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lady-o-ren · 3 years

Text

Moonstruck

Chapter One (Here) // Chapter Two (Here)

Chapter Two

The wolf wasn't beneath the trees.

But his big feet make him easy to track, leading Claire and Caspian out of the wretched wood to a sea of wild hills that look like waves under the heavenly glow of the night sky. As they near two rolling mounds where the tracks drag against the earth, she sees a lonely crofter house nestled between them like a little boat, abandoned and shabby looking, but it's roof is still thatched and the stone walls still stand. Good enough really for a place to rest one's tired head.

Yet Claire wonders why a wolf would seek a place so out in the open.

Better yet why anyone would seek out a wolf.

"Because you're an absolute nutter, Beauchamp," says Claire to herself. " Or very possibly you're suffering a concussion."

Swinging a leg off Caspian, she tugs on his reins with a warning to stay put and gathers a deep fortifying breath before stepping into the shadow of the house where the door hangs open.

Inside, shafts of bright silvery light illuminate the room, seeping in through the only window. There are cobwebs and dead leaves strewn about the place, emptied of almost everything except for a wobbly looking table by the soot stained hearth and a stool that must've been made for a child tucked into the corner. . .

Opposite of the big red wolf, eyes bright as stars in the pale blue dark.

Claire's breath quickens and her pulse jumps at her throat but she manages to keep her voice steady. Somewhat.

"We still have that deal don't we? You restrain yourself from biting my head off and I don't shoot you between the eyes."

A miserable sound echoes from the wolf's maw and that's answer enough for Claire. The floorboards creak beneath her as she shuffles about the room, finding a bit of flint left behind from vagrants come and gone and makes a pleased and grateful sound when the sparse bits of wood in the hearth catch fire. She then kneels down in front of him, fist outstretched and shaking as she chants -

"Please don't bite me. Please don't bite me. . ."

It's only when Claire feels something hot and wet swipe against her knuckles does she realize her eyes have been shut and she recoils in surprise,flat on her arse with a shriek.

The wolf however snorts heartily.

“You're laughing at me aren't you?”

The corner of his long mouth quirks wryly as his bushy tail swings back and forth and Claire finds herself cracking a smile. The first of this very long and preposterous night.

"Well, a sense of humor must mean you have a heart after all. More so than Caspian anyways.”

And she hopes it means he isn't too badly injured.

Claire comes closer again and tentatively runs the back of her fingers against the wolf's broad crown, his dark copper fur soft against her skin, slanted eyes gone to slits. Encouraged now, she scratches behind his ears and the wolf makes a sound of pleasure from deep within his throat and drops his head onto her lap, sighing with heart filled contentment. She laughs softly with growing affection, her fingers finding their way underneath his great maw that makes his head upturn and tail to swish, swish.

"I don't care what you say you're a puppy and a sweet one too, aren't you?"

She then impulsively imparts a kiss atop his head and the wolf bumps his nose against her chin wanting another.

“Cheeky lad,” she murmurs warmly, but gives him another anyway.

However, she came here for a reason and that wasn't to cuddle a wolf.

Stroking her hand along his neck, that has him kicking out a long powerful hind leg, she says -

"I know I don't look it, but I know more than a thing or two about broken bones and gashes. Will you trust me to help you, even if it hurts?"

A beat passes before he licks at her wrist and she takes that as a show of trust and extricates herself from beneath the red wolf. Gently, she probes his back and ribs first and is amazed there's only a few marks from the bear, hardly deep at all. But then her hands pass over a crisscross of scars beneath his thick coat and her eyes meet his, searching.

“Someone's hunted you, haven't they?”

A frightful tremor crawls over him that grips at her heart and without thought she presses herself against him wishing she could ease whatever horror he was remembering.

“I hope you tore the bastard apart. Slowly. Bit by bit.”

His sides lightly shake and she knows it must be laughter.

Pushing her wayward curls behind her ear, Claire then touches him gingerly over his injured shoulder. The muscle is swollen and a part of her wonders if it's just a bad sprain. But she remembers that odd angle of his leg as he walked and how he nurses it close to himself now.

“If you were a man I'd set your shoulder and wrap it in a sling. I've done so before though it's no small feat. But I haven't so for an animal much less a bear-sized wolf . . .” She sighs. Upset with herself. Hand at her brow, the cut throbbing more so now. “There isn't much I can do without another pair of hands."

She looks helplessly at the wolf.

But there's no way for him to express to her that it's alright, he's suffered worse. And would gladly do so again and again if it meant keeping her from harm. This brown haired lass like no other woman he's ever seen before. Sae bonny and brave.

So he nuzzles her palm and mouths the soft skin like the puppy she says he is and feels his heart swell and the pain in his arm to cease when a smile softly graces her face lovelier than a moonbeam.

Aye, she was worth it.

Claire leaves him for a moment to settle Caspian for the night in the old byre behind the crofter house and comes back with blankets from the horse's saddleroll, a flask and a fold of her cloak full of bittie yarrow leaves she'd found growing between the stones.

The flask is filled with brandy (courtesy of her former betrothed) that she douses torn strips of her gown with to clean the wolf's wounds (murmuring sweet things as she does so knowing how sharply it stings) while the yarrow leaves are mashed between her teeth and applied carefully like a salve.

For his poor shoulder however, she says -

“I promise I'll figure out what to do in the morning. I owe it to you for saving me. Thank you by the way,” she softly adds, and scratches behind the wolf's ears as he likes until his eyes begin to droop and a long winded yawn escapes her mouth.

She's exhausted. Body bruised and aching from being tossed around like a ragdoll but she doesn't think she can sleep in a gown that's been slobbered and bloodied. So while the wolf is fast asleep, Claire undresses down to her chemise and stays and quickly wraps herself in one blanket while laying out the other for a makeshift bed, leaving her cloak to dry by the hearthfire.

Her ruined gown however she grasps in her hands.

No longer did it shine with promise.

No longer was she to be a bride.

At least not for him.

“The bloody two-faced fucking bastard,” Claire mutters angrily, tossing the damn garment across the floor to gather dust as a tear rolls down her chin. She then curls herself into a ball by the fire, shivering beneath the scratchy grey wool, and wrings her heart out of any lingering affection she's ever had for Frank Wolverton Randall by remembering the last moment she saw him.

That morning of their wedding behind the church. Swaying on his feet as he groped a woman she could've sworn was his cousin. And then keeled over, grasping his manhood right after she kneed him.

If only they hadn't been on sacred ground she would've kicked him too.

But just maybe he pissed himself.

Lost in that ever pleasing hopeful thought, Claire is startled to feel a deep huff of breath cloud down her neck like steam and looks up to see the red wolf looming above her.

"You absolute fool," she scolds, though it's spoken without bite as she sits up to cradle his face with both her hands. " You're only making things worse for that shoulder of yours."

The wolf doesn't care. He nuzzles her cheek where the brokenhearted tear had fallen, making a sad whimpering sound as he does so that endears him evermore to Claire's heart.

"No use arguing with a stubborn wolf is there?"

There isn't. He licks the side of her face making her softly giggle before plopping down beside her with a heavy thunk and Claire can do nothing more but sink down against him, his fur radiating a tender warmth that seeps into her tired bones.

Claire wakes with the morning light that floods the room and stings her eyes that immediately shutter close behind the back of her arm.

While embers have kept the room bearable, she knows the only reason she hasn't woken with a sniffle is because of the heavy, heated weight that engulfs her like a brushfire. Drowsily, she lets her hand wander to the furry head atop her chest that rises steadily with a deep inhale of smokey air and then strokes softly down until her palm oddly meets naked flesh. . .

Her eyes bolt open and through the sleepy blur she sees a stranger, big and naked draped across her, mumbling something hot-breathed and incoherent as he smothers his face between her breasts right before she screams.

#Outlander #outlander fic #outlander fanfiction #jamie x claire #moonstruck

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sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years

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The General (part 9.5): Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: it’s over. the ruse is up.

wc: 2.1k

tw: none

masterlist

“Have you ever considered just not going to meet the Prince and remaining in your rooms?” Kaori wonders as you sharpen a blade with a rock. “I mean, I’m sure he wouldn't bother you if you assumed the appearance of an invalid. How about getting out of town for a week?”

She’s tried everything to get you to reconsider your stance on killing Prince Naoya. Any theory, any loophole, any cop-out; Kaori’s said it. But you have no choice. Geto has to be avenged, and the only way you can manage vengeance is killing the man who sent your lover to his death.

“Listen, we have only a couple of days left. We can use poison, strangulation, accidental drowning, and straight-up murder - which I think is the messier of the bunch.” Toji ticks off methods as he watches you work away at the blade with determination. “I vote we poison his food, and if that doesn’t work, smothering can go a long way.” Megumi peers into the little pond in front of him as his father discusses treason, entirely uninterested in anything but finding another frog to play with. You envy the child and wish that you could take his place, forgetting everything else except the current pursuit of a frog. But your frog is much more elusive, slippery, and well-guarded.

“We have to drug the guards first,” you note, and Toji grunts affirmatively, biting his lip as he stares past you, deep in thought. You look at the scar on his mouth and squint, wondering if you’re just now noticing the pink-ish raised mark or if you’d seen it before, but never noted the way it looks against his tanned skin in the sunlight. You look away before anyone can accuse you of staring, but make a note to ask about the injury later.

“How can you be assured that none of this will affect your parents?” Kaori wonders, and you look at her with a pensive stare.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t affect them. They know nothing of the plot and I--”

“If you’re dead, you can’t defend them,” she reminds you, and for a moment, you reconsider the plan altogether.

“Toji, do you think you could get my parents out of here safely?”

“I can’t guarantee shit,” he replies, resting his chin on his palm as his green eyes focus in on you again. “But I can sure as hell try.” He adds when you give him a defeated look. You respond to his addition with a half-smile, and he rolls his eyes at the sight, huffing out a short breath.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Try and hit me,” Toji encourages you, and you reach a hand out to slap him across the face. But you miss entirely and stumble forward, almost face-planting into the ground. “You can’t put all of your force in your upper body like that.” He chastises, stepping in front of you again.

“Give me a rake and we’ll see about that,” you counter, earning you a loud laugh. Toji takes his stance again, hands prepared for a fight.

“Come on, little girl, put up a serious fight. You don’t need a rake.” You inhale deeply, centering yourself with one foot placed behind you at an angle and one foot in front, planted firmly into the dirt. “Hit me.”

The roundhouse kick narrowly misses Toji’s tan face, and his eyes widen as your heel barely scrapes his nose.

“I said hit me, not kill me!” The bodyguard gripes, and you laugh at his overly-surprised expression and step back, holding your stomach as you bend over in a fit of giggles. When you stop and straighten back up, you catch Toji staring at you in wonder.

“What?”

“Your laugh… I’ve never heard you laugh like that before.” At the mention of your enjoyment, you hum thoughtfully, realizing, yes - you hadn’t laughed so heartily in a long time. But in his moment of unguardedness, you shoot your hand out - the fist making contact with his gut immediately. He grunts, holding his abs and wincing a little. “You… fucking... bi--” Before he can finish his sentence and grab you, you take off for the hill behind the house, laughing as you run with all of your might.

But Toji catches up to you easily, grabbing your elbow and making you tumble to the grass, then roll back down the hill in his arms. As you roll - and scream - grass and dirt and wildflowers are kicked up and tossed into your hair and clothes, dirtying your face as well. When you stop though, you’re on top of Toji, and his arms are crushing you against his chest protectively.

“You can let go now,” you groan, and he opens his emerald eyes, staring right into yours with an intensity you’ve only seen on one other person’s face. “Toji…” you whisper, and his face changes again, now softer and much more… relaxed, if that was even possible. He blinks, and you pause, recognizing the meaning behind his looks. “Fushiguro, I--” He lets you go immediately, clearing his throat and standing.

“We should get back before dinner. I’m fucking starving.” He saunters off with his hands in his pockets, not even offering to help you up off of the ground.

_______________________________________________________________________

The moon hovers precariously in the night sky, illuminating the garden directly below it and bathing you in moonlight. You’re only a few hours away from meeting Prince Naoya, and it’s the thought of seeing him face-to-face that keeps you up tonight. What would he look like? Would he know who you are? Would he ask you any questions about Geto?

Your eyes rest on the reflection of the moon in the fountain, Toji’s old dagger resting in your lap.

“It ain’t much,” he mumbled when he handed it to you. “But if something happens, whether it’s with the food or the smothering... You’ve got this dagger.” Then he showed you how to murder someone quickly by using a pillow and your dagger, aiming precisely for the open space between his ribcage. “Stab once, pull it out, and run like hell if you want.”

You inhale deeply, filling your lungs with fresh air.

“Cold out here,” Toji mumbles, rubbing his arms as he walks out of the house barefoot. “Can’t sleep, y/n?”

“No,” you admit, then jerk your chin at him. “You?”

“I don’t get much rest these days,” he replies, sitting beside you at the fountain. “Worried about tomorrow?” You look over at the green-eyed man and blink, your blank expression telling all. “Well, I’m not. You’re going to be fine.”

“And what will you do when you have to watch me be executed?” you tease, but Toji’s eyes fall to the fountain, eyeing the moon’s reflection.

“It’ll be sad. But I understand why you have to do what you’re doing.”

“Toji Fushiguro? Sad?” You laugh, but he gives you a withering look instead of laughing along with you.

“Listen, I’ve made a lot of off-color remarks, but I meant what I said. You’re a great person, and I would hate to see your life go to waste over some petty vendetta.” His mumbling catches you off guard, but you say nothing in response, opting to look down at the dagger instead. “But, you’re determined to pursue your lover into the afterlife; I get it. You must really be in love with him.”

“I am,” you reply, still not looking at Toji.

“Well, since you’re going to die tomorrow, I might as well be transparent with you,” Toji whispers. “You know, looking after you was a pain in the ass at first.” You frown at him, wondering what kind of comment that is, but he continues anyways. “But you grew on me. Shit, watching you for these months has become enjoyable, more exciting than the idiocy I used to do before. Y/n… I’m--” Toji swallows hard, then raises his eyes to meet yours. “I’m... going to miss you.” Toji leans in slowly, placing a rough hand on your right cheek before kissing the other cheek with a tenderness you always knew he held deep inside. Once he pulls away, he stands, raking his hands through his short hair and sighing before walking back into the house. But you’re left outside, wondering what could’ve been if you weren’t so hell-bent on bringing your dead lover justice.

_______________________________________________________________________

The sounds of horses, bells, cheering, chants, cacophony… too much noise.

You can hear it all from your position in the kitchen. The village is louder than it’s ever been before, and all the noise provides the perfect background noise to you and your mother’s preparing food for the six of you already living in the house and about thirteen guests- the seven guards, the four servants, a royal advisor, and finally, Prince Naoya. The resulting feast will outshine any feast your mother has cooked before, and you know that the village will speak of the honor bestowed upon your house and the cooking from it for at least a day.

The next day, they will be lamenting the loss of the eldest son of the Imperial Court, and rejoicing upon your execution. Just like they celebrated Geto’s death.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re happy, Su, you pray as you peel a leek with precision. Only a few more hours and Naoya would be within your reach.

