want to cry. She’s been sleeping on rocks for so long, she’s forgotten what mattresses feel like.

Her eyes remain closed but she’s lucid enough that she can decipher the buzz into separate voices.

“I cannot believe you didn’t change out of your suit! What did I tell you about hygiene and rest?”

“But, Jess— “

That was weird, was that Nia and Jess? What was Jess doing here?

For a brief window of a second, Kara’s heart drops. She’s in another dream-vision. She’s in—

“Would the two of you keep it down? Go yell at her in the living room.”

That was Alex. Wait— living room what?

“How’s she doing?”

Eliza! Eliza was here!

“Her vitals are fine, but I don’t think she has her powers. I was able to insert her Dextrose without using the red sunlamps.”

“She didn’t have sun there, honey.”

“I know.”

And then the conversation turns quiet and Kara hears Alex let out a quiet sob.

Then it gets muffled and Kara knows Alex is clinging to their mom. She wants to open her eyes now, she realizes.

So, she does.

She opens her eyes and she gets the frontrow view to Eliza and Alex sharing a teary embrace. Alex sitting down both arms wrapped around Eliza's torso, face soaking her mother's blouse.

“Hey, what about me?”

Her voice sounded scratchy and weak even to her own ears.

Alex breaks away from their mother, turns to look at her, gasps and flings herself forward to hug Kara.

Kara lets out a wet laugh, “I missed you, I really, really missed you, Alex.”

“I missed you too, loser.”

And oh, how she's missed this.

Eliza steps in to give her a hug too and Kara sobs in her arms and she lets herself fall apart in the arms of her mom.

Because that’s what Eliza is to her. A mother.

Her mother.

“Don’t you scare me like that, ever again, you hear me?”

“I promise, never again, Mom.”

It doesn’t matter that all of them know it isn’t true. Kara will be in far more dangerous situations again. Kara will risk her life again and again. But that doesn’t matter right now.

What matters is she’s safe and Eliza’s asking her to tell her what she wants to hear, even though they all know better.

She still wants to hear it anyway.

“Good,” Eliza says, squeezes her one last time and then pulls back to brush the hair out of her face, “I’m going to get you some food, you must be hungry.”

When Eliza said that, it was like Kara’s body remembered all of its functions likewise all of its needs, she’s never felt this exhausted and this hungry before.

Eliza sees her eyes light up at the mention of food and chuckles before exiting.

And now, it’s just Alex and her.

Her sister doesn’t look good. She looks older somehow. She looks tired.

Not that Kara can blame her, she understands what it must’ve felt like to Alex to lose her in a split second and not see her again for almost—

Her train of thought stops when she realizes she doesn’t know how long she’s been gone.

“How long have I been out?”

“12 hours. You need more hours under the sunlamps, so don’t even think about—”

“No, Alex,” she cuts her off, sits up on the bed, “I mean— I meant to ask, how long was I gone?”

Alex refuses to meet her eyes, swallows hard.

Kara moves her hand over hers and squeezes.

“It’s okay, I’m here now, we can go through it together,” she says and Alex eyes well up in tears again before letting out a strangled, “3 months, Kara. You’ve been gone for 3 months.”

“Oh, Alex, come here.”

At first, the mention of the time doesn’t even bother her, she was more concerned about Alex. She lets her climb in bed with her, careful not to jostle her IV.

Her sister says she's been dehydrated and she needed a boost. Kara knows that it’s no ordinary Dextrose. Lois must’ve given them some of Kal’s stuff from Argo.

They lay side by side in that cramped bed and Alex catches her up on everything.

And then and only then, does Kara realize she’s missed 3 months of her life.

“How’s Kelly?” she asks, not for her but for Alex because she’s missed the way her sister's eyes light up when she’s talking about the person she loves and besides, Kara doesn’t really want to talk about her side.

And so, Alex tells her that Kelly is now Guardian, and then she tells her—albeit more shyly—that she also has a hero name now.

Sentinel.

Kara likes the sound of that.

“It suits you,” she tells her, “You’ve always watched over me.”

“Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Eliza finds them like that, feeds Kara soup and she's taken in approximately 20 swallows before she passes out again.

******

The next time Kara wakes, everybody is there.

Brainy bought her 3 dozens of donuts, Nia brought her flowers, Kelly bought her potstickers.

All of those made her cry, the colors of the flowers were so vibrant, she’s missed seeing colors. The Phantom Zone was all black and gray and sad. Nia almost pulled away in fear of doing something wrong that might’ve upset Kara when she started sobbing at the sight of roses. Kara just gave her a big ole bear hug and a wet kiss on the cheek.

But, there was one person though, one person that she hasn’t seen around and to be honest? She’s been too scared to ask about.

She still hasn't told Alex about the visions. How can she explain her fear of seeing Lena if Alex doesn’t know about the visions? Her sister would start asking questions soon, though.

Why hasn't she talked to Lena yet? Why she hasn't asked? Why was she so scared of—

And then, as she was just inhaling her third box of potstickers, mind going over how to talk to Alex and Kelly is snorting over whatever it is that Brainy said, Kara’s world stops.

Her supersenses—it seems—are back and the first thing it chooses to focus on is a familiar heartbeat.

Her head whips to the door and there, Lena Luthor, her best friend—the most beautiful soul Kara’s ever seen—is standing there.

She’s fiddling with her thumbs and it reminds Kara so much of the first time she’s fallen victim to those horror show visions.

Fear grips her and refuses to let her go.

She knows this. She’s seen this sight way too many times.

Lena takes a step forward, then pulls back, holds herself back and then—

Her phone rings.

Kara shoots out of her bed, in the next instant she is right in front of Lena.

Distantly, she hears Nia shriek and Kelly shout, “Kara, oh my god!”

It doesn’t even register to her that she’s used superspeed that her superspeed is back.

All she feels is that she knows who’s on the other side of the line and she’s got to stop Lena from taking the call and she really, really, really just wants to hug her.

Lena’s eyes are wide when she realizes the quick woosh she’s heard is Kara.

“Kara, what—“

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she is quick to amend, “I just- I-” and then more eloquently, “Can we please talk?”

“I—” Lena hesitates, looks down at her phone, “I- I have to take a call.”

“No. Please, no don’t take the call, please trust me?”

“Kara, what are you talking about?”

Lena’s brows are furrowed in confusion now.

“Please,” she pleads, “Trust me, give the phone to Brainy, let him check it for you.”

“Kara, what—” she stops herself but then Lena takes a deep breath, looks straight into her eyes and says, “Okay, okay.” and then calls, “Brainy? Could you come here for a second?”

She lets out a sigh of relief and tension leaves her body and that’s when she realizes the cold tile of the floor beneath her feet and looks down to find that she’s barefoot.

Lena hands Brainy her phone and Nia hands Kara a pair of familiar fuzzy slippers. Alex must’ve made a run to her apartment, this morning.

“So,” Lena says, Kara can tell she’s nervous.

“You said you wanted to talk?”

“Yes,” Kara breathes out, “But first, can I hug you?”

This, Kara thinks, as Lena’s arms wrap around her and her shampoo invades her sense of smell and her warmth seeps into Kara’s body...

This is home.

******

Lena led her through the ‘living room’ and out to the balcony.

“I’m sorry I’m confused, living room?”

Lena chuckles and god, Kara’s missed that sound. Out of all the sounds on Earth, it was Lena’s laugh, Lena’s words, Lena’s voice she’s missed so much.

“Well, uhm everybody started camping out, there two weeks after you’ve…”

Lena's smile falters a bit but then she braves on through; omitting the words the both of them already knew, “And then Nia just started calling it living room, I mean, I guess it does look like a living room more than a heroes’ lair, now.”

And then Kara takes a good look around and Lena’s right, it does look more of a messy living room than a heroes’ lair.

There was a tangle of chargers on the cushions besides Nia’s laptop and Alex’s leather jacket draped over a couch, a couple of mugs sat on the coffee table. There were other knick-knacks too littered around, a Rubik’s cube here, a stress ball there, a couple of discarded pens and a lot of scratch papers filled with gadget designs.

She knows who to credit with those.

She’s missed so much. It hits her then She’s missed how all of this happened. How everyone had grown comfortable enough in The Tower that everyone considers it their second home.

Lena must’ve seen the way Kara’s eyes were roaming the place. Because she places a hand on Kara’s arm and the touch grounds her.

“Hey,” Lena says, “It’s your home too.”

She doesn’t know how to feel about that, but the way Lena says it makes Kara aware that Lena considers this place her home too.

Lena feels part of the team. Lena’s at home here, with her people, with her team.

The thought fills her with so much happiness but then—

If Lena became family while she was gone, what did Lena think of her now, then?

They stay quiet for a moment, which is driving Kara crazy, because she dragged Lena out here and now, she doesn’t know what to say.

“Kara,” Lena says the same time Kara says, “Lena,”

She smiles shyly at Kara and god, that smile. Kara wants to kiss that smile.

She doesn’t.

Even though Lena’s caught her staring at her lips.

“Okay, uhm I’ll go first,” Kara decides, averts her gaze and Lena gives her a small nod.

“Look, I’ll be honest, I- I don’t know how to do this and frankly, I’m not sure where I stand in your life anymore,” she admits and that seems to get Lena’s attention which just makes Kara’s palm get sweaty.

“Lena, I—”

“There you are!” Alex shouts at the two of them and whatever was about to happen, whatever Kara has to say becomes completely eclipsed by the next words Alex says.

“Lex is back. We have to hide Lena.”

******

“What?” Lena retorts back, loudly, “What do you mean hide?”

“Your phone, you gave it to Brainy right?”

Lena nods slowly at Alex, then looks at Kara and holds her gaze as if to say something.

“Yes, and?”

“We have reason to believe that he’s targeting an attack mainly for you,” Alex says and Lena isn’t really surprised.

The whole team is gathered now and Brainy is pulling up the details on how Lex had planted a bomb in her penthouse.

How original.

“Wait, you gave your phone to Brainy. How did you even know something was up?”

It was Kelly who asks and Lena realizes that it really wasn’t her it was—

“She didn’t.”

“What?”

Kara speaks up for the first time since they’ve been gathered here and Lena somehow finds herself wanting to close in on Kara’s space.

“Lena didn’t know. I did,” Kara tells everyone and Alex frowns for a minute, trying to comprehend.

“How?”

She sees Kara tense up at the question and this time she lets herself be pulled into the gravity of Kara. She takes the three step gap between and sidles up to her.

Kara seems to notice their close proximity and proceeds, “I uhm— I had these…”

Kara’s struggling to find the word, “Visions, I guess you can call them that, when I was uh- when I was stuck in this cave in the Phantom Zone. It was— they were very, very awful dreams. And in each and every one of them I lose somebody I love. But—”

She stops again and the pause seems to kill Alex but Lena’s attention is all on Kara, Kara’s staring at her like she’s trying to tell her something, Lena reaches over and squeezes her hand.

It works. The gesture gives Kara the push she needs.

“But mostly, they were about Lena.”

A tear falls from Kara’s face and Lena aches to wipe it away.

“Cavena Tim-or,” Brainy interrupts, “In Latin, timor stands for fear. You were stuck in the cave of fears, Kara.”

“But didn’t you say it was Klamarians' who named the place?”

“Yes, well, you’d be surprised at who was present during humanity’s past civilizations.”

After that, Alex quickly asks the question she’s been dying to ask since Kara told them about her experience two seconds ago.

“What did you see?”

“In one of them, the first one actually, I came home. I came back here, though a portal. Lena’s in the back of the room. She steps out to answer a call, but she never comes back,” Kara chokes up and this time, Lena presses up against her and wraps an arm around Kara.

“I’m here,” she says quietly.

“She never comes back because Lex abducts her and then kills her. And every time I fall asleep in that cave, it was that. Again and again and again. Lena dies again and again. And I lose her each and every time. I- I lose you each and every time.”

Before anybody else can speak up after Kara’s little revelation.

Lena tugs at her, makes her look at her. Lena’s wearing heels, Kara’s wearing fuzzy slippers, it allows Lena to put a hand on Kara’s cheek and finally wipe away her tears.

“I am right here. I am not going anywhere, you will never lose me. You always have me, Kara. You’ll always have me.”

******

Lex planting a bomb was such a fucking insult. It’s infuriating. But Lena wasn’t mad that he wanted her to die but because that was the lamest attempt ever. It was an insult to Lena’s intelligence.

She knows her brother. He wouldn’t settle for something as pedestrian as this.

And so, Lena does something she hasn’t done in a long time.

She calls her mother.

******

“Your favorite child is attempting sororicide again.”

“Yes, I’m aware. At least tell me you’re clever enough to have run into a discreet location?

“I don’t run, Mother.”

“Hm. For this one I advise you do.”

“What is he planning?”

“Well, that’s a surprise, I thought you already knew. Given the fact that you weren’t running.”

“I have an inkling.”

“I’m telling you now, Lena. You should run.”

“Why would I?”

“Supergirl’s back, Lena. Think about it.”

How the fuck did Lillian knew they got Kara back?

******

It turns out Lex's grand plan was to make the Girl of Steel choose.

The city or Lena Luthor.

It took them a while to figure out how Lex knew Kara was home.

Because of course, it’s always the things right on your nose that you don't see.

Remember the story about Jess making the occupants around the whole block sign NDA’s and buying their silence?

Apparently, Lex Luthor bought them at a much higher price and made them talk. Money makes the world go round, indeed. Or in this case, makes the world explode.

He planted moles and surveillance cameras all round the area and when the team got Kara back, somebody made the call to Lex Luthor.

He was staging a series of explosions using all of the National City’s residential areas. If there are victims, there would be a need for a saviour. And who would be a better saviour than Lex Luthor?

The explosives were all planted throughout a group of small-income businesses that can be found in most residential areas. A salon, a bakery, a dentist clinic, you name it.

Lex bought out these properties one by one under a pseudonym. Goddamn pretentious bastard. And then had his goons plant the bombs.

And the most irritating thing is, they weren’t the simple kind of bomb. Cut the red, save everybody kind of bomb. No, this one was a high-tech, highly volatile kind of bomb. Lena would soon discover that the bomb was one of Lex’s designs.

A compact, almost the size of a notebook, a plastic rectangular thing that nobody would notice. If you left it in the dentist's office, they’d just assume somebody has left a power bank in their hurry. But as soon as one goes near it—

Kaboom!

Game over.

******

Lex succeeds in taking Lena.

The plan was to get to a safe house before anything happens. Make use of the transmatter portals because Kara says she doesn’t trust any of them driving Lena and she was still too weak to fly her anywhere.

Lex abducts her in the middle of transporting. Her entire being felt like they were turned upside down during that. He hacked her coordinates and grabbed her in the middle of the process. Her brother defied Laws of Physics just to get to her.

“You’re forgetting, I was the one who made those watches.”

She is gagged and cuffed, not the police kind of cuffs but the DEO kind of cuffs, the heavy biometric access ones.

She can only imagine Kara’s horrified face when Lena fails to turn up at the other side of the portal.

Lex drops the bomb on the floor, 5 steps away from her and makes his mandatory villain speech. Lena tuned out about halfway through.

Every hour that the Girl of Steel fails to show up for Lena and saves another neighborhood instead, the bomb gets closer and closer to Lena.

Don’t save me, Kara. Save the lives of others. Don’t save me.

******

The thing about using tech for bombs is that Brainy will most likely have a solution on how to solve it, fast.

"We encountered a similar problem back when I was part of the Legion."

"Well, you know what to do then?"

"I do."

******

It’s Alex who saves her and...Lillian.

“Only you?” Lena jokes breathing heavily, as Alex removes her cuffs and Lex is down on the floor.

“Where’s the rest of the cavalry?” she says, standing up from the monobloc chair. Alex in all her Sentinel glory, waving a device that Lena suspects is for detonating the bomb.

“Actually…” Alex trails off, gestures somewhere to the entrance.

And like some well-timed cue, Lillian Luthor rounds the corner.

Her mother was wearing a long black coat and heels, hair flowing, half in an updo. She looked as she always looked, an expensive calculating cold bitch.

“Lena,” she coos, gracefully kisses Lena on the cheek as if she hadn’t just sidestepped her son who was lying on the floor unconscious with a broken nose, as if Lena wasn’t just held hostage fearing for her life and for countless others, as if half of National City almost didn’t blow up.

Just a typical Tuesday for the Luthors.

Alex was too busy detonating the bomb on the ground to explain what the hell Lillian was doing here.

Her mother leans in closer, Lena feels the cold metal of a gun being thrust in her hands, she whispers, “I told him not to harm you.”

And in that moment in time, Lena realizes what this is. Her mother didn’t come for her because she cared if Lena lived or not. This was Lilian’s cheap shot at redemption. Lex had obviously failed her. But Lena? Lena might just be her saving grace.

Lillian must’ve thought if she played her cards right, Lena would pull her up from the depth of her sins. But no more, Lena knows better now. She isn’t the same woman who Lillian Luthor can manipulate into her traps.

Lena knows better now.

******

The sun is harsh on her face as Alex, her and Lillian make their way out of the warehouse.

Lex was being taken care of by a SWAT team. Old agents of the DEO that remained loyal to Alex Danvers and just like her had a hunch that Lex Luthor was bad news.

They pile up inside a nondescript van.

Alex’s first words to her as she shuts the vehicle doors close and the van lurches, are, “‘You’ll always have me?'” she mocks, “I mean Christ, Luthor, I had a hunch that you were gay for my sister but I didn’t know you were that ‘gay’.”

Alex rolls her eyes, makes air quotations around the word ‘gay’. Lena snorts. Lilian looks like she was going to throw up.

On the ride back, Alex tells her that Lillian stepped forward saying she knew where Lena was, snuck into The Tower, which J’onn or any of the Superfriends didn’t appreciate.

“Your security system is predictable, Lena. I’m your mother not to mention I’m a Luthor.”

Lena pushed down the urge to punch her in the face.

“Kara was this close...” Alex holds her index finger and her thumb in a pinch. “-to heat visioning her.”

Of course, it would be Lillian Luthor who would know where Lena would be taken by Lex.

Apparently, the others were scattered around National City helping to evacuate residents.

They all know Brainy could undo all of Lex’s bombs and avoid any casualties, but still, better safe than sorry.

It was only when they are already stepping inside the Tower’s elevators that it occurs to Lena that she still doesn't know where Kara is.

******

“She solar flared looking all over National City for you,” Alex tells her as they walk into the medbay and she sees Kara’s sleeping form under the glow of the sunlamps.

Alex excuses herself after changing out of her suit, muttering “Idiots, goddamn idiots I swear to God-” under her breath and Lena pretends she doesn't hear.

Flying around National City all night long exerting her supersenses fresh from a 3 month stay in a sunless hell and after only 12 hours under sunlamps, resulted in this; Kara unconscious yet again, powerless and weak.

Lena pulls up a chair next to Kara's bed. Grabs her right hand and puts it against her cheek, her palm warm against Lena's skin and there, with only Kara and the hum of the sunlamps, Lena cries. The events of the last few months finally catching up to her.

She falls apart, clutching Kara's hand tightly like an anchor.

******

Kara wakes up exhausted and parched. She blinks her eyes open to bright yellow lights.

She groans, rubs her eyes trying to sit up. The moment she sits up she realizes she isn’t alone.

Lena was here, sleeping on folded arms on the side of her med bed.

That does not look like a comfortable position.

“Lena,” she tries, nudging her gently on the shoulder.

“Hey, baby, wake up.”

Lena rouses, hums a confused, “Mm?” and slowly opens her eyes. Kara is shocked to see Lena’s emerald eyes have turned into bloodshot, tired ones.

“Were you crying?” Kara whispers, shuffling on the bed to get close enough to cup Lena’s face.

Lena doesn’t answer, just lets her head be tilted, Kara’s thumb softly rubbing at her cheek, concerned blue eyes burning into her. Kara looks like she’s going to ask once again but Lena cuts her off, half-afraid that if she doesn’t do it now, she will never do it.

“Kara, I love you.”

There. She did it. It’s done. She's said it. She can't take it back.

Immediately, Kara’s thumb stills and her eyes widen.

“And I’m so tired of this, I’m so tired of you and me getting separated. With you not knowing how much I love you. How much it hurts every time you’re away from me. I’m so tired of not being with you, Kara.”

Her voice is heavy with emotion; exhaustion and overwhelming love bleeding into each other. She stares at Kara who’s still frozen, tears slowly falling, making her eyes shine like sapphire.

She feels Kara resume the movement of her thumb and only then does Lena realize she’s crying as well.

“I have you, right here, right now, but for how long? For how long? Because I know, I fucking know, Kara, this life. Your life. Our life. One way or another some disaster is going to get us again and I don’t want that to happen without me having told you how I feel. So, here I am,” she breathes out, “Here I am, telling you how I feel.” Lena puts a hand to Kara’s hand and cradles it, leans in to the touch, kisses her palm.

“I love you and I can’t hide it anymore. I don’t want to hide it anymore. I love you.”

“Lena,” Kara finally replies, breathless and emotional, “You saved me, do you know that? You’re all I’ve dreamt about the whole time I was away. You're the thing that's kept me alive. My home is you, has been you, for some time now and I didn’t even have the chance to tell you.”

Lena breaks when she hears this, as her mind takes her back to the past three months of missing Kara, of feeling so fucking lonely, of feeling so fucking scared.

“I love you, Rao, I love you so much. I can’t not love you. You’re everything, Lena. You’re my home.”

Kara has moved so close to her that she’s able to press their foreheads together as she murmurs, “I love you,” again and again and again.

“I’m tired of all of this too. I just want to love you, Lena.”

These are the words Kara utters before she presses their lips together.

******

“Lena?”

“Hm?” Lena hums, distracted. It was a good day today. She woke up to Lena making pancakes in her kitchen, wearing nothing but Kara’s old yellow hoodie. The sight almost made her turn to goo.

It was her third day back after spending so long confined to The Tower’s bed under the sun lamps. She was sure it would be longer if Alex had her way.

Tomorrow, Lena will be arranging her affairs in taking L-Corp back. They both know she has a long way to go. Kara’s not worried though, if Lena did it once, she can do it again and just like before Kara will be with her every step of the way.

Now, they’re just lounging around lazily in Kara’s apartment. Lena curled up on her couch with a book and Kara on the floor writing on her laptop.

She came back to CatCo last Monday and now she’s trying to come up with a good enough email to send to Cat Grant and ask her for a favor. She loves Nia but Rao, did she really have to say Cat Grant to Andrea?

“Why was Jess yelling at Nia last week? I woke up to Jess’s voice, actually. And more importantly, Jess knows???!”

“Oh, darling, Jess has always known.”

Kara stops typing and turns around to prop herself up on the couch.

“What? I’m sorry what?” she blurts out, incredulous. Lena puts her book down and looks at her.

“Apparently, you haven’t been very subtle.”

“Wha- No! I can be sneaky! I’m sneaky!”

Lena snorts at her protests.

“Sure you are,” she purrs and if Kara wasn’t writing an urgent email, that voice would’ve made her destroy the couch

“—and uh Jess was yelling at Nia for not following Tower rules.”

“W-we have rules?” she says, Kara shakes off the straying thoughts out of her mind and focuses back on what Lena is saying. She hauls herself off the floor and unto the couch, Lena making room, lifting her legs and then putting it back down on Kara’s lap once she’s comfortably seated.

“Mm-hm.”

Kara’s hands start trailing up and down Lena’s bare legs on her lap.

“Will you tell me? I don’t want Jess to yell at me.”

Lena flashes a smile at that and Kara blushes adorably.

“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you, come here,” she answers and makes grabby hands at Kara. Rao, it’s a miracle Kara hasn’t died from the sheer cuteness that is Lena Luthor.

Kara shifts positions and fits herself horizontally, draping half of herself on Lena and Kara listens to the 5 cardinal rules of Jessica Huang. It mostly just says all of them should eat, sleep and balance superhero work and real work.

She wants to ask if somebody is paying Jess, but then realizes Lena Luthor is next to her and she would never let somebody like Jess work for free.

The thought of how utterly good and compassionate Lena is, makes her smile.

“Lena?” Kara mutters, nosing at Lena’s neck.

“Have I ever told you I love you?”

Lena laughs, “Once or twice.”

“Well, that wouldn’t do. From now on, it’s my mission to tell you I love you till I’ve said it a billion times,” Kara declares.

“A billion?”

“Mm-hm. And even a billion doesn’t even feel like enough.”

“You’ll always be enough for me, Kara,” Lena says, looking down to her and kissing her temple, “You’re more than enough for me.”

“I love you, Lena.”

“I love you too.”

******

There are two parts to Kara Danvers' story The Searching and The Coming Home.

She never even knew she was searching for something, someone, till she found Lena, till she found somebody to come home to.

******

uhm so, @uselesslesbianfr submitted something to me and my brain just started churning and then before i knew it i've written a 10k one shot about the brief plot she's sent me. so yeahhh.