First, you’d drug him with a powder Toji had acquired in exchange for… something unmentionable that he wouldn’t divulge. Second, you would help the prince off to his bed as the drug took hold of him and tuck him in. Then, you’d smother him to death. If that didn’t work - “and there’s a chance that it might not”, Toji warned - you would stab him in the heart. Death would reach the Prince’s soul before the morning light. And you would be ready to die the next day, all to meet Geto in whatever world he had passed on to.

An icy hand grips your heart as the hours pass.

The thought of rejoining your lover - feeling his arms around you, touching his hair, looking into his black eyes - is more than enough for you to pretend everything is alright. All you’re doing is making the most of the last few hours you have with your family, Kaori, Toji, and Megumi. The small child is parading about in his newest outfit, displaying his hakama and haori for all to see and coo over. Toji wears a matching outfit, the clouds and animals drifting about his black haori reminding you of a zoo display and of the days you wish you could have.

You’re wearing your best kimono - the peach one Kaori dressed you in the day you left the camp; Suguru’s mother’s kimono. It’s all too beautiful, really. Everyone is dressed up like royalty, but you’re the only one who came dangerously close to that life and escaped by the grace of a certain General who had your heart. Now, you would murder royalty and die as much of an outcast that Suguru was.

After you wash your hands in the fountain, you place the dagger inside your kimono and look at yourself in the mirror for the last time. Color had returned to your cheeks over the past few days, and a certain look in your eye had become commonplace. You had something to live for, and these days would remain in your memory as the best days you’ve had since Geto died.

“They’re coming up the path,” Kaori hisses as she walks past you, ushering Megumi and Toji to the door behind your mother and father. “Come on.” You follow them obediently, standing behind your father and mother as the procession winds its way down the road. While soldiers, musicians, villagers, everyone is parading in front of the carriage carrying the murderer of your lover, you look to the ground and clench your fists. Your resolve steels itself in your spine as you hear the procession get even closer, the clanging making your jaw tighten and your knees tremble. Too much noise, too much noise, too much noise for a man who slaughtered innocents.

The music dies down when the carriage comes to a halt, but the sound of children excitedly squealing nearby. You keep your eyes downcast, not daring to look the spiteful man in the face or attract attention to yourself. The echo of children’s excited chatter stabs you in the heart even deeper - how could children be excited by this killer? - and you try to block out the memories of Itadori, Junpei, and Nobara, but to no avail.

You’re trying so hard that tears are streaming down your face, and mucus gathers in your nose as you begin to cry quietly. Megumi reaches up to grab your hand tenderly, holding it in his five little fingers as you hear the door to the carriage swing open slowly. You avoid looking, and sniff so hard you almost miss the first words out of a certain blue-eyed bastard’s mouth:

“Whoa; watch your step, Yuji! You don’t want to fall in front of Lady y/n, do you?”

_______________________________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @kamisamaundercover @jotazinha @just4readingfics @mxhi @sammytamaki @brownskinnedgirll @keelyshayee @leanne-tamashi @vabybizzle @amaris9 @fuegy-fuegy @ambiguous-something

#geto x reader #jjk geto #jjk #jjk megumi #megumi fushiguro #jjk toji #toji fushiguro #jujutsu kaisen getou #geto suguru #getou x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen imagines

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arvandus · 3 years

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Prompt 1 for Dabi either fluff or angst your choice

Oh look, my biggest one yet at 1629 words. But it’s Dabi, and we all know how I feel about that man... and I’ve decided to write *angst*, because... well... I like to hurt myself apparently.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, in an “ouch” sort of way... ___________________________________________________

#1. “It’s you, it always has been.”

The first time you met Touya, at six years old, you’d been drawn to him instantly. He was happy, outgoing, and bold, talking about his big hero dreams and worshipping his father. You had listened with eager ears, reliving tales of his father’s heroics with him, and joining in with dreams of your own. Youthfulness was simple like that, eager to give adoration in search of guidance. That’s how your friendship started. Young. Innocent.

Happy.

As time passed, you both grew older and your friendship grew as well. Maybe it was all the time you spent together, the walks home, the shared lunches. Or maybe it was just the inevitable development of youth. But you began to see him differently, your heart racing each time he looked into your eyes, your body wanting to be closer to him. It was innocent in its genuineness, a simple desire to hold him close, to cherish all of the little moments.

But he changed too. He grew more quiet, more distant… you were sure it was his family life. He’d only talked to you about it once or twice. But you never pressed him about it, and eventually he fell silent.

You had held out hope though. After all, he still walked you home every day. He still spent time with you during lunch, the two of you finding the quiet places to be together. And he still listened.

It all had to count for something, right? So, you’d decided. You’d tell him. And if it worked out the way you hoped it would… maybe he’d smile again.

But each time you tried to say the words, they could never leave your mouth. It frustrated you, feeling trapped by your own fear as you watched him pull further and further away from you.

Finally, one day, you’d decided. Today was the day. You were going to do it. You sat behind him in class, his white hair perched on hunched shoulders. Nervously you took a strip of paper from your notebook and scribbled a quick note over it.

Dear Touya,

We’ve been friends for a long time. I want you to know that I really like you. Like, more than a friend.

You stared at the words on the paper, before deciding to add more.

Do you like me?

Yes or No (circle one)

You handed it to him when the teacher’s back was turned, and he took it deftly from your hand. Your ears were ringing, your heart pounding. You felt stupid. It was so lame, but in a moment of panic, it was the best you could do.

You watched as his fingers opened the paper and read its contents. You waited, a snake of anxiety coiling itself in your gut.

‘Please…’ you had thought. ‘please answer me…’

But he never did. Instead, he tucked the note into his pocket.

That was the first day he didn’t walk you home.

It was pouring rain outside, the sky dark and heavy with low clouds blanketing the city. It suffocated you. You hated this weather. It always made the memories stronger, more powerful. A gust of wind rattled your closed windows, and you stood up to close your curtains against it but halted, your movements frozen.

There. Across the street, stood a hooded figure. His hoodie kept his face in shadow, but you’d recognize his lean form anywhere, familiar dark messy hair peaking out from the cotton that did little to protect him from the downpour.

“Touya…?” you muttered.

It’d been a long time since he’d last shown up in your life. The last time you’d seen him was unintentional… you’d recognized him, even with his dyed hair and purple burn scars and had chased him down. He’d brushed you off, harsh words stabbing at your soul, shattering your euphoria at realizing your childhood friend was still alive. You’d learned quickly in that moment that he wasn’t that nice boy anymore, and he had wanted nothing to do with you. It had almost broken you.

Almost.

But now here he was, standing outside your home as if you owed him something. Your clenched your jaw in anger, even as you abandoned your window to grab your raincoat and umbrella.

You came out of your front door just in time to see him disappear down a residential alleyway halfway down the block. You cursed under your breath and ran to catch up to him, your boots splashing puddles onto your pants.

As soon as you turned the corner, his voice greeted you.

“You really shouldn’t follow strangers into alleyways.” He scolded mockingly.

There he stood, leaning against the wall with his hands buried deep in his pockets. He looked worse than the last time you saw him, the scars darker than before, his stitches pulling morbidly at his skin. His eyes still held that electric blue in them, sizzling with life, but there was something off about them... a detachment you couldn’t place. It terrified you.

“You’re not a stranger.” You replied.

“You sure about that?” he asked.

“What do you want, Touya?” You demanded, your hands clutching your umbrella. The cold was starting to soak in, making your fingers ache.

“Don’t call me that.” he retorted. “I’m Dabi now, remember?”

“You can call yourself whatever you want, but I know who you really are.” You shot back. You weren’t in the mood for this.

His stared at you for a moment, measuring your resolve, before he averted his eyes, his cocky bravado momentarily muted. He stared down at his boots in silence, a furrow on his brow. For the first time, he looked like himself, black hair and scars be damned.

“I have a big job coming up. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for… probably the biggest one I’ll ever do.” He started.

You shifted uncomfortably. “Why are you telling me this? I haven’t seen you for years and now you just show up-”

His words cut you off. “Would you just shut up and listen?”

Anger flared your nostrils, your jaw clenched shut. The gall…

“I might not be able to come back for a while.” He continued.

That got your attention. A deep sense of dread filled you from your soggy boots up to your furrowed brow.

“What do you mean?” you asked warily. Please…. Don’t…

“I don’t want you to look for me anymore, you got that?” he ordered.

How did he know? How long had he been watching you?

“There’s something else…” he said. “I got something for you. But… you have to close your eyes.”

He was bringing you gifts now? The dread sunk its teeth deeper.

“Why?” you asked hesitantly.

“Just do it.” He said softly. Something about his tone made you obey. It wasn’t Dabi asking… it was Touya.

You held your breath and closed your eyes as he took a step forward to close the space between you. You felt his rough, warm hand take yours and slip a something into it. Before you could open your eyes to see what he’d given you, you felt his hand cradle your face as he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. You leaned into it instinctually, eyes still closed, an odd sense of relief falling over you as your heart focused on this single, precious, surreal moment.

“It’s you.” He whispered against your skin. “It always has been.” The words were enigmatic, yet they filled your heart with sunlight, rays of warmth trapped under water. You held onto them like precious, fragile, glass.

Touya pulled away from you and the cold rushed in to take his place, heartache replacing relief. The loud sound of rushing air rumbled in your ears, but by the time you opened your eyes, the noise – and Touya – were gone.

“T-Touya…” you whispered, as a tear slipped down your cheek. Only empty silence answered you back, the alleyway forlorn and abandoned.

You opened your palm to see a thin, folded envelope in your hand. A gust of wet wind nearly tore it from your fingers, so you clutched it tight and shoved it into your pocket. The clouds seemed darker, the rain felt colder… and an empty longing settled itself in your bones like poison. With a final glance over your shoulder, you returned to your house, your heart heavy.

As soon as you left your rainy items by the door and settled yourself into your room, you pulled the envelop from your pocket. You stared at it with shaky hands. The outside was blank, a worn crease down the middle as if it’d been opened and folded repeatedly. It was thin, and you couldn’t help but wonder about its contents. Slowly, you forced yourself to open it. Your fingers pulled out an old, folded piece of notebook paper. It was frayed on the edges, the creases of its folds worn so thin that you were afraid it’d fall apart in your hands. Old, dirty fingerprints littered its weathered texture, the paper yellowed with age. Your heart began to pound heavy in your chest like the pulsing of a dying star. Recognition began to dawn on you. Had he really kept it? You were so certain that he’d thrown it away…

You opened the paper gently and a sob immediately ripped itself your throat.

There your words sat, old and childish. But at the bottom, a single black circle surrounded the one answer you had been hoping for. It was the reason you’d never given up on him, never stopped looking for him.

You finally understood, as tears streaked down your face, your lungs aching as you gasped for air around your bawling. This was his last confession. This was his goodbye.

Touya was gone. And he wasn’t coming back.

#Arv's 500 Followers Event #dabi #touya todoroki #dabi x you #dabi x reader #touya x reader #touya x you #dabi angst #touya angst #bnha #mha

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oncefutureemrys · 3 years

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18. "I'm afraid."

hello, my friend! thank you for asking me this!

If you want to know what prompts we’re talking about, it is @night-faye’s incredible list of prompts that you can find here. If you would like for me to write another one, send me an ask and I’ll write it!

Anyway, I was honestly a bit nervous about this because I didn’t think it came out great, butttt there’s a thing called positive thinking which I’m working on so I’m going to say it’s not bad. (This is exactly how to get people to read your work haha) no but seriously, there are many Tumblr posts about writing bad fics are okay if we can learn something from them, and so here is me, writing some bad fics.

Hope you enjoy!

(It was also posted on my ao3. The link is here).

Merlin gazes at the darkening sky and the flickering light from the dimming campfire. He feels the breeze brushing his skin gently and hears the way the trees rustle like whispers in his ear.

It’s here, in this peaceful moment, when Merlin closes his eyes and thinks:

I’m not ready to die.

Five simple words, strung together to create one sentence Merlin’s more afraid of than anything else.

He’s not ready to die.

And yet he knows he must, for it is his destiny and his alone to always sacrifice his needs, his wants, his morals, his life for Arthur.

He knows this, he’s been told this since the beginning, and yet suddenly he feels so… unready. Unsure. Nervous, worried, afraid.

It was… odd, to say the least.

Before, when he was staring death straight in the face, when he was envisioning a world without his friends, Gaius, his mother, Arthur – it was easy. Merlin’s never been one to think his life was somehow more meaningful than others, that he was worthy of life more than anyone else.

Which is why he now finds it strange that he’s having second thoughts.

Maybe it’s because there’s more time to think about his inevitable death, more time to fixate on his fears and insecurities that plague his mind, haunting him with lingering thoughts he wishes would disappear.

Maybe because he’s reminded of his destiny, as this overwhelming burden that clings onto his shoulders, that beats down on his skin whenever he tries veering off course. This ever-hanging cloud that keeps him in constant darkness, the shadow that constantly reminds him, over and over again, how foolish he is, how ungrateful he is, how selfish and weak and useless he is.

Maybe because he’s sitting here next to his king, his best friend, the one man he has sacrificed his entire life and more for, unsure how he’ll be able to say goodbye. Not sure how to explain to him that he won’t be dying tomorrow, how Merlin’s planning on taking his place.

As if sensing his thoughts, he looks over at him in that moment, the warm glow of the fire dancing across his face. “Everything alright?” he asks.

Almost out of habit, he nods, not meeting his gaze.

Arthur studies him for a moment and Merlin swallows, afraid he will push. Thankfully, he simply nods and drops the subject, letting the silence sit still.

Except the silence almost feels unbearable, this guilt clawing at his skin and threatening to suffocate him. Merlin knows that he needs to say goodbye, in a roundabout way if possible, but the words are sticking in his throat and he’s having a hard time finding the right ones.

He’s reminded of an earlier time, years ago, when he was willing to sacrifice his life for his mother and had to say goodbye to Arthur. It had been a bit difficult – his throat had felt try, his hands had been shaking. But it was different back then. While they were far more comfortable with one another than when they had originally started, they weren’t as close back then. Now, they had been through everything together – from evil sorcerers to betrayals, to friends dying and dead knights walking, they had seen and experienced so much. If it was hard for Merlin to say it then, it was even harder saying it now.

And yet, he knows that he must, knows that he doesn’t want to be another person that betrays Arthur. And so, he opens his mouth, about to let the words through – words he hadn’t planned yet – when Arthur sighs loudly, turning to look at him. “So… this is it.”

Merlin’s quite confused – he’s not exactly sure where this conversation is going – but decides to go along with it. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Well,” Arthur says, taking a sip of water. “I’d like to say I made the most of it, but I’m not sure I have.”

Merlin’s eyes widen, stunned by his declaration. How in the hell could he think that? Well, sure, not all of Merlin’s hopes and dreams were panning out the way he had wanted, but to say that Arthur had not tried, had not given his all for his people, was baffling. He says as much when he finally finds the right words to say.

Arthur simply smiles but Merlin notices it’s devoid of any mirth. “I appreciate that.”

“Arthur—“

“Merlin,” Arthur says abruptly, cutting him off. “You’ll make sure to let the others know, right?”

And there it is again, that guilt that twists in his stomach, reminding him of the many lies he has told this night, and every day since he’s met him. He forces himself to take a deep breath before finally choking out, “Yes. I’ll tell them.”

Arthur nods, turning to look at the fire in front of them. Merlin realizes this is his chance to finally tell him of all the secrets, everything that he has bottled up over the years. To finally release all of the remorse he has felt throughout the years.

But he’s selfish and a coward, so he keeps it bottled in, throwing it into the ocean and hoping desperately for the tides to wash it all away.

It’s during Merlin’s slight panic that he’s brought back to the present by a small chuckle. He’s surprised to almost see a smile lingering on Arthur’s face. “What’s funny?” he asks.

“Huh? Nothing.” When Merlin gives him a look he sighs. “I was just thinking… how strange this all is.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that… seven years ago, so many things were different. We were such different people.” Arthur shrugs, scratching at his neck. “It just feels crazy looking at how far we’ve come.”

Merlin remembers his journey to Camelot, his inexplicable wonder when he first entered and saw bustling crowds and the large castle. Now, years later, he finds no new wonder in the bustling crowds or even the wondrous castle. Merlin smiles to himself, memories of those days coming back to him. We were so innocent back then, he thinks to himself. I wish it had stayed that way.

“Yeah,” Merlin says when he’s managed to return to the conversation. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.”

“Did you ever expect to end up here?”

“Not a chance,” Merlin responds immediately, chuckling at the thought. “I certainly never thought I would have to deal with a pompous, arrogant, supercilious, prat like yourself.”

“Hm, no I suppose not.”

Merlin’s eyes widened, turning to look at Arthur. “Did you just admit to being a prat?”

Arthur attempts to play it off, but Merlin knows him too well. Huffing, he crosses his arms as if he were a child. “Alright, so maybe I wasn’t the best person back then.”

“Yes!” He says gleefully, clapping his hands together. “This is the best day of my life.”

“Whatever Merlin, at least I changed for the better!”

Merlin grins, recalling memories of Arthur risking his find a flower to save him, memories of Arthur leading his people when they needed him, memories of Arthur smiling and laughing and praying pranks and knighting commoners and marrying a servant and Merlin finds himself softly saying, “Yes.” Then, “Yes, I think you have.”

Silence hangs in the air and he tries to think of a way to rein in his words, add a joke in to rid them both of the tense silence, to erase those truthful words. But Merlin realizes that he won’t ever get to say these words to Arthur ever again and so maybe he shouldn’t. Just this once.

“Yes well,” Arthur says after a few minutes of tense silence, “I never would’ve done it without you.”

Merlin immediately shakes his head. “I don’t believe that.”

Arthur looks at him incredulously. “I appreciate the lie, but truly Merlin, it’s quite obvious. You don’t have to pretend just to make me feel better.”

“Arthur, have I ever, in the seven years you’ve known me, attempted to sugarcoat anything for you?”

He starts to speak and Merlin raises his eyebrows. “No,” he admits. “I guess not.”

“Good because I mean it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“…and everyone knows, I’m always right.”

Arthur huffs. “Sure.”

Merlin bites his lip worriedly before finally asking, “You know, I actually mean it right?” He makes sure to look straight into his eyes as he says this. “I know I mess around and call you all sorts of names, but the truth is, I am so proud of you. I know it may not seem like it, but you have done so much for your people and your loved ones. You are an amazing king, Arthur, and you will always be remembered like that.”

Arthur’s eyes hold so much insecurity and unsureness that Merlin wants to reach out and take it from him, take away the pain and the self-doubt that continue to torment his mind. Arthur takes a stuttering breath before asking, “Merlin?”

“Yes?”

Arthur swallows. “I’m afraid.” Two words that don’t need explaining, two words that Merlin understands perfectly.

Merlin finds himself nodding slowly, finding himself becoming more honest and open than he’d ever been before. “Yes... I think I am too.”

The silence following them feels freeing as if the words they had been struggling with had finally been released. For the first time that night, Merlin feels as if his last fears, his last bit of hesitation, leaves him. Merlin never thought he could be ready for such a heavy task, for such an enormous burden. But looking at Arthur now – his blue eyes of clear skies, his hair that brightens against the moonlight, the small scars, and cuts from the adventures they had been on – and realizes that he must. Realizes that he would do anything for him, not necessarily because of destiny, but because he was a good man and Arthur deserved much better than this. Arthur deserved everything and Merlin would happily give it to him if he could.

So, as they sit, the darkening sky now fully black, Merlin finds himself taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He feels the comfortable breeze against his skin and hears the familiar rustle of the trees as he thinks to himself:

I am ready.

#ambiguous ending #merlin #arthur #mentions of death #but no actual death #real real minor arthur/gwen #mainly just some bromance #and angst #which is the greatest thing life can bring #idk what im saying #its 5 in the morning #i have not slept #please someone help me

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deepdonutkid · 3 years

Text

Gambling man

Warnings: swearing, smoking, drinking, dirty talk (starting soft here)

A/N: This is the first chapter of my newest series: Do you wanna touch ! There is also the summary of the story and the masterlist and the warning for the story as a whole. Have fun reading it and I hope you leave some love here!

There were no words to describe how annoyed he was. Why should he do something for Tommy after the regular work in the betting shop? John was tired and this was an understatement. He was nearly constantly yawning, rubbing his eyes and his head was aching. The kids kept him up all night. One wet the bed. This woke up the others. They wouldn’t go back to sleep that easily, of course and John was already half-dead when he arrived at work. And now he had to go to a swanky bar called “The mockingbird” to pick something up for this brother.

He didn’t even know what it was, but apparently it was expensive. Tommy was god-knows-where and John was sick of being his clown. It was always the same. ‘John do this’ or ‘John do that’ and he couldn’t escape it. Of course he tried, like a million times already. It has been like this since they were kids and even nowadays he couldn’t say no to his family.

After all, family was the most important thing in his life, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t complain while doing the dirty work again. At least he didn’t have to care about his kids for the rest of the night. Polly was watching them. He agreed with Tommy about that. It was his only condition. When the job was said and done, he wanted a good night sleep. John couldn’t remember his last peaceful night, maybe before the war or even before his wedding. He was still a child back then, but he doesn’t really miss this part of his life.

Back then they were poor kids with some knives, robbing some fellows to get some coins. When he was hungry he had to steal, because begging never has been his thing. Looking back wasn’t glorious. It was just sad and nothing more. Now he has the money for food, but nobody will cook for him. Martha died during the war, so when he finally came home, broken and shattered; he was all alone with no one to comfort him. Well, he had the kids, but they behaved just as bad as waifs and strays. They still did. Always jumping around, asking way too many questions, destroying everything that comes to their hands and John just needed a break.

Just one night, was all he was asking for.

But first he had to do his job. Then he could think of all the ways he could spend his free time. So he walked to the pub and grumbled. How fucking garish it looked! Everything was so nice and expensive and everyone acted like they were about humans. John gave a sniff about these posh fuckers. The look in his eyes was dismissive as he entered this fancy place.

Indoors it smelled like wine and cigars. Not bad, he thought as he glanced around. The place was light and warm and full of laughter. Golden ornaments everywhere, he noticed and shook his head about it. This was nothing he cared about. They wouldn’t even serve beer here.

John walked to the bar and ordered a whiskey, Irish of course. Then he waited at the counter, like Tommy had explained to him. A man would walk up to him and asking him how the weather was outside and regardless of the cloud free sky that night, John should answer: “It’s fookin pouring.” What a bloody drama was this anyway? Why he couldn’t pick up the package like a normal person? But with Tommy and his secret plans and all this bullshit he had no other way, but to do as he was commanded.

The Shelby drowned one glass and then next and then the next, still no contact in sight. For the glimpse of a moment he thought he had to wait all night for the man to come. After his fourth glass of whiskey a small man with a bowler, white stubbly hair and a curly moustache arrived. He had an umbrella with him and used it as walking stick. The way he walked looked almost cartoonish. John gave his best not to laugh about this codger, especially when he asked the question. “Oh, young boy, could you please tell me, how is the weather outside?” The voice of the strange man was croaking, which made the whole conversation even more farcical.

Now he really had to bit his lip, so he wouldn’t burst out in laughter. “It’s fooking pouring”, John chuckled and emptied his glass.

“Good”, the old man said: “Just as I expected. Now I don’t need the paper anymore. Take this.” He handed John a newspaper with something inside. John took it and put it in the inside of his jacket. The dossier was safe there.

Instead of saying thanks, John shouted to the bartender: “One drink for him and one for me.” The guy behind the bar rushed to them and poured another drink. John wasn’t drunk yet, but sooner or later the whiskey would do his work.

The job was a simple transaction, but his part of the deal wasn’t done yet. First he paid the barkeeper and waited for him to leave. Then he sat there awhile and drank there quietly. He still didn’t know how he should hand the money discretely… until the man asked: “Boy, please do me another favor. Lend me some money for the cab.”

This had to be a sign, he thought and pulled out a thick wad of money, which he slipped into the wrinkly hands of the geezer. “This would be more than enough. Farewell.” He muttered and stood up from his stool, ready to leave.

Just in this moment he realized nature was calling and he should do that, before walking into the cold night of Birmingham. So he took a little detour to the lavatories.

With steady steps he headed to the exit. One last time he turned around. There was something interesting about this place after all. In the back were four card tables. John liked to play, whenever he was at the garrison, but even if he left right away, the garrison would be closed as soon as he arrived in Small Heath. It was almost midnight by now, but John was now more drunk than tired and he though one or two rounds of cards couldn’t hurt.

So he walked towards the tables and studied them to pick the right one. On the first were just some posh greybeards, which weren’t interesting at all or at least not for John. The second was empty and on the third table were two Chinese men talking in their mother tongue. The last table caught his attention. There sat the croupier, a man with a scar across his face in his forties, a Spanish guy with gelled hair and a lady. She had her hair open, so the blonde locks would reach her tailbone. This seemed by far to be the most interesting table.

Without a second thought he sat down at table number four. The other players nodded slightly, when he arrived. The round wasn’t done yet, but the pot was full of chips and in the middle was a golden hair pin. Now he realized why the woman wore her hair open. She had used her pin as her stake.

John decided to take a closer look at his fellow players. The two men were exactly what he thought they would be… greasy, compulsive gamblers. Nothing more to say.

But the lady… Well, there was something about her. John couldn’t point it out yet, but he was eager to find out. Everything from her golden shiny hair to that arrogant grin on face was capturing. She had a fierce look on her face as if she knew something everyone else didn’t. Every little detail like her dominant cheekbones or tilted chin seemed to add to the impression how privileged and entitled she was. Yet, she was quite charming in her pink dress. Her clothing seemed to be expensive, but it completed her appearance.

John was so caught by her presence; he didn’t recognized when the round ended. The other player with the scar and the hat folded, so she won. As she revealed her hand, her opponent groaned and slapped his fist on the table. Apparently she had nothing, but a good poker face. The Shelby was pretty impressed. He had played cards with some girls before, but none of them were really good at it. They just tried to flirt with him, while playing.

So he leaned closer to her and whispered: “Any luck today?” She gave him a dismissive glare and then collected her stake.

While she twirled her hair around and put the pin back in place, the croupier asked John, if he wants to join for the next round. He nodded, pulled some bills out of his pocket and gave it to the dealer. In return the dealer handed him some chips and started riffle the cards.

The man who just lost the last round stood up and left the table grunting. Then the lady declared in a dry tone: “At least more than him.” John let out a little laugh. Obviously she was funny too. He already took the bait and was curious to get more information about her.

The Shelby slid closer to her and smiled at her, but that didn’t seem to please her. “Don’t fucking look at my cards.” She growled, raising an eyebrow. John bit his lip, glaring at her with amusement. Then he noticed, he didn’t even check his hand, so he did that- a jack and a five- and then placed a bet.

After he had done that, he started staring again and couldn’t stop until she nagged: “What exactly do you want from me?” He chuckled. As if he would know that?

“Whatever you want to give me”, he grinned and leaned forwards as he tried to get in a more comfortable position on his chair. While talking he noticed her smell. It was a combination of roses, vanilla and oranges. What a great contrast to the people he usually talked to. He wanted to ensure, that this wasn’t an illusion, but sniffing on woman wasn’t a publicly accepted thing to do. Even he knew and heeded that.

With widened eyes she gazed back at him. “So… you want to get slapped?” she answered, with blank eyes. The woman was quite serious, but John couldn’t help but smirk at her. He liked her fervor.

John smothered to say a little delinquent ‘Maybe’ and placed another bet as it was his turn again. His cards weren’t the best, but he wanted to keep playing.

They played for a while. Then out of the blue the lady asked: “Should I take you silence as a yes? Or did you swallow your tongue?” He didn’t expect her to insist on an answer.

His hand scratched the back of his head as he searched for words to say. “No, I just…”

“Just what?” she interrupted him, before he could even finish his sentence. Now she seemed to sneer.

Her laugh made him laugh too. It was contagious and he always had a thing for fierce women. “I just want to know you name at least” he added.

“Does this matter?” she responded while fumbling with her chips: “Aren’t we here to play cards, ey?”

The Shelby nodded. She was probably right. He shouldn’t care about this, but yet he still had the desire to know more about this mysterious creature in front of him. “To the game… no” he murmured: “To me, yes.”

She looked down at her cards, as she raised the stake. He didn’t know, if she would ignore him again, so he introduced himself first: “I’m John.” He raised her by two more chips.

The blond groaned as if she was almost disappointed. Then in the next round she called and said with the most Russian accent he could imagine: “I’m Darja, but you can call me Dascha.” Now he was surprised again. He didn’t expect that. From first sight she didn’t seemed to be Russian… but who would have guessed he was Romani. They would have thrown him out, if they knew.

“It’s a pleasure” he nodded and waited for the other player at the table to end his turn. That slickly guy folded and now it was just the two of them in the game. John decided to call and as he placed another red casino chip in the pot he whispered to himself: “Dascha”

Her name was like a sweet melody to him and fitted her image as an entitled little madam. They moaned the loudest though, when they get a good fuck. The picture of them doing it in the lavatories wouldn’t leave his head as he peered into the distance. How he would shag her, grabbing her tiny little butt, while she begged for more.

This little though brought him unholy amounts of pleasure. With a grin on his face he finally arrived back in reality, just to notice that he should shut his cards down. She waited patiently and then showed her hand.

The two of them starred at the cards. He had won with just a three of a kind. That was luck indeed. She had a pair of queens.

“Seems like you’re lucky tonight”, she mumbled as she took a sip from a colorful drink.

His eyes widened from surprise and amusement. Grinning at her he asked: “Oh, is that so?”

The blonde woman clucked her tongue and gave him a dismissive stare. “Don’t get cocky after just one round.”

So the next round started. They played for a while. Sometimes she had won and sometimes he did.