[thetorturerwrites]

Lamb: Ch 6 - Still In The Middle

***This amazing artwork was gifted to me by @elmidol​​. Please do not re-use or re-post it without permission from them and/or myself. Don’t be a dickbag.

Previous Chapter

Summary: This was it. This was the moment for which you’d bargained so hard, for which you’d nearly begged, about which you’d dreamed. This was the deal.

A/N: Potential triggers for dub-con/difficult loss of virginity. Thanks for hanging in. I know the updates are happening further and further apart, but I’m tryna have a life.

Word Count: 4.0k

You knew fear.

Jumping from the roof. Fending off thieves. A target on your planet. The horror of not knowing if your family survived. Even here, in Ren’s land, you knew fear. The certainty that he truly had carved you open from cunt to crown.

All mere drops in the ocean compared to now.

He hovered, a walking omen promising retribution and withering the very air with his distaste for your nonsense. You shrank from it, from him. You weren't even sure he moved, but you lifted your hand against the attack that surely would come and instinctively launched yourself between The Ren and the boy, shielding the dying from death as though you could bargain with fate.

When next he spoke, it wasn’t to you, nor was it in a language you could identify. His voice, though modulated to mask his otherworldly inflection, was even as he addressed the boy to your side. As he finished, your young warrior slumped back into the grass, and Ren’s saber crackled brighter for a brief second.

You stared, speechless as your brain processed the events. Once departed from the body, did the soul spend eternity inside that vermilion host? Was that all the afterlife was?

Your dark specter gave you no time to further ponder or ask silly questions. Gloved fingers shoved beneath your collar and jerked you to a stand. By that guide, he threw you forward, pointing at the hilltop.

“Walk!”

The ire in his mechanical tone numbed you to the marrow, but you wisely, silently, marched up the hill you’d earlier flown down. Near the summit, you bent forward to crawl the rest of the incline, offered no help by the reaper at your heels. You half expected an angry kick to your backside to send you sprawling.

At the top, you waited. Only he knew the way home. Only he could conjure it.

You prayed that your quiet would win you a modicum of favor, some semblance of pardon for finally learning at least one lesson, but you yelped when his fingers found purchase at your neck once more. His rough handling sent jagged black edges into your skin, scratching and marring your tender flesh.

In seconds, you abandoned what you were so pleased with yourself for, grasping at his wrist and forearm while babbling about how he was hurting you. He ignored your fit, gripped your arm impossibly tight, and dragged you through the suddenly there umbra and into his keep.

Back in familiar territory, he stomped through the hallways, his heavy footsteps echoing dreadfully. Bile rose, sour and acrid. Your heart skipped. And when he tossed you across the threshold of the room, you stumbled and fell face first into the opulent expanse of his bed.

“Stay here, I said.”

He seethed, slowly removing his helmet. Your throat swelled shut at the outright disdain you saw etched into his marble features.

"Speak to no one." 

You scrambled away, attempting to put as much space between you and the bogeyman as possible, but it was in vain. He stepped closer and threw his gloves at you, one to punctuate each word you had ignored.

“Touch nothing.”

There was no terror in the galaxy akin to this. He was uncompromising, unnerving, unkind. He only had to think it, and you would be but a smudge on his floor, no longer interrupting his peace with your fumbling.

Plastering yourself against the far wall, you shook your head, but you didn’t know why. He was clear in his instructions, and you disobeyed. Blatantly. Flagrantly.

Again.

“H-he was frightened.”

It sounded ludicrous, even to you.

Every molecule of oxygen in the room froze with his icy stare. Each haphazard exhale was laced with frost. The world around you turned unwelcoming, harsh.

“They are all frightened!”

His shout broke the sound barrier, cracking like a bomb.

On a scream, you turned away, pressing your face and palms flat against the slab wall. You felt it when he advanced on you, crossing the room in only a few steps. His hands slammed into stone on either side of your head, and you buckled, slumping downward only for him to catch you and pin you in place.

“Do you enjoy being an idiot? Was it worth it to play nursemaid?”

Something about his condescension cut through your fear. It settled in your gullet and solidified in your larynx.

Turning your face to him, you blinked hard when your nose bumped his, not expecting such closeness. You smelled that candied taste on his breath, the narcotic caramel you came to crave. You wished you hadn’t looked. 

“He was afraid, and I could help. It isn’t stupid.”

His sleek, dark brow cocked over one glittering eye, but you couldn't tell if it was because he accepted your reason or was simply surprised you spoke at all. His thumb grazed a particularly large cut, eliciting a wince; and with great effort, you didn’t jerk away. As his fingers trailed down the length of your neck, you watched his eyes follow. They dropped to your throat, and you didn’t miss the way his gaze roved over the newly raised cuts and scratches from his hasty manhandling.

But when those chameleon irises lifted back to your face, you forgot how to even think.

“You could have died.”

His melodic voice was hard, teeming with irritation but in a low tone. Those long fingers you couldn’t help but enjoy looking at wrapped around your neck and shoved you back into the wall on a mean thump. His everything was intoxicating, rendering you witless with little more than his presence. He didn’t simply cage you; he engulfed you, swallowed you whole.

“I…” Your face pinched, wondering if it was your safety that concerned him or the precarious nature of your bargain. “I didn’t know that. You didn't tell me. But I’m here. I’m not dead.”

The next words out of your mouth were a gamble.

"Still in the middle."

The temperature of the room changed, rising as his ire subsided. His knuckles dragged along your neck once more, and you gulped on reflex. The preternatural sluggishness of your heartbeat improved as the trail of his touch extended down your sternum. A flush spread through you, warming you and raising goosebumps in the wake of his light trek.

“Yes.” Pushing from the wall, he slipped his fingers beneath the ring once more and tugged you against him. “Yes, you are.”

There was a loud sizzle and pop from behind him, jarring both of you back to your senses. A frown flitted across his face - annoyance at something other than you. You couldn’t help but feel relief. As much as you wanted to stand on your toes to see what happened, you only reached to steady yourself by both hands circling his wrist.

“When I come back, I want this gone.”

He tugged the neckline of the cloak, waited for your acquiescent nod, and whirled from the room in a flurry of billowing black. You waited, glued to the spot, for a solid 60 count before sagging into the wall.

You lost track of how long it took him to return. Disrobed and discombobulated, you sat in the very center of the bed until you could scarcely hold your eyes open. You burrowed under the soft, ebony pelts and succumbed to anxious exhaustion. The events of the day... and yesterday... and the day before that all bled together into a heaviness you could no longer ignore.

A chill woke you. Without opening your eyes, you groused and searched for the cover to your cozy den.  Instead, you brushed your fingers along what could only be skin and jolted awake to find a naked statue of a man brushing a kiss to your knee, your thigh, your hip. He crawled up your body, pausing only to kiss your ribs or lick at an already distended nipple.

When finally he settled his weight between your thighs, you choked and coughed, turning your head away from his chuckle. The feel of him was heavenly, but the knowledge of why he was on you was torture.

This was it. This was the moment for which you’d bargained so hard, for which you’d nearly begged, about which you’d dreamed. This was the deal.

At the behest of his overwhelming nearness, your body came alive. Tightening. Swelling. Lengthening. A shudder worked its way through your limbs. Your core heated, readying for its intruder. It was shameful how quickly you responded to him; but when his lips met the thundering of your pulse, you still whimpered wantonly.

A throb took hold of you, riding your increasing heart rate to even the very ends of your toes. Your opening pulsed a dangerous new rhythm your squirming hips attempted to ease. The pleased noise in your ear paralyzed you, but the body atop yours shifted. His wide hips rocked into yours in such a delicious way you were again tempted to lift and roll.

Redistributing his weight, Ren slithered his fingers down between your legs and brushed them against your labia, teasing and testing.

“Still think you’re ready for me, pet? Shall we find out?”

Alarmed, you barely had time to push at his shoulder and squeak out ‘n-no no!’ before the fat head of his dick pushed inside. You threw your head back on a sharp cry and clutched at the bed desperately. It was a knife to your middle, a spear in your cunt, and you howled in pain.

Disregarding your discomfort, he forced more of his length into your pussy on a groan, pushing down on your hip to keep you still.

“Who last fucked you, little lamb? Did they do such a poor job your cunt won't allow another in?”

Your body went rigid, clamping shut so tight he grimaced.  Your hips dropped into a deep cradle, seeking a bit of relief, but your feet scrambled against the bed in a furious attempt to get away.

“No! Nobody!” You wailed, panic-stricken, and frantically tried to push at his stomach, but he was immovable. You crumbled into despairing sobs, shaking your head. “I haven’t!”

“We have a long way to go, girl.” He bit at your neck at the same time he rocked further into you, drawing another harrowing plea from your ragged chest. “Pretending you’re a virgin won’t make me kind. Ruined by men, remember?.”

Trembling hands lifted to shield your face, to hide the pitiful tears. It wasn’t only that it hurt; you were overwhelmed by how displeasing you knew yourself to be. And how displeasing your next words would be.

“That wasn’t me.” Your voice was hardly there, cracking on the feeling and fear swirling inside your gut.

Ren stalled completely; and with him, all the galaxy went quiet. You heard only the whistling tunnel between your ears; and when you opened your eyes, you found him glaring down at you with such malice your blood ran cold.

“Mind your words. There are no ghosts here, despite what you’ve been taught. Just you. And me."

It was more than a command; it was a challenge.  ‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ his eyes read. ‘Ridiculous girl,’ the hard line of his lips said.  Idiotically, you jumped on the bait.

“Y-you said men ruined me. N-not me.” You sniffled and blinked away stinging tears, trying to focus on his face. “I just didn’t argue.”

Pushing up on one hand, he glared down at you for what felt like an eternity. You chewed your lower lip, trying to decipher the look on his face and the strange gleam in his eyes. But as long as he grilled you like this, he wasn’t hate fucking your miserable pussy.

“You... you didn’t seem to like virgins.” You glanced down, trying to keep the wobble of your lips under control.  “I didn’t think it would be so… difficult.”

You hated how juvenile you sounded, how utterly absurd the words coming out of your mouth were. Ever since you came here, you wanted him to see you as an adult, but you were still a fucking child, unable to even do the damn thing you sold yourself to.

However, you also drowned in self-pity. Your words were true, but what you didn’t say was ‘Your cock is a fucking monster, and it absolutely will not fit,’ which was also true. How could you have known this wouldn’t work? There was no way your body would accept all of him, and that meant your family would pass into obscurity, unremembered and unavenged.

You wept anew, disappointed with yourself and wrenched open to the very bottom of your heart.

The distrust and contempt veiling his features eased, and those beautiful lips pursed. His amused hum quieted a bit of your worry, as did the way he released his angry grip on your hip. He even dislodged himself a bit from your battered cunt, allowing the hurt to abate.

He brushed tears from your cheeks and turned your face back to his.

“What have you had between these pretty thighs, lamb?”

You flushed at his intimate question, hands pushing at his ribs, trying to coerce him into vacating your core completely.

Instead, he lowered himself onto you, dragging his lips along your jaw. This time, the burden of his body soothed your upset, tempered the ache in your soul. His mouth nipped and sucked until he found a spot that made you shiver. He threaded strong fingers into your hair and rubbed at the back of your scalp, keeping you right where he wanted.

“Fingers…” It was scarcely a whisper, a sin you almost couldn’t admit out loud. “Lips…” Fire blew through your chest and cheeks, but there was no denying the last bit. “Blade handle…”

Something delicious rumbled in his chest at the memory you conjured. You felt it resonate against yours and wiggled, immediately regretting doing so from the reminder of his stabbing dick at your cunt’s entrance.

Blessedly, he withdrew completely; but still, you whimpered, both relieved by and lamenting the loss, though it was hardly even a moment before that hard column slid between your puffy labia and nudged at your clit and hood.

“Please, I don’t think I ca--”

He executed your excuse with a bite to your lower lip. He devoured any ensuing complaints with a fervent kiss, tying up your tongue to keep you muted. He derailed you completely, expertly leading you away from nervousness with his firm lips and tugging teeth.

His hands roamed and fondled and caressed. His hips led yours, coaxing your pelvis to dance to his tune. In just minutes, he dismantled your fear and replaced it with anticipation, with the heady scent of your arousal. Hooking one hand beneath your knee, he drew your legs apart wider, purring when your body naturally followed his lead.

With your hips in motion, he caught that hot ridge with the end of his dick and pressed in once again. You shriveled in fear, cursing yourself for believing he would let it go.

“Breathe.” His lips at your ear promised salvation, a gentleness in contrast to what he was doing to your pussy. “Move with me.”

His large hand wrapped all the way around your ample hip, thumb and digits digging into the supple flesh. Where his sedative voice once mollified you, it now only raised your heckles. You were too far gone to the mental imagery of what he said to you on the altar.

How many have died screaming at the end of my dick?

“I can’t! It won’t…”

“It will.”

He growled the words out. Tired of listening to your complaints, he tipped your face to his and crushed you with a kiss. The strangled sound at the back of your throat only had him licking further into the moist cavern, as though he could catch it with his tongue tip.

Distracted by his cloying taste, your body obeyed this time. Your thighs hugged his sides. Your hips undulated to accept his slow prodding deeper and deeper at each pass. Your fingers no longer gouged at his pecs, but splayed wide across them. Soon, you gasped and curved like a bow, unable to be still and ready to be shot like an arrow.

Wide eyed, you panted and clung to him, vibrating and filled to the brim with his cock.

It was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. You felt uncomfortably swollen and horribly hollow at the same time. Your pussy stretched to its tearing point. The sting was brutal but consuming in its torment. You wanted to beg him to never do this again and to never stop.

Your every cell was electric, buzzing under your skin and ensuring you felt every wicked inch, every carnal twitch of his dick.

“Good girl.”

His dulcet tone danced across your lips, chased by a lick to the roof of your gaping mouth. You needed him to say it again, unnerved by how much those two words on his lips lit you up. You stared up into those mesmerizing eyes, trying to decide if he was pleased with you yourself or that you could fulfill your purpose.

But then, he started moving, and why he said what didn’t matter anymore.

It couldn’t have been more than a bit, but he pulled out, and the drag of it burned like nettles in your belly. When he pushed back in, you moaned softly, lifting your torso up into him to be even closer. Again, he tested the waters. His forward drive was harder, hips snapping. You bit your lip for composure, turning your mouth into his pulse, mirroring his gesture.

You didn’t realize that you held his hips until they worked in more of a rhythm; and by that time, you twisted below him, feverish and trying to match his building tempo. Strong, chiseled arms wrapped around you, one beneath your back to curve you upwards and one tucked under your head to keep your face turned into the crook of his neck.

It was all you could do to keep up. He inundated you with his body, his smell, the taste of his sweat until you barely skirted reality. His steady pace, the captivating slide of his cock, spread a blissful thrum through you, sending your blood rushing, liquefying everything inside until the most debasing noises came from your pussy. He groaned at the squelch, the first sound he’d made in a while.

“I—I’m sorry.” You whispered, lips quivering, eyes shining. “Am I doing it wrong?”

You weren’t uneducated in this matter, but your knowledge only held up to a point.  A point you were now well beyond with this decadent deity lodged inside your inexperienced body. The possibility that your infantile humanity would again let him down tore at your resolve; and quickly, anguished tears fell along the sides of your face.

His response was to fuck you harder, abandoning his care of your head to hoist your leg higher around his ribs so every lustful squish was clearer, louder. You squealed at each push, feeling fuller and fuller the faster he went. Your body opened, slickening and accepting him to your limit, but your brain decided it was punishment, that he was working harder to get over his discontent.

“S-sorry. I can do better.”

“Shut up, you stupid girl.”

His words were clipped. He covered the entire lower half of your face with his massive hand. You whined into his palm, gutted that you’d gone from good to stupid so quickly yet again. One glorious thrust sent your eyes rolling back into your head, and you gripped his sides, dangling precariously at the edge of oblivion where what kind of girl you were no longer mattered.

“You want to do better? Hm?” He waited for your nod before carrying on. “Stop apologizing for the sounds your hungry cunt makes for me.”

The way he said the word set your insides to coiling. Tighter and tighter and tighter you wound. Captured by his gaze, you couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop trying to memorize the way he studied you. His face blushed an almost human shade of pink. His lips quivered as though he were about to say something, to praise or condemn in equal measure. But it was his endless, enthralling eyes that sliced you to the quick. He could certainly see every doubt, every criticism, every fear you’d ever had or made.

Laid wholly bare, you were profoundly grateful for his hand, for the hiding spot it afforded. The Ren was unraveling you in more ways than one; and though you couldn’t hide your teary eyes, you could hide the quake of your mouth and the feelings it telegraphed.

“Time to let go, lamb.” He nuzzled your wounded neck, tickling your skin with his words. “Prim and proper won't serve you here. Give in to me."

You writhed, overwrought with this emotion-laden eroticism until, finally, your chest stopped working altogether. Your brow drew tight, and you could no longer look directly at him.  Let go, he said. But control was the only thing that kept you alive in loneliness.

You arched painfully, the line of your spine twinging and sparking. Your silence broke, and you cried into his hand while your hips worked to lengthen the release, to draw it out as long as you could. It wasn’t like before, when he scrambled your brains with an orgasm that neared insanity. This was something that hooked into your soul and clawed it apart. In deferring to his will, the floodgates opened, washing you away in the torrent.

It seemed to be what he was waiting for because the moment your hips loosened with release, he struck harder, faster. He moaned at the sound of you begging beneath his hand, even if you didn’t know what or who you were begging for. He pressed you down into the bed and wracked you with a fierce assault, bruising your face, forcing your sex wide open.

You flew too high to care.

He rode the crest of your endorphins, taking advantage of your dizziness to fuck you through the pain and anguish. He bade you listen to the lascivious language your pussy spoke for him and only him. He called you a good, filthy, dumb girl, and your heart panged at each syllable, somehow turning even the cruel ones to compliments in your euphoria.

Chasing a curse, he growled into your hair, plunged in deep, and flooded your wrecked cunt with his damned seed. 

Slogging back into your right mind, your fingers slid up his chest to push feebly as you were suffocated by his sheer size. The demanding hand that clamped over your face slid to cup your overheated cheek, thumb rubbing at your swollen mouth as you gasped for air. He brushed sweaty tresses from your face, traced the circumference of one bloodshot eye, and kissed the hollow of your throat, lingering over it for a long while.

Blinking to clear away the convulsions, you realized he was making sure your heartbeat didn’t slow further or stop altogether. As if to punctuate your conclusion, he gently stroked the pulse point of one wrist.

You wanted to move, to curl up into a ball and forget how to feel; but until he was ready, you would go nowhere. Closing your eyes, your thoughts drifted. Through memory and dreams, scripture and poetry. Half-murmured verses rolled across your tongue as sleep took hold.

It was his brother, Ren, who counseled the Light Bringer to give of himself to create life. “Let them know you that they may live. Let them know me that they may die.” And thereafter, Solo created life. He flourished, fulfilling Grandfather Sky Walker’s wish and populating the farthest reaches of his galaxy with life. And Ren culled it, maintaining harmony. Keeping the Balance.

You didn’t see that he stayed long after you fell asleep, listening to the cadence of your breathing, testing your pulse, laying his hand across your sternum to feel your heartbeat.

As though you were now worthwhile and not just a stupid girl.

[diazevan]

2. In The Hands Of The Enemy “Pick Who dies” 

Peter has to choose who to save, Morgan or MJ.

AO3 Link

It was dark.

Michelle couldn’t see a thing, even when she strained her eyes.

She tried not to concentrate on that, or the rapid speed of her heart, instead she curled her arms around Morgan, who was tucked up against her chest, fighting through hiccupped sobs.

The truck took yet another, sudden turn, and Michelle’s shoulder collided with the interior.

She bit down on her lip, hard, ignoring it.

Morgan cried, “Mimi...”

Michelle brushed a hand through her hair, shushing her, “Yeah?”

She sniffled, “Is Petey coming?”

“I think so.”

Morgan sucked in a sharp breath, “I’m scared.”

“I know,” Michelle hushed, “But I’m here, and I’m not gonna leave you.”

It had been a normal day, up until they were snatched and tossed into the back of a truck.

Michelle picked Morgan up from Kindergarten, like every other Friday. She loved doing it, it was calm among the chaos that was her life - with most of her time devoted to exam season, that was hurling towards her, and the constant lingering worry, that came hand-in-hand, with loving a superhero – picking her boyfriend’s little sister up, was somewhat normal.

Then it took the worst possible turn.

They started their usual walk back to Peter’s apartment, hoping he’d be finished picking up groceries for May, by the time they got there, and they could head off together to the Ice Cream Parlour.

Michelle had felt uneasy, halfway through the journey. She’d mindlessly pulled Morgan closer and walked faster.

She didn’t have a sixth sense like Peter, but she did have something he didn’t, and that was common sense.

She’d noticed, in the corner of her eye, two men, on the side of the road – dressed, head-to-toe, in black individual suits. She didn’t want to be labeled as paranoid, but in the movies, that would be a red alarm, and it was.

The general public knew that Morgan existed, but her family never shared photos of her, and she didn’t appear at events.

Pepper dealt with the press, and people snapping the occasional picture. It would get harder when she started school, but for now, they had it under control; the staff, the parents, and even the kids, at her Kindergarten, were incredibly understanding.

Tony and Pepper believed she deserved anonymity, she was too young to understand the downfalls of being in the public eye, but she could decide, what she wanted to do when she was older.

Michelle respected that.

Still, even with all those precautions, Morgan was still a target.

Thinking on her feet, Michelle had diverted, down an alleyway, pulling Morgan along, while scrambling for her phone.

She wasn’t fast enough.

Before she could press her panic button, they were grabbed.

They never even saw the faces of their abductors, it happened, in a flash.

They took her phone.

There was only one thing she could do – protect Morgan.

The truck came to a halt, and voices followed, joined by the unmistakable sound of doors closing.

Morgan shifted, “What’s—” She sounded so young, she didn’t deserve this, “What’s going on?”

“We’ve stopped—”

The doors at the back were thrown open, with heavy hands, the hinges squeaked.

Michelle jerked, cradling Morgan’s head close to her shoulder, shielding her from potential harm, while trying to adjust the bright light beaming in.

A man barked, “Get out.”

Michelle swallowed the lump in her throat, and slowly, slid forward, climbing out onto the solid ground while holding onto Morgan, who intuitively locked her legs around Michelle’s middle.

Michelle looked ahead, trying to paint of picture of where they were.

They were surrounded by abandoned apartments, there were signs, explaining that they were ready for demolition.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

Michelle turned, and as soon as she saw him, her heart leaped, into her throat.

It was Mac Gargan. Weapon smuggler turned murderer.

He was involved in Peter’s infamous ‘ferry mishap’ that Michelle had heard about, a few times.

Also, in the five years when the universe was half empty, he’d managed to escape jail, and he hadn’t been seen since. Tony was looking for him, considering he had an obvious distaste for Spider-Man.

He stood proud, with a smirk, “Hello, hello, hello…” He sang, “Nice to meet you.”

Michelle bit her tongue, staying silent.

She studied him.

Gargan had a long jagged scar that snaked around his eye, which was bloodshot. He laughed humourlessly, motioning to it, “Admiring the view, sweetheart?” He asked, “You’re never gonna guess who’s responsible for this?”

He prodded her forehead, with his finger.

“Your boyfriend.” He howled, “Peter Benjamin Parker.”

Her mouth dropped open, “You—”

He interrupted, “It wasn’t easy finding out.”

She scraped her teeth over her lower lip, “Toomes?”

“Bingo.” He applauded, “It took a while, a few…untraditional techniques, but he caved, in the end.”

He buried his hand, in his pocket, drawing out Michelle’s phone.

He barked an order, “Passcode, now.”

Michelle hesitated.

Gargan’s snapped his fingers and one of his goons stepped forward, a gun raised.

Gargan jerked his thumb in Morgan’s direction, “Passcode or her head?” He shrugged, “Guess you have a preference.”

“1-0-0-8.”

The gun was lowered, and Gargan sneered, “Thank you.” He stepped aside, “I’m gonna give your little boyfriend a call, then we’ll have a catch-up.” He pointed to his guards, “They’ll take you where you need to be.”

Michelle looked at them.

They were emotionless, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their mouths set in a determined line. Michelle’s eyes hadn’t properly adjusted, to the outside world, but the main difference, she could see, between the pair, was one of a few inches taller than the other.

One of them grabbed her arm, pulling her aside, “This way.”

The other chipped in, “Don’t try anything.”

They were led into one of the buildings and up the staircase. It was, at least, twenty stories high, but Michelle refused to put Morgan down, not for anything.

Her stomach twisted, churning violently, the closer they got to the roof. Stepping out onto it, sent a chill up her spine like she’d stepped over somebody’s grave.

The taller guard, watched them, like a hawk, not letting them out of his sight.

The other was a chatterbox and wouldn’t shut up about how hungry he was.

Gargan stepped through the door, after a while, wearing a valiant smile, “Peter’s on his way.”

Michelle stood straight as she slowed her breathing, “He’ll stop you.”

“Well, darling, he sounded scared shitless, so I doubt it,” Gargan cackled, he dropped her phone and cracked it, under his heel, “He won’t be long.”

He spun around, muttering to his chattering goon, “Take her.”

Michelle shuffled back, “What—”

The man sped over, manhandling Morgan, attempting to drag her out of Michelle’s reach.

“Mimi—” Morgan tripped to keep a grip on Michelle’s shoulders, “Mimi!” 

“No—” Michelle pleaded, “No, Morgan!” The taller man grabbed Michelle’s flailing arms, holding her back, “Let me go! Morgan!”

Morgan kicked and screamed, “Mimi—"

Michelle turned her attention to Gargan, “Look do whatever the fuck you want to me, Gargan!” She yelled, “Just don’t touch her.”

“You’re not making the decisions here, Missus.” He tutted, “I am. If you don’t want accidents to happen, then you’re going to have to listen to me, and so is she.”

Michelle erupted, “She’s five!”

“I don’t care.”

Michelle slowed her breathing, “Morgan—”

Morgan sobbed, “Mimi…”

“Look at me.” She hushed, “You’ve gotta stay still—”

“—I’m scared.”

Michelle stopped fighting the grip around her, “I know, but you’ve got to be super quiet.”

Morgan stilled, “I’ll try.”

“Good.”

“See. That wasn’t too hard.” Gargan nodded, to his men, “You know what to do.”

Morgan was marched over, to the far left of the roof, near the edge.

Michelle was taken the same way, leaving a good, eight meters, between them.

A heavy thump cut through the silence, nearby.

Gargan ran to the edge, peering over, “Oooh...” He twisted, rubbing his palms together, “We’ve got company.”

Michelle bowed her head, “Oh, Peter.”

Peter leaped over, clearly jumping over from the building opposite, he landed, down on his knee.

Gargan brought his hands together, in a singular clap. “10 out of 10 for effort, but the landing was a solid 4 out of ten 10.”

Peter stepped up, with a look, in his eyes, that Michelle had never seen before.

The fury written across his face should have been enough to make Gargan falter, but he stood, strong.

Morgan cried out, “Petey!”

Peter’s eyes widened, “Stop this…” He snarled, in Gargan’s direction.

“No.” Gargan held out a hand, “Backpack now.”  

Peter swung it off, tossing it over.

Gargan caught it, with ease, “And the rest.”

Peter shrugged, “I’ve got nothing else.” His poker face wasn’t half bad, but Michelle knew him too well.

Gargan raised his hand.

Morgan’s shriek tore through Michelle’s head, she turned, “Morgan!”

The guard was dangling Morgan, over the edge.

Unconsciously, Michelle stepped aside, but stopped, when something cold was pressed against her temple.

Peter’s face contorted, “Stop!”

Gargan took out his gun, pointing it in Peter’s direction, “The rest.”

“Okay…” Peter removed his web-shooters, throwing them aside, with shaking hands, “Okay.”

“Good boy.”

The gun, against Michelle’s head, was lowered, and in the corner of her eyes, she watched as Morgan was pulled back.

Morgan’s voice broke, “Petey!”

“It’s okay, M.,” Peter said gently, “I’m here now, everything’s gonna be alright.”

“Oh, don’t lie to her.” Gargan mocked, “That’s just mean. I’ve been waiting for this day.” He kept his gun raised, “I’ve wanted to kill you, for some time, but then, Thanos beat me to it. How envious I was. Now, you’re back, and I get to do it again! I could tear you apart, limb by limb, or perhaps, drown you, on the same route the ferry was that day.”

“I take full responsibility for what happened on the ferry.” Peter threw his hands out, “But this has nothing to do with them!”

“Oh, yes it does.” Gargan took a step closer, “Because, I’ve had time to study you, Peter Parker, and if I’m right, killing you, will never be enough.”

Michelle closed her eyes, she knew exactly where this was heading.

The guard’s arm tightened around her front, and she was dragged up, off the ground, her feet scraped across the surrounding wall.

She couldn’t help but look, at the drop that awaited her.

One firm push and she’d be gone.

Morgan was in the same position, and her panicked screams would haunt Michelle, no matter what happened next.

“No!” Peter shook his head frantically, “Stop this, I’ll do anything!”

Gargan let out a harsh whisper, “Choose.”

Michelle’s eyes were on Peter.

He was acting strong, but it was all a front, inside he was crumbling.

Peter’s voice wavered, “What?”

“Choose which one dies, or both of them will.” Gargan held a hand back, “Your mentor’s daughter or the girl of your dreams.”

“Kill me!” Peter cried, with zero hesitation, “Kill me and be done with it!” Peter’s chest, rose and fell, with rapid breaths, “Please…”

Michelle hated that Peter thought laying down his life was the ‘fix’ to the situation.

Gargan shook his head, “That’s not the decision I gave you.”

Peter thumped his fist off his chest, “Please, I’ll do anything!”

Gargan looked at his watch, “It’s their time you’re wasting.”

Peter lunged forward, pushing Gargan’s chest, “You can’t do this!”

It dawned on Michelle, later than it should have.

Peter wasn’t only fighting, he was stalling.

Michelle had spent months getting to know Peter’s family, and surprisingly, they’d become part of hers too, even Tony Stark.

Of course, they were coming.

A dark thought crossed her mind.

She knew they’d speed over, as fast as possible, but there was a chance, it wouldn’t be enough.

She was being held, off the edge of a roof, with Morgan.

They didn’t have time.

Gargan pushed Peter back, “Both of them?!”

Peter retched, a hand on his stomach, “No!”

“Then pick!”

“Please, please, I’m begging you.” Peter’s throat cracked, “Take me instead, kill me, torture me, I don’t care!”

“You’re keen.” Gargan chuckled, “They must really mean the world to you.”

A pause.

“Choose.”

“—Stop!”

“Choose!”

Michelle coaxed, ignoring the drop below, “Peter—”

Peter ignored her, “Please!”

She tried again, louder, “Peter!”

He darted his eyes over but looked down.

“Peter, look at me.” She begged, “Hey, loser! Look at me, please!”

Tears welled in his eyes, “MJ—"

She softened her voice, “Listen.”

He shook his head.

She calmed her voice, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not—"

“It is.” She nodded slowly, “It has to be.”

Peter tilted his head to his shoulder as a sob tore through him.

“I love you—” She stammered, “More than you know—”

“I—” Peter pressed a hand to his chest, “I love you, too.”

Gargan waved his gun around, “Ah, young love.”

Michelle’s breath caught, “No—"

“Shut up!” Peter clenched his fist, “This is—”

“Peter!” She cut in, “Stop, just—just look at me, nothing else—” She stammered, “Nothing else, just me.”

“MJ—"

“It’s not your fault, any of it.”

Peter’s shoulder slumped, he momentarily looked to the skies, for a miracle, but he looked back to her.

“Let me go—” She managed a weak smile, for him, “Please.”

Peter nodded slowly, his eyes locked onto her.

“So…” Gargan trailed off, “Who will it be?”

Peter muttered, with a cry, “MJ.”

Gargan tapped the back of his ear, “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

Peter gasped, “Michelle.”

Michelle’s feet raised, off the wall, and before she knew, she was falling – she didn’t expect it, to be so fast.

She never hit the ground.

Strong metallic arms looped around her, “What?” She looked, but there was nothing there, despite being able to feel it.

Tony’s familiar voice spoke up, “Need a lift?”

“Stark?”

The familiar red and gold flared into view, as Tony’s suit became visible, “The one and only.” He flew down, guiding her down onto the sidewalk, he retracted his mask, “You okay?” He asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“I think so, how—” She studied, “How did you do that?”

“Retroreflective panels, Harley’s idea.” He said, “Pretty neat.”

“Yeah…”

“Still got a few bugs.” He shrugged, “It works better with planes.”

She stepped forward, throwing herself around him, in a hug.

“Oh!” He curled an arm, around her.

She stepped back, “Sorry—That was—"

“You were thrown off a roof.”

“I was—” She yelped, “Oh, My—They’re gonna—They’re gonna think I’m dead.”

“Not for very much longer.” He pointed, “Rhodey’s got a clear shot.”

Michelle whispered, “He made him choose.”

“What?”

She peered up, “It’s Gargan…”

Tony’s cheeks turned grey, “Oh…”

“He made Peter choose, between me…and—”

“Morgan?”

“I had—I had to convince him—” She blurted, “To—choose me.”

Tony sighed heavily.

“He was fighting against the whole thing—” She explained breathlessly, “But, but it had to me, Morgan is wor-“

“Let me stop you right there.” He cut in, “This isn’t about worth, MJ.”

“It had to be me.”

“No. It shouldn’t have been an option, in the first place.” Tony squeezed his hand around her arm, “If you hadn’t convinced Peter, to choose you – he would have fought against it until the inevitable happened. Do you realize how incredibly brave that was, of you?”

“I guess.”

“You saved Morgan, and you knew where that was going to lead you.”

“I had to—” She sniffled, “I love her, and Peter, he’s just..”

“You and Morgan, mean more than the world to him." 

“I know.” Michelle fumbled with her hands, “Can you take me up?” She asked, teary-eyed, “I—I need to see him.”

“Of course.” He stepped forward, locking his arms around her, “Hold on.” They flew up, fast. It wasn’t a fun experience, but it was less vomit-inducing than swinging with Peter.

Michelle could see Peter, knelt on the ground, cradling Morgan, in his arms.

Gargan’s goons were unconscious, laid face-first, with their arms sprayed behind them.

Rhodey was standing, his gauntlet raised in Gargan’s direction.

Gargan's smirk dropped, as soon as he set eyes on Michelle. 

Peter didn’t look up, his face was tucked against Morgan’s shoulder.

Tony touched down, carefully helping Michelle onto her feet.

Morgan lifted her chin, she hiccupped, “Mimi?”

Peter sat up straight, to see, his throat cracked, “I—” His lower lip trembled, and his words were lost.

Morgan leaped out of his arms, “Daddy!”

Tony retracted his armor, catching her mid-run and hoisting her up, into his arms, “Oh, Thank God.”

Michelle swayed forward, uneasy on her feet.

Peter gradually got up, into a standing position, he stared at her.

She sprinted forward and crashed into his chest, tangling her arms behind his back, cradling him close.

“You’re—” He nestled his face against her shoulder, “You’re not—"

“I’m here, I’m okay.” She ran her hands, up and down his back, “I’m alive, nothing happened—"

He sank, in her hold, “I’m so sorry—"

“You did the right thing.” She stood back, laying her hand on his cheek, “I promise, you did.” She nodded, “I love you, so much—"

“I love you.” He pulled her back in, “I never want—”

She shushed him, “We’re okay.”

[mileycyprus-hill]

Chpt 1, Chpt 2, Chpt 3, Chpt 4, Chpt 5

Also can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218607/chapters/58951003

Thank you to @oodanijadeoo​ for beta-reading this chapter and giving such great, constructive feedback! 

Chapter 6

You leave the apartment above Dr. Birner’s office with reluctance, thinking back to that brief period you were recuperating. You were in a peaceful limbo. No worries, no anxious thoughts of the future. For one week, you lied there with your infant son, living in the moment. You basked in his cherubic glory and thought of nothing else. For all you knew, there was nothing beyond those four walls. Just you and Isaiah.

And it was perfect.

You remember feeling Arthur’s eyes on you. He’d visit once a day at the apartment and spend a few nights on the floor of your room, despite your small protests. While holding Isaiah in his arms after his feeding, you’d catch that particular look Arthur gave you. It was a look of uncertainty; a question begging to be asked.

That question tortures you both.

He didn’t want to ask it and you didn’t want to hear it, but you both knew it had to be said.

Now, you finally have the strength to walk and ride in the jostling wagon without pain. The reality of your situation soon returns as you lie in the wagon. Leaning back on the mattress that comfortably lines the bed of the wagon, you look over to Susan who sits by your side. She holds your infant son in the swaddle of a soft wool blanket, gently caressing his cheek with her index finger.

It’s not often you get to see Susan grow soft like this. Her life has been ridden hard and rough and it often shows in her moods. One can hardly blame her. She’s proven she’s come out of it stronger and more alive than any other woman on earth.

You envy her strength.

Swaying with the rolling wagon wheels on the trail, you replay the conversations in your head: Dutch, Arthur, Dr. Birner. All of them asking for a decision. All of them telling you what’s best.

Can any decision be the right decision? You wonder.

.…

Arthur has become an enigma to you in these passing days, you realize. He often gives Isaiah attention and offers help whenever he can. But something deep down inside you gives you this cynical notion that he’s saving himself up. That he’s only doing these things and acting paternal to get you to trust him.

He’s going to have to play his cards soon, and he needs an ace.

You try to shake these thoughts away, but they soon return whenever Dutch checks on you both on numerous occasions.

“Has a decision been made between you two?” He would ask.

His check-ins are a now weekly occurrence. So often that you now avoid crossing his path so he won’t have a chance to bring it up.

You hope you could reply ‘no’ long enough that he’d soon give up. You’re too fearful to say what you truly want. And you know Dutch is not one to forget or give up.

But you truly hope this time he would.

However, you forget the one person Dutch could still corner and persuade to change this whole situation.

Arthur.

…

It’s three months to the day of Isaiah’s birth and you worry if you can finally breathe. You hope to continue with the routine of a child in the gang now that it’s been long enough; allow the members of the gang to grow attached. Little Isaiah grows stronger and more lovable each day. Even John has taken a liking to him. He approaches you and Isaiah sitting underneath a shady lean-to. You sit cross-legged on the blanket while supporting Isaiah in your hands. His little back lays on your forearms, with his soft head resting in your palms. The ruffled hem of his crisp, white baby gown cascades down your arm. The sun was so warm before you retreated to the shade. Through the light cotton, you can still feel a little sweat on his back from the desert heat.

“Can I hold him?” John asks meekly. He slowly drops to his knees before you and watches Isaiah curiously.

Looking up at John, you reply, “Sure. Make sure to support his neck, and watch his head.”

You adjust your baby in your arms and carefully transfer him to John, who fearfully holds him like holding a wounded animal. John keeps an elbow awkwardly high to support Isaiah’s head and you hold back a chuckle at the sight of him. The corner of his lip upturns into a nervous smile.

He catches you grinning at him and his face turns sour.

“What’s so funny?” He asks defensively.

You reply genuinely, “Nothing. Just…you look cute together.”

You watch as Isaiah babbles and attempts to grab at the strange young man holding him. His chubby legs kick and kick with such energy and excitement of seeing a new person.

John scoffs at your remark and opens his mouth to retort. Though he’s quickly distracted by Isaiah wiggling in his arms and he grows nervous at keeping him still.

“Uhhh,” John groans uncomfortably. “I think..oh shit, I’m gonna drop him.”

You giggle and quickly relieve John of his anxiety, fluidly scooping Isaiah from his stiff arms into yours. Isaiah babbles and squeals in your arms, testing his voice with his high pitches. The soothing rocking of your arms and the heat of the air settles his excitement and he soon grows weary.

For several minutes, you and John watch his eyelids slowly fall and rise every couple of seconds as he jerks himself awake, kicking a leg and trying his hardest not to sleep. He’d attempt this a few times until he could no longer fight it. The warmth and comfort of your body allows him to relax and finally sleep in your arms.

John sits cross-legged in front of you in silence, watching Isaiah fall into a deep sleep. He watches his little stubby fingers attempt to grip at your forearm tightly before relaxing. Moving his gaze up to your face, John notices your smile is gone and replaced with a forlorn look.

He asks quietly, “What’s wrong?”

The heavy weight of guilt grows in your chest and you lift your head with glassy eyes. As you break your attention away from Isaiah to John, your chin quivers and a rogue tear slides down your cheek. With a shaky breath, you answer.

“I’m afraid,” You say with a cracked voice. “I thought everything would be better once he’d be born but, I feel trapped.”

John looks to you with understanding. For the past few months, he’s watched you and Arthur struggle against each other. He had secretly grown proud of how strong you kept yourself under Arthur and Dutch’s pressure. He knows Arthur’s only reciting what Dutch tells him, never thinking for himself and that aggravates John. He thinks himself far younger than Arthur and yet so much more headstrong and independent. John had been watching you struggle with your options in silence and he worries you’ll choose one you’ll regret.

This is his opportunity to tell you what he thinks.

He attempts to console you, speaking quietly and honestly.

“Everyone loves him, (Y/N). I can see that.” He says.

Another tear escapes your eye, painting your cheek.

“It don’t seem to matter how much everyone loves him,” you croak. “What matters is what Dutch thinks and what kind of life he should have.”

“But your life’s been better since you joined. And mine. And Arthur’s!” John exclaims in a hush. “Don’t you think? What makes ‘im think we can’t give him the best life with us?”

John points to Isaiah who remains unstirred in your arms.

“Because we’re criminals, John.” You say with dread, letting Dutch’s repeated lectures finally sink in.

“And who’s to say I won’t resent him later on? Treat him like my parents did me?”

Those last words tear into your heart like a jagged blade. Who’s to say you won’t inherit your parents awful temperament towards your child? Will you truly love him as he grows, or will you see him as just a mistake that took your freedom away?

John’s words grow heated in response to your self deprecation.

“Cause you’re not them, (Y/N),” he hisses through his teeth in frustration, “You’re better than them. I know you love Isaiah. Because if you didn’t, you’d leave him the first chance you get.”

He speaks bitterly in remembrance of his own childhood. The grief from loss and abandonment is all too familiar to him. He stares at Isaiah with his dark eyes glowing in a mix of resentment and woe. He knows from experience that little Isaiah is too fragile to live and grow without the love of a mother. Or a father.

“Just promise me one thing, will ya?” He asks, his own voice cracked and quiet.

Staying silent, you look into his eyes and nod.

“Don’t send him to an orphanage…please. Find him a family. A good one.” He confides solemnly. His head droops low and he lightly fumbles with the tip of his boot.

“Of course, John…” You assure him.

With his head still held low, John reaches forward and grasps at Isaiah’s hand. He holds the tiny hand in between his thumb and index finger, rubbing at the top of Isaiah’s hand with his thumb. Isaiah remains asleep while he curls his little fingers over John’s finger, holding onto him tightly.

“I promise.” You whimper through quiet tears.

…

The sun is dropping from its high noon perch and its heat begins to cool into the late afternoon. You stand by the food wagon, behind the work table with a variety of vegetables laid before you. Carrots and parsnips in orange, purple and white and fresh, crisp celery lay in bright contrast against the dark and scratched wooden table.

Your heart remains sunken from your gloomy exchange with John, and the mundane task of prepping supper has left your mind open to racing thoughts of what-if’s and should-I’s.

You barely hear the familiar footsteps belonging to the one who shares those thoughts with you. Both of your minds are unknowingly linked with troubled ruminations. The heavy strides step forward to you while your head remains low and your eyes focused on the rations before you. The tip of his boots come into view at the corner of your eyes, but you don’t react.

“(Y/N),” Arthur greets with hesitation, “We need to talk.”

“About what?” You ask, sensing his mood and growing on edge.

You already know what he wants to talk about, but you want to hear him say it. You want him to reflect on the terrible request before speaking.

Arthur fidgets with a carrot on the wooden table, rolling it back and forth on the un-level surface with his dirty hands. The speed of the rolls grow with your mutual irritance. He feels the tips of his ears flushing red. This decision hurts him too, but he hopes to make it quick before it can get worse. Never has he made such a paramount decision like this. The life he was thrust into at a young age taught him to react, to not waste time with decisions of morality, only survival.

In the past several years, he often left these choices to Dutch, because the man would take it upon himself to do so. This was something that Arthur had grown used to. Something he trusted.

Leave it to me, son. I’ll think of something. Dutch’s words echo in Arthur’s ears.

But how can Arthur tell you? Standing before him with a knife in your hands, how can he tell you that while he doesn’t like it either, it’s actually for the best?

The knife in your hand hits against the cutting board a little harder with each slice.

Watching you carefully, Arthur speaks, “I wanna talk about us.”

You involuntarily crease your eyebrows in confusion, your eyes squinting and still focusing on the vegetables. The smell of boiling beef stock in the pot next to you would’ve made you sick just a few months ago before Isaiah was born, but you’re too irritated to care now.

Neither of you wanted to cross this road again. But there’s only so many detours you can take before you reach the fork again.

Your voice slices into him like the knife through the carrot, which you snatch from his light grip.

“What makes you think there’s an ‘us’?” You say bitterly. Your tone is a little more than a hurried breath, but is loud in your heart.

Ignoring your bite, Arthur rests his hands on the table and leans his weight forward on them. He drops his chin low, watching your hands work quickly in repetitive movements.

“I wanna know what your plan is. For Isaiah.” He says.

The knife stops in your hand and your grip tightens against the handle.

“It’s too early, Arthur. He’s only three months old yet.” You say, steadying the frightened tremble in your voice.

He leans himself further over the table, bringing his face closer to yours but you keep your gaze low to the chopped vegetables, only feeling his breath on your forehead as he speaks.

“I know, but when? The longer we wait, the harder it’s gonna be.” Arthur speaks in a distinct whisper, meant for your ears only and no other.

If your thoughts hadn’t been racing, you could’ve detected the fear and reluctance in his voice as he spoke. You could’ve noticed the tremors in his hands and fingers, left empty to tremble in fear without an item to fidget with. You could’ve seen the tension in his broad shoulders growing stiff at the emotional weight that bears down on them.

“I don’t know when, Arthur.” You spit, “I can’t think with everyone breathing down my neck like this.”

“But you ain’t alone—“

“Oh, I ain’t?” You finally draw your gaze to him and stare into his eyes with a painful glare. “I don’t think you understand. You may be his father but, in the end it’s my decision to make. Not anyone else’s, regardless of what they think.”

“Just lemme help,” Arthur pleads.

“I think you’ve done enough,” you reply bitterly, “You’re a father now, Arthur. Start actin’ like one.”

Your words flood his ears and leave an awful dry pit in the back of his throat. He remains silent, allowing your statement to pierce him and the venom to fill his veins. It makes its way to his heart, filling it in each painful contraction.

You finish your harsh words, “Now leave me alone.”

Arthur complies and turns away. He takes his first step to leave before stopping himself.

With a slight pivot of his head, he utters, “Y’know, you keep this up and soon you will be alone with no one else to blame but yerself.”

…

Three weeks pass and you refuse to start the conversation again, despite Arthur’s pressing. Deep down you wonder, is it selfish of you to want to keep Isaiah? To keep Arthur tied to you this way?

You would never try to keep Arthur leashed to camp like a dog; to hold him hostage in a false sense of domesticity. You’re more than willing to raise this child on your own. Even if Arthur had this sudden change of heart and wanted to be rid of his mistake. You at least, are mature enough to step up to the plate, you tell yourself.

It’s been a few days since you’ve seen Arthur and John. They had been sent by Hosea to follow a tip about a train carrying payroll for a silver mine. After your argument with Arthur, you found yourself distancing from him again. Which you hated and it caused you much pain, but you forced yourself to; to avoid hurting Arthur again with such unkind words.

Laying Isaiah down to bed in your tent, you step out to walk across camp, towards Hosea’s tent. You see him sitting in his chair in front of his large tent, reading a book like always. An oil lamp sits beside him on a small table, cascading him in a soft, golden glow. Your thoughts remained troubled lately, and you hope Hosea would preach some wise words to calm your worries.

You hear hushed voices from behind one of the supply wagons and slow your pace, eyes slowly peering to the covered wagon. You stop with your feet planted when you recognize them.

“She’s still nursing, Dutch.” A voice whispers. Miss Grimshaw. “It’s too early to separate them.” She says. You detect apprehension in her tone.

“I know that Susan. But think about this. We’re getting too comfortable here and the law is startin’ to notice. We’ve got to move now, and we can’t travel with a baby. It’s too dangerous.” A deep, authoritative voice persuades.

Dutch.

He continues, “She needs to think about that. We need to think about the rest of the gang. We can’t afford any distractions.”

“But—“

“No. Exceptions cannot be afforded now. This is the safest option…for everyone.”

“And Arthur?”

A pause lingers.

“He’ll understand.”

Stepping swiftly and quietly, you turn to retreat to your tent. Closing the flaps of the entrance, you sob quietly into your hands. A few short cries are muffled by your palms. Your heart hammers in your chest and its beats roar loudly in your ears. After a moment, you release yourself with a deep, shaky breath.

We’re leaving? No, no, no, no. Not now. Not right now.

This can’t be happening.

Your cot gently creaks as you lie on your side and watch Isaiah. He sleeps soundly and unstirred in the little bassinet next to you. Earlier this week, you were persuaded by Hosea to have your tent moved closer to Arthur’s instead of near the perimeter, away from everyone else. Even though you were oblivious, Hosea could see the wanting in Arthur’s eyes as he watched you and Isaiah together. Arthur wants to help. He truly does. Unfortunately, you were blind to it.

“Closer to his father,” Hosea’s words repeat in your thoughts. “Make him get up with you when Isaiah wakes in the middle of the night. Don’t think you gotta do this all by yourself.”