Now his cards were even better than the last time. John had to bit his lip to hide his smile. Soon after he placed a bet, he got an idea. The guy on the other side of the table was nearly out of money and so it was clear it was a race between them now.

When the other guy reached his limit, John put three of his red chips in the middle of the table and said to the croupier: “Open a side pot, please.” Then he slowly turned to the woman. She hasn’t changed mimic or position, almost statuesque. There was still this mysterious smile on her face. But then she moved her hand to call.

“Shall we make this more interesting?”, he purposed and flicked a coin in his hands.

She glared at him for a while, completely silent, as if she tried to read his thoughts. Very quietly she hummed. John had to focus on the melody to even hear it, so it wouldn’t get lost in the surroundings. Finally she tilted her head and inquired: “What do you have in mind?”

It seemed like the Shelby had caught her interest as well and he was ready to play with her. John licked his lips and laughed. “Just a little bet. If I win this round, we’ll meet again… on a date.” He knew just too well, that if he mentioned something more sexual, this little lady would run away. But as his grandfather used to say, he had to think of the long game.

The Russian nodded. “But what if I win? What do I get? Do you even have something interesting for me?”

Now he was a little lost. He thought he’d never get this far. What could she want was the question in mind. Well, he couldn’t give up his pocket watch and he didn’t have anything else expensive with him. But on the other hand she seemed to be rich enough to deny his offer.

John was desperate, not completely, just a little. This might be his only chance with a woman like her. So he did what he could do best- be an arrogant asshole! He looked at her the whole time until he made his move. His eyes wandered from her to his manhood and then back to her. With a cocky smile on his face he underlined his wager.

And she burst out in laughter: “Hell no!” It took almost a minute until she calmed down again. She was still giggling like a five-year-old, when she added: “This is not going to happen, but I’m going to take your ring as a stake. So you’ll learn your lesson.”

At first he didn’t know what she meant. Then he looked at his hands. Like other Romani he wore at least five of them. Most were family heirloom, but his wedding ring wasn’t. All his other rings were luxuriant. His wedding ring was simple golden and had no ornaments like the others. Until now he had completely forgot about this. Of course he was still wearing it. He never took it off. Not during the war and not after Martha had died.

John had never questioned it, but now he had to. If he wasn’t so sure, he would win, he would have never agreed to this. It was a weird feeling to take it off, after all those years. He turned the ring in his hand, still worried if he would get it back. Then he heard her giggle again. She felt confident, John wouldn’t cross this line, but because she was so convinced, he finally put the ring on the table. “Then teach me”, he grunted.

Once again it was time to turn the cards. His heartbeat was going crazy as his fingers reached for the two cards in front of him again. He flipped them as quickly as possible. There was no chance, she would win. John had a fucking flush on his hand.

He was watching her closely, as she played with one lose streak of her blond hair. One moment she was laughing, and then she hung her head. Suddenly he would realize the bittersweet nuance in her smile, as she had shown her cards. The Russian had lost again. “My luck ended, when you came to this table, I guess”, she mumbled.

On the other hand John couldn’t feel luckier. He took his bet back, put his ring back on and piled up his chips gleefully. “Oh, you shouldn’t be sad. You just won a date with me”, he joked knowing he was just rubbed salt in her wounds.

Amused he watched her as she pouted her lips. She stood up from her stool, stretched herself and declared: “I better get going, before I lose the rest of my dignity.” A nod to the croupier was enough to tell him to change the chips back into money.

John did the same, when he had put his money away, he ran after her. “Wait, darling”, he said under his breath: “You don’t get away this easily. You still owe me something… Let me walk you home, so I know where I can pick you up for our date.”

She chose to ignore him, so he grabbed her wrist to stop her from going away. Then she turned around to him and raised her eyebrow. “Do I?”, she asked: “I thought this was a joke or would you really gamble away your wedding ring? What would your wife say about this?”

Before he could even answer, she added: “I mean I feel very flattered by your attention, since you’re somehow good looking or whatever, but I don’t fuck married man.”

“Stop right there”, he replied: “Yes, I was serious and don’t bring my wife into this discussion. The date doesn’t mean we have to have sex… I mean it would be nice, but that’s not my point. I want to get to know you… and I won.” Somehow he couldn’t tell her the truth. He was a widower with four children and he didn’t want her to pity him. Actually that was the last thing he wanted right now. In his opinion it was better if she thought he was a married asshole, than a poor, sad widower.

With a straight face she wrest herself free, just to offer her arm, so he could link in. Her cheeks were gleaming red as she moaned: “Let’s just get out of here.” Gladly he would take her hand and guide her outside.

It was still warm outside and it would be one of the last pleasant evenings in Birmingham for the next time. Fall was coming soon and it would get way colder. Right now, he and the lady to his right could walk down the street without a coat. John was mentally prepared to give her his jacket, if she would need it, but she was silent as they left the nightclub.

“Why do you want to walk with me? I don’t live so far from here”, she asked and looked the other way.

It was so dark outside; he could barely see his own hands in front of him. Yet he knew that her face was still flushed with shame. His smile was undeniable. “Well”, he explained: “You don’t come from Birmingham and so you might not know, it’s a dangerous town for a woman like you.”

He could see the silhouette of her head nod. Then he heard her laughter. “And you are here to save me?”

Of course, it wasn’t his job to bring her home, but it felt like the right thing to do and after all, he wanted to spend more time with her. It was a weird thing, yes, since he had only known her for maybe an hour or less, but there was something about her, something captivating and he thought that eventually- if he could get to know her better- he could figure out why she was so fascinating to him. There was something in her eyes, something he had never seen before and he was keen to know, what it was. Or maybe he was just needy and an idiot to fall for the first pretty woman he had seen for months. After a while he answered: “Yes, I do.” His voice was soft, when he spoke, it sounded so unfamiliar.

“What make you think I need a savior?” was her next question. Somehow he got the idea, that she would never stop asking things. The way she said it seemed so innocent to him. He had seen war and violence en masse and he knew his city well enough to predict something bad, without having any second Romani sense like his aunt.

“Nah, I just think it’s better to be safe than to be sorry”, he responded and caressed her arm with his thumb. Usually he wasn’t so sweet, when it came to woman, but he still tried to charm her. And it somehow worked, at least she giggled again.

Then she joked: “So what? You’re going to heroically fight them off with your fists? Is this what you want me to believe?” Suddenly she stopped walking and just stood there, staring at him.

John chuckled and stopped as well. “No, I have a gun.” He didn’t want to scare her, so he just said it very calmly. And well, there was no need to show his Webley to her, right?

The Russian laughed even louder. Somehow she managed to say: “Excuse me… English is not my first language… Is gun another jargon for cock?”

Another time this would make him laugh as well, but now he thought she was not taking him seriously, which hurt his big male ego. After all, he was a goddamn Shelby, a King of Small Heath, a gangster or whatever people liked to call him… and yet the little lady in front of him was twitting about him.

So he opened his jacket and his gun shimmered in the light of the nearest lantern. “See? I’m not joking, honey”, he grunted. Others would fear him now, but she looked very unbothered right now. She wasn’t impressed or scared, she hid all her emotions beneath her brilliant poker face again.

They stood there in silence for quite a while. John wasn’t sure how to proceed and he was still waiting for her reaction.

All the sudden a big smile from one ear to the other was carved into her skin. Her eyes seemed so lost, like she wasn’t mentally here anymore, when she lifted her hand to his head, or to his cap to be precise. She snorted as she hovered with her finger over the edge of his flat cap. He was about to tell her about the razor blades he had sewn in there, when she presented the blood on her index finger. “You are one of these Peaky Blinders. Am I right, John?”

He felt caught, even though this wasn’t actually a secret. It was more like everybody knew who he was. So why couldn’t he say something now? All those words were stuck in his thought and he couldn’t break nor speak. His head was all blank and he still wanted to turn this conversation around. The only thing he could do was to nod.

“Good”, she whispered and came close to him: “I like when someone doesn’t play by the rules, because neither do I.” The Russian moved away and her cheek briefly brushed against his. A shiver ran down his spine. Her voice was electrifying and he wanted her to moan his name over and over again.

She was so mean, when she teased him like this, but he couldn’t deny that this was appealing to him. “Fuck”, he groaned and put his hand on her waist to pull her closer. Now he could see her face in the light of street lantern again. To his pleasure he noticed that she seemed at least a little scared. “Following the rules is just so tiring and on top of that also boring. Why should I keep playing by the book, when is so much more fun, just to break some shit?” Under his fingertips he felt the fabric of her dress and how she trembled.

Just like he thought it was getting to cold for just a summer dress like hers. “Do you want my jacket?”, he offered with a smile and moved his hand to her cheek to caress it gently.

Slowly she shook her head and refused his kind gesture. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” They were still close and she hasn’t hurried away, which was a good sign for him. He liked to feel her warm body against his. The last time he had felt something like this was so long ago.

A small, but very vulnerable smile graced his lips. “Dascha?” Calling her name like was oddly intense, but his heart jumped when she squeaked. He hadn’t imagine her to be so soft all the sudden as if she was melting in his hands. And the look in her eyes gave him the rest. It was like the world had stopped for a second. There was no sound, no other smell and no other visual sensation. Everything else became so blurry. Now there was just her. Maybe it wasn’t even his action, maybe the whiskey had made him to it, but he leaned in to kiss her.

Their lips met a lot sooner than he thought. John was so relieved, she didn’t push him away and seconds later he was surprised how soft and sweet her lips tasted. He couldn’t get enough of this. His hands were all on her body. Right now everything else that happened this night was irrelevant. This was worth all the stress. And he was glad, he had enough courage to do it.

Even when they parted, they were still strangers to each other, but John was sure he felt a connection. Heavily breathing he couldn’t take his eyes of her. She was still panting. Her lips were swollen and her whole face was heading a shade of red unknown to mankind, but fuck, she was beautiful.

“You stole a kiss from me?” It sounded more like statement than a question, but John nodded in agreement. Yes, he did that and he was so proud he did. It was the most interesting thing, that has happened to him in months and he would do it again, if he had to.

The blond bid her lip and moaned: “Now I have to steal it back.” He hadn’t even realized what she just said, when he felt her lips on his again. She had caught him in surprise and he got the idea how she must have felt, when he attacked her like this. It was rushed and yet perplexing good.

They only stopped, because the bell announced the next hour. She looked up at the sky as if she could she the clock tower from this dark alley. “I have to go now”, she explained: “But let’s meet here again next week. Same spot at eight.” Then she pointed above them. Only now he noticed they were standing at the corner of St. James and George Road.

“Can’t wait”, he replied and smiled. There was no point in asking her again, if he should walk her home. She seemed to be sure to go home alone. The Russian nodded and hurried away. He kept eying her until she disappeared behind the next corner. This whole encounter was so surreal.

On the way back home he thought about her and hoped he wouldn’t forget their next meeting. Now he just had to figure out, how he would convince Polly to take care of his kids. When he got home everything was silent. The kids were asleep and he would go straight to bed to. As he stumbled out of his clothes and into his bed, he still could feel the touch of her lips. Needless to say, he had a wonderful sleep that night.

tagging: @theshelbyclan @justalonelyslytherin @bonniesgoldengirl

#peaky blinders #peaky fucking blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fic #john shelby #john shelby x oc #own character #fanfic #my first multichap #multichapter #john shelby is a switcher #by deepdonutkid #deepdonutkid #cheeky john #tw drinking #tw smoking

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destiniesfic · 3 years

Photo

132 Hours, Chapter 4:

“I think I have a plan. But…”

Cardan sits forward. “But?”

“I don’t know if it’ll get you out.”

Read chapter 4 on AO3, or read below:

“You know what?” I ask abruptly, some time later.

Cardan picks up his head. “What?”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

His brow furrows, and then he looks vaguely panicked for the first time. “Um, right. Well, it’s not a big space, but I can turn around—”

I sigh. “No. Why don’t you go knock on the door and ask them to take me outside?”

Cardan blinks at me. “Oh,” he says. “You don’t want to try that yourself?”

“You’re the alpha.” I shrug. “They’re more likely to listen to you than to me.”

“Huh. Yeah. Good point.” He looks at me a little longer, head cocked, and then a grin breaks across his face like a sunrise. I feel my cheeks warm and hate that some cruel trick of fate assures that even though I know he is one of the world’s worst human beings, a small, primal part of me will always find him attractive. “How’s it feel?”

“How does what feel?”

“Bossing me around. Seems to come pretty naturally to you.”

I roll my eyes. I don’t need anyone else reminding me that I’m the world’s worst excuse for an omega. Being valedictorian sealed that. Valerian sealed that. My smart mouth sealed it, too. “Shut up, Greenbriar.”

His grin widens. “That the best you got?”

I glare. “Stop talking if you want the part of you that apparently makes you so ‘superior’ to me to remain intact.”

“A little vague, but we’ll workshop it.” Cardan pushes himself to his feet. With his long legs, it only takes him two strides to cross the room to the door. He glances at me. “If they shoot me, it’s your fault.”

“I’ll cry big, fat tears at your funeral.”

“You’d better write a kick-ass eulogy. You’re a good speaker, right? I don’t really remember graduation.”

Probably drunk, I think. Or high. “Can you just knock?”

Cardan raises his hand and deals the door three hard raps, so loud I nearly jump. He waits a beat, then says, “Oh, no answer. Well, I guess I’ll—”

“What is it?”

This time it’s a woman’s voice that comes through the door. Cardan and I glance at each other. “Bathroom,” he calls. I notice the way he instinctively pitches his voice a little lower, trying to sound more adult, more alpha. “Both of us. And I’m thirsty.”

There’s another pause, then the woman says, “Step back, then. Against the far wall.”

Raising both his hands, Cardan retreats until his back hits the wall. I stand, too, awaiting whatever might happen when the door opens.

But when it does, I am momentarily taken aback. A small woman stands there, holding a different pistol, one better suited to her hand than the man’s. Like the scarred man, she too has a distinct appearance: her brown skin is dappled white from vitiligo, and her hair, too, is a shocking white cloud of curls around her face. She’s pretty, I realize. Totally out of place holding a gun in a hostage situation.

She is holding a gun, though—smaller than her companion’s, so they aren’t trading off—and keeps it fixed on Cardan even when she looks at me. “You first,” she says. “Through the door. Come on.”

I do need to pee, but this is what I really want: a chance to get a glimpse of the space outside of our small room. I nod and take cautious steps, edging myself around her and out of the door, careful not to make any moves that would seem threatening and spook her into firing that gun. But she keeps it trained on Cardan until I am out, which is when she finally turns away from him.

She keeps the barrel of her pistol aimed at me as she secures both locks, and I look around. It is a larger open area and in the middle is a round plastic table with four chairs. In one of the chairs sits the scarred man, playing Solitaire. He looks up. “What’s this?”

“Bathroom break,” says the woman, taking my arm. It’s comical—she’s tiny, barely comes up past my shoulder—but she’s the one with the weapon. I let her lead me through the main space, which is mostly bare. Aside from the table and chairs, I see a mini-fridge plugged into one wall, and stairs that lead out of the basement.