A swirl of voices and past conversations enter and exit your anxious mind. You try so hard to silence them, but they break through the door of your conscience and demand to be heard.

Before long, the demanding voices exhaust you and you fall into a troubled sleep.

You’re walking along a red sand beach. The grains of sand give under your weight and hold onto the shapes of your feet and toes. The tide is low and the dry beach stretches out for miles towards the horizon. The cold white caps of the sea lap gently in the distance. The sky is bleak and gray, and the cold air bites at your exposed skin. You move to draw your shawl closer, but find you’re wearing only a thin, white nightgown made of silk. You find yourself standing alone in the middle of the dry ocean bed, the growing tide laps at your feet. Looking down at your bare feet in the sand, you see your pregnant belly. It’s so large, you can barely see your toes.

A voice calls behind you. It sounds so far away and distorted, you can barely make it out. You want to turn to see who’s calling, but you’re stuck facing the horizon.

Your body feels like it’s stuck in a vat of molasses. Every movement of your muscles is slowed and you’re snapped back to your original stance when you try to break its grip. The unidentifiable hold on you is forcing you to watch the growing tide as the water rises higher and higher. The voice behind you grows louder and louder, its call becoming clearer. It’s a familiar voice shouting your name, and it begs you to return to shore. You desperately want to run to the voice, to be wrapped in its warm embrace, its rich timbre filling your ears, but the hold on you refuses to break.

A white-capped wave rolls towards you, high as the cliffs behind you. The sound of the approaching wave is deafening, like an oncoming train. It muffles the screams and hollers of the voice behind you. You’re knocked back as the wave crashes into you like a wall of stone. A sudden pain jolts like an electric current in your stomach, and something slips out between your legs. You move to grab it with both hands, but it slips out of your grip. Still submerged in the dark waters, you open your eyes and see Isaiah sinking below you. His cries echo in the water. You try to scream his name, but the water fills your lungs and no sound can escape your throat. Swimming further and further down to catch him, he slips out of your grip and you find he’s sinking so much faster.

Reaching your hand out, he seems so close. Just a little more and you can grab his heel. A rough hand grips at your arm, pulling you up towards the surface, away from your baby. You claw at its grip, but it’s holding you so tightly that it digs painfully deep into your muscles and bone. Gold rings adorn the fingers of the hand, with coarse black hair on its knuckles. Screaming and thrashing, you bite and claw at the hand, but its burning grip doesn’t give. Looking back down into the abyss, you can faintly see a speck of your infant child, sinking further down. His cries are still loud in your ears, amplified in the water.

Suddenly, the hand pulls and you break the surface with a deep gasp.

“No!” You cry, throwing your hands up and swinging wildly. Your palm makes contact with warm skin, and you feel a slight sting in your hand as you slap whoever’s holding you.

A booming voice curses above you, “Dammit!”

Opening your tear-filled eyes, you see Dutch holding a hand to his temple, rising up off his knees and angrily walking out of your tent. Bewildered, you look around your cramped tent and see Miss Grimshaw kneeling by your cot, trying to calm you down with sweet words. She shushes you and holds your head in her hands, your hair feels wet with sweat against her gentle fingers.

You notice the bassinet beside her is empty and you nearly leap off your cot, trying to push Miss Grimshaw away.

“Where is he?” You frantically ask, “Where’s Isaiah?”

Miss Grimshaw raises her hands up, “He’s fine, (Y/N). Arthur’s got him.”

“Why?” You ask, nearly crying in fear. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Grimshaw answers, “It’s okay. He’s okay. You were just having a nightmare, sweetie.”

Your chest heaves in panic. The images of your nightmare are still vivid in every blink of your eyelids. You struggle to stay standing as you become dizzy, raising a hand to your head.

Miss Grimshaw takes notice and lightly wraps her arms around you.

“It’s alright. Everything’s alright.” She soothes. “Let’s just lie back down. Hmm?”

Suddenly, a sputtered cry comes from outside your tent. Instinctively, you move to run to the source of the sound, until Grimshaw holds you back.

“It’s alright dear. You just rest now…I’ll go get ‘em.” She reassures you.

Your anxious breathing refuses to subside until Arthur steps in with Isaiah in his arms. He’s cozily wrapped in his white cotton blanket, hungrily fussing in Arthur’s thick arms. You reach out and silently ask for your child, to which Arthur grants. He seamlessly transfers little Isaiah from his arms to yours.

Grateful for the familiar weight in your arms, your panic finally begins to subside. Tears roll down your cheeks and you hold back a sob, kissing Isaiah’s warm forehead.

He continues to fuss and cry until you unbutton the front of your nightgown and drop a shoulder to draw him to your exposed breast. You notice Arthur shift uncomfortably at the sight and move to exit your tent.

“Wait, Arthur. It’s ok.” You stop him.

Standing by the entrance, he looks to you and asks, “You sure?”

You nod and pat the empty spot beside you with your free arm. Arthur still hesitates.

“It’s not like you haven’t seen them before.” You remind him.

Arthur gives a tense shrug and responds, “I know but, this is different.”

“Please, Arthur?”

Arthur nods and sits besides you with a tense sigh. He looks over and watches his son suckle at your breast with his tiny yet plump lips. Isaiah’s eyes close while you and Arthur hear the occasional breath through his little nose as he greedily feeds off your nipple.

You finally look over to Arthur and whisper, “Did I wake everyone up?”

Embarrassed for you, Arthur nods and runs his fingers through his thick hair.

“Yeah…guess you had a bad dream. Isaiah was cryin’ and Dutch and Grimshaw were tryin’ to wake you up. All of a sudden, I’m standin’ outside with ’im and I hear you give Dutch a big slap.”

He wraps an arm behind you and rubs his hand on your shoulder. With a small chuckle, he says, “Ain’t seen him get that red in a while. You musta hit him pretty good.”

Wiping the lingering tears from your eyes with your free hand, you smile, “Yeah. My hand still kind of stings.”

Arthur shifts closer to you, wrapping a corner of Isaiah’s blanket over his little bare feet.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks gently, hoping to ease the tension.

Normally, you had come to Arthur to talk of your dreams or nightmares. He enjoyed deciphering them with you, figuring out what they could mean or what would cause them. But the image of your baby sinking into the black waters makes your heart feel like it was pierced with hot iron. You want to erase it from your mind.

Blinking away a stray tear, you answer, “No. I just wanna forget about it…Will you stay with me though?”

You feel so pitiful in asking, but you’re afraid to go back to sleep. You don’t want to return to that red beach.

You look into Arthur’s tired eyes and silently plead. He grasps your free hand beside him and looks over to Isaiah, whose lips have now released your nipple and remain agape as he sleeps soundly. Arthur nods and offers to take Isaiah from your arms. He gingerly places him in the bassinet while you button up your nightgown. Returning to your cot, he lays behind you and pulls you close. His warm arm wraps around you and he holds your hand in his, intertwining his fingers in yours. He slips his other arm beneath your neck, offering it as a pillow. You let out a shaky breath and allow Arthur’s warmth envelope you. His hot breath upon the back of your neck soon lulls you back into a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

The morning sun has not yet risen as you wake. Through the crack of your tent flaps, the sky is barely lightened to an early morning hue of sapphire, cascading everything on earth with its deep color. Leaving Arthur and Isaiah to sleep behind you, you quietly step through the canvas entrance of your remaining solitude. An unease remains buried in your heart from last night as you step back out to the outside world.

A decision has to be made. Today.

[womanlives]

Mercy’s shaving her legs in the bathroom when the hitman strikes.

Normally it’d be impossible to sneak up this close on her without her noticing. But she’s singing along, surprisingly on-key, in words that aren’t really words at all. And her Bluetooth speaker broke last week when she knocked it off the bed trying to fuck someone. Which means she’s got airpods in.

BlackPINK in your areeYUH —

Maybe this is the part where there’s supposed to be exposition. Who’s this hitman? Why’s he here? Does he have a family, maybe? How did he know where to find her? What the fuck did she do? Not important. Here’s what is: he’s got a Bowie knife, a garotte wire, and a gun. All she’s got is a fucking Bic razor.

He doesn’t want to make a mess, so he goes for the garotte wire first. He’s smart, so he waits outside the half-open bathroom door until she’s busy with her left knee. Trouble spot. She can’t watch the mirror and the razor at the same time. Not yet. Not yet. Mercy looks down. A little bead of blood wells up where the razor nicked her.  “Ah, fuck,” she says.

Go.

The door bursts inwards. Hitman bursts in with it, wire out. His black gloves don’t gleam in fluorescents of the bathroom lights. They’re too worn and chipped from use for that. The garotte wire does, though. It sparkles as he tackles Mercy from behind and goes for the neck. The bass in her ears screams.

H-HOW YOU LIKE THAT!

He’s good, but so is she. Soon as there’s unexpected motion in her periphery, she’s moving. There’s no room to get away, but that’s okay. Escaping isn’t really the priority here. She just needs to stay alive. Mercy jerks to the side and — here’s the important part — instinctively juts her chin to her neck, trying to protect her vitals. This is what saves her life. The garotte wire that’s meant for her neck catches her in the nose instead. One of her airpods pops out as Hitman jerks her backwards off her feet, trying to get his wire underneath her neck. She’s ready for it this time. Her mouth opens and the wire catches her between the teeth instead. Mercy screams. It’s more angry than hurt. Like a pissed-off hawk with its tailfeathers on fire.

Ever tried to wrangle a hawk with its talons out? Give it a go.

For a second, Hitman’s got the upper hand. He’s strong. The garotte wire’s pressed tight to her skin, biting into the corners of her lips. Mercy bites down hard on it, trying to alleviate some of the pressure. She tastes blood. She hasn’t stopped screaming. Hitman swings her around again, trying to find a position with better leverage. They’re facing the mirror again: his face dispassionate, hers furious, both half-obscured by the fog and steam. He steps forward on the airpod that dropped. There’s a crunch.

No time to think. Mercy shifts the grip on her razor and, gauging Hitman’s approximate height in the mirror, lashes out in a two-pronged assault. First: a cut right over his left eye. Second: a mulish kick right in the dick.

YOU GON’ LIKE THAT, DA-DA-DA, DA, DA-DA-DA! DA —

He doesn’t. He roars, jerking his head away from the razor she’s got level with his eyes. It’s not much, but it’s enough. His weight shifts and Mercy lunges forward with a sharp twist of her head, garotte in teeth. It gives her just enough space to fit her free hand around the wire, and she pulls with everything she’s got. The wire bites hungrily into her palm. There’s a burst of pain, but it recedes in an instant, taking shotgun to adrenaline. She’d rather it take off her hand than her head, so she forces herself through it. Forces more space. Scrapes it over her forehead, through her hair, and slips it free.

Hitman isn’t expecting it, so he goes reeling back once his momentum is all his own again. So does she. He hits the shower door; she hits the counter. Subtlety’s out the window, now. Hitman lifts his gun, and fires. Mercy ducks down just in time. There’s a crack from behind her as the mirror explodes into glittering, jagged shards. A couple of them glance off Mercy’s bare back. Insignificant. The scars they’ll leave just get lost in the already-depthless crowd. She looks down. A large, wicked edge of mirror hits the floor about a foot and a half to the right. And Hitman’s already taking aim again. Bada-bing, bada-boom-boom-boom —

Mercy rips off her towel and throws it right at his face. She dives to the ground just as another series of shots go off. He misses; her aim is good, and the towel’s thick and heavy. Even though he ducks out of the way, it still obscures his vision long enough to give Mercy the precious second she needs to get out of his sights. The tile’s slick from built-up condensation and steam. She slips a little but keeps moving. She counts the booms in her head. There’s a glancing pain through her right calf after one. Graze wound. No time to look. She doesn’t stop until she’s up to six. Time for you to reload, you fuck.

NOW LOOK AT YOU, NOW LOOK AT ME —

He opts not to, tossing the empty gun aside and pulling out the Bowie knife instead. Plan C. Smart. He goes for a reload, he dies. Because she’s on her feet now, naked and bleeding and furious. There’s a shard of glass gripped carefully but firmly in her left hand. Mercy takes a half step forward. Her makeshift shiv catches the light. It gleams. This isn’t good for her. In a knife fight, you don’t want your weapon attracting attention. In a knife fight, he’s got the upper hand. And he knows it.

LOOK AT YOU, NOW LOOK AT ME —

Hitman extends his Bowie knife out in front of him, other hand positioned slightly back, and shifts his weight forward. A classic knife stance. Mercy drops into a crouch, shard out. It’s a knife fight, then.

He lunges.

Mercy sidesteps and jams the smaller shard of mirror she hid in her other hand up into the muscle where his arm meets his shoulder. She grins. Just kidding.

To his credit, Hitman doesn’t scream. He’s good at this. He’s immediately thinking of his next move, which is to turn towards her and finish her off with one good stab. That’s all it takes in a knife fight. It would’ve been a good move, too, if she hadn’t just fucked up the ligatures of his arm. If she wasn’t still fucking up the ligatures of his arm, because she’s not done yet. He’s good at this. She’s just better. 

The large shard is abandoned on the floor. Mercy holds his arm firmly in place and slashes and stabs as many times as she can in the span of one heartbeat. The smaller shard of mirror flashes left, then right. Severs the tendons on his wrist. Punctures him, over and over, above and below the elbow. Hitman’s knife drops from nerveless fingers. His other hand — his good hand — flies up to protect his body from the rest of her assault. She’s half-holding, half-clinging to him. Like some wild animal. She feels the moment where his balance is shifting, and she shoves.

His right temple hits the edge of the shower door handle, hard. He crumples to the floor, dazed, staring up at her with dilating brown eyes. The muscles on his face twitch. He tries to form words.

NOW LOOK AT ME —

It’s dispassionate and quick after that. Mercy’s got his garotte wire in her hands. Not her favorite tool to use because it’s a shit way to die and it takes too long. But she’s pissed and hurting and her mouth is full of blood. She spits it in his eyes, straddles his chest, and wraps the cord around his neck. Pulls. That’s all it takes. She’s with him as he dies, the whole way. They look into each other’s eyes. He deserves it.

Hitman stops looking. Mercy slumps forward. She digs the other airpod out of her ear and tosses it on the floor. There’s a tinny echo.

HOW YOU LIKE THAT?

She picks up her razor and goes back to shaving her legs.

[masterjedilenawrites]

The Helmeted Hunter: Chapter 26

Boba Fett x Reader

Chapter Warnings: N/A

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

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Chapter 26: You’ll See (Reprise)

The perplexed look on your face made Krennic laugh some more. He was having entirely too much fun, reveling in your confusion, and it was starting to piss you off. You were about to abandon your plan of being cooperative so you could indulge in yelling at this man instead, but he spoke before you could.

"In the meantime," he said, nodding at the food in front of you, "have a bite to eat. I'm sure these bounty hunters don't serve proper meals to their quarry."

You looked down at your plate full of colorful vegetables and meat and bread and silently agreed; you hadn't had a proper meal in a long time. Boba only kept rations on his ship that were meant to be purely nutritional but tasted rather like cardboard. Your stomach gave an involuntary growl, and having no reason to believe the Empire would want to poison you after all the trouble to capture you, you went ahead and dug in.

It was only after you'd cleaned half the plate did Krennic speak to you again. He was nibbling at his own food, but seemed much more interested in your music player.

"Curious device." He turned it over on the table beside him, rubbing his fingers over the stickers on the back. "What is it?"

"It just plays music," you explained between bites. "Or at least it did. Doesn't work anymore."

"And it's yours?"

You nodded your head. "Boba took me to meet the other buyer but found it there instead. It was really weird. I packed that old thing away years ago. I don't know how that guy got it, whoever he is."

You'd decided with Boba there would be no harm in giving out the details of your failed quest to find the other buyer; it would only help sell Boba's choice to turn you in to the Empire. You did, however, exclude the parts about Maz, not wanting to drag her further into this mess.

Krennic was looking at you through squinted eyes. "So you don't know who placed the other bounty on you?"

"No," you said with a slightly dramatic sigh. "Like I've told literally everyone that's been after me, I don't know who the guy is. I don't know why he wants me, or how he got my stuff. I also don't know why you want me so bad, either."

You looked back at Krennic with a pointed expression, hoping this would segue into the conversation where you finally got some answers, the one you'd come here for. But Krennic's interest seemed to have now wandered elsewhere. He stared at the music player for a bit before placing it in a pocket along his belt and going for another swig of his drink.

You cursed internally. It had been a long shot, bringing that device with you. Boba had warned you it'd probably be confiscated but you'd hoped that maybe Krennic would let you be sentimental and hold onto it anyway. Not only had Boba replaced the inner workings with a tracker, but he'd also programmed the signal so that if you selected a song, it would play it aboard the Slave I. There was a song to let him know you were okay, one for when you were ready to be extracted, one if there was an emergency.... If you weren't able to play him anything by tonight, then he would only wait one more day before coming for you, regardless of whether you'd found your answers or not.

The door suddenly opened from behind, letting in a stormtrooper.

"We've arrived, sir."

Krennic nodded knowingly, dabbing at his mouth with a cloth napkin. "Take her down. I'll meet with them shortly."

Them. You gulped at the word, your mind racing between countless possibilities. Were there other prisoners you were being taken to? Did the Empire want you to work on something and you were going to meet your new coworkers? Did Krennic have a boss who'd be interrogating you instead - perhaps the Emperor himself? Or maybe you'd be walked out onto a stage with your friends and family, and told this was some elaborate game show and that everything you'd experienced the last couple of months was only to test your grit on live television? At this point, no idea was too far fetched for you to believe.

You were, however, secretly relieved that you were being taken elsewhere, rather than staying on this Imperial ship. It meant Boba wouldn't have to enact back-up plans #4-7 to get you out. You hadn't realized the ship had been flying this whole time, not being near any windows or having felt any of the usual movements that came from being in a smaller vessel. You were ushered into a shuttle, and it was an odd experience to then fly down toward this new planet. It was like the Imperial ship was a mini planet of its own.

"Where are we?" you braved asking the stormtroopers around you. There were three, one of them in darker armor than the others, and it was this one who answered you.

"Eadu," was all it said. As if the name alone told you enough.

The planet only had a faint blue hue to it, otherwise you couldn't distinguish any land or water features from the small shuttle window. Once you broke through the atmosphere, you realized it was due to the thick, tumultuous layer of storm clouds that blanketed everything. The shuttle shook and jerked as it moved through, the internal lights flickering spastically. The troopers around you didn't seem perturbed so you tried not to be worried, either, despite it seeming like you would surely crash or be electrocuted by lightning.

At last the shuttle made it through, pulling up abruptly at a landing platform in front of a complex built into the side of a jagged stone ridge, one of many that jutted up across the planet's surface. It was dark as you were ushered out onto the platform, only a few flood lights lit the way toward the facility doors. The air was thick with mist and a few sprinkles of rain began tickling your skin as you walked along. It also stunk, like soil and sulfur mixed together.

You inherently picked up your pace, not sure what was waiting for you on the other side of the doors, but needing to get away from this stinky, damp air. The darkly clad trooper swiped at a keypad and led you inside, the two other troopers flanking you just behind. The facility's interior was as stark and cold as the Imperial ship, lit with the same harsh fluorescent lights. You passed several other people as you followed the winding hallway. A few were in dark green military uniforms with smart looking hats. Others wore more plastic-y looking suits, almost like lab coats. They all looked at you curiously as you passed but did not interact.

The dark trooper eventually pulled up at a door on the side of the hall. It swiped at another keypad, the door swooshing open with a soft hiss. It stood to the side, indicating you should enter.

"The Commander will be with you shortly," it said.

You went inside, assuming this was like a waiting room until Krennic showed up. It was a moderately sized space, like a little apartment, with simple furnishings and supplies. You rounded a corner to get a better look at everything, to maybe see if there was a clue about what the Empire wanted with you. But you stopped dead in your tracks when you saw there was someone else in the room, too.

Every function in your body seemed to freeze. You couldn't feel your heart beating, couldn't feel yourself take any breaths. You weren't sure if there really was a deafening silence in the room or if you simply couldn't hear any sounds in your shock. Time seemed to stand still as you struggled to process the woman standing before you. You weren't sure you could speak, but you needed to acknowledge her, you needed to know she was real. So after a few beats, you choked the word out, a forced and hollow whisper.

"Mom?"

[jadenoon]

Abandoned

TW // Suicide, Self-harm

He waited on the swings for her. His feet anxiously dug into the dirt he sat above as the palms of his hands clenched the rusty metal supporting his weight. Rust that had time to set in for years after the park was completely abandoned. Something about this abandoned park felt like home, he just didn’t know why. 

That was when he saw her, nervously looking from side to side as she made her way on over to him. 

He watched her light brown hair sway with each step on the park’s mulch as it had when they used to meet every day at the abandoned swing set. He missed her smile, it had been a while since they had last visited the vacant park together. 

She plopped down on the aged seat of the swing next to him, a solemn expression plastered onto her beautiful but seemingly tired face. Such an expression formed a lump in his throat making it hard for him to breathe. He hadn’t seen her since the incident. 

He watched her lips part and then seal close multiple times as if she was trying to form a sentence. She finally stopped trying and just bit her lower lip. 

He couldn’t lose her. She was his light in dark times, the only stable thing his my life. He needed her. 

He started to take breaths in a short and stuttering motion as if anxiety itself was sitting upon his chest, forcing all the air out of him.

“W-what’s wrong?” he finally managed to ask, but he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want anything to be wrong.

They had been together for almost a year now, in his mind things couldn’t end so soon. 

“I think it is best we go our separate ways, I can’t help you,” she looked scared, started to cry, her eyes wide, “I found out about what happened. I-I just can’t.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, but he knew she was referring to two nights ago when he was rushed to the hospital. 

He felt like crying but his eyes stayed dry as he watched her with an intense sense of dread. Tears stroked her cheeks as gravity pulled the salty droplets to the ground.

“Don’t you get it?!” her voice started to raise, “I don’t understand what is going on with you. I can’t be with you like this, I can’t help you!”

he tried to reassure her somehow knowing that it was no use. His voice cracking with each sentence he managed to form.

“B-but you can help me, you have-”

He stopped in the middle of his sentence as she started to vigorously shake her head. 

He tried to reach out to her, to reassuringly grab a hold of her hand, as he used to rub circles with his thumb against her palm; But as he reached forward she jerked back, manicured nails reaching into her handbag for the pepper spray that she brought. 

Why would she have brought pepper spray?

His eyes widened.

She apologized over and over as she started to get up from the swing, the bottle of pepper spray still tight within her grasp. And then she backed up, turned around, and ran towards the car as if he was going to shoot her at any minute. As if he were somehow unpredictable, broken beyond repair. 

And soon he was left there abandoned by the swings. Somehow this sensation felt similar to him as he watched and heard her car turn on, headlights lights flickering as she backed out of the desolate parking lot. 

He bit his lip as tears started to pour out of his eyes. He frantically started to wipe the tears away as they dripped down his chin. 

In a frenzy, he scraped his arm against the edged rusty metal. The jagged chains tore into his recently stitched-up cuts, opening both old and new wounds. He stopped what he was doing, frozen as a searing pain consumed his whole hand and arm. The tears continued to stream down his cheeks but he stopped wiping them, his eyes blurred as he stared at the mess of blood oozing down his arm. The same arm he always etched into with a kitchen knife when emotion was threatening to rip him apart. 

He never saw what he was doing in such a light; the light of those who never could and never understood. Pieces of the rusty metal nested into his own deformed skin. He bit into his tongue stifling a scream.

How could he have done this to himself?

And suddenly, just as his Ex was, he was terrified of himself and what he could and would do to his own body. 

The most immediate impact we can inflict is damage. We can’t heal as fast as we can hurt ourselves. He couldn’t just bandage his disfigured severely injured arm and hope everything would be alright, these types of scars would stay with him forever; Reminding him of how lost he would always feel, reminding him of why the people in his life always left him, reminding him of the hospital trip that scared his Ex off in the first place. 

It hurt, throbbing pain-causing his own fingers to shake. He wasn’t even sure how to stop the bleeding. He just didn’t want to deal with it all anymore. If the whole rest of his life would be left defined by his past mistakes, he didn’t he wanted to carry on. 

The abandoned park was situated nearby a rushing river and he thought drowning wouldn’t be a bad way to go. He wasn’t thinking. His eyes had glazed over and now he was just aimlessly walking, no fear to block his path; Instead, desire and grief led the way.

He thought about who might miss him. 13 years in foster care, switching from home to home and he could surely say no one. He had acquaintances who would be shocked but not care enough to spend a night thinking about it. His ex-girlfriend was the one who left, to care would be looking back. He believed she was too scared of him and what he had become to look back. 

By now he was already waist-deep into the freezing waters which forced their way past him, rushing toward the sea, to a greater expanse miles away. As soon as the numbing water of the river rushed across his body and into the open gashes covering his arm, once again, pain threatened to tear him apart, something that he would now allow. 

Bubbles of air escaped his nostrils when he sank as the rocky floor underneath him suddenly dropped. He held his breath, his lungs gasping for air he wouldn’t allow in. He started to feel weary. He took a quick breath but inhaled water. The force of the water was too strong and it started to pull him, drag him farther into its yearningly strong current. And as quickly as he started to drown, pain shot at him in the head as he slammed into an angular rock, and he was out cold. 

When he opened my eyes he felt the warmth of a jacket, sitting on the very same swing he was resting on just moments ago. Twinkling watch-full eyes stared into his, the same color and shape as his own. A face that looked exactly like how he would imagine his birth mother to look, except she wasn’t smiling. 

“I’m sorry,” she cooed, stroking his dark black curls. He felt her gentle hand brush into his hair and he leaned into it. 

His feet were too small and short to touch the ground, leading him to believe he was about 5 years old in this dream-like state he was experiencing but everything played out like a memory. And he remembered none of it. 

She started to stand up, her hands clutching her bag tightly, and then she fast-walked towards her car. 

He called out to her asking where she was going, but she didn’t reply, and instead pulled out of the parking lot. The word abandoned flashed through his mind as he blinked, a scene all too similar to what just happened with his Ex. 

Why was none of this a part of his collective memory?

“Where is your mom?”

The park started to pack in with other kids throughout the rest of the day. Concerned mom’s asking the same question he didn’t have an answer to himself. One mom stood by him for the rest of the day. Waiting with him for his mom to come back, to take him home with her. Of course, that didn’t happen and he was left abandoned again as soon as child services answered the phone. 

Memories of foster care: switching from home to home, never finding a family willing to take him in for more than a week, flashed through his mind. The fear/confusion terrorized him throughout the day, as everyone kept him oblivious to what was going on.

He would sneak out and visit the once crowded park every day in the evenings in case his mother ever came back for him. That became harder once it was discovered that the park was broken and unfinished. The gates to the park were closed and the whole area became a dangerous space of broken equipment that no one wished to visit anymore. The park may have been abandoned but he wasn’t going to abandon it. 

It was like his mind had blocked out all the hurtful memories he used to keep of the day his birth mother left him; as if to protect him from the truth that he had been abandoned repeatedly. That explained the anxiety he constantly felt, the fear that consumed him whenever he let anyone get too close. He was constantly afraid of people leaving and now he knew why. His mind must have known he wouldn't be able to take it, yet the roots of his problem throughout the years stayed engraved within his mind, stealing all the nutrients from his brain, preventing him from living a happy life. That was why this abandoned park felt like home because both the park and the man shared similar experiences and history. 

But he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. In his mind, he apologized to the park for deciding to leave so suddenly, for abandoning the area as everyone else once did.

Abruptly, chest compressions startled him awake. Cold. It was the cold that alarmed him as he awoke in shock, his soaking clothes clinging to his body like paste. 

"Are you okay?"

The voice sounded like a mix of voices, his mom's, and then the mom who had handed him over to the foster care system, and then his Ex. His head was spinning. The face that stared back at him was blurred by the tears that overflowed his eyes. 

Why was he back here? 

Was this some sort of horrible joke? 

The one time he wished to be left abandoned, he was not. He wondered if the deserted park ever wished to be knocked down, only to be left standing in its despaired state. 

"Are you okay?" the all too familiar voice sounded again. 

"no." 

His answer may have come out small, shaky, and weak but in his twisted shattered mind it was projected from a speaker put on replay, reminding him that he was broken beyond repair and that was why he would constantly be abandoned when it mattered the most to him. 

Nothing could have possibly been more terrifying than that truth.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

with you [chapter three]

Summary: Clementine pops the question, Louis has nightmares, Violet can’t let go of the past, Mitch doesn’t know how to handle gross feelings, Ruby’s a goddamn sweetheart, Willy doesn’t ever remember to knock, Aasim can’t dance, and James is here, too.

Nothing like a wedding to bring this family together.

Note: I didn't plan on working on [with you] right now, but when the inspiration hits, listen to it. 

I lost my momentum/motivation for this story a while ago, but damn it, I said I’d finish it so I'm going to finish it. [with you] isn't done, folks. Thanks for reading and for the constant support. I truly hope you enjoy this chapter and stick around for the rest. ❤️

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3

Read on: AO3 

---

Well, the ring isn’t bigger, but it is flatter. 

Too flat to possibly fit on Louis’ finger.

Well, fuck. 

The hammer hits the workbench with a deafening clatter that bounces throughout the basement, causing a startled Willy to drop the tattered, blue tarp in his hands. 

Mitch lets out a deep groan, leaning back in his chair while tugging at his hair. 

“How bad is it?” asks Willy. 

The ring’s a piece of shit, Mitch decides. He tried reshaping it, stretching it to be just the tiniest bit bigger, but progress was halted due to the fact that he fucked up.

Maybe it would be easier if he had Louis’ measurement- which Clementine has neglected to obtain yet- but right now, it’s damn near impossible to get it back to its perfectly circular shape.

“Fucked,” Mitch grumbles. He can’t give it back to Clementine in this shape. She’ll be devastated. 

“I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that,” Willy yawns from beside him, rubbing at his eyes. 

Turning the ring- if you could even call it that anymore- around in his fingers, concern furrows the young boy’s brow as he chews on his bottom lip. 

“What are we gonna do?”

That’s a great question, one that Mitch doesn’t have an answer to yet. 

Really, it should’ve been simple. 

He should’ve been able to stretch it out a bit then reshape it into a perfect circle, into a ring. Now it’s just a long, depressing, wobbly, scratched up loop . 

All the mornings he woke up early this week to come down here and work on it… all for nothing! 

Fuck.

Clementine’s gonna be pissed. 

“No clue,” Mitch sighs, pressing forward against the desk to step down from his chair. “Don’t suppose you got any ideas?” 

“Maybe we could melt it back?”

“With what? Fire?” Mitch sighs.“No fire we could make would be hot enough to melt this.”

“We could just get it hot enough to reshape it, at least?” 

“Maybe,” Mitch says, unconvincingly. "Then again, it is pretty cheap, whatever it is."

Willy tries stretching the ring with his fingers to no avail, only succeeding his pinching his pointer finger. 

The only reason it got into the shape it is now is because Mitch secured it in an old wrench, then used a pair of thick pliers to try and reshape it. No set of fingers are going to be enough to pry it apart. 

“If we don’t fix this, Clem’s gonna be mad at us!” Willy exclaims, slamming the ring back down onto the workbench. “There’s gotta be something we can do! Maybe we could find her a new one? A bigger size? ”

Mitch perks a brow. 

“You got a bunch of wedding rings lying around that I don’t know about?” he asks. “Seems like a weird thing to collect.” 

Not that he’d be all that surprised, though it’d be rather convenient. Willy collects all kinds of strange shit- used stamps off of old envelopes, coins, fun-shaped erasers, probably other stuff. The kid’s like a bird collecting random shit for a nest. 

“No,” Willy grins. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t find one. What about the headmaster’s office? Or the old teacher’s lounge? Maybe one of them took their ring off and forgot about it?”

Seems like a long shot.

Most of the teachers who worked here before all the bullshit happened were married. Hell, Mitch bets that’s one of the reasons they ditched. Had to get back to their husbands and wives and dogs and whatever. Or maybe that was just the excuse they used. 

Even so, he doubts any of them took their rings off before abandoning the school. Even if one happened to leave a ring behind, the odds of it fitting Louis were still not in their favor, which would put them right back into this predicament. 

“Doubt it.”

With the ring and pliers in his hands once more, Mitch bends the ring the best he can. It’s much easier fucking up than fixing it, he thinks bitterly, though that could be due to that fact this his patience and energy levels are at an all-time low. With every failed tug at the ring’s material, every wrong bend, the muscles in his neck tense. 

Fuck the ring, fuck the ring, fuck these pliers, fuck this damn ring, fuck-

“Careful!” Willy gasps out just a bit too late. 

The force causes the pliers to slip from his hand and become lost on the floor.

The ring-

No, not a ring anymore. Nope. 

“Mitch! You just-”

Broke it. 

He broke it. 

Mitch stares down at the damn this in disbelief. How the fuck was that possible? What is this thing made out of? Were wedding rings always made to be this flimsy? The walker Clementine took this from must’ve been a cheap son of a bitch because there’s no way that’s a thing that should’ve happened! 

It just… snapped! Broke apart!

“Oh shit,” Mitch hisses out, cradling the ring in his palm, poorly attempting to stick it back together. “Oh no.” 

Superglue! He had to have superglue down here! There’s-

A high pitched squeak echoes through the basement, followed by a leak of the morning’s barely rising sunlight and the metal clang of the basement door. 

“Mitch?”

Oh-

Oh fuck-

“You down here?”

Mitch’s wide eyes meet Willy’s panicked ones. In an instant, the two yank the torn tarp over the workbench, knocking the flashlight off the edge with a loud clang. The basement darkens. 

“Shit!” 

Footsteps. Heavy, slow footsteps. 

“Mitch?” James’ voice echos, sending a jolt through Mitch’s stomach. He fumbles with the broken ring, only for it to drop and bounce on the concrete floor. 

“Ruby said I’d find you down here.”

“Oh, for fucks sake-!” Mitch dives down onto his hands and knees beneath the workbench, grumbling a string of curses as he feels around for the damned ring all while an annoying ache throbs in his knees.

“Nope! Not down here!” Willy spits out, jerking the tarp down over Mitch’s back, effectively shielding him from any light left. “Nothing to see! Come back later!”

Fucking shit- ouch!

A jagged rock digs into the bone of his kneecap, causing him to jerk up and smack the top of his head against the underside of the workbench. 

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

A chuckle from James breaks through the shooting pain and Mitch can’t tell which is more annoying. 

“Mitch isn’t here?” James asked, the amusement clear in his tone as he approaches.  “Strange, I thought I heard his voice.”

Bastard. 

Of all the fucking people in this school, James would be the one to come snooping around down here. Shit, maybe Ruby complained to him about yesterday and now he’s here to investigate what they’re doing. 

That’s not good. It’s already bad enough that he enlisted Willy’s help after promising that he’d keep the damn marriage proposal nonsense to himself, he doesn’t need to add James to the list. Clementine’s already going to be pissed enough as it is now that she doesn’t have an actual functioning ring! She might really stab him this time! 

“Nope. You didn’t hear anything! Not here,” Willy tries. “Nothing suspicious here.”

“I see. So, those aren’t Mitch’s boots sticking out right there?”

“...Uh, no? Those are, uh, my boots!”

For once, Mitch wishes Willy were a more convincing liar- ah-ha! 

Rubbing along the dirty ground, the ring finally brushes against his finger. With the damned thing secured in his fist, Mitch quickly scoots out. Fighting with the tarp in order to stand up, he damn near trips over his own chair, saving himself by grabbing a hold of Willy’s shoulder with his free hand. 

A bright light nearly blinds him, one held by a grinning James. 

“Gah! Watch where you point that thing!” Mitch exclaims, batting blindly in James’ direction. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, there you are. Uh, sorry,” James apologizes, lowering the light. “I hope your head is okay. Sounded like a nasty bump”

An irritating, sheepish warmth burns Mitch’s cheeks. 

“Hurts like a bitch,” Mitch snaps. “Thanks. Now, what the hell are you doing here? It’s way too early for you to be poking around. And haven’t you ever heard of knocking? We’re in the middle of something and don’t need you waving our flashlight around like- like some sort of flashlight creep, weirdo, person!”

Mitch huffs, trying not to look out of breath after his tangent, but the charmed smile James wears makes him want to knock the flashlight out of his hand. Cocky bastard, catching him with his pants down-

Wait no, fuck, not- 

James caught him fucking around with Clementine’s ring- which he doesn’t know anything about- and now he’s like a deer in the headlights- ha, there’s a better metaphor… y’know, because of the flashlight- and James is the hunter in the car waiting for an explanation. 

Why the hunter would wait for such a thing instead of shooting the deer doesn’t make any sense but-

“Mitch?” Willy’s concerned voice breaks his train of thought. “Are you okay?”

“What?” 

“You look-”

Before Willy can finish, James holds up his hands, quietly asking for silence. He cranks his neck to look behind him, back up at the closed doors of the second outdoor entrance. 

The faint barks of Rosie ring outside. 

Omar must be up, Mitch figures. Early bird starting breakfast, that’d explain Rosie’s excitement. He has to hush her by tossing her a piece of old jerky he found when messing around out here, that way no one was alarmed so early. 

Shit, that means everyone else will be up soon, too. 

After a moment, James turns back to them with a small, relieved smile. 

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “I already know what’s going on. Clem told me you were working on the ring down here. You don’t have to hide or make up any excuses.”

Clem? Didn’t he say Ruby-

Wait-

“You know?” Willy asks. “About the ring?”

James nods down at the boy. 

“I wanted to see how it’s coming along, and maybe help, if that’s okay,” James says, giving Mitch a sincere look. “She hasn’t gotten Louis’ measurements yet, has she?”

Mitch’s split on if he wants to throw the disfigured ring in his face or not.

“No,” Willy answers for him. “She hasn’t, and we screwed up!”

“Willy!” Mitch snaps. 

“Big-time!” 

James’ face falls. 

“What happened?”

“I- Well, hold on!” Mitch stutters. “When did she tell you? I thought I was the only one who knew.”

James gives Willy a quick look, to which the young boy gives a guilty, toothy grin and a shrug. 

“Okay, fine, fair enough,” Mitch sighs. “I needed his help and he swore he wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone . Right?”

Willy crosses an X over his chest, saying, “Scout’s honor.” 

“I see,” James nods, watching as Mitch pulls back the tarp to reveal the workbench. “Well, so long as Louis doesn’t find out, I think you’ll be okay. And, uh, last week.”

James picks up the pliers from the floor. Mitch snatches it out of his hand before turning away, purposefully avoiding his heavy gaze. 

He has the weirdest eyes, Mitch thinks. They’re so dark that you can’t tell where the pupil starts or ends and the way he stares is so-

Mitch scoffs, waving his hand as a silent, ‘Well? Go on.’

“When she came to get me, she asked if any of the walkers I keep in the barn happen to be wearing a ring,” James continues. “I searched and searched, but came up empty-handed. We ended up at the train station. She told me about her plans after she got the ring.”

Well, that makes sense, at least. 

And here, Mitch thought he was the first and only person she told. Though he had to admit- not aloud, but to himself- that he’s a little glad that James knows. Maybe he has an idea of how to fix this mess. 

Speaking of which-

Mitch, continuing to avoid James’ stare, uncurls his fist and sets the ring on the workbench. 

James, finally sparing a glance away from Mitch’s irritated face, looks down at the remains of the ring. 

A beat of silence passes as all three of them look at the damn thing. 

God, they’re so fucked. 

Finally, James hums. 

“I don’t think that’s going to fit Louis.”

Mitch glares.

“Gee, ya think?” 

“Told’ja we screwed up,” Willy mumbles. “But maybe we can just wrap it around his finger? Since, y’know, it can do that now.”

“Nope,” Mitch slams his hands on the workbench. “Nu-uh, now way, this ring is trash. Nothin’ we do is ever gonna fix it. Not gluing, not melting, not wrapping. We’re gonna have to start all over.”

“You have another ring?” asks James, leaning against the workbench with his arms folded across his chest. 

Huh, he doesn’t have those nasty gloves on. 

“Uh, no,” Mitch shakes his head. “We don’t.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Nope.”

What a mess.

Clementine asks him to do one thing and he just had to go fuck it up. He should’ve waited until she had his measurements. Don’t know what difference that would’ve made, exactly, but perhaps it would’ve been a step in the right direction. 

God, he can see it now. She’ll come down here with or without the measurements and he’ll have to tell her that he broke her ring and then she’ll be pissed and the next thing he knows, he’s lying on the ground in agony because she kicked him in the dick.

Unless he comes up with a plan. 

“I’m here to help,” James says, breaking the silence. “Anything you want me to do, I’ll do it. We’ll figure this out.” 

Well, isn’t that so damn kind of him...

“What else can we make a ring out of?” Mitch asks, whirling around to face them. “Doesn’t hafta be fancy, just something they could wear without it breaking on ‘em. Something like- like wire, or shit, I dunno… wood? Do you think we could carve some rings?”

“Maybe,” James nods. “Though I don’t know how comfortable or sturdy wood rings would be, it’s a good start.”

“A last resort, at least?”

“I think so.”

“What about the library?” Willy pipes in. “We’ve got all kinds of books in there that could help. Remember all the books we found about boats and explosions? If they had books like those, then maybe there’s some on rings or jewelry making?”

Mitch grins. 

“Fuck yeah, good thinking,” he pats Willy’s shoulder, “see if you can find anything in there. And remember, keep it down, yeah? Don’t need anyone poking their noses where they don’t belong, and we can’t let Clem find out what happened. Got it?”

“Got it,” Willy nods, a frown forming. “Wait, I gotta go alone? Can’t James come help me look?”

“No, he’s gotta keep an eye on the others.”

James shoots him a questioning look, which is more than enough reason for Mitch to turn away. 

“We can’t have anyone coming down here, especially Louis. They’ll ask too many questions, and Clem can’t know I fucked up yet, alright?” Mitch says. “I’m gonna go to the teacher's lounge and see if I can find anything. If not, I’ll gather as many materials as I can find. We’ll meet back here later.”

“In that case, breakfast should be starting soon,” James looks back at the double doors. “I shouldn’t have any troubles, but I’ll do my best to keep everyone’s interests low.” 

Mitch smiles, despite himself. 

“Sounds like a plan.” 

---

“One of these days we should just stay in bed.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep, spend the whole day in bed. Eat, play card games, sleep, what have you.”

Clementine grins, leaning up on her tiptoes to press another kiss to Louis’ cheek before saying, “Only if we can build a pillow fort.”

Louis chuckles for the first time this morning, fully turning around to face her, his hands pressed against the curves of her waist. 

“Ah, a woman after my own heart.” 

He dips forward as if to kiss her, and she’s fully prepared for it. It’s only when she feels the familiar material of her hat being pressed onto her head does she lean back and open her eyes to find him smirking down at her. He pats her on the head, poorly containing the laughter within him at the sight of her annoyed expression. 

“Unfortunately for us, Clem, we can’t take a vacation day and spend it in bed,” he says, letting her go to head for the door. “Our dear Aasim said Lucy’s ready to pop today assuming she already hasn’t and apparently he needs more than Ruby’s help to deal with that.”

“He wants you to help deliver baby bunnies?”

“I know, I thought it was strange, too,” Louis shrugs. “He knows I get attached to cute, fluffy things, and when I’m attached, I don’t exactly want to butcher and eat them, y’know? Must be doing it on purpose to get back at me for always beating him in Go Fish.” 

Louis swings open the door, motioning for her. 

“After you, m’darling.”

Clementine rolls her eyes, though her smile betrays her. 

“You go on ahead,” she tells him. “I’ll see you down at breakfast.” 

“Well, in that case…”

Louis dips down and kisses her. His lips are soft and warm against hers, more than enough for her to hold him there for just a few seconds longer before pulling away. 

Even though his exhaustion is still rimming his eyes, he smiles brightly. 

“I’ll save you a seat,” he says. “And I’ll make sure AJ doesn’t eat your breakfast.”

“Thanks,” Clementine grins, and it’s on the tip of her tongue, the urge to ask him if he’s okay again. 

At this point, she doesn’t need to ask, and he doesn’t need to hear it or answer.

Once he’s gone, Clementine gives a big sigh. 

Alright, time to find Mitch and give him the string. 

Her plan was more than successful last night. Now she finally has the measurements for Mitch to properly adjust the ring. How he’s planning on doing it, she doesn’t know, but he promised her that he’d try and she trusts him. 

Mitch isn’t hard to find, which is surprising. He’s digging around in one of the hallway drawers when she finds him, muttering curses to himself with a bitter expression. 

He’s spent most of the week down in the basement tinkering around with what she assumes is ways to fix the ring. While she appreciates the effort he’s putting into this, she wishes he was a little less defensive about it. 

Ruby questioned him yesterday about it and he about blew up on her. 

Mitch takes the string without a word and hurries back outside, never once looking her in the eye. 

Odd, she thinks, but sometimes Mitch is hard to figure out. So, she lets it go.

As for the next order of business, she has to find AJ.

Considering he didn’t come back to the room last night, she assumes he had a sleepover with Tenn last night.

For that, she’s grateful.

Not only would he have walked in on something, well, intimate , but AJ has a hard time leaving Louis alone after one of his nightmares. Clementine warned him about being clingy, but all AJ says back is, “I just want him to be okay.”

Louis always insists he’s fine, that the nightmares aren’t really that bad, that he barely remembers them. She knows he still tells AJ that to reassure him. He used to tell her the same thing, only she knows better.

She can still remember the first time she told him to stop lying to her.

“Louis, stop. Just… stop. Lying to me isn’t going to make it any better. You can’t carry this on your own and I can’t fully be here for you unless you’re completely honest with me.”

She never held someone whose entire body rocked and crumbled with so much regret, so much fear. So many things brought to light, so much more than she initially imagined. 

That was the first night they slept in the same bed.

He moved in two days later.

She can only hope that tonight’s better, that he can find peace in his dreams again.

Clementine leaves the dorms and steps out into the fresh morning air, inhaling the intoxicating scent of dew ridden grass and dirt. 

AJ’s at one of the tables, scarfing down his breakfast next to Louis, James and Tenn.

From a distance, she can see how tired Louis is, even if he’s smiling and laughing with the others.

“Clem!” Omar waves her over, holding up a plate. 

That’s when the scent of breakfast hits her, causing her stomach to tighten with a growl. She’s about to hurry over until she sees Violet loading up her bowl. Their eyes meet for a split second, and that’s enough to make Violet jerk around and head to the farthest table possible, one occupied by Aasim. Clementine watches her go as she approaches Omar.

“Good morning,” she greets him.

“It is a good morning, isn’t it? I’m glad there’s a little breeze today,” he says cheerfully.

“Yeah,” she agrees before bringing her voice to a whisper. “Hey… did she say anything to you?”

Omar gives Violet a quick glance, shrugging a shoulder. 

“Just thanks. Nothing else. Tried making conversation but I don’t think she’s in the mood today. Y’know.”

“Right," Clementine nods.

"Hey, have you seen Mitch this morning? He hasn’t grabbed his food yet.”

“Oh, um, I haven’t,” she lies.

“He’s nowhere!” Willy exclaims from behind her, causing her to flinch. Somehow that boy manages to be both too loud and too quiet. He’s a good little sneak, she’d give him that.

“Nowhere?” Omar asks, frowning. “He can’t be nowhere. He’s gotta be somewhere. Oh-” Omar lets out a huff. “Is he in the basement again?”

“No!” 

“That’s a yes, then,” Omar rolls his eyes.  “He’s been down there a lot this week.”

Ruby comes over to them now with anger knitted in her brow and her cheeks puffed red.

“Oh, he’s been banging around down there all mornin’! I just went ta fetch him fer breakfast and he hissed at me like some sorta rodent,” she scowls, “tellin’ me to fuck off, he’s busy! What’s he been doin’ down there that’s so important?”

Willy bites his lip as if to prevent himself from blurting something out, but once Ruby pays him a stern look, it’s out.

“He’s totally not making something super awesome! Nope!”

“Oh, God,” Ruby groans. “What's he makin’?”

Willy shrugs with faux innocence before shooting Clementine a knowing smirk that makes her freeze. 

“What’s he makin’?” Ruby asks again, harshly.

“Nothing!” Willy exclaims before pointing at himself, “I would know because I’ve been down there with him and we’re not doing anything! Nothing !”

Clementine never thought that she’d ever meet a worse liar than AJ but-

Wait.

“Willy, I know yer lying! What’re ya doin’ down there?”

“I’m not! We’re doing nothing !”

No, no fucking-

Clementine has to refrain from slapping her forehead. 

If Mitch has been down in the basement working on her ring all week, and Willy’s been down there with him…

So much for keeping quiet.

“It best not be another cherry bomb ‘cause I will whip his ass so hard-”

“It’s not! Honest! Don’t worry, it’s nothing!” He smiles at Clementine again, baring all his crooked teeth. She glares back.

That seems to straighten Willy out. He looks down at the dirt and says nothing more.

“Well, either way,” Omar hands Willy a plate, “take that to him. I don’t want to hear him complain he’s hungry when he finally comes outta there.”

“On it!” Willy almost spills the food when he takes off, desperate to get out of the situation.

“Willy!” Clementine calls after him. “Hold it!”

He stutters to a halt in front of the basement doors. When she gets closer, she can hear a repeated banging echoing from down the stairs. They both look around to make sure everyone else is out of earshot. Deeming it safe, she leans down and demands, “What did he tell you?”

Willy avoids her hard gaze. 

“Nothin’.”

“ Willy .”

“Okay, fine! Mitch said he needed my help fixing your wedding ring ,” he loudly whispers. Clementine’s hand shoots out to cover his mouth.