I hope my escort is going to take me upstairs so I can get a sense of the situation, but I am not that lucky. Instead she steers me past the tables to a short hallway on the other side of the main space. There are two doors, and she motions me toward the first one.

“In there,” she says.

I don’t thank her, because what point is there in thanking my abductor? I just open the door and go inside. The bathroom is just a bathroom, but it has toilet paper and a functioning toilet and a sink and paper towels, which is all I need at the moment. There is also a shower stall in the corner with a frosted glass door, which makes me think that this is the basement of a house after all. The room we are being kept in might have once been a very small guest bedroom, or a storage room.

Someone has left bar soap in a little tray in the sink. It looks old and grody, its color faded to an unattractive pale green, but I soap my hands up anyway after I finish my business, and then I splash water on my face. I always keep a spare elastic around my wrist and use it to pull my hair, now an unruly tangle of loose curls, back from my face. I am glad I thought to wear a sweatshirt over my black tank top—I’ll probably need that to stay warm when night falls. I stare at my face in the mirror until my vision splits, and then shake my head. I cannot crack now. I can’t. I will get through this. I have been through worse. A terrible car wreck, a rocky transition to a new home, years of bullying that culminated in something worse. I can survive this, too.

So I go back outside, where the woman takes me by the arm and leads me back to my prison. I don’t protest. I am quiet, and hopefully look dazed and a little scared. No one can know I’m already planning to escape, that I still have my wits about me.

My escort undoes the locks, then pushes me back into the room, and, with the gun trained on Cardan, she says, “All right. You next.”

Cardan, who had taken up his position in the corner again, scrambles to his feet. His eyes flick over me, head to toe, like he’s judging me for looking disheveled when he himself isn’t much better off. I listen for the click of the locks, and am only a little disappointed when I hear them.

Blessedly alone, I sit on the edge of the mattress, inventorying what I know. The main obstacle will be whatever lies upstairs, but I don’t think there is any way to convince our captors to take me out for fresh air. Maybe I can claim a condition? Asthma? I doubt they would buy it.

It only takes a couple of minutes for the door to open and Cardan to come back in, the small woman at his back. He holds a bottle of water fresh from the mini-fridge, condensation already gathering on its surface. I am glad to see the water, hoping I can steal a swig and banish the greasy feeling of cold McMuffin from my mouth once and for all.

“In,” the woman urges Cardan, and he takes another step inside the room so he’s well clear of the door. I think it’s weird that he doesn’t protest, or talk back to her like he did to me, but he had been stalling then, and now there’s actual danger.

I am starting to realize that when he doesn’t hold power in a situation, Cardan Greenbriar is kind of a coward.

This should make me feel smug, but I would rather have a brash alpha to use as a shield while we make our escape. It’ll be fine. Alpha or not, hopefully I have enough brashness for the both of us.

The woman looks from me to Cardan, then back to me. Her eyes look almost kind. “I am sorry about this,” she says. “We were only meant to take him.”

“Um,” I say. “Oh.”

“It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“That’s… good.” I look at Cardan, who seems as baffled as I am. “You could always just let me go?”

The woman sighs. “The boss says it’s not an option anymore. But don’t worry. If you keep cooperating, you won’t be in any danger. Either of you,” she adds, looking at Cardan.

“Good to know,” Cardan says. “Although I’m not sure why I should trust the promise of a person who kidnapped and drugged us.”

Her lip twitches. “Fair enough,” she says, and then she closes the door and locks it.

We both exhale our relief. Cardan sits back down in his corner, takes a large swig of water, then screws on the cap and rolls the bottle across the floor to me. “Good thinking,” he says. “One, because it would suck to have to pee on the floor, but two because now we have a sense of where we are.”

“Yeah,” I said, only half-paying attention. I unscrew the bottle cap and take a sip of cool, clean water. Then I lower my voice. “I think I have a plan. But…”

Cardan sits forward. “But?”

“I don’t know if it’ll get you out.”

He frowns, but somehow doesn’t sound surprised when he just says, “Oh.”

“Haven’t you noticed? They’re only scared of you. They only train the gun on you. They don’t think of me…” I shrug one shoulder. “Well, at all, but definitely not as a threat. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As far as they know, I chose the wrong boy to kiss on a beach.”

“Yeah.” Cardan rubs a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay. So I’m the big, bad alpha… and the decoy, while you slip under the radar. And then I get to follow you, maybe. If we’re lucky.”

I am surprised to find that I feel a little bad for him. A few hours ago, I would have been fine leaving him to rot, but then we spoke more words to each other than we have maybe in our entire lives, and now I’m not so sure. I say, “You probably get to follow me, it’s just not a guarantee. But I still think it’s worth trying.”

“Anything is,” he says, surprising me. “You know why?”

“Why?”

“They’re not wearing masks.”

I stare at him for a moment, then dread pools at the bottom of my stomach, a cold egg someone’s cracked open in my chest. “Either they’re consummate professionals who’ve managed to wipe themselves from every database, or…”

“Or we’re not supposed to be around to tell anyone what we’ve seen.” Cardan’s mouth presses into a thin line, grimmer and more serious than I’ve ever seen him.

“Okay,” I say, trying to ignore my heartbeat as it speeds up. “Okay, let’s—okay. So we make our plan and carry it out. That’s what we do.”

“We carry out our plan,” he says, a gloomy echo, “or die trying.”

Silence falls over the room like a blanket of snow, but I take a flamethrower to it by asking, “Really?”

“What?”

“Being dramatic doesn’t help. We have to focus on getting out of here. So.” I wave my hand. “Stop that. No one’s going to kill you, except maybe me if you keep getting on my nerves.”

He looks at me, his eyes darker now, in the unlit basement, than they were even last night on the beach. “Who’s going to stop them from killing us? You? A little omega girl who doesn’t know when to quit?”

“I’m not little,” I snap. God, why is he like this? “And yeah, it’s a good thing I don’t know when to quit, because apparently that’s all that stands between you and suicidal sulking. So stop being so Shakespearean tragedy and help me.”

“I could never do theater,” Cardan muses aloud, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Wasn’t alpha enough for me, apparently.”

I frown at him. “Plenty of alphas do theater. Our school had a great theater program.” I would know—I volunteered as a stagehand enough times as a freshman and sophomore. It was something else to put on a college application, and I liked moving in the dark, not being seen but making everything run smoothly. But eventually I had to stop, too. Madoc never said outright that it was a waste of time, but…

“My brother didn’t like it,” Cardan says, like he’s finishing my thought. He picks at some loose plaster on the wall.

I end up just looking at him for a minute, mostly because I am shocked to hear him sound wistful. I didn’t know he was capable of it. “I think you would have been good,” I say, surprised to find I mean it. I mean, he has the looks, and he’s certainly proven to have a flair for the dramatic.

He turns his head to look back at me, and just like that we had zigzagged back from enemies, or rivals, or whatever we were, to allies. “I always thought so, too.”

---

“So,” Cardan says. “I stand in the door.”

“You do,” I affirm. “You make sure that whoever opens the door, all they see is you.”

“And you’ll be beside the door, out of sight,” he recites. “So you can grab them, disarm them, and pull them in.” He blinks at me. I’ve begun to notice the gold edging his near-black irises, the whole spectacle framed by dark eyelashes. I feel like if I look long enough, I might be able to pick out other colors in them. Eyes like black opals.

“Jude,” he says, like it’s the second time he’s said my name. “Earth to Duarte, hello. Can you actually do that?”

I blink too, shake out of it. “In theory.” I’ve only had to use what I’ve learned on martial arts mats or in boxing studios a few times outside of my lessons, and never on anyone actually armed. But I’m relatively small, so I’ve been taught specifically how to go against people stronger, taller, faster. And I’ve only ever frozen once.

“What if it’s two of them at the door?”

“It won’t be. It’s been one at the door, one at the table all day. You noticed too, right?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “So, the tricky part. You lock person one in the room, I go for whoever’s at the table.” He sneers. “‘Go for.’ Like, what, a linebacker?”

“Again, you’re an alpha.” I did not in my life ever think I would be giving Cardan a pep talk, much less this pep talk. “Use those reflexes.”

“My reflexes are rusty.”

“You’d better oil them fast.”

He exhales audibly. “Okay. So I grapple with—whoever’s at the table, under the hope that they’re surprised enough when their buddy gets grabbed that they’ll be slow getting out the gun. And if they do?”

“You’re too valuable to kill until they have your money.”

“They could wound me.”

I roll my eyes. “I could wound you. Suck it up.”

Cardan chuckles softly and touches his side like he’s already imagining bruises blossoming there. “Ouch.”

“You’ll only be without me for a few seconds,” I reassure him. “You draw focus, keep them on the ground, and then I’ll show up, hopefully armed. Then we’re good.”

“And if we’re not good, you just leave me. You just run.” He gives me a weirdly intense look. “Right? I’m the one they want, anyway.”

“It won’t come to that,” I say.

“But if it does.”

“Cardan.”

“I have concerns.”

I bite the inside of my cheek before I can tell him he’s an idiot if he doesn’t have concerns. “What are they?”

“The third man. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, and you haven’t seen him at all. We know what the other two are like, but you have no read on him and I don’t really trust mine.”

That is a good concern, although I’m loath to give Cardan any credit. It had crossed my mind too, along with the possibility that Cardan might have been too drowsy while he was coming out of his drugged haze and made a mistake. But even if he was in a stupor, it isn’t likely that he mistook a scarred man of medium height or a short woman for a tall man with no scars at all.

“Maybe he’s the ringleader,” I suggest. “He might have left once we were settled in.”

“Might have,” Cardan agrees, but he sounds unconvinced.

We pass the rest of the day like that, in our precarious truce. When one of us has an idea, we speak up, trade it back and forth for a while. And then silence again. It would be incredibly boring, and almost is without my phone, except that Cardan is right: this might be literally life or death.

Our captors let us out a few more times to use the bathroom. In the evening, they bring us cold, dry pre-packaged deli sandwiches from a supermarket and an extra pillow and blanket for Cardan, because I am on the mattress and there was only supposed to be one of us. Cardan just accepts the bedding and food, quiet for once. I know he’s wondering the same thing I am: whether they still mean to kill us, or whether we’re worth more alive.

When the light has totally vanished from our tiny window and we have both exhausted our store of potential plans, Cardan unties his shoes, props his pillow in the corner, and starts making himself as comfortable as possible on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I ask, before my brain catches up to my mouth.

“I think this is called ‘sleeping,’” he replies. “I thought everybody did it, but I guess with all those AP classes and mock trial and…”

I roll my eyes. “It’s a big enough mattress,” I say. “Just don’t touch me.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” I scoot to the side of the mattress, the one closer to the wall, and turn onto my side, away from the spot I’m vacating for him. “Before I change my mind.”

Cardan seems to realize I actually do mean it, so about half a second later I feel him crawl onto the mattress and flop down. And just as he’s groaning, “God, that is better,” even though the mattress is old and stained and doesn’t smell great, I realize I’ve made a gigantic mistake, because my body is a live wire and not even for the reason he’d think.

I glance over my shoulder at him, and although it’s hard to make out details in the dark, I can see that he is also on his side with his back to me, his midnight curls a stark contrast against the pillow. Breathe, I tell myself. For about five years, Cardan could not have been clearer that he does not want me in any conceivable way, and we’re not in the danger zone yet. There is no “safe” in our situation, but I am at least protected from that.

“I can feel you staring,” he says to the empty air.

Startled, I almost bite down on my own tongue. I turn back around and curl my knees to my chest. I don’t want to ask. Asking would be the worst thing in the world. Asking would be admitting to fear, and naming fear gives it power.

But I am spared when Cardan says, unprompted, “I’m not going to try anything, Jesus.” The Don’t you know that? hangs unspoken in the air between us, because I should know it, seeing as he’s been telling me I stink for years. That while his kind ostensibly was made to dominate mine, my chemicals do not agree with his, and so he would never stoop to that level.

I get it. And sure, it stings to be unwanted, but not so much now, because I can sleep through the night with Cardan at my back and really, truly not worry about being prey. “Right,” I say. “Good. Because you’re the last person in the world I’d want that from, anyway.”

“Yes, you’ve made that clear.”

Never mind that he made it clear first. I burrow into my pillow as best I can. “Well, enjoy your uninterrupted sleep.”

I expect a smart remark from him, but there’s nothing but a sigh. Then, because I am listening carefully, I hear his breathing grow long and even, and I realize he actually has fallen asleep. He isn’t too nervous, too tense to be kept awake. I am both of those things, but also exhausted, so I guess I can understand that eventually, exhaustion has its way.

It’s weird that twenty-four hours ago he was one of the people I hated most in the world, someone who stood in for the system that had scorned me my whole life. He still might be, outside these walls. But for now he’s just a boy, sleeping at my back.

I close my eyes, and sleep too.

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #the cruel prince #the folk of the air #tfota #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #jurdan fanfic #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

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hpdabbles · 4 years

Text

What’s in a Name?

For @ironicallypresant who request “some kind of fae au for the wizarding world I’ve read a few things where lily is fae but never James.” I hope you like it!

Harry Potter settled down in the Hogwarts Express with a sigh and throwing a quick thank you to the two redheads that help him onboard. He couldn’t tell which one was Forge or Gred (what odd names), but they offer him a smile and a happy little wave. “Anything for a being of mischief!”

Harry didn’t know what that meant, but assuming it was just a wizard thing, he left it well alone. He still couldn’t quite believe he was a wizard, after all this time, all these strange unexplainable phenomenons, the sense of being misplaced in the perfectly normal family and normal neighborhood.

It was because he is magic. Because his parents had been magic.

Even if a month had gone by, Harry still had moments where he expected to wake up back in the cupboard and learn this had all been a cruel dream.

“Excuse me? Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full.”

Startled out of his thoughts Harry swings his eyes to the door where a redhead boy peaks at him expectantly. Harry never has anyone want to sit with him before, and he finds he doesn’t know how to say the words so he settles for nodding his head and waving a hand to the opposite side of him.

“Thanks,” The boy says dragging in a trunk behind him. Harry can’t help but notice how old and run down it is....maybe the boy would like to trade something to get a better trunk....Harry could offer a deal to-

Don’t try to drag people into your hustles boy! Uncle Vernon's voice sneers in his mind, making the dark hair boy jump. Ashamed he turns his gaze away from the trunk feeling his inside turn painfully for a few seconds. He clenches his fists in his lap trying to breathe through the ache in his chest until the sharpness fades away.

All of this happens in seconds and by the time the red hair child is settled in sit the Harry doesn’t show any sign of discomfort. For as long as Harry been able to remember those random pains come and go, never lasting for longer than five seconds but consist enough for teachers to point it out to his guardians. They took him to a doctor who couldn’t find anything wrong with Harry and it quickly became another “lie” Harry was famous for telling.

It’s gotten to the point he no longer saw reason to tell people about them, after all, no one would listen anyway. He took his hand off his chest, settling it in his lap happy the pain had turned to soreness instead.

He doesn’t think the stranger would have appreciated Harry pointing out the terrible state of his trunk. Heavens knows the shame that overcomes him whenever someone sneered at his clothes, always too big and dirty, compared to his properly dressed family members.