“Shhh!” Clem glowers. “Who else has he told?”

“No one,” the boy answers, this time honestly, shaking his head. “And I ain’t gonna tell anyone either, I swear.”

“Willy-”

“Really! I even promised Mitch! Scout’s honor!”

“Clem!” She hears AJ calling for her. She turns to wave at them while keeping her gaze fixed on the young boy.

Willy gives her a sincere smile. 

“Don’t worry, Clem, we got it all figured out. James is helping us with it, too!  Just leave it to us.”

“James-?”

With that, he hurries into the basement, calling out for Mitch. She sees some of the food slosh over and fall on the stairs.

She sighs.

At this rate, Louis’ll find out before she even has a proper ring.

Doing her best to ignore the nervous frustration spreading heat in her belly, Clementine grabs her breakfast and joins the others at the table.

Interestingly enough, she finds that they’re done with their food. 

Instead, papers and colored pencils scatter all over the table. AJ and Louis hunch over their papers in full concentration while James sketches all over his paper lightly, eyes darting up constantly to look at AJ.

Just as she takes a seat, Louis sits back to flash a big smile, holding up his picture. 

“Ta-da!” The other three boys stop and look up. They say nothing as they study the drawing. Clementine leans over to see as well.

“...What is it?” AJ asks.

“What is it?” Louis repeats, his confidence wavering. “What does it look like?”

“Like…” AJ squints, cocking his head to try and piece together what the drawing depicts. Finally, he settles on, “A bunny?”

Louis’ eyes go wide.

“A bun- what ?” he exclaims. He re-examines his picture. “It’s not a bunny! It’s Rosie!”

Hearing her name called, Rosie barks, trotting away from Omar and over beside Clementine, sitting politely and awaiting any leftover scraps. 

When Clementine gets a better look at the drawing, she can tell that it’s… sort of like a dog. It’s the same color as Rosie, but the face is odd. And the ears are definitely too big.

AJ takes the picture from Louis and shakes his head. “Nope, not Rosie.”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Louis snatches the picture back and holds it up to her. “Clem, you can tell it’s Rosie, right?”

She blinks up at him before slowly shaking her head. She can’t help but giggle a little at the distress on his face as he looks at his drawing.

“I think it kind of looks like her,” Tenn says.

Louis sulks, resting his chin in his palm and slouching over, grumbling, “Thanks, Tenn.”

Clementine rubs his back and offers an encouraging smile. He grins back at her and steals a potato chunk off her plate, popping it into his mouth.

“Clem, look!” AJ hands her his drawing. It’s of him, her and Louis standing together with a large beach ball hanging in the air. “We’re playing catch!”

“Wow,” Clementine beams. “You’re really becoming a great artist.”

Louis leans against her shoulder to look. His face scrunches up in consideration. 

“Hmmmm,” he turns the picture upside down for a moment, then right-side up. He glances at the young boy with a smirk. “Looks great, little man. This’ll look awesome on your wall.”

Pleased with the compliment, AJ laughs.  He takes his picture back and signs it. When he goes to grab a new paper, he asks, “What’re you drawing, James?”

“Huh? Oh, um,” James snaps his head up, his hand instinctively moving to cover his page, “I was just… well,” he gives a sheepish smile, “I haven’t had a chance to draw in a very long time, so I hope you don’t mind but…”

When he holds up his paper, Clementine gasps.

The portrait of AJ on the paper looks so… real .

“Dude!” Louis exclaims, amazed.

“Hey!” AJ gasps. “That’s my face!”

James puts the paper down and looks away. “I-I’m a little out of practice, you see. The proportions aren’t exactly right, and I always had a hard time with ears-”

“Dude, are you serious?” Louis laughs. “That looks just like him!”

Tenn gasps lightly at the drawing as well, eyes darting over the portrait, taking in the details with curious eyes. His gaze falls back to his own picture, unsure, covering it with his arm and starts pressing his fingers together nervously.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

“It’s what I used to do before. Charlie and I… we both drew,” James smiles. “He’s a lot better at it, though.” He picks his pencil back up, looking fondly at the portrait. “He could do amazing things. These huge scenes with so much life and so much character. Me,” he chuckles lightly, “I could only ever do portraits of people.” He looks at Louis with a comforting grin. “I’m terrible at doing animals, too.”

“You’re a real artist!” exclaims AJ. “Just like Tenn!”

Tenn, still fixated on James’ drawing, tucks his own under the stack of other drawings.

“Wow,” he finally says. “You’re really good. Like, really good.” 

 James notices the young boy’s sudden timidness and looks to Clementine with questioning eyes. She returns his look with a smile and a small gesture towards Tenn.

“Um, thank you,” James awkwardly places a hand on Tenn’s shoulder, “I could show you. How I draw like this, I mean. If you want.”

“R-really?” Tenn stutters. He takes a glimpse at the portrait. “I could draw like that?”

“Of course,” James smiles, “anyone can.”

“Even Louis?” Clementine teases, pointing at his picture of Rosie.

“ Hey ,” Louis takes the picture and holds it to his chest protectively, “I worked hard on this.”

“No doubt,” Clementine laughs, turning to Tenn. “Taking lessons from James could be a lot of fun. What do you think?”

The young boy nods, still not entirely sure, but willing to try. “Yeah, I-” he turns to James, “I want to draw like that.”

“Me, too!” AJ butts in.

“Actually, AJ, I need your help with something today,” Clementine says quickly before AJ can jump on the ‘Drawing with James’ train. 

“Me? Why?” 

Clementine picks up her plate and stands from the table. “C’mon, kiddo. You can draw with Tenn and James afterward. It won’t take too long.”

“But, Clem-” he whines.

“What do you need help with?” Louis asks. “Perhaps my services could be used instead?”

She grins at him but shakes her head. “Sorry, Lou, need AJ for this one.”

“But-” AJ tries again.

“Now, AJ,” she shuts him down. “C’mon.”

James offers the young boy a comforting smile. 

“I’ll give you a personal lesson when you get back,” he says. “Promise.”

“Okay,” AJ sighs.

Just as AJ and Louis go to stand, James says, “Actually, Louis? Can you stay?”

“Dude, don’t mean to undermine your talent, but I don’t think even you could teach me to draw like that,” Louis tries to laugh.

James shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. We need a model.”

“A model?”

“To draw,” he explains, “drawing from life is the best way to learn.” 

He gives Clem a knowing look, which she returns with a grateful one of her own, relieved at how intuitive James can be.

“Modeling, hm?” Louis sits back down, puffing out his chest and adjusting his jacket. He flashes a big, bright smile. “How do you want me? Happy? How about sad, distraught? Seductive, perhaps?” Pursing his lips, Louis winks up at Clementine.

“Still, looking straight ahead, please."

“Right, gotcha.”

AJ sighs loudly.

She nudges him with warning eyes. Before they can turn to leave, Louis reaches out for her hand.

“Hold on,” he says, pulling her closer. She leans down and he plants a sweet kiss on her cheek.

AJ sighs even louder.

“Have fun,” Louis smiles.

She squeezes his hand. “You, too.”

James places two blank sheets of paper in front of him and Tenn, handing him a pencil. Tenn takes it eagerly.

As she and AJ walk away, she hears Louis say, “Make me look good, fellas!” and she can’t help but giggle, just a bit.

“Can’t we go on patrol later?” AJ asks.

“Trust me, kiddo, this can’t wait,” she says. “It’s pretty important.”

“Did something happen?”

“No,” she says. “Not yet.”

---

Rosie’s tail wags happily as she trots out through the gates. She doesn’t go far, always sticking close to them as they walk the perimeter. If she ever does wander too far, all Clementine has to do is whistle and Rosie will rush right to her side.

“James is a really good artist,” says AJ, “even better than Tenn.”

“He’s had a lot more practice than Tenn has,” she replies. “With enough help, Tenn can be as good.”

“You think so? You think he can teach me to be that good?” AJ asks hopefully.

“He said he would, didn’t he?” she smiles at AJ’s excited face.

AJ continues to gush about James as they walk. Clementine remains mostly quiet, only answering when AJ expects her to. When he’s run out of things to say, they’ve already gone all the way around.

“No monsters,” AJ says firmly. “And nothing else.”

“Looks like we’re clear.”

“Yeah,” AJ nods.  He starts for the gates. Clementine places a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s walk around one more time,” she says.

“Why? It’s clear.”

“I know,” she nods. “But, I need to tell you something, remember?”

“Is it bad?”

“No, not bad at all.”

“Oh.”

Clementine whistles for Rosie and they continue walking. She takes a deep breath and speaks the words she’s been repeating in her mind the entire walk.

“AJ, you remember the couple at the train station, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And, you remember what Louis said about them? After you found that picture?”

“Their wedding picture,” AJ nods. “He said they were in love.”

“Right.”

“A kissing love.”

“Right,” she says again. AJ waits for her to continue, but now, she feels at a loss for words. She stops walking and scratches at the back of her neck. “You know that I love Louis, right?”

“‘Course you do. You guys kiss all the time,” AJ teases.

Clementine feels her cheeks heat up as she murmurs, “Yeah, yeah, right.”

Sitting on one of many bulging rocks thrown about, she inhales deeply. Rosie sits by her feet, dropping the stick she held in her mouth. AJ joins her, concern and confusion apparent on his childish features. 

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she finally says, “about that day and about that walker couple and… I’m going to ask Louis to marry me.”

AJ doesn’t say anything, not immediately. She can tell from his puzzled eyes that hundreds of questions are forming in his head. 

He starts with, “So… what does that mean?”

“Well,” she starts, “it means that, if he says yes, he won’t be my boyfriend anymore. He’ll be my husband.”

Husband.

Let me introduce you to my husband, Louis.

“And you’ll be his, uh…” AJ thinks hard, trying to remember the word.

“I’ll be his wife.” 

Just saying it makes her feel strange. Not a bad strange, of course, but a nervous strange.

“His wife.” AJ sits on this information, mulling it over. “And you’ll be married. So, things will be different?”

“Well, no, not really. We’ll have rings on- well, he’ll have a ring on, maybe. But, nothing drastic.”

“A ring?”

“Remember the walkers?” she asks. “At their wedding, they gave one another one to seal the deal, I guess. That’s what that picture was.”

Then, AJ gets excited. 

“Okay,” he says. “So, you guys’ll have a big party?”

“Maybe we will, but I have to ask him first,” she says. “Last week, when I went to look for James, we went back to the train station to take their rings. Couldn’t find the lady’s, but the man still had his on.”

“You gonna give it to Louis?”

“That’s the plan.”

AJ’s grin grows wider. 

“This…” he draws out, “this is a big thing, isn’t it?”

“It kind of is,” she answers honestly. “Well, for me and him, anyway.”

“Me, too,” AJ laughs. “I like this. We’re gonna throw a huge party! We haven’t done that in forever! We can pull out that, uh, that… music thing! And play games! And-”

“Woah, hold it,” she stops him, laughing at his eagerness. “I haven’t even thought of a way to ask him yet.”

“Well, go ask him now!”

“No, AJ, I can’t ask him right now.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not how it works.” She stands up and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I want to do this right. If I just asked him like it was any other question, then it wouldn’t be as important. I want it to mean something. I want it to be special,” she looks back at the school, “in a world that’s so fucked up, that’s taken away so much from all of us, where any moment could be our last. I want him to know how much I love him. How much I want to be with him in a different way. That’s why I went back and got that ring. I’m not just going to ask, I’m going to propose.”

AJ listens silently, the gears turning in his head as he processes her words. 

“I guess what I’m trying to say is,” she sighs, “I love him, and I want to give us something that we thought was lost forever. Does that make sense?”

AJ grabs her hand, smiling.

“Yeah, I get it.” 

Scooting closer, he wraps his arms around her waist, holding her tight.

“Good,” Clementine hugs him back. “That brings me to what I really wanted to ask you.”

“What?”

“Do I have your blessing?”

“My blessing?”

“Are you okay with me asking Louis to marry me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay? I love you, and I love Louis, too. We’re family.”

Clementine’s throat tightens, and so does her grip on AJ. 

“That’s all I wanted to hear.”

[fallstreakfeathers]

Don’t Look Down, Chapter 2, Rating: T ~4100 words Warnings: none https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956846/chapters/60761470

If Kita thought the brightness of the moon was overbearing inside the extravagant building, it was nothing compared to being in its direct path. She squinted against the pale beams as she stepped out of the doorway after the white haired demon. His pace was fast, as if he was trying to lose her, and she had to take two or three steps for his every one. She could hear him grumbling lowly about something, but couldn’t be bothered to listen closer. In fact, she wished he’d just close his stupid, too-loud mouth. The soft calls of some kind of animal hidden in the treeline caught her attention and she slowed herself to peer through the ever looming darkness, not that it was overly difficult with the moon hanging in the sky like some kind of sentinel. The green leaves swayed lightly in the breeze. The wind sent small ripples through the field of grass. It was only then that she noticed the scent of living plantlife. A group of small creatures fluttered from the branches, startled by the couple trespassing below them. She blinked slowly. Birds? There was not a trace of sulfur, fire, or death on the air. She stepped over a group of small blue flowers she couldn’t identify. The spotted leaves were jagged, with some sort of liquid oozing from the stems. “Hey, human! What’re ya staring at? Ya never seen flowers before? Pick up the pace!”

Kita said nothing as she placed her footsteps a bit faster. She kept her head down, abandoning her plan to run as light from the lamps that lined the streets glowed bright against the wet pavement. “Can’t believe those jerks left me to babysit you alone.” There’s no way she’d get out of here without knowing where she was going. Did she really expect things to be that easy? Of course not, only an idiot would think that. I’m an idiot. She felt like a prisoner being escorted to her own execution, and the feeling was only made stronger as she caught the curious and hungry eyes of various demons on the streets. Those in the lights of the street appeared human, or mostly so, but a few hid in the shadows and their forms shifted and flittered as they stared. One of these feral creatures approached the group, prowling like some kind of cat, only to scamper away when Mammon growled a guttural, throaty sound. Kita cringed. The short display almost reminded her of those silly groups of kids in her school years who pretended to be dogs or sometimes horses. Of course, she was the local velociraptor in those days, and occasionally a Tyrannosaur. The only difference was the very real threat behind the noise bubbling from the demon’s chest. “You were full of piss n’ vinegar earlier, what’s with the silence?” She released a heavy breath as she continued to pretend he didn’t exist. Earlier she was terrified, now she was just exhausted. If she stayed quiet and kept her head down, if she didn’t make eye contact, then everything would be fine. He’d eventually leave her alone. That’s how it always was. She sneered at the demon that glanced at her ever-so-often and the not-so-quite grumbling that traveled back to her on the wind as they stopped in front of a swooping steel gate with a dry “we’re here.” Kita squinted at the towering building behind it. The mansion almost appeared to have multiple shacks stacked on top of it, along with castle-like spires. Beside it stood a tall, black tree with branches that reached towards the moon. The whole area looked like something out of an old vampire movie. So… demons really like over-the-top crap? Mammon placed his hands on the gate, pushing it open. It swung wide with a creak. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered, “of all the rotten, unfair luck.” She rolled her eyes while he continued to complain with his hands on his hips. “Why do I have to look after some stupid human? It’s insulting! And just so we’re clear, it’s not like I can’t say no to Lucifer, alright!?” Kita sighed, remembering once more that she not only had to survive the year in an entirely different world, but also was going to have to deal with 7 demon lords who, if they were consistent, were all over-dramatic assholes. What did she do to anger God enough that he’d allow this sort of misfortune? “I only agreed to babysit you because…” he babbled “... well. Um, you know...uh…” “I don’t care,” she whispered wearily.

“What?” the demon shouted, “oh! Now you’re really in for it you stupid… although I’m sorta surprised you’ve got the guts to talk to me like that. You should be scared.” What about her behavior implied that she wasn’t? Did she really come off as if she were delighted to be in his presence? “I mean, I’m a demon. Even a human would get that, right?”

She pushed past him onto the stone path that led to the doorsteps of the mansion What makes you any more dangerous than literally anything I could be killed by in my own world? “You’re seriously weird,” he shook his head as he pushed the door open, “whatever, come on then.” Kita glanced around the heavily decorated hallway as the door clicked shut behind her. The high walls were patterned with purple and silver paper. A long plush carpet led from the front entrance and under a wooden archway into another room. A cheery fireplace could be seen at the far end of the room, glinting off the polished wood floors and filling the area with a sweet, smoky scent. Two dragon-like gargoyles stood guard at the front of the hall, with a marble staircase winding behind them both, up into another hall. All in all, the two rooms alone looked like they cost more than she’d ever make in her lifetime. Kita felt even more out of place than she had on the Devildom streets. “This is the House of Lamentation,” Mammon said. He waved vaguely at the space around them, “it’s one of the dorms here at R.A.D.” Yes. It wasn’t like the prince hadn’t clarified that at least four times. “Well, not just one of the dorms. It’s the dorm reserved for student council members.” Kita simply nodded. The sooner he finished talking, the sooner she’d be taken to her room and then (hopefully) left alone. “The others take every opportunity to insult me,” he prattled, as he led her through the hall “callin’ me scum and money-grubber and shit like that… But I’m an officer on the student council too! The elite of the elite. Top of the social pyramid.” He turned to her. “In other words, I’m a big shot! A real big shot! Even regular big shots are impressed by what a big shot I am!” Big ego is more like it. “By the way, Diavolo is even more of a big shot. He’s so important he’s got his own castle.” “I figured he would...you all call him ‘prince’.” If I have to hear the words ‘big shot’ one more time, I’m finding a thesaurus and throwing it at his stupid face. “Right… anyway, the long and short of it is that us seven brothers live here together and-...hey, what's with that expression? If you’ve got somethin’ to say, you’d best do it now.” Kita blinked. Was she making weird looks? “Sorry,” she muttered, “you all call each other ‘brothers’ but you look nothing like each other.”

“That’s really what you’re wonderin’ about? We aren’t brothers in the human sense,” he shrugged, “it’s more like we share a title, we’ve fought together, live together, yadda yadda, ya get it?” “Sure.” “Seriously, you got a personality thing or somethin’?”

Does he ever shut up?

“Doesn’t matter, “ he continued, “I’m gonna give you a piece of advice, and you’d better listen up 'cause I won’t repeat myself.”

She spotted movement from the corner of her eye as the demon spoke, and she glanced to the staircase where another demon stalked down the marble steps. His eyes burned an angry yellow-orange that peeked out from under the light purple fringes of his hair. He was clearly taller than her. Of course he was. Were demons just naturally this tall? “If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re about to be attacked by a demon, you need to either run or just die.” What? Kita gawked at him in disbelief. The yellow-eyed demon reached the bottom step, glaring as he continued to move behind Mammon. “Are you serious?!” “Yes.” Kita frowned and then snorted. “So just die, then?” “Actually, I vote for you to die, Mammon!”

“Ah! Levi!” the demon yelped, “didn’t see ya there. I...Uhh...L-Listen up here, human! This here is Leviathan, Avatar of Envy. He’s the third oldest of us brothers.” The demon grinned brightly as he spoke, “his name’s sorta hard to say, so you can just call him Levi!” “Uh...no thanks,” Kita deadpanned. Nicknames were reserved for friends. Nicknames meant something. They were special, and not to be given to people who didn’t want to be around her in the first place. She refused to call anyone who wasn’t at least a friend anything short of their name. Besides, ‘Leviathan’ really wasn’t that difficult to pronounce. “Suit yourself.” “Mammon, give me back my money,” Leviathan growled, “then go crawl in a hole and die!” Woah. That was...unnecessary. Kita’s eyebrows scrunched as he flung insults at the white haired demon. “I’ll get it to you, I already told ya. I just need more time,” Mammon shrugged. “More time?! You’ve been telling me you need ‘more time’ for the last two hundred years!” She nearly choked on her spit. Two hundred years? These people were at least two hundred years old? “Hey, no! It’s been two hundred and sixty,” Mammon corrected, “get it right.” This got a small, amused laugh out of her and she quickly covered her mouth as the two demons turned their attention to her. For creatures supposedly hundreds of years old, they sure acted like children. Leviathan shook his head as he grumbled. “Seriously, Mammon, you’re-” “I’m what?” he snapped, “scum? Is that what you’re gonna say?” “You’re a lowlife and a waste of space,” the Avatar of Envy finished with a snarl. Alright, now I just feel kinda bad for him. Kita winced. Nobody should have to deal with being spoken to like that, especially by their own family… brother-in-arms? Sharer of titles? Whatever. “I couldn’t pay you back anyway, I don’t have the money.” “So you’re saying you refuse to pay me back?” “You lookin’ for a fight? Is that it?!” Oh my God. I’m gonna have to listen to this for an entire year. Mammon suddenly turned to Kita again. “Hey, human. Ya know how I told you what to do when a demon attacks? You’re about to witness that for real so…” he paused for a moment, “time for you to die, ‘cause if it’s gonna be you or me, it ain’t gonna be me!” “Wait,” Leviathan said, “ I thought you said-” Mammon smirked at her, and almost as fast as she could blink, he disappeared up the stairs. “-that asshole! He ran off!” Leviathan shook his head in disappointment. “You get what happened, right? He used you as a sacrifice.” “Somehow, that does not surprise me,” Kita snorted. “I’ll admit that Mammon is one of the scummiest scumbags you’ll ever meet,” the demon said, “a total lowlife, but that was still pretty dumb of you for letting him use you like that, I mean this is exactly why humans are-” For the love of all that is holy...unholy...do they all talk this much? “Wait!” he exclaimed, “ you’re human! That gives me an idea.” Why did she feel like this was a bad thing? “Can it wait until tomorrow?” she asked gingerly. “Nope. You’re coming with me!” Kita yelped as his hand suddenly gripped her sleeve and he began dragging her up the stairs with him. “Let go,” she barked, pushing her heels into the floor in an attempt to force him to stop. “Quiet!” he hissed as he halted in front of a door. He glanced around nervously before tugging her inside and closing the door. She twisted around, preparing a few choice words regarding her treatment before stopping with her mouth open like a fish out of water. The room she’d been so unceremoniously dragged into was like something out of her wildest dreams. Light shined through what looked like it might be a pool in the ceiling, sending rippled reflections across the tiled floor. Luminescent jellyfish hung vertically, leading down to a porcelain tub with what appeared to be a body pillow laying in it. An enormous aquarium had been slotted into the wall. Coral and various plants poked out of the sandy bottom, and it seemed silly that the only occupant of a tank with such magnitude was a small goldfish.

That was to say nothing of the enormous amount of manga and various figurines placed around the room. In the corner sat what had to be the most computers she’d ever seen in a single house. It... It was pretty badass, she had to admit.

“This is your bedroom?” she asked incredulously. “Uh.. Yeah.” “It’s beautiful.” Leviathan nodded once. “You want to know why I looked around to see if anyone was looking before I closed the door?” “Not particularly but I can take a few guesses.” “Well why do you think I did it? Not that it isn’t totally obvious. Imagine what would happen if someone saw me invite you into my room!” he rambled, “a human who doesn’t even look like an otaku! A normie! Do you know what people would say?” Oh no, he’s one of those kinds. “I don’t honestly care, sorry.” “You should! It’d be insane!” Kita murmured a snide comment to herself as she wandered over to the tall bookshelf by the door. She peered curiously at the unfamiliar, often ridiculously long titles before a thick book with black leather and silver trim caught her attention. “What, human? What are you looking at?” Kita pointed at the book, making sure she didn’t touch it. “Oh, that's The Tale of the Seven Lords! Are you a fan of that too?” He sounded almost...excited? “Not at the moment. I don’t know that we even have it in the human world,” she apologized. “What’s it about?” She must’ve asked something right if the way the demon’s eyes lit up were any indication. “You don’t know TSL? And you call yourself a human?!” “Actually, I call myself ‘Kita’,” she snarked, “you lot seem to be the ones set on the ‘human’ bit.” “Listen, just the fact that you don’t know TSL alone is proof that you’ve been wasting your life!” “Do enlighten me on what I’ve missed,” she snorted. There was something about this one that made him slightly easier to talk to than the others she’d met so far- not that she could put a finger on what it was.

“The Tale of the Seven Lords, TSL, is a series of fantasy novels written by Cristopher Peugeot. It’s a heroic spanning 138 volumes, and the most widely read fantasy series in the world,” he began.

On, and on, and on some more the demon rambled about the book. Books. 138 of them? That was crazy. Do all demons talk this much? Honestly, that’d be true Hell, right there. Skip the burning and rending, just keep talking. Kita listened, not out of any particular interest so much as the excitement in the Avatars voice. She knew what it was like to try to talk to someone about something she liked, only to be ignored or shoved off. She wouldn’t be that person, even to a stranger who’d literally dragged her sorry ass up a flight of stairs. Besides, his energy was somewhat contagious, even if he’d been speaking for at least twenty minutes. “There’s that one really awesome moment where the two of them realize they both like and respect each other, and they high-five! I just love that part,” he jabbered, “I wish I could have a moment like that.” “I’m sure you will,” Kita said. “Wait, you’re still listening to me?” Leviathan gawked. Kita nodded. “Most people’s eyes would’ve glazed over by now…” he said, “uh...oh! Check it out,” he pointed to the aquarium. “See that goldfish there? His name’s Henry. I love TSL so much that I couldn’t help naming him after the main character. I can’t high-five a goldfish though.” “Well you can’t with that attitude,” Kita snickered.

Leviathan frowned, suddenly sullen. “You humans are so lucky,” he said, “you’ve got subscription services that let you watch any anime you want to, you can go to Akihabara whenever you want…” Aki-what? Ah, who cares. “Why do only you guys get to experience the good stuff? I mean humans’ whole concept of pleasure originally came from us demons, you know,” he whined,” so why can’t we take a little of that back now? I want to go to a Japanese maid cafe too, y’know? I want to cosplay as Henry, or go stand in the center of Akihabara, or maybe under that one building in Tokyo that’s shaped like upside-down triangles. Once I’m there, I want to perform Henry’s super powerful signature finishing move for all to see and say the incantation that goes with it!” Is he...Is he breathing? How is he saying all that in one breath?!

“Actually, you know what? I want to be Henry,” he finished.

“Screw normies,” Kita yawned, suddenly aware yet again that she’d been kept up far later than she thought was humane. Of course, these guys were demons. What was she expecting? “Yeah! Screw ‘em!”

The demon frowned again as he spoke. “Alright, enough. This is starting to depress me. I didn’t bring you here to tell you about TSL.” “I was wondering when that would be addressed,” Kita muttered quietly. “I don’t think there’s any harm in coming out and saying what you already know is true: Mammon is a complete, and utter scumbag.” “Got it.” Really, it didn't seem like demons had much of a vocabulary. Not that she had a great one either, but still. “It’s very important that you understand this, so I’ll say it one more time.” “No need, I assure you I understand perfectly. Just… get to the point,” she grumbled, “why am I in here?” “I lent that scumbag money and now I want it back, but being the scumbag that he is, he won’t do it.” “What do you expect me to do about it?” Kita asked, quickly losing patience. She was hungry, she was tired, she was stressed, and a hundred other things already. She wasn’t fond of the idea of spending another hour in the room. “You should probably know how Mammon and I first became enemies.” “I… No. Just get to the point, please,” she sighed. “Fine. As third born, I don’t have a chance to get my money back on my own,” he explained, “but if, say, a human made a pact with Mamon and bound him to their service…” he gave her a pointed look.

“No.” “What? Why not? He’d have to do whatever you told him!” “Not interested.”

“Is it the whole ‘selling your soul’ bit? That’s not always necessary, you know!” Leviathan argued, “it depends on what’s in the pact.” “Not. Interested.” “No, no, just listen, I’ll tell you how to negotiate with Mammon!” Oh, for the love of...

“It’d be useful for you to have him as your servant,” he assured, “despite how awful he is, he’s still very powerful! You’re probably worried being down here in the Devildom, so it’s not like it’s a bad deal for you. Don’t you agree?” “What makes you think I’d even be able to control him? I’m sure pacts aren’t as cut-and-dry as you’re trying to make them sound,” she disagreed. “You’ll do fine.” Sure I would, Kita snorted. She had the authoritative presence of a sea snail. If she couldn’t get other humans to listen to her, what hope did she have of commanding a demon? Much less a demon lord? She wasn’t sure she wanted that sort of power over another being anyway, no matter how obnoxious they were. “Listen,” Kita drawled as she rubbed her eyes, “I’ve had a very long, exhausting, somewhat upsetting day. If you could be so kind as to show me to wherever I’ll be holed up while I’m stuck here, I’ll give you an answer tomorrow when I’ve had time to think and maybe do a little research on what exactly a pact entails because there’s no way in Heaven or Hell that I’ll be doing anything like that until I know precisely how it all works.” Oh dear lord, was Leviathan’s rambling rubbing off on her? Did she take a breath?

“It’s only 3pm,” the demon stated.

“It’s dark.” “We don’t have a sunrise here,” Leviathan explained. What’s shining off the moon, then? Kita wanted to ask. 

She shook her head. It didn’t really matter. “Whatever. I’m still going to bed,” she said,” you can show me to my room or I'll just use the tub.” With a groan and something muttered about “normies”, Leviathan opened the door, motioning her to follow him down the hall. They stopped at the very last door, closest to the window that hung at the end of the corridor. “There’s your room,” Leviathan muttered before walking past her. He disappeared around the corner. Kita exhaled wearily, slowly opening the creaky door. Her shoulders went slack. By the head and foot of the bed stood two trees that stretched themselves against the roof of the room. Lichen hung off the gnarled bark. Some kind of viney plant that looked suspiciously like ivy creeped its way across the stone walls and behind the twirling, curled wooden bedframe. Colorful lanterns hung from the branches, providing light for the room. A smooth table had been placed just behind one of the trees and a group of intricate chairs sat underneath it. Beyond the table, a dresser, as ornate as everything else, held a variety of items on top. A brass skull lay next to a teapot. Hot tea does sound nice right about now. Maybe peppermint...or lavender. Beside the teapot, a group of various books had been stacked along with a small, empty picture frame. Next stood a cabinet that appeared to have been made from a coffin. More books lined one of the shelves, and the top shelf had a small red and gold container. Beside it stood a small horse figurine that reared angrily, and a potted plant rested next to it. In the very center of the room hung a twisted rust-colored chandelier. Open flamed candles burned off the twigs branching from the frame. Is that safe with all the wood here? Two decorated rugs crossed each other over the old and worn flooring. Aside from the color of the pillows and sheets, various shades of light pinks, the room was right up her alley. Kita ran a hand over the silky coverings on the bed, wanting nothing more than to fall face-first into the cloudlike softness of the pillows lined against the headboard. But that’s where they’d expect to find her. That’s where these strangers would expect to find her, defenseless, vulnerable as she rested. Kita mumbled to herself as she searched for somewhere else in the room to sleep. Under the table was a no-go. She wouldn’t fit under the bed, and between the mattress wouldn’t work either. She ruffled through the plant at the edge of the bed, frowning at the lack of space between its branches and the wall. It left a small, cramped crawl space that she might’ve been able to fit into if she bothered to break a few of the twigs. She’d keep it in mind. Kita glanced around the room anxiously. A large air vent protruded out near the top of the wall. There was no way she’d be able to get to that. Finally, her sight landed on the large tree by the headboard of the bed. She curled her hand into the bark, pulling to test its durability. When it held, she began hoisting herself up the ivy and lichen, grunting with the effort as she reached the first branches. She continued climbing into the leaves until they covered her completely, settling flat on a large limb and clutching the main body of the tree with an exhausted sigh. I hope this thing doesn’t have spiders or something.

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to take her.

[zutaradreams]

Day 3: Season 4 Zutara

AO3 Part 2

“Can you heal minds?” Zuko asks Katara to help him with Azula; To be continued tomorrow

“I abandoned her.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“When the news broke that Aang defeated my father, I felt victory. But when we fought Azula...well, did you feel victorious?”

She remembered how Azula writhed like an animal in chains, and how she screamed the most heart wrenching shriek, all while Zuko’s weight pressed against her as he struggled to his feet from the brutal wound that should have killed him. 

“No.”

“I was lucky, now that I think about it. I had my uncle. I had been banished. I had the freedom to understand the world in a way Azula never could. My inclinations had already been challenged, but when Azula was finally forced to face the same realities, she couldn’t handle it.”

“So you want me to take a look at her?”

Can you heal minds, his desperate letter had asked her. It was the first letter they’d received addressed to her. All the others went to Aang. But Zuko wrote her a letter that told her Azula’s madness was now her permanent state. His worry for his sister bled off the page and seeped into this evening meal they shared. He wanted to know if there was any hope for her at all. 

Another time, when there was less on his mind, she would tell him she was worried about Aang too, and the new darkness thriving inside him since he stole Ozai’s bending away. Another time, she would admit she was afraid of him. 

“If you’re comfortable with it. I just want to know if her brain is suffering some kind of physical trauma, or if it’s all mental.”

“I’ll do it. First thing in the morning.”

“Thank you, Katara.”

She shuddered. The last time he said that she had started his heart back up in her hands. That whole battle would forever be something only the two of them understood. 

Azula didn’t acknowledge her at all when she went to see her the next morning. She just stared at the metal bars of her cell door.

“We have to lock you in,” a guard said. “Just yell if you need to get out.”

She swallowed down the bile. She could be strong. She could do this for Zuko. “Hi, Azula, I’m just here to make sure you don’t have any injuries.” 

Azula didn’t move. 

“I’ll, um, start with your hands.” Katara reached for one, but Azula ripped her hand away and screamed. Katara jerked back. She was deathly afraid Azula would shoot a wave of fire at her, but she didn’t. She only screamed. The sound reverberated off the damp walls of her iron cell and surged the fear Katara had struggled to suppress. 

Then as suddenly as she started, she stopped. Katara exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry I grabbed you. I wasn’t thinking.”

Azula didn’t respond, but as Katara looked into the blank depths of her eyes, she realized Azula’s hair was a knotted mess. Matted clumps collected at the nape of her neck, and jagged bangs fell in her eyes. “I bet no one’s done your hair, have they?”

So Katara came back with a wide-tooth comb, special soaps, and hair oils. She spent two hours bending water through her hair and detangling the weeks-old knots, smoothing her hair back to a healthy condition. Azula didn’t fight her once, and it gave her the perfect opportunity to probe healing hands against her temples. It would hurt Zuko to know there was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could be fixed with her “magic water”. 

When she finished, Azula lifted her fingers and ran them through the freshly-combed strands. “Mother,” she called, the first word she had spoken all day. 

“No, it’s not Mother. I’m a friend of Zuko’s.” 

Azula smiled. “Zuzu.”

“Yes, Zuzu. Get some sleep. I’ll be back later.” 

The spices on the chicken burned the back of her throat. She tried some of the soup to wash it down. 

“So, no physical trauma.”

“Not that I saw.” 

He struck his palm into his forehead. “I don’t know what to do for her. I’ve had all kinds of sanatorium physicians talk to her. None of them recommended anything but keeping her locked up for the rest of her life!” 

“While I do admit she isn’t stable now, I don’t think it’ll be like this forever.”

“You always have hope.” 

She rolled her eyes at him, though she didn’t take offense. “Do you know why I have hope right now?”

“Why?”

“Because she smiled when I said your name.” 

The next day, Katara combed Azula’s hair, and after, she gathered it all in her hands and styled it into a neat topknot. 

“I have something for you,” Katara said. She didn’t ask Zuko for Azula’s crown. She wanted to stray away from the influence of their father and recover her memories of her mother. Those memories seemed to be from a more pleasant time. She brought with her one of Ursa’s hair combs and held it out for Azula to see. 

“Look, it’s Mother’s.”

Azula tentatively held her palm out. Katara placed the hair comb in her palm, thinking about how excited she would be to tell Zuko over dinner that night. Then her fist clenched around the comb, and flames erupted from her hands. The melted comb flew towards Katara’s head along with a burst of fire. She ducked as Azula bent formations randomly around the cell. 

The guards got her out of there as fast as they could. 

“I should have known it would be a bad idea as soon as you asked for that comb. Azula hated our mother.”

“Zuko, it’s not your fault.”

“Did she hurt you?” 

“No.”

“Are you sure? Her guards told me it was the most she had firebent since she was put in there.” 

Her face lit up, despite it all. “Maybe that’s a good thing! Maybe it’s good for her to get all that anger out.”

“I’d agree...if she was directing the flames far away from you.” 

“You don’t have to worry about me. You have enough to worry about, Fire Lord.”

He shook his head at her. “I worry about the nation as my job. I get to worry about you recreationally.” 

She tried a different strategy on the third day when she went to do Azula’s hair. This time, she wouldn’t mention Ozai, or Ursa, just--

“Zuzu sent me to check on you.”

“Zuzu.”

“He wants to make sure you’re eating.” She wasn’t. Her untouched food usually stayed right where the guards dropped it off, and nobody was going to force feed her. 

Katara picked up a spoonful of oatmeal. It looked terribly unappetizing, but it was food, and Azula’s cheeks were looking rather sunken. She pressed the spoon to Azula’s lips and watched her swallow the bite. She wouldn’t hold the spoon herself, no matter how many tricks Katara tried, but Katara did manage to get her to eat every bite. 

Then Azula threw it all up. Katara patted her back as she cried and murmured soothing words as she expelled all the oatmeal and painfully heaved up bile after the oatmeal was gone. Katara used her waterbending to wash away the mess. She would need the guards to bring more food and water. 

Azula sat in the middle of the floor with vomit in her nose, on her clothes, stuck to her mouth. “Is he okay?”

“Who, Azula?”

“It smells so bad.”

“You just threw up. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Is he okay?” she asked again as Katara used her sleeve to clean Azula’s face. 

“Let’s make sure you’re okay.” 

“That’s what happens when you disobey. Suffering will be your teacher. Did you see his face?”

His face? “Zuko?”

“Did you see his face?”

“Yes, Azula, I saw his face.”

“Is he okay?”

She patted her back again. “Yes, he’s okay.”

Azula stopped crying long enough for Katara to get her to drink some water. Soon after, she got some more oatmeal and fed her a quarter of the bowl to prevent her stomach from getting too full and have the same thing happen again. 

“My name’s Katara,” she said to her because it dawned on her that Azula might not know. “I’m Katara. You’re Azula. You’re okay. Zuko’s okay.”

Azula said nothing. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“I appreciate all the time you’re putting into her care.” 

“Of course.”

“I should be the one to do it.”

“You don’t have the time,” she reminded him. “But maybe you could go to see her. You seem to be the only one she cares anything about.” 

“She hates me. She doesn’t want to see me. She shot me with lightning.” 

But she didn’t mean to. She was aiming for me. “If you have the time, go see her.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“Katara--”

“Come on, Fire Lord.” 

“Fine. I promise.” 

On the fourth day, she talked and talked, trying to coax some sort of response out of Azula. It was a bit like talking to a baby, talking and talking to someone who couldn’t reply. Azula stared blankly at her as Katara styled her hair, changed her linens, fed her small bites of food. 

“I have an older brother too. Can I tell you a secret? I love him more than anyone in the whole world. If something ever happened to him, I don’t think I’d be okay. I’d go on, but part of me would be missing for the rest of my life.”

Katara was young. Until she was fourteen years old, there hadn’t been a world outside her family and her village. She loved everyone she met; they’d become a part of her family, but Sokka was the one she’s spent most of her life with. Until she started her own family, he would always be the most important to her. They would always understand each other better than anyone else.

She was lost in thought, wondering what everyone else was up to, spoon feeding another bite into Azula’s mouth, when Azula reached out and burned the wrist of the arm holding the spoon. 

“You will learn, and suffering will be your teacher.”

Katara cried out, but Azula’s fiery hand grasped her harder. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, and she wrenched away from her just in time for the guards to pull her out. One of the guards delivered a blow to Azula’s head, and Azula fell limply to the floor. 

“You didn’t have to do that!” Katara shouted at him, while the rest of her could only register the white-hot pain surging from her wrist. Against her better judgment, she looked down. The sight of the blistering, bloody skin made her stomach turn. She needed to work on this quickly. 

“The Fire Lord must be notified.” 

“No, please the Fire Lord is busy.” 

“He told us to inform him immediately if any incident like this occurred.” The guard critically glanced at her wrist. “It clearly has. You have to be taken to the palace physician at once.”

“I can heal it,” she insisted. She just needed some cool, clean water. She didn’t need a physician to rub salves on it, or Zuko to tell her never to visit Azula again. This was just a setback. It didn’t mean there wasn’t any hope for Azula. Just like it didn’t mean there wasn’t any hope for Aang. 

She did end up agreeing to see the physician, so long as she was given a chance to heal it first. She soaked the blistered skin in cool water to soothe it and set to work on healing the skin. It was not as easy as when Aang burned her while he was learning. Those burns were minor compared to this one. She was able to ease some of the pain and keep the blisters from thickening, but the physician would need to rub a salve on it to prevent infection. The physician also had the proper bandages. 

The physician, named Sazura, was bandaging the wound when Zuko came in dressed head-to-toe in his Fire Lord regalia. “She burned you?”

“Just a little bit on my wrist.” 

“The guards said she held onto you and wouldn’t let go.”

“I was able to get away from her. It’s okay, Zuko. It’s just a little burn.”

Sazura added, “My Lord, with Lady Katara’s accelerated healing, I expect it to heal completely in less than a week.” 

This information did nothing to calm the worried look in Zuko’s eyes. Once the physician finished wrapping Katara’s wrist, she recommended the lady get some rest. It was the only other medicine she prescribed Katara. Zuko offered to walk Katara back to her room. 

“I’m not tired.”

“Then take a walk with me.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” It was the middle of the day. Zuko was usually stuck in back-to-back meetings, pouring over documents, seeking advice. He never had time to walk in the middle of the day.

“Not right now.”

She agreed to go with him. They ended up wandering into some part of the palace she hadn’t had the chance to visit in her relatively short stay. It was a grand room filled wall-to-wall with tapestries of the history of the Fire Nation. 

 “I wish you wouldn’t see her again.”

“Zuko, please don’t lose hope.” 

“Katara, I can accept that I’m never going to get my sister back. I can make peace with that. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You don’t need to risk yourself for a lost cause.”  

“I don’t think she’s a lost cause! You don’t either! I know you don’t. You never would have asked me here in the first place if you thought she was.” 

“I want her bending taken away, just like my father.”

“No!” Katara shouted at him. “You can’t do that. You don’t get to decide who gets to bend and who doesn’t. You don’t understand how dangerous that kind of power is.” There were tears in her eyes just thinking about it.

“What do you mean?”

It felt like a betrayal to even say it out loud. “Aang’s not the same.”

“Not the same how?”

“He has these awful dreams at night. He swears they’re memories of your father’s life, and when he wakes in the middle of one of them, he’s merciless and sadistic and destructive. He’s terrifying, and there’s no snapping him out of it until he wakes up completely. No Avatar has ever taken another’s bending before. There’s no one to help him understand the consequences of what he did. There’s no one to help him heal. You can’t ask him to do it again.” 

“Then I won’t.”

“Thank you.” She hugged him. She needed a hug. 

“We’re going to figure out what’s going on with Aang,” he assured her, rubbing his hand soothingly along her back. “I wish you’d told me sooner.” 

“He wanted me to keep it a secret.”

“That’s too much of a burden to put on you,” he said gently. She knew she needed to pull away from him soon, but his arms were too comforting. “Is that why you came here? You thought if you could figure out how to help Azula, you could figure out how to help Aang?”

She squeezed him tighter one last time before she let go. “No. I came here for you.”  She looked down at her bandaged wrist and sighed. “I didn’t think the end of the war was going to be like this.”

“Neither did I. I imagined a lot less chaos.”

“Yeah, I was hoping for more parties. Some nice festivals.” 

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he mused along with her before he steered the conversation back to reality. “When Azula burned you, was it an accident, do you think?”

“No. I wish it was. She said ‘suffering will be your teacher’ like she knew what she was doing.”

Zuko tensed, and his eyes turned cold. “What did she say?”

Did she even need to repeat herself? From his reaction, she was sure he already knew. “‘Suffering will be your teacher.’ She said it before a couple days ago when she threw up after eating. What does it mean?”

He didn’t reply at first.

“Zuko, what does it mean?”

“It’s what my father said before he burned me.”

An answer to a question she never asked, though she wondered a million times. Zuko, how did you get your scar? Now so many more questions. He was gone before she could ask them. 

[retvenkos]

edges // imtura tal kaelen

Choices: Blades of Light and Shadow - An Imtura Tal Kaelen Story

those edges are sharp as they move to cut deep blood on your hands, body in a heap.

my mother on a throne, her words like tiny knives, my father on the sea - his life lost in archives.

i bleed to death on edges, i forge myself anew, i sail beyond what’s past me, i work and i make do,

--

Flotilla was small, when compared to the rest of the world. She knew it from a young age.

There were land masses that connected entirely different worlds, one language blending into the next, one group of people coexisting with another. The edges were blurred, on land. Kingdoms were fleeting. Everything was larger on land.

There were land masses, and then there were islands.

She lived on an island.

Things were smaller in her world, more black and white. There were sharp contrasts and jagged ends where power was long lasting, existing under the guise of being eternal. (“Very little is truly eternal, Immy.” “Are we?”)

There was very little comfort in her claustrophobic home. Her mother would smother with her love and she imposed her virtues like a slow tightening noose; if you stayed too long, it would be the last place you stayed.

Imtura dreamed of the sea. The freedom of being able to go where you please, the vastly different lands you could visit and even call home, the big expanse of water, as far as you could see, all yours for the taking. Her father was there, on the open sea. That’s where her mother had left him, and that’s where he dared to stay.

She dreamed of the sea, and perhaps of the family she could find, there.

--

Her mother was as strong as she was resolute. Her eyes were hard because they had to be, years of fighting against other clans, working to unify them all under one crown. She wore that crown, now, behind her horns, the turquoise and jade set behind gold and tusk. It caught light from the fire and gleamed with a powerful intensity. It was meant to signify the power behind her fine dresses and thick furs, a crown that detailed adventures she had never seen and places she had never experienced.

“This crown will never be yours, Immy. Not the way you’re going.” Her voice was venom - hitting the bloodstream and coursing through the body fast enough to paralyze. “I can see your future.” Her eyes narrowed, then (In disgust. In loathing.), her head held high.

It was in the early days that the seeds of discontent were sewn. On the edges of a precipice with a steep fall. On the border of what had happened, and what was still to come.

What could her mother see? The sun on her back? Her red hair thick with ocean spray? Her father, on the sea, free from the strict rules of the crown, far from the island and her mother? Was she beside him, in this supposed future? Was it them, father and daughter, at the end of the world that scared the great Ventra Tal Kaelen?

Or was it something else, something more potent? (Death, dishonor, destruction.)

She had felt them all, on this island, in this home.

Which had the strength to consume her?

She left her mother to crowns, dresses, and furs. She abandoned her mother to rules, power, and obligation. She left her mother behind closed doors, waiting for the wood to rot, splinter, and fall.

--

Day after day. Land after land. Sea after sea. Wave after wave. Star after star.

She charted the seas with the aid of the sky one, twice, three times over; searching… always searching. He had said he would be on the sea. That’s the only memory she had of him; red hair, deep eyes, and talk of his mistress - the sea. Her mother had avoided the water her whole life because of him. She bound the Clans together with the strength of a thousand orcs to discard the ocean’s necessity. She said her one failure was Imtura’s love for the water and it’s detrimental temptations.

How else did she fail you, Mighty Queen? How else did she disappoint you, Mother of a Pirate?

Imtura found refuge in her drink and fulfilment in her treasures. Turquoise stones, jade rings, golden gauntlet, necklaces of tusk, shirts of fine silk, and vests of fur. They filled her quarters to the point of claustrophobia, they hung around her neck like a slow tightening noose.

But the drinks slipped it loose, the laughter lightened the load.

“We pirates all lose something.” Her first mate was philosophical after a night of cards and rum. His head lolled forward and for a moment his words were a prayer. Spirits dipped below the strings of music and there were hums of agreement. “There’s always a price for finding treasure.”

What had she sacrificed from her early days to now? How much of that still plagued her now, turning a medallion around her neck to an albatros, ready to drag you beneath the waves.

It was a watery grave for those who sailed the seas.

It was a tumultuous life for those who searched for men who traversed on the edge of the world.

--

Whispers came on the wind, salty sweet and cold as ice.

Shivers ran through her like a ghost walking through you; all at once and suddenly over, leaving an unsteady feeling in the pit of your stomach. The words wrapped around her like snakes going up her arms and around her legs, leaving a trail that made her stand on edge.

Imtura turned, and it seemed to be around her entire crew. (They all had demons… it’s why they were here. To run, perhaps hide. But the whispers, the long shadows, there was no escaping them. Not here, on the sea.)

She turned her gaze to stone and knotted the rope in her hand tighter, the movement jerking the shadowy tendrils away, off of the host they intended to corrupt. She yelled to her crew, giving them jobs, pulling them out of their stupor.

Whispers can’t corrupt you if they don’t have the time or strength.

They had to get off the sea. It was the only way.

“You can’t escape… I can see your future…” They took on the words of her mother, for a moment. But it was too smooth, too languorous to be her mother. Ventra had sharp edges, so did her daughter.

It wasn’t her mother. (Not this time.)

--

Fate came to her at the end of the sharp tip of her axe, their argument compelling, stronger than she could ever know. (The implications of what was to come put her on edge, familiar in its bite.)

Looking into the eyes of a new life, she followed.

[mimymomo]

prompt: a fic where miko climbs into eurydice and orpheus' bed after having a nightmare. like eurydice will have her head on orpheus' shoulder and miko will wiggle between them and accidently wake them up, sooooo cute.