He offers the boy a shy smile, trying to find something to say. “What’s your name?”

The redhead boy raises a brow, dragging his gaze pointedly to Harry’s hair before shrugging “Whatever you like to call me.”

Harry didn’t know how to respond to that. “What?”

“Whatever you want to call me. I’ll answer to it” The boy says casually, then seems to rethink that as he hasty adds on “As long as it’s not mocking. I get that too much from Fre- ugh my twin brothers.”

“a nickname?” Harry asks feeling both off footed and a bit ecstatic. No one ever asked Harry to give them a nickname before it was almost like the boy wanted to be close to him like real friends were.

“Nick sounds fine,” The newly dub Nick says shrugging his small shoulders. “ I appreciate the last name even if it’s just the word Name.”

Harry blinks bewildered green eyes at him, pulling at his long sleeves over his hands. A nervous habit he developed over the years. “You want me to call you Nick Name?”

“Sure mate.”

“Why?” Was he mocking Harry?

The boy snorts, “Mate, your hair gave you away. No offense but my Mum didn’t raise a fool. I’m not about to give away my name so easily.”

“My...hair?” Reaching up to try and smooth his wild hair Harry wonders if it fell to the side to reveal his scar. Was this about him being famous?

“Yeah” Nick nods as if that means anything, like they somehow got on the same page now, giving Harry a smile that seems too friendly for someone making fun of him. “Not that I mind, it’s in your nature after all, but you should wait till your older to make Deals. Bit funnier that way yeah?”

The way he says that, where he can hear the capital D, makes something in Harry ding, as if though he rung a bell in his head. Harry doesn't know why but it makes him smile.

Nick returns the grin. “Your hair is standing up.”

“What!?” Harry reaches up to slap the locks down that is for some reason, risen in the air. Not like a cowlick but closer to when he is underwater, floating about gently. He blushes, ashamed of his freak curls, and hoping Nick wouldn’t be disgusted by him.

“It’s wicked that it does that,” Nick says, his blue eyes flickering upwards to his straight red hair. “Mine just flops uselessly like a dead mop on my head. I wish I was as cute as you.”

Harry has never been as red as he was at that moment. “C-cute?”

No one ever thought Harry was cute before. Heck, no one thought he was anything other than a smear on society.

“Oh!” The boy slaps his forehead as if he caught himself saying something foolish. Sheepishly he offers Harry a shrug. “I tend to put my foot in my mouth. I know I shouldn’t call your kind cute. I didn’t mean to stereotype you mate, sorry about that. Say what should I call you? Mate just sounds weird to say over and over again.”

Harry feels like the communication between them was failing. Nick was obviously speaking English but somehow it was an entirely different language. “I’m Har-”

The door opens again, this time to show a blond boy in elegant robes around their age. He gave the room a quick once over, passing Nick without a second glance. The moment his eyes land on Harry however, he does a double-take, staring at his hair with a fierce intensity.

Then he smiles pearl white teeth. “I heard the Boy-Who-Lived was in this compartment. Is that you?”

“Oh him, I mean yeah that's me. I’m the Boy-Who-Lived.” Harry answers awkwardly still not used to his famous title. Across from him Nick looks startled.

“Are you really?”

Harry reaches up to lift his bangs flashing the strange scar he had for as long as he could remember. Nick's eyes widen before he breaths “That’s wicked.”

“Thanks?” He doesn't know how he should respond to the obvious awe in Nick’s face now. The blond boy clears his throat stepping forward with a hand raised.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

Harry blinks then shakes it as well. Two people that want to talk to him. Harry is on a roll today! As he shook the hand he can’t help but notice the way the blond boy’s eyes seem to be fixed on his lips, and he wonders if he wanted a kiss. Maybe Harry could trade him something for a quick peck-

No. Harry tells himself No hustles. No freakiness. Stop it. Besides how weird would it be to trade something for a kiss? He wants to makes friends not scare everyone away.

A sharp pain wrecks havoc across his torso, making him wince slightly. He fights the urge to press his palm against the pain.

“It’s nice to meet you too-ugh sorry I didn’t get your name?” Harry says feeling nervous, his voice wavering towards the end. Had the other said it and he missed it due to the stinging ache?

The blond looks unimpressed for a moment then he snorts. “Nice try. You can call me whatever you please”

“How about Ferret?” Nice offers with a grin obviously trying for good humor teasing. “You got the features.”

“Think that’s funny do you?” The blond snaps face clouded with displeasure. Obviously, the other took it as an insult instead. “I don’t need to focus on your features. Just point out the red hair, hand me downs and-

Harry quickly intervenes not wanting his new possible friends to fight. Besides this is the second nickname of his life, it was special, Harry had only been on the train for a short while and already he was connecting better to the people here then all of the eleven years combine back in Privet Drive.

“How about Pearl?” He offers which brings the blond up short. He hastes to explain his reasoning feeling foolish for over-explain but unable to stop. “Since you look really....fancy...and you have.. near oval white hair?”

He winces at the expression of consideration that overcomes the blond’s face feeling like he just messed this all up. Until the blond smiles, satisfied. “Pearl is a good name. I shall call you Emerald. You have lovely green eyes, it seems fitting”

Harry bit his lip, ducking his head to hide the sudden overwhelming happiness he got from that comment. He’s always been rather weak to them, despite how rarely he’s ever received them.

Nick chuckles “Emerald, your hair is floating again. Must be because your feeling light after that compliment. Heh heh heh, get it?”

Harry would die for him. He doesn’t know why but that usage of puns makes him want to die for him. If anyone ever threatens him, Harry would tear them apart before they could finish their sentence. In fact, Harry was taking him home, Nick was his now, of course only if Nick wanted to come with him but his house was his now and-

“You Fae are so easy,” Pearl says rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t even a clever pun.”

Harry stops the sudden possessive thoughts to stare at him confusingly. “I’m sorry?”

“I know you like flattery-”

“You think I’m a fairy?” Harry interrupts utterly bewildered. “Why?”

For some reason, Pearl looks alarmed. “No! No! I meant no offense. I would never compare you to a fairy. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. Please, accept my humble and honest apologies.”

“But you just said I was a fairy.”

“No, he said Fae.” Nick hastily adds. “I swear he did.”

“...What’s a Fae?”

The two stare at him, then Nick forces a laugh. “Good one Emblard. Real funny.”

A fuzzy buzz sound goes off somewhere behind Harry’s eyes. He’s lying, but he can’t bring himself to point it out. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia don’t like it when Harry points out lies. It’s weird but he’ always been able to tell when someone lies to him.

“Thanks.” He says instead. Both boys relax. “Do either of you know anything about Hogwarts?”

The rest of the ride was spent getting Harry up to speed on all these Hogwarts until a girl arrived looking for a toad. Before anyone can open their mouths she moves right on to introductions ignoring the fact they couldn’t respond to her inquiry of the lost toad. “I’m Hermione Granger and this is Nevi-”

“Don’t tell him my name!” The chubby boy yelps “Are you mad?”

Harry stares at the girl, her name wrapping around him the same way all names do.

“Nice to meet you, Hermione” Her name rolls off his tongue like caramel. He likes the taste of it, but he fights the mad smirk that always surfaces his face when meeting new people. His aunt Petunia hates it, and usually it earns him a wack of a pan to the head.

Sadly, like now, he can’t fight it completely and it breaks across his face slowly, sharply, and overly eager. The three other males wince. “I’m Harry Potter.”

The girl goes white. “You’re a Fae.”

“I’m....I’m sorry I’m a what?” Harry asks smirk falling right off his face.

“A F-Fae. I read about you...in the books” Hermione gulps looking close to shaking. “I didn’t know...I know it said the hair was a sign but I just thought you don’t use a comb or-”

“Granger stop while your ahead!” Nick shouts alarm. “Don’t insult him!”

“Wait wait,” Harry says raising his hands as the girl looks about close to bursting into tears and the other two- Pearl and Chubby boy- seem about to make a run for the door. “What on earth you all going on about?”

“You...didn't know?” Hermonie sounds shocked. Then her eyes widen “Is this a trick? Surely you are aware that you’re a Fae Harry.”

“I’m a what?”

“A Fae. Like all Potters before you.”

“My Dad was a Fae?” Harry leans closer to her hungry for anything of his parents.

Suddenly Hermonie sat up straight, “I’ll trade you everything I know about the Potter family that I read exchange for my real name. We can change it to a nickname....If...if you want?”

Harry is extremely embarrassed by the purr like noise that started somewhere in his throat. He just knows his hair is floating again, and he can feel his cheeks gaining a healthy flush. “Oh! Yes please, I’ll give you the best nickname ever promise!”

Hermonie mouth drops, her own face turning bright red. For a moment she seems to have stop functioning, unable to look away from Harry who is still making that odd purring noise. The other members are as equally flustered.

“Is this the Veela Allure I read about?” Hermonie whimpers after a moment.

“No, this is a Fae Deal.” Chubby boy stutters out, hiding his eyes behind his hands. Though he is taking small peaks at Harry form between his fingers only to close them. A few seconds later he spreads his fingers again. “It’s one of the reasons they get so many Deals. People like...um...looking.”

“Hermonie! Hermonie! Hermione!” Harry calls leaning towards the girl, his voice having an odd little ring to it now “Please tell me! I’ll give you a nickname if you want but please, what is this about the Potters?”

“Give me my nickname first,” The girl says after swallowing twice.

Harry tilts his head thinking quickly “How about Bella? It means beauty in French.”

“Bella is fine” The poor girl squeaks sounding like she is close to choking. “Bella is nice. Thank you.”

Harry's lips pull into that mad smirk once more, unknown to him making his face turn a bit....foreboding “You owe me my information.”

She goes pale once more. “Y-yes of course.”

It’s a very educational conversation.

#hpdabbles #Prompt night #Harry potter #ironicallypresant #Fae Potter Family #Harry wasn't aware he was a Fae #Au What's in a name #Hermonie really went and gave her name to a fae #Potter Hair is famous for a different reason #Draco is Pearl #Ron is Nick #Neville may or may not get a nickname too #Everyone is thirsty for Harry #Unknown flirting #(Sorry it just went into that direction)

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afternoonteawithme · 4 years

Text

Lan Wangji’s Favorite Shade of Black

Fandom: MZDS / Pairing: WangXian / Rating: T / WC: 5206

(read it on AO3)

Music floated in the air as twilight fell across Cloud Recesses, escaping from the homes scattered across the mountain through doors left wide and open to the summer evening. Deep zither notes blended with lilting flute melodies, the soft traces of music mingling with the scent of gardenia as a gentle breeze rustled along the bushes lining the winding white stone paths.

The soft wind flowed onwards, the music it carried almost silent by the time it swirled into the courtyard of a small building set a little apart from the rest. Warm light poured out from inside, flashing against deep purple as it landed on the gentian dancing in the breeze.

Inside, a man dressed all in white sat straight-backed at a low desk. Here the scent of flowers gave way to the sandalwood incense burning in the corner, and the only sounds were the faint whisper of his brush smoothly gliding across paper and the murmuring of the two boys sitting together on the other side of the room.

Very deliberately Lan Wangji ignored the boys, and their conversation.

He’d caught just enough to know they were discussing whether they should ask him about something Lan Qiren had refused to explain, but otherwise he left them to themselves. His reasoning for allowing Sizhui to invite Lan Jingyi into their home - during the time usually allocated for the members of the Gusu Lan Sect to be alone with only their closest family - was so that Sizhui would grow up knowing what it was to enjoy spending time with his friends, so he felt censuring the boys or monitoring them too closely would be counter-productive.

Those precious days he and his brother had spent with their mother, before her death, had been nothing but memories for most of his adolescence. When he had spent his evenings with the few members of his family that still lived and were not in seclusion his time had been occupied with following in his brother’s footsteps, trying to in some way ease the burdens Lan Xichen carried as the heir to the Gusu Lan Sect.

The other disciples, whether of his own sect or visiting Cloud Recesses to study under his uncle, had been of no interest to him. He’d spent his entire childhood studying, training, rigidly learning the rules of his sect in the belief that everything in life would fall neatly into place so long as he followed those rules, without fail.

He’d been wrong. That had been a bloody, pain filled lesson to learn, one that had given him scars he would carry forever.

Lan Wangji didn’t want that for A-Yuan.

Sizhui, at twelve, was changing quickly from the boy he’d been into a young man Lan Wangji could only be proud of. He was clever, bright, gentle, and strong, and since his studies and cultivation progress were fast enough to satisfy the requirements of even the strictest of Lan elders Lan Wangji was largely allowed to raise him as he pleased. So while he’d treasured the time he spent alone with Sizhui, he’d started to encourage him to invite his closest friend as well.

Lan Jingyi’s parents gratefully gave up their own solitary time - likely in the hope that some of Sizhui’s calm demeanor would rub off on their unrestrained son.

Lan Wangji never told them that he hoped for the opposite.

So, while the books on the table in front of the two boys stayed mostly unread, and Lan Jingyi laughed perhaps a little more loudly than was appropriate at something Sizhui whispered into his ear, Lan Wangji simply carried on writing and left them to it.

Still, he registered the moment when the whispering stopped, and he heard the two boys cross the room to stand beside his desk. He glanced up, seeing from the look on their faces that they’d likely decided to ask him whatever they’d been arguing over.

“Speak.”

“Hanguang Jun, could you tell us about the Yiling Patriarch?”

Sizhui’s question hit Lan Wangji with an abruptness that knocked the air out of his lungs. His shock must have shown on his face, as he stared up into Sizhui’s open, innocently curious eyes, because Sizhui’s expression rapidly changed from curiosity to concern.

Lan Jingyi started to speak, but stopped when Sizhui gripped his wrist.

“It’s alright, Hanguang Jun. Actually, Grandmaster didn’t want us to talk about him, so there’s no need for us to know any more.”

Dropping his gaze away, Lan Wangji saw his hand, still holding his brush, frozen in the air halfway to his inkstone. Deliberately, he made his arm move, forcing himself to breathe as he dipped the brush into ink.

“It’s fine. Sit.”

The boys exchanged glances, and then quickly moved to sit in front of the desk.

“Why did you ask?” Not truly knowing what he was writing, but finding it impossible to do nothing, Lan Wangji let his hand move across the paper in front of him.

“One of the outside disciples asked Grandmaster about him in class today. He got…a little upset.” Sizhui spoke cautiously, but Lan Wangji had enough personal experience to know exactly how furious Lan Qiren became at the slightest mention of Wei Wuxian.

“I see.”

“He said that the Yiling Patriarch had followed a heretical path, threatening the entire cultivation world, and so the greater sects banded together to defeat him at great cost. He said that nothing else about him was worth discussing, so he wouldn’t speak of him anymore.”

“And then he told the disciple who asked about him to copy Virtue twice.” Lan Jingyi added.

Sizhui nodded, “Yes. And then, well, Jingyi…” He slid a sideways glance at his friend.

“I said that if the path he followed was really all that bad I didn’t understand why we still use his compass and talismans to night hunt.” Lan Jingyi shuddered a little at the memory. “He, uh, got a lot more angry. His face went really red. There was spit on my table.”

“He told Jingyi to copy Virtue five times, and Conduct too.”

Lan Wangji was only surprised Lan Qiren had stopped there. Since he felt calmer now, he let himself look over at the table where the two had been sitting, still covered in closed books and blank sheets of paper.

“And is that what you were doing?”

A little embarrassed, Lan Jingyi tugged at his ear. “Sorry, Hanguang Jun. I’ll do it in the morning. It doesn’t take me long to get through, I’ve had to do it so many times.”

Lan Wangji studied him, and in a corner of his mind decided he’d come up with something new the next time he had to punish the junior disciples. Simply copying was clearly no longer enough.

“But Grandmaster did tell us a little more after that.” Sizhui continued. “He said that the Yiling Patriarch’s methods had blackened his own soul, turning him into a monster who would corrupt anyone who got too close to him. He said that he’d even left his mark on the Gusu Lan Sect, though he wouldn’t say how, or who.”

Lan Jingyi nodded. “He just said that now the Yiling Patriarch couldn’t corrupt anyone but himself any more than he already had, so he was glad he was dead.”

At that, Lan Wangji’s brief calm scattered. His hands formed into fists, tightening, and tightening more until he felt the silent snap of the wooden brush he’d forgotten he still held.

Gently, carefully, he laid it down on the desk.

“He really wouldn’t say more after that. But after class the outside disciples were talking.” Lan Jingyi said. “One of the Lanling Jin Sect disciples, especially. He told everyone that the Yiling Patriarch was a traitor who defected after the Sunshot Campaign, and that a bunch of cultivators died because of him when they tried to defend themselves from the- well, he called them the Wen-dogs and-”

Lan Wangji’s head snapped up. “Don’t allow others to refer to them in that way.”

“Oh no, we didn’t.” Lan Jingyi glanced at Sizhui, who flushed a little and ducked his head. “Sizhui told them not to. That was when all the rest of the Jin disciples got huffy and tried to make Sizhui apologize, because they said he’d insulted Lianfang Zun’s cousin, and when he wouldn’t they tried to start a fight, which is even more stupid because Sizhui-” Lan Jingyi’s words cut off abruptly when he turned his head again and caught the wide-eyed alarm on Sizhui’s face. “Um- well. Anyway, Sizhui told him not to do that anymore. And no one fought anyone, at all.”

Sizhui didn’t quite meet Lan Wangji’s eyes as he hurriedly spoke. “All the disciples had stories about him digging up someone’s ancestor, or cursing some clan for offending him. Sect Leader Yao’s son said his father always talks about how ungrateful he was, how he would have been nothing at all if it weren’t for the Yunmeng Jiang Sect taking him in, and then he killed them all except for Sect Leader Jiang. But only because he killed him first.”

“Yes.” Lan Jingyi nodded, “But he also said his father told him that the Yiling Patriarch steals bad children away in the night if they don’t listen to their parents, and he still believes him, so I don’t think we can trust anything he says.”

“I suppose not. And a lot of the rest of the stories don’t really add up, like him going around and poisoning wells, or making food stores go rotten. If he really did half the things they said then he must have had a great deal of spare time on his hands.”

“I bet most of the rumors are made up.” Lan Jingyi snorted. “Like him stealing people’s wives.”

That caught Lan Wangji’s attention. “Stealing people’s wives?”

“Apparently some clan head’s wife was kidnapped by the Yiling Patriarch. But we think she ran off with him on her own and her husband was just too ashamed to tell everyone the truth.”

Considering, Lan Wangji angled his head. “Hm.”

“But…” Sizhui looked at Lan Wangji. “Even if most of the rumors about the things he did are made up, Grandmaster said that when the sects fought against him, especially at the end, a lot of people died. That part was true, wasn’t it?”

Lan Wangji studied Sizhui’s expression for a long second, before nodding.

“So he was an evil person?”

The question, said so simply, dug under Lan Wangji’s skin like a sharp, jagged blade. Not speaking, he dropped his gaze to the paper he’d been mindlessly writing on. To his utter shock he saw he’d drawn the characters for Wei Ying’s name.

Simply seeing that intimate name, so bold and black against the white of the paper, Lan Wangji felt his thoughts turn to smoke.

He hadn’t planned to explain Wei Ying to Sizhui yet. He hadn’t known how. If he couldn’t make his brother or his uncle understand the faith he felt in him, despite everything he’d done, how could he explain it in a way a child would accept? Especially A-Yuan. Lan Wangji couldn’t bear the idea of A-Yuan hating Wei Ying. Or worse, of him being glad he was dead.

And yet now the child he had watched Wei Ying carry in his arms was asking him, in all innocence and trust, if the man who had saved him had been evil.

When Lan Wangji lifted his head to meet Sizhui’s eyes, he found them calm and direct, as they nearly always were. Lan Jingyi beside him had his mouth clamped shut, though he looked as though he was almost vibrating in place while he waited for Lan Wangji to answer Sizhui’s question.

Somehow, even the silence of the room seemed be holding its breath, waiting for him to speak. But Lan Wangji’s head was empty of coherent thought, so even when he opened his mouth he had no idea what would come out.

“He was very irritating.”

The two young faces watching him showed almost as much surprise as Lan Wangji felt, and yet the words continued to pour out of him.

“He was loud, obnoxious, aggravating. Noisy. Completely shameless. Impossible to ignore. It was hard to focus on anything else, when he was beside you. He’d make you furious, and then he’d do something that made you feel as if he was the most remarkable person you’d ever met. And then he’d make you furious again.”

Lan Wangji dropped his eyes, studied the curving lines of black ink on the paper in front of him. “He was always laughing.”

“Laughing?” Sizhui asked, when Lan Wangji said nothing else.

“Mn. Even when the situation seemed terrible, he’d find something to laugh about.” Lan Wangji stared at the broken brush on his desk. There had been times Wei Ying hadn’t been able to laugh. He didn’t like remembering those times, since they held a great many of his own worst memories.

“He wasn’t a fool though, was he?” Lan Jingyi asked, leaning forward, unable to keep quiet any longer. “He couldn’t have done everything he did if he was.”

“He wasn’t. But he’d pretend to be one, if he needed to.”

Lan Jingyi frowned. “Why would he need to?”

“To protect himself, to protect others.” He ignored the blank looks on the boy’s faces. It was something he’d seen Wei Ying do again and again, but it was so alien to Lan Wangji’s own character that he knew he wouldn’t be able to explain it any more clearly. “Protecting others was…very important to Wei- to Wei Wuxian.”

“So that rumor about him defecting to the Qishan Wen Sect and defending it from the rest of the sects – that was true?”

Hesitating, Lan Wangji wondered how to explain. Especially to Sizhui, who would one day very much need to understand the truth behind that particular story.

“In a way, yes.”

“In a way?”

“The Qishan Wen Sect was destroyed in the Sunshot Campaign. After that, all that was left was the people.”

Sizhui suddenly frowned. “The people?”

“Oh, I think I know what you mean.” Lan Jingyi sat up straight, speaking eagerly as he turned to Sizhui. “Grandmaster told us that by the time Lianfang Zun killed Wen Ruohan, his sons and most of his generals were already dead, so there wasn’t really much fighting after that. The territory was divided between the other sects.” He looked up at Lan Wangji. “The people must have been taken in along with their lands, right?”

”No.” Sizhui spoke slowly, before Lan Wangji could say anything. “Remember, the disciple from Qinghe was talking about that today, after all the Jin disciples left? He said that some Lanling Jin clans actually used to be under the Qishan Wen Sect, which was why a few of them looked really uncomfortable when we were talking about the Yiling Patriarch defecting. He said that Sect Leader Nie had shown him records listing which of the clans bordering Qinghe had been brought in by Chifeng Zun because they’d already intermarried with Nie Sect clans before the Sunshot Campaign, but he told him some of the richer clans were taken in by the Lanling Jin Sect.”

“Then who did the Yiling Patriarch side with?”

“I think I- I might know what happened.” Sizhui started, and then shut his mouth.

Lan Wangji met his eyes again and saw, with both pride and a little regret, the understanding in them. “Go on.”

“Some clans would have been useful to the greater sects, especially the ones with more money, or with valuable cultivators.” As he spoke, Sizhui watched Lan Wangji’s face, reading his reactions. “Especially if they were powerful enough that their belongings couldn’t simply be seized. But not all of the clans under Qishan Wen would have had those resources. And not everyone would have belonged to a clan. The ones without, maybe – were those the people the Yiling Patriarch sided with?”

Lan Jingyi nodded. “It makes sense. I mean, if the other sects felt the Gusu Lan Sect had done something very wrong and attacked us tomorrow, what would happen to the ordinary people of Gusu? Or even retired cultivators, or former disciples who decided to go be farmers, or fishermen instead. They’d be in the way.”

Saying nothing, Lan Wangji watched the two young men as they, on their own, saw into the complexities of something that many of his own generation, and his uncle’s, still remained blind to.

Sizhui nodded. “I think the Yiling Patriarch must have had a strong sense of justice.”

Lan Jingyi made a face and elbowed Sizhui. “See? Told you those rumors were stupid. No one is that petty. And he sounds so much more interesting than all the other boring people Grandmaster goes on and on about all the time.” Abruptly, as if suddenly remembering who else was in the room, he shot Lan Wangji a slightly panicked look.

Sizhui spoke quickly, attracting Lan Wangji’s attention. “Was the Yiling Patriarch very weak, when he was younger? Was that why he chose to find other ways to gain power?”

Lan Wangji shook his head, slowly, as he let himself remember the past. “He ranked near the top whenever the clans competed. We fought a few times. He was a strong swordsman.”

“Better than you?” Lan Jingyi blurted out the question, his eyes wide.

“No.” Lan Wangji said immediately, and then paused for a moment before correcting himself. “I don’t know. At first we never fought to the end, so neither of us ever beat the other. And after the Sunshot Campaign he stopped carrying his sword.”

“If he was that good, why didn’t he use his sword anymore?”

It was a question Lan Wangji had asked over and over, and one Wei Ying had given him so many different answers to. He’d say he’d forgotten it. Or it had gotten in his way, so he’d set it down somewhere. He hadn’t felt like carrying it. It hadn’t matched his outfit. It was too easy to beat others and he’d gotten bored of everyone challenging him.

The more charitable people around them had said he was simply forgetful. More had called him out for being deliberately rude.

Lan Wangji had worried that he’d become too drunk on the power of the resentful spirits he’d learned to control to go back to using a simple sword, but even that answer had never fit any better than the ones Wei Ying had given him.

So, for now, Lan Wangji could only shake his head. “I don’t know. He used his flute, Chenqing, and he used the other talismans and tools he invented.”

Lan Jingyi sat up straight. “Talismans? Like the ones we’re learning to use when we go night hunting?”

“Mn.”

“There were others, like those?”

“He made many. The ones you use…they deviate from the orthodox, but are considered necessary evils. Others go too far. I doubt you’ll ever see them. But…” Lan Wangji hesitated, before continuing. “Some were different.”

“Different?”

“Mn. When we were young. He was always coming up with new things.” Lan Wangji looked into the boy’s eager faces, and wondered if it was selfish of him to want to show them this other side of Wei Ying.

But this was Wei Ying, to him, in all his complexity.

Making up his mind, he reached into his sleeve and drew out a talisman, activating and releasing it in one smooth motion.

A shimmering cloud of golden light exploded into the room. Sizhui and Lan Jingyi shot to their feet, their faces full of wonder as glittering butterflies filled the air

“In a fight, these distract, buy time to escape. They’re useful when there are people who can’t defend themselves close by.” Lan Wangji sat where he was, watching, remembering. He’d used this particular trick often, over the years. It had helped save him more than once.

A moment later, he realized that while Lan Jingyi was still staring up at the butterflies, awestruck, Sizhui had turned his head and was looking back at him instead.

“They’re very pretty.”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji nodded.

Sizhui smiled, softly, and his young eyes were full of understanding. “I think I have an idea of what kind of person the Yiling Patriarch was now.” He took Lan Jingyi’s arm to get his attention, and led him into a shallow bow. “Thank you for telling us. We’ll get back to work.”

Later, Lan Wangji sat alone.

He’d gone back to writing, with a new brush, while Sizhui had gotten Lan Jingyi through his copying. But Sizhui had left to bring Lan Jingyi home and the room had suddenly become far too quiet without the noise the two boys had been making to fill it.

Suddenly restless, Lan Wangji swept to his feet.

It was well past twilight and music was forbidden at night in Cloud Recesses, but that was one of the rules Lan Wangji had long since decided he couldn’t follow. Sitting in front of his guqin, he let his fingers start to play over the strings.

Music began to echo through the room. At first he kept to soothing, steadying songs, but when his mind refused to settle he began to pour the restlessness he felt, the turmoil beneath his rigid calm, out into the notes he played.

Bit by bit, he felt himself empty.

After a while, the music changed, becoming something close to peaceful, and Lan Wangji saw a movement in the doorway. He looked up, and found Sizhui standing just outside, watching him.

He placed his hands across the strings to quiet them.

“Did you bring Lan Jingyi home?”

Sizhui nodded, and then hesitated for a moment, before speaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

There was no denying it, even if Lan Wangji had thought there was a good reason he should. “It’s alright to be sad, sometimes.”

“Yes, I know. You taught me that.” Smiling softly, Sizhui walked into the room and dropped down lightly to sit beside Lan Wangji at the guqin table. “I’m still sorry for it.”

He said nothing else, and after a moment Lan Wangji began to play again. This time he played another song, one he’d made when Sizhui had been young and hadn’t wanted to go to sleep.

It was a long while before Sizhui spoke. “Hanguang Jun, there is one thing I don’t understand. Can I ask you another question?”

“Mn.”

“Why did you oppose him so strongly?”

Still playing, Lan Wangji let himself put his words together in his head before he spoke. “For a while, I wasn’t sure he was the same as he’d always been. I thought the power he used had changed him. Or would.”

“So you fought against him.”

“At first.” Lan Wangji nodded. “But not at the end. I realized the core of him had not changed, even though his methods were dangerous.” To others, and to Wei Ying himself.

Sizhui studied him. “But not evil.”

Lan Wangji’s fingers stopped playing, and he sat still, watching the strings continue to vibrate for a long moment.

“What is evil?”

Instantly, he wished he could take the words back. He lifted his head, his lips forming an apology, but Sizhui was already speaking.

“I guess there isn’t a simple answer to that, is there?” Drawing his legs up beneath him in a pose he only used when it was the two of them alone, Sizhui settled himself more comfortably. “You could look at someone’s actions, or the effects of their actions, but I don’t think that would give you an answer either. I mean, good people must do bad things sometimes, or the other way around.”

He wasn’t watching Lan Wangji, so he missed the startled shock on his face as he continued. “Like Jingyi. Last week he was playing around and tripped one of the older disciples. He broke his arm, so he can’t go night hunting for a few months and he’s going to be behind the rest of his class, and he can’t write so Grandmaster has him standing up and answering all his exam questions out loud, in front of everybody, and he’s doing really, really badly at it. But then there was that disciple who was expelled last month because he stole someone else’s food from home, and then he lied and tried to make it look like a maid took it. Jingyi maybe caused more lasting harm, but didn’t get expelled. He just got yelled at a lot, and has to run around helping the older disciple all day.”