Okay so I’ve had these in my inbox for a while now and I felt bad for never getting to it, so here it is now! This story jumps ahead in time a bit and is kinda shorter than the other ones so I’m sorry about that. Thanks to my wife Oli for reading this first!

...

It was dark, eerily dark. They were everywhere- the silhouettes of tall, broken trees, towering high into the starless night sky. The pitch blackness filled the forest space, so dim that Miko struggled to see his limbs at his side, no matter how hard he squinted his eyes. 

The air was cool and damp, biting at his bruised and beaten skin. The sounds of vapid silence rang in his ears, static replacing chatter. Miko took tiny steps forward, not sure of the direction he was going, but knowing he just wanted to get out. Get home. 

Suddenly, there was a snap, a tree branch breaking in the distance. Miko whipped around to where he thought the sound had come from. “Hello~?” he called out into the night. His small voice, barely louder than a whisper, trembling. 

“Miko~”

Miko froze at the sound of his name. A chilling tingle traveled up his spine. Goosebumps popped up on his shivering skin. The voice was impossibly gruff, scratchy, rumbling so loudly it shook Miko to his core. The trees jerked and swooshed, rocks jumped and rattled as the ground quaked, sinking into itself. The sound of something rustling in the leaves drew closer, deafening loud. 

“Miko~”

Miko felt something in his body jolt, kicking him. Nudging him to start running, and run fast. So he did. Miko pushes through the prickly bushes, hands and legs covered stinging bloody scraps. He ducked under sharp, jagged branches. They stemmed out far, reaching for him like long, wrinkled fingers. 

Shadowed, unlit figures lurched forward in dark. Growing closer and closer. Closer. 

As the dark shadows started to fully close in, a sudden blinding beacon of light emerged in the distance, a bright golden hue that touched the far reaches of the forest. As Miko drew closer, two figures began to form in the center of the light. Miko instantly recognized the silhouettes, “Euri! Orphe!” 

Then the light began to fade, retracing back and dimming the forest scenery back to its previous dreary state. Eurydice and Orpheus turned away into the light, their bodies fading into shimmering fractals that Miko couldn’t reach. 

The dark seeped through the trees, materializing into an unknown entity that took hold of Miko, wrapping tightly around his torso, waist, and legs, pulling back farther and farther away from his family. 

“Euri! Orphe! Help me!” The two continued to vanish, leaving Miko behind. He fought harder, twisting and squirming around, unable to break loose. “Euri, Orphe, please! Please help me!”

Then they were gone, the dark fully settled in. “No! Don’t leave me...” Miko cried as the grip on his body grew former, the feeling of a crushing weight being pushed down in his chest. It became too much, too unbearable. 

“Ahh,” Miko flew up in his cot, gasping for air that felt heavier than lead. Fat beads of sweat dripped down his forehead as he gripped his soaking wet sheets. 

Miko jumped from his bed as if it's sheets burned his skin at the touch. As soon as his feet hit the cold floor, he raced the few feet from his cot over to Orpheus and Eurydice’s bed. Miko stood at the side of their bed, watching their chest roar and fall in their sleep, one up as the other’s went down. Miko tugged at the rustic blanket, prying it back and crawled into the cramped bed next to Orpheus’ side. Little fingers in balled-up fist held firmly to the old off-white nightshirt. 

Orpheus shifted in his sleep at the feeling of extra weight and body heat. He slowly opened his eyes, crusted over with sleep, blinking once, twice, three times and changed positions. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Even after getting his very own bed, Miko quite often found his way over to slink into Orpheus and Eurydice’s bed in the middle of the night. Their bed was already a dinky, tight squeeze with just the two adults but with Miko, it was beyond cramped and a game of twisting and rearranging to make space for them all. But they made it work. “Miko,” he whispered with a raspy voice, struggling to keep his eyes open and body awake.

“Hi Orphe,” the young boy sniffled, eyes wet and teary. With that, Orpheus felt himself instantly wake up. “Miko? What’s wrong?” he gently pressed, running his fingers through the boy's hair in soft, small circles in an attempt to calm him down. Miko just clung even tighter to his arm, head buried in the crook of his elbow. Orpheus scooped the boy into his arms and swung him over his middle, letting the child lie in between him and his sleepy wife. 

Eurydice immediately moved to make space for the small boy. In her half-sleep daze, wrapped her arms around Miko, hoping to bring him some form of comfort. But instead, Miko proceeded to jump and flinch away from her embrace, tucking into Orpheus’ arm even more. “No,” he cried, warm, salty tears spilled onto Orpheus’ arm. The two parents were now wide awake and alarmed by the boy’s behavior. 

“Miko,” Eurydice startlingly cooed, sitting up slightly. Orpheus followed suit, lifting himself and Miko to rest on the back of the headboard. He swaddled the weeping child in his arms, the thick blanket covering them both. Eurydice scooted over to her husband's side, and he opened his arms to let join in the huddle. “Miko, what’s wrong?”

“You left.”

“What?” Orpheus said puzzled. Left? They were right here, they hadn’t gone anywhere. 

Miko rapidly shook his head, “you left and they got me!”

“Who did Miko?” 

“The shadow man…in the forest,” he whispered. 

Eurydice and Orpheus locked eyes, a tinge of worry and concern and other emotions swirled in their pools. “Nightmare?” Eurydice mouthed. 

“Nightmare,” Orpheus assured, mouthing back with a small, sheepish nod. He let Miko cry, wash away and flush out his fears and continued to soothe the anxious boy, hands traveling up and down his shaking back. After a couple minutes, the tears let up, only the sound of a few stray sniffles and whimpers fell from his lips and nose. Orpheus adjusted the child in his lap, turning him so his chest was facing forward. Eurydice reached out and wiped Miko’s eyes, rims red and skin blotchy and tear-stricken. Orpheus used the edge of his shirt to wipe at the boy's dripping nose. It was gross, but the shirt was old and already soaked with tears and snot, so the sacrifice wasn’t too severe. 

“Miko,” Eurydice said, her voice soft and dreamy, like the sweetest of lullabies. “You know we’d never abandon you like that, right?”

The boy meekly nodded, seemingly not fully believing what was being said. 

Eurydice sighed, not in an annoyed way but despondent, “you had a pretty bad dream huh?” Miko nodded once more. “I’m sorry your dream was so scary, but I have to tell you: me and Orpheus, we will never leave you alone. Not ever, no matter what. We’d go to hell and back for you and nothing will ever change that.”

Miko sniffled, “but Mister Hermes said you went down there already. You can’t go twice.”

“You think some silly little rule like that would keep us away from you? ” Eurydice questioned in mock shock. 

“Impossible,” Orpheus added confidently. His wife gave a few quick pokes to Miko’s stomach and he giggled, his airy laughs filled the room with light. 

“You wanna try and get some more sleep?” Eurydice asked. 

Miko’s smile vanished, replaced with a look of doubt, “but what if the shadows come back?”

“Then we’ll chase them away,” Eurydice replied, pulling Miko down to lie close to her chest, her heartbeat a soft, repetitive drum. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Orpheus joined them, pulling the blanket up to their chest. Miko’s burrowed close, though even in the dark of their unlit room, they could see his face was still scrunched up in fear. 

Orpheus felt stuck, no spoken words came to his head that would ultimately calm the frightened boy. Then, an idea bloomed in his mind, and Orpheus began to sing. First, it started as a faint hum in the dark of night, slowly growing to add a melody and words. The notes spun around the room, light and entrancing, sweeping away any trace of anxiety and fear. 

Miko’s eyelids grew heavy as he struggled to fight back sleep, tension slipping from his muscles, bones relaxing into jelly. Soon, the feeling became too much and he yawned, closing his eyes and curling into Eurydice’s side, “night mama...papa…” His breathing slowed and evened out. Small snores filling the room. 

Orpheus’ singing ceased and he glanced over to his wife, their faces plastered with dumbfounded glee. Mama and papa. Miko called them mama and papa. Orpheus felt his chest brim with joy, he could cry. Eurydice gave him a sleepy smile, they’d talk about it when the morning sun arose. He bent over and placed a delicate kiss on his wife and Miko’s heads. Soon, the sun would shine, replacing the midnight dark with the warm glow of the new day. Orpheus couldn’t wait to share that time with his wife and son.

[honestsycrets]

Locked In III: The Breeding Barn

❛ pairing | ubbe x reader, implied ragnar x reader

❛ type | multi

❛ summary | ragnar brings you to the breeding rings... err... farm?

❛  warnings | dub-con, abo, kidnapping.

Ragnar has this way about him. A way to know when someone was out of bounds. Rollo was way out of bound with his hand underneath your skirt, grinding your sopping pussy as you came down off of your heat suppressants. The pesky things never quite worked all the way, but you never appreciated them more than now.

“I’m sharing that one with Ubbe. Pick another.”

You would have bitten that bitch Rollo if you weren’t so tightly restrained, shackled to the seat in front of you while he flew the plane in toward the final destination. Which… honestly sounded just as scary as the movies when an alpha had his nose deep against your scent glands on your neck.

“We’re almost there. You can knot the first breeding bitch you see.” Ragnar glances back to his brother. He gets the message and good enough because, with Alpha males, they have this sort of fight in their system. They don’t back down. Neither do you.

But you’re saved by Ragnar when Rollo ceases his affections. Ragnar was a good guy for a guy that promoted his sons to trade copious amounts of drugs and women. Or maybe your reality was becoming distorted because you honestly don’t recall having such an appreciation for a man that respects your heats.

Rollo’s feet stomp onto the floor of the plane when Ragnar begins his descent. Alphas were known to hate any situation in which they weren’t in control. He definitely wasn’t. You think you might throw up, bobbing with the thought of the Ragnarsson who abandoned you.

You’re going to the breeding rings.

Two stringy rags make up your feet when you step off of that plane, that truck, that river spreading one crisp green land from another. Then suddenly, it's all luscious rolling green hills for miles. Rows of corn touch the deep sky.

“Where am I?” You ask the Alpha male, clearly the leader of his pack. Ragnar says nothing at first. You suppose there’s no reason to ask as anyone could tell that wherever you were, it wasn’t home now. Ragnar’s hand settles on the hot leather of his truck, rolling his window down for all too humid air to roll in. It’s caught in your throat like a mouthful of dry bread. The old man tacks his fat fingers onto metal buttons, clicking as they pop back up. A long beep chimes from what you can only suppose is the front gate.

“Welcome to The Breeding Barn.”

The air is wretchedly muggy, but the grass, sloshy like a bad bowl of French Onion soup. Your feet squish and slip past large rings with squealing pigs and follow Ragnar, your ankles slip in the mud.

This hardly looks like the institution you expected. You expected some… the basement of horrors. It looks like a farm on the sprawling five hundred acres you couldn’t count.

“The breeding barn? It’s a farm?” You ask the so-called king. He stays quiet, drawing his tongue over a jagged tooth.

“That’s what we would have you think.” Ragnar shoves you into an aged barn. The horns of some poor animal are mounted above you. Your bound hands collide with the splintered doorway, realizing that this place had been here some time. Ragnar plucks you up, grunting as he shoves you over his shoulder. Your fingers tighten against his smooth shirt as he moves past his prized mares, turning to where bound straw is kept. He moves each roll aside, tugging and huffing until he could toss them off a rod iron handle that he can lift the creaky door with his boot.

“Floki, close the door.” He calls. You squeal with every rebounding step, pounding down the wooden stairs. The door shuts with a strange, almost clownlike giggle. Ragnar disappears into a pitch black hall, with walls that almost pull together down upon the both of you. If the ceiling could move, you swore it would have. A jingling of keys unlocks another door-- then another, several feet down. Ragnar yanks the door back and synthetic light streams in.

“Ugh-- Ugh--”

The noises sound like a first-class porno, rippling in your ear so that your head pounds. The baying of willing omegas rooted deep in their heats. Since suppressants became safer, these noises in the middle of the night had all but disappeared. More than the noise, the smell hits you like a swaying rock. Other eligible omegas have the propensity to push a heat along. More than that, you think, it’s the smell of an alpha. Or a few, thick in the air. One scent stands out. It’s not Ragnar’s.

“Fuck.” Ragnar stills your rutting hips on his shoulder with a ringing spank, then voice booming, he commands the attention in the room. “That’s enough. Ubbe.”

“Who is this?” In a few achingly long, deep steps from the newcomer, you feel the man stand in front of Ragnar. His voice runs deep and heads straight toward your cunt as if your womb was pushing you into it already-- Alpha, there’s an Alpha, but a real Alpha you dumb bitch. Suddenly deeply attuned to his presence, you jerk as if you could hide on Ragnar’s back. A strangled protest chirps from your lips when strange hands reach out to cup your ass.

“Hvitserk’s newest acquisition.” He says, tracing his fingertips up the back of your thighs. You can differentiate Ragnar’s fingers from Ubbe’s. Ragnar’s are rough, tiresome and thick. He must have been in this business for years.

“One of Hvitserk’s?” Ubbe says, parting his lips in mock disapproval. “How diseased is this one?”

“You’re probably more diseased than I am.” You speak out of turn.

“She’s mouthy,” Ubbe says, almost absently. He flicks up the rim of your skirt, tracing the edge of your pleats from the panties that settle beautifully in between your cheeks. His index and middle finger trace down the slit of your pussy. Your hips jerk, then subsequently you kick out.

“Don’t touch me.”

“And disobedient.”

“Fuck off.”

“She has to be. She was a nurse. He was her patient,” Ragnar responds automatically, setting all of his weight on his right leg. Ubbe’s middle finger snakes around the flimsy fabric hiding your smooth skin. You jerk defiantly away from his fingers. Ubbe’s fingers curl into a fist.

“No wonder.” Ubbe husks.

You wonder what kind of ugly mug he might have. His brother was cute. Hvitserk had this puppy like energy to him, reflected in his uncle. Ragnar was handsome and in his youth, you would have been fawning over him outside of here. Not that he wasn’t desirable at all. He was… well, a daddy. You cease to find the dusty floor amusing, less so with nothing to look at but the back of Ragnar's boots.

Ragnar sets you down on two feet. He rakes his hands through your long hair, yanking it back so that you have to face Ubbe. That… was not an ugly face. In some baleful laugh, Ubbe looks over his shoulder, smoothing over his handsome ruddy beard

“Not what you expected, breeding bait?”

Breeding bait?!

You had enough. Not only had your whole life been effectively uprooted by this hell family but now they had brought you here to a place where you could hear the wretched moaning of women and men bound in pins of wood. Their hips on one side and faces on another. You don’t want to ask what exactly will become of you next. You hike up your leg, bound to kick him right where his precious cock was, but like many things, Ubbe was prepared. He hooks your leg under his arm, causing you to hop closer and closer until you can feel him against you. Ragnar throws his hands behind his head, barking at his son to stop playing around as he walks around him toward another area.

“You’ll regret that.” Ubbe growls.

You seriously doubted it. You hated him already.

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[anistarrose]

This is Your Last Ride Ever, Forever (TAZ Amnesty x Balance)

Summary: Ned meets the Grim Reaper, who’s surprisingly encouraging of breaking the laws of life and death to stop the apocalypse.

Word Count: ~2100

Warnings: (canonical) major character death, character undeath, canon-typical violence

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192672

A little Amnesty/Balance crossover to help cope. (Title is from Lifetime Achievement Award by Lemon Demon!)

***

The stars are beautiful, and then they’re gone…

And then, they’re replaced by a million spiraling lights, dancing above a serene blue sea.

Ned doesn’t join them, though. He feels anything but serene — no, he’s the roaring ocean that’s torn up and whirled around by a cyclone. He’s the weight that turns the storm deadly as it batters away at the harbor, as it rushes in to drown anyone who thought they could trust the sea.

But even now, he refuses to accept it as the end of the story.

Where’s Dani? Where’s the gate?

Am I dead? I can’t die yet, I still haven’t warned anyone that the shapeshifter was after the goat…

I still haven’t finished cleaning up the mess I made…

It’s ironic, perhaps, how close he came to leaving them just a few hours ago when now he’s so desperate to return — but really, there’s no excuse for him not to have seen this coming. Every time Ned thinks he’s lost it all, thinks he’s hit rock bottom, he’s proven wrong and finds himself sinking lower and lower — so why should this time have been any different?

A jagged rift slices through the air just a few feet in front of him, and he dives towards it without thinking. He’ll do anything to get back to them even for the briefest of moments, anything to warn them —

Appearing out of nowhere, a scythe swings in a broad arc, binding the rift shut before coming to a stop just inches away from Ned. He can feel the power emanating from it with a instinctive certainty he’s never before had about magical objects, and he knows in the back of his mind that one touch of that blade will banish him to the furthest depths of the afterlife, from which he might never see Kepler again even if he spent a whole century struggling to climb back out.

The figure holding the scythe is cloaked in black robes, their face obscured, and something tells Ned that missing him with the scythe was a calculated choice, an intentional choice. That if they’d meant to strike him, they would have, and that would have been the end of that.

But the scythe-wielder — a humanoid, somewhat stout figure with sparks of red electricity dancing all across their sleeves like static electricity — doesn’t make any further move to attack, and instead procures a book from within the folds of their robe. It floats in the air alongside their head, flipping through pages all on its own as if assigned to search for a particular entry.

“Look, bud, I don’t really want to send you to the Eternal Stockade,” the figure addresses him, voice masculine and tone surprisingly casual. “You look pretty disoriented, and I can’t really blame you — but you did just try to make a break for it, and if it turns out you’re a repeat offender, I can’t in good conscience let you keep hanging around in the low-security sector.”

He says all of this in such a matter-of-fact tone that Ned is left at a complete loss for words. Of all the visions of the afterlife he’d ever entertained, none of them had been so full of… bureaucracy.

The pages of the book come to a standstill, and the figure raises a skeletal hand up towards his shadow-obscured face, allowing Ned to catch a glimpse of something reflective — adjusted glasses?

“Let’s see here… Edmund ‘Ned’ Chicane, human, only one death — good for you! — at age sixty-three. You’re good to go, then — just don’t try anything like this again, or I’ll have to lock you up.”

Ned finally manages to collect himself, and choke out a few words. “You’re the Grim Reaper, aren’t you?”

The specter approximates a shrug. “Well, not the Grim Reaper. There’s three of us, for one thing, but… well, I guess it’s a pretty accurate description aside from that.”

Another thing Ned had never imagined was that death incarnate would be so willing to make casual conversation, but the realization gives him all kinds of hope. Escaping prison — and supernatural prison, at that — would be a daunting task, but just talking his way out of a bad situation? That, he could do.

“Well, you know, Mr. Reaper, if I may call you that — I’m a huge fan of yours, loved you in ‘The Masque of the Red Death!’ And I would really hate to throw a wrench in the operation you have set up here, but…”

The reaper’s book vanishes in a plume of smoke, and his grip on his scythe tightens. “Okay, I think we both know what you’re playing at here, and let me just warn you now — even if I did want to let you go, it’s not my decision to make. I already told you I wasn’t the only reaper, and even if we all agreed to let back into the world of the living, the Raven Queen would never sign off on it. Flattering me isn’t gonna get you anywhere.”

“But I need to get back!” Ned blurts out. “I made a mistake, a whole pile of mistakes, and I need to fix them — there is an entire planet, an entire world in danger because of me! The apocalypse is impending for a whole world of innocent, sapient creatures, and hardly anyone knows the truth of it! Hardly anyone can stop it, except me and —”

The reaper flinches at the mention of a world in danger, but Ned doesn’t notice because the words, the confessions, the pleas are now pouring out of his mouth too fast to contain. “Except me and the rest of the Pine Guard, but I left them without doing nearly enough to help, to make it up to them — so I need to get back, just for a few hours! Just to make sure they’ll be alright! To warn them, and — and to say goodbye, because they and Kirby were still the closest thing I ever had to a family…”

He’s oblivious to the enchantment the reaper has cast, compelling him to speak the truth — because if telling the truth meant getting back to Kepler, meant saving the world and in particular the Pine Guard… then not even Ned Chicane would dare to lie.

“Just a big, weird, dumb family of cryptids and magicians and park rangers and crazy old men trying to stave off the apocalypse together! I can’t abandon them now, I can’t —”

“Shh.” The reaper holds up a hand. “Shh, it’s alright. I just need to check something, okay?”

With his scythe, he cuts a small tear in the dimension, edges of the rift glowing a vibrant green. Yet the inside of the gash shows nothing but a churning storm of dark purple clouds that cover the night sky, blotting out the stars as the wind roars and howls like chained beast straining to be free.

“Yikes. It really does look apocalyptic in there. Tell you what, Ned…”

In the shadowy void beneath the cowl of his robe, a devious smile lights up. “Legally, there’s nothing I can do to help you. But if it just so happened that Edmund Chicane was an unnaturally skilled necromancer, who overpowered me and stole my scythe to slip back into his own plane of existence… well, he’d need a corporeal form to be much of a help to anyone, but surely someone of his skill level could reanimate his body without any help from me whatsoever… I’m sure he’d be in a good position to avert the apocalypse, in that case.”

“Thank you,” Ned whispers, but the reaper quickly raises a finger to his lips.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he replies. “Really, you should know… a stunt like that, it’s gonna earn you a lot of prison time. I’m gonna have to bring you back here eventually, and when that happens, a bunch of folks are going to want you locked up in the Eternal Stockade. I can try my best to get your sentence mitigated, but… the Stockade’s not a nice place, even if you’re only in for a few decades.”

“I don’t care. I’ve done prison time before.”

The reaper nods slowly, and with a flick of his scythe, he tears a longer gash in the air, widening the small rift he’d opened before.

Before he steps through, though, he waves a hand across his robes, and stands still for a moment as they melt away into… a plain white shirt, battered denim jacket, and faded pair of blue jeans, worn by possibly the most mundane-looking middle-aged man Ned has ever laid eyes upon.

“Now, Mr. Reaper, I realize that I’m deeply indebted to you,” Ned says, “but that said, what on Earth are you wearing?”

“Can’t walk around looking like a skeleton if I’m gonna sneak over to your dead body and resurrect it,” the reaper answers. “And just call me Barry, by the way.”

***

Kirby is speeding across Kepler in a stolen car with a screaming goatman buckled up in the back seat, and none of it feels real. Street signs and traffic lights pass by in unidentifiable blurs, but he doesn’t dare take a hand off the steering wheel to wipe his tears away. His knuckles are white, and the old station wagon’s engine is groaning from the exertion —

The four-armed figure of pure white light springs down onto the car, and a spiderweb of cracks spreads across the windshield. Kirby slams the brakes on instinct, and Billy lets out an anguished bleat as his head collides with the back of the driver seat.

“Fuck!” Kirby shouts as two of the figure’s arms jab in through the windshield, grasping at thin air at first but stretching ever closer to him, and he fumbles with his seatbelt and flings the door open. “C’mon, goat, we gotta run!”

“Duuuuuck!” Billy bleats, flailing his arms nowhere near his buckle as Kirby opens his door. Somehow, the seatbelt has gotten twisted all around his horns, and he won’t stop jerking his head around long enough for Kirby to untangle him.

“Stay still, please stay still, we don’t have any time —”

Billy’s head abruptly jerks up, and his slitted eyes fixate on something just past Kirby. “Nedddddd!”

“Ned’s not gonna be able to help us anymore,” Kirby chokes out. “Please —”

A firm hand lands on Kirby’s shoulder, and his blood runs cold as he realizes he can make out a white glow in his peripheral vision. The figure squeezes tighter and tighter, dragging him back from the car and away from Billy —

He hears the satisfying swish of a blade swinging through the air, and the figure’s grip goes limp. He collapses to his knees, and around him, tiny particles of light drift through the air, winking out one at a time like lightning bugs.

Behind him, a familiar voice remarks: “Got here just in the nick of time, didn’t I?”

Immediately, Kirby staggers to his feet and whirls around. “You — you died! I saw it on the drones! How —”

His voice cuts off, as his brain begins to process what his eyes are seeing.

Ned is smiling slightly, but it’s not that fake showman’s smile that he always wears at the Cryptonomica. No, today his smile is confident and determined — and just a little bit melancholic, too, in a way that someone who doesn’t know Ned as well as Kirby does could easily miss.

But then again, maybe Kirby doesn’t know Ned as well as he thinks, because Ned is currently wielding a giant ebony scythe with a long silver blade, and standing above the glowing, bisected body of the four-armed figure. Even as it disintegrates, it’s clear that it was sliced in half at the waist by a single clean cut.

And perhaps most damning of all is Ned’s shirt — ripped and bloodied just above the stomach even though the bare skin shows no sign of a wound, and the body as a whole shows no signs of being dead as an injury like that should surely mean.

“What happened to you?”

Ned’s smile widens, and the melancholy immediately drains right out of his expression as he launches into his familiar “storyteller” mode.

“To put it succinctly, my friend, I met Death and we struck a deal! He’s a surprisingly helpful fellow, you know — he did wear a truly unconscionable amount of denim, but there’s no accounting for taste.”

***

(Thanks for reading, feedback/reblogs are welcomed as always!)