Shrugging easily, Sizhui’s eyes were still on the night sky outside the open door as he continued. “I think evil would probably have to come from people’s intentions, and those are really hard to see. Until you know someone really well, anyway.” He turned his head to look up at Lan Wangji, and smiled. “I trust you. If you trusted him, then I will too, for now, until I see a good reason to change my mind. Does that work?”

“Mn. I think it works very well.” Lips curving, Lan Wangji reached out to adjust Sizhui’s perfectly straight forehead ribbon. “I think that’s enough questions now. It’s close to nine. Go, get ready for bed.”

Instantly, Sizhui’s too adult expression changed into something a great deal younger. “But I have more questions. Can’t I stay up?”

“More questions. Really?”

Sizhui giggled, a sound that had become rare enough as he grew older that it tugged at Lan Wangji’s heart every time he heard it. “No. But I can come up with some.”

“Go to sleep, Sizhui. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After Sizhui was gone, Lan Wangji stood in the open doorway of his home. He watched his mother’s purple gentian dance in the soft, warm breeze, and thought of Wei Ying.

A monster with a black soul? No. He didn’t believe that.

He’d had too long to remember every moment they’d known each other. He’d traced through all the times Wei Ying had thrown himself into danger for his sister, his brother, for random cultivators on the battlefields whose names he’d never even known. For Wen Ning. For A-Yuan.

The times he’d risked himself for Lan Wangji.

When Wei Ying had come back so changed after the burning of Lotus Pier and the endless months he’d been missing, Lan Wangji had felt torn apart, uncertain of everything. Wei Ying had started down a path that had left him alone against the rest of the world, and the rules Lan Wangji had governed his life by told him he had to stand on the side of the world.

He’d fractured himself apart with his own uncertainty, and by the time he’d put himself back together it had been too late. Wei Ying had been dead. If there was any way Lan Wangji could go back and tell his younger self to dive in, to stand firmly beside Wei Ying the way he’d so desperately wanted to back then, he’d go in an instant.

He knew that if he ever had the chance again, in another life, he’d throw every fragment of his soul in beside Wei Ying’s.

There was no more uncertainty left. He’d go against the universe itself if he had to.

Turning his face up to the sky, Lan Wangji took in a deep breath, and for the moment, since he was alone, let himself feel the depths of the sorrow and longing that lived inside his soul, always.

Present.

There were tears on Lan Wangji’s face when he woke. Blinking into the darkness of his room, he heard again the rustling that must have woken him an instant before Wei Ying’s freezing body dove under the blankets and burrowed in beside him.

The nose pressing into the crook of his neck was as cold as ice. Lan Wangji stroked his hands down Wei Ying’s back, feeling the cold radiating off of him. “How did it go?”

“Freezing.” Wei Ying nestled in closer to Lan Wangji. “But the juniors did well.”

“Was it a ghost?”

“Uh huh.” Yawning, Wei Ying’s body started to relax against Lan Wangji’s. “You’ve got a good batch there. The ghost turned out to be the late wife of the man who asked us for help. She was haunting him because he’d opened up her grave to steal her jewelry, to give it to the woman he’s been trying to talk into marrying him. I was happy to leave him to her, once we figured out what was happing. Jingyi was too.” Wei Ying snorted, and then paused, considering. “Actually, maybe I’ve corrupted the rest of them too because I think they mostly all felt the same way. I sort of wished Jin Ling or Ouyang Zizhen were they, they’d probably have run the guy through before Sizhui talked us all out of it.”

He sighed, and pressed his face against the heat of Lan Wangji’s chest. “He pointed out the poor dead wife didn’t deserve to be stuck to the man for the rest of her existence, so we returned all her jewelry and helped her rest. I did enjoy putting the fear of me into the husband, though. He’ll leave her things alone now. And I suppose Sizhui had a point about it being the right thing to do.”

His hair tickled Lan Wangji’s nose as he shook his head. “Honestly, that boy almost always is right. It makes me mad at you, sometimes. How’d you get to raise such a smart kid?”

“He was smart when I got him.”

Wei Ying raised his head, and moonlight sparkled in his eyes as he grinned at Lan Wangji. The grin vanished in an instant the moment he saw Lan Wangji’s face.

“You were crying? What’s wrong?” Panicked, he pushed himself up until he could sweep his hands over Lan Wangji’s cheeks.

“It’s alright. Just a memory.”

“A bad one?”

“No, not really.” Not anymore.

Wei Ying waited, and when Lan Wangji said nothing more, rolled his eyes. “Lan Zhan. Are you going to tell me about it, or not?”

Lan Wangji’s lips curved. “Not.”

Wei Ying huffed out a breath, but there was relief on his face as he saw Lan Wangji truly did not look unhappy. And then he blinked, and grinned as mischief grew in his eyes. He lifted one leg to drape it teasingly over Lan Wangji’s hips. “Maybe I can convince you to talk?”

In one quick move, Lan Wangji flipped their bodies, until he was looking down at Wei Ying beneath him.

“Fine, fine. Keep your secrets.” Laughing up at him, Wei Ying lifted his fingers to trace them over Lan Wangji’s face.

Lan Wangji pressed his cheek into the palm of Wei Ying’s hand, and felt a happy warmth grow in his chest, dispelling the very last echoes of remembered sadness. He smiled down at Wei Ying.

And decided that the color of Wei Ying’s eyes, as he laughed up at him in the dark, truly were his favorite shade of black.

#the untamed #mdzs #wangxian #mdzs fanfiction #elliemoran #my fanfiction #angst and fluff with a happy ending #i think this may be the first canon compliant fic i've ever written?#it feels like a v different experience

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lycorogue · 3 years

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Perfect Doesn’t Need to be Perfect: Chapter 2

I miss these early chapters. They were easy. They were small. They were still relatively light-hearted. Then chapter 5 happened and I’ve completely lost this project down an angsty rabbit hole. 0.o I’ll try to get that sorted out in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, enjoy one of the short, fluffy chapters.

**Contains Spoilers for Taurus Pixie’s story Twelve Days of Chatmas**

Summary: Chat Noir has run into a long streak of poor luck, all in an attempt to give Ladybug the perfect Christmas gift. Little does he know, his first try was already perfect in Ladybug’s eyes. Now it’s her turn to try to navigate around Chat Noir’s failed attempts in her own pursuit to find something equally fantastic for him. **A Switched-POV Unofficial Companion Story to Twelve Days of Chatmas by @thetauruspixie**

Rating: General Audience

Chapter Word Count: 1733

Story Total Word Count: 37,973

Status: chapter 2 of 12; complete

**For reals, if you haven’t read Twelve Days of Chatmas yet, read that first so my story doesn’t spoil anything for you. It’s cool. This story will still be here when you get back. ;) **

See below for chapter 2, or find this story over on AO3, on FFN, or on DA.

CHAPTER 2:

The little pear tree sculpture was worse off than Marinette gave it credit, but it wasn't completely irreparable. She had taken stock of the damage the night before, and made a point of picking up the necessary supplies after school. Now it was time to get to work.

Too much of the foam base was chipped away when the card stock truck was ripped out of it, so she started off with replacing that. Then she carefully bent the trunk back so it was flat. The bad bend left a scarring crease in the base of the trunk, bit it actually looked good. Most trees had some sort of scarring in their bark. Using tracing paper to make a pattern, Marinette cut out two slightly smaller versions of Chat Noir's trunk from more card stock. Doubling up her own tree trunks, she glued them to the back of Chat Noir's to reinforce it. Finally, she made it 3D by adding a support branch of roots off the back. Resting the tree on her desk, it stood perfectly straight on it's own; no foam required.

Confident it was now sturdy enough for the weight of the filled in branches, Marinette got to work on fixing everything else. Using a decorative hole punch, she created a small confetti pile of green almond-shaped leaves out of construction paper. She then laid them out on parchment paper, and sprayed them down with adhesive before taking a deep breath.

“He's lucky I like him.” Through gritted teeth she started shaking the green glitter onto the sticky green leaves. She kept it as close to the project as she could, and she tried to stop once the leaves were properly coated without having too much excess. With any luck, she'd only find glitter for the next week or so.

As the leaves dried she got to work on reinforcing the partridge so its chubby little head wouldn't bend forward from the weight of the wooden beak and note.

The note. Forgetting what she was doing, Marinette gently pushed the clothespin open and released the torn note from the bird's grip. Folded over, the little note was barely larger than a postage stamp. Carefully opening it, Marinette was greeted by tiny but elegant writing; far fancier than she imagined Chat Noir's handwriting to be.

“Wishing the most amazing girl in the world the greatest of Christmases,” Marinette read the note aloud to Tikki. It was signed with a little heart drawn with red ink, and a paw print colored in with green ink. Giggling a little to herself, Marinette tore off two small strips of tape and patched up the tear running through the center of the message. She then tore off one more piece of tape. Flipping through to the next blank page of her diary, she taped the note to the bottom corner. A smile stretched across her face as she rested her palm against Chat Noir's tiny Christmas card.

After taking a beat, she closed up her diary and locked it away in its box. Rolling her shoulders, Marinette got back to work on firming up the partridge and touching up the coloring Chat Noir had done on the bird.

She let all the components dry while she had dinner, but instantly went back to work once she was done. First up was carefully gluing the leaves into place. Her new ones weren't nearly as drenched in glitter, and the shade of glitter was slightly lighter, but the two-toned leaves added a nice dimension to the piece.

She took a homework break while the leaves dried completely, then it was back to work to add on the pears and – she couldn't believe she followed through with it – the heart decorations. She managed to tuck the corners of the pears and hearts between some of the leaves to add more depth to the tree and make the fruit and ornaments look like they were actually nestled inside the tree branches.

As she waited for the tree to dry one last time so she could add the bird back onto its perch, Marinette started up a list; instantly and a bit frustratingly crossing off each item the moment she wrote it down.

She needed to come up with the perfect gift for Chat Noir. He seemed so hurt about his present, and he had put so much pressure on himself to get her the perfect thing that she couldn't fall short in doing the same. He was more precious to her than he realized, and this was her chance to make sure he knew that. She was stumped on what to do though.

Scarves, hats, mittens, shirts, vests, necklaces, earrings, pins; everything Marinette came up with wouldn't work. She was a fashion designer; her default gift for everyone was a piece of clothing or an accessory. None of it was a good idea. Her silly kitty would most likely be too excited about her gifting him something to remember to not wear it as a civilian. Then she could possibly run into him, and see him wearing the gift she made for Chat Noir, and then she'd know his identity, and-

She shook her head to try to get out of the spiral. Even if he was disciplined enough to not wear anything she gifted him while in his civilian form, it wasn't like he could really wear any of it while powered up either. Which meant, either he had to wear it alone in his house and nowhere else, or he'd never use it. That wouldn't work at all.

Blanket? Marinette tapped on the word, circling it a couple of times. That could be the best option for her. People rarely take blankets out of their rooms anyway, so he could use it without her seeing. Plus, it was always comforting to just curl up under a warm and semi-heavy blanket during chilly winter nights. Was it special enough for him, though? Would she have time to make him one? What design should she use for the blanket? Something not too obvious, in case he wanted to use the blanket in communal rooms in his home.

Looking out her window, Marinette knew she needed inspiration. It was time to go to her well.

“Tikki, spots on!”

Less than ten minutes later, Ladybug landed atop an apartment building just four blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't the Trocadéro, but unfortunately the park was swarming with tourists this time of year, and she just needed some time to sit and think. It wasn't the same view that usually amazed her no matter how often she saw it, but the Seine still sparkled under the lights of Paris to her left, and the Eiffel Tower still spired before her on the other side of the river.

The sun was sinking below the horizon past the Eiffel Tower, and it cast a purple and deep magenta glow within the overcast sky. Curling up into a ball, Ladybug sat on the roof with her knees pressed against her chest and her chin resting between them. The lights running up the Eiffel Tower turned on in the twilight, and the whole of Paris joined suit. The yellows, blues, oranges, and Christmas reds and greens created a sea of lights below her. It was calming, welcoming, and inspiring.

Warmed by how serene her city looked, Ladybug uncurled. Dangling her legs over the ledge of the roof, she leaned back and admired the Eiffel Tower as it sliced through the cotton candy clouds.

The clouds are kind of blanketing the sky. Could I make something that looks like Paris on a winter's night for Chat Noir? She hummed softly as she pondered how she'd be able to execute something like that. She really fell into the zone as she meditated to the arrhythmic clicking of her swinging feet gently tapping against the side of the building. She could do a gradient fabric, and a quilted stitch so there were pockets of fill to mimic clouds. She could even purposefully avoid a symmetric square quilted look, instead pocketing the fill within a quilt of cloud shapes.

A duet of cooing pulled her attention from her designing. The flapping of wings grew louder, and two pigeons flew straight for her. She flinched and leaned slightly out of the way as they buzzed past her, close enough for her to notice their orange turtle-shell patterned wings and brown-gray bodies. Whatever they were, they weren't regular pigeons. A moment later, she registered that both birds had something gripped within their toes. One was carrying a trio of red roses. Its partner had a handmade card wrinkling slightly in its grip.

Homing pigeons? That didn't quite feel right to Ladybug either, but the duo seemed to be on a mission, so she mentally wished them save travels and hoped they found who they were looking for.

It seemed weird though. Even with Mr. Ramier in Paris, Ladybug didn't recall ever seeing anyone use homing pigeons before. She scanned the rooftops, trying to see who might have released the birds.

Nothing. There was no one on the rooftops nearby. No one on balconies. At first Ladybug was just curious as to who is using the skilled but archaic method of communication, especially with regards to sending what looked like a very romantic Christmas gift. However, after spying not a single soul in the area, it became an intriguing mystery she was itching to uncover.

She wandered her rooftop to try to get a better view, but there were still no clues anywhere. It was like the birds simply appeared. After a couple minutes, Ladybug decided that was a good enough explanation for her. They appeared from nowhere, and vanished to the horizon. They were an enigmatic package carrying a sweet gift for someone. A beautiful mystery of life not meant to be solved.

With a satisfied shrug, Ladybug headed back home, her head filled with fantasies of Adrien sending the pair of birds to her, and the card being a love letter. She giggled at the elation she'd feel if that were true, as well as the insanity of such a thing happening.

Imagine, Adrien Agreste sending Marinette Dupain-Cheng a pair of birds holding a Christmas gift and a declaration of love. A girl could dream.

Thank you for reading. Read Next Chapter

Read from the beginning: Chapter 1

Please let me know if you want me to add you to the tag list.

@discoveringmiraculouswriters

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midnight-writ3r · 4 years

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You, Me and the Monsters

Kang Yeosang x Genderneutral reader

Summary: You and Yeosang have been hunters since you were children. It had always been the both of you vs. the world of the supernatural.

And no one does it like the two of you.

Genre: Supernatural! AU, action, fantasy, fluff

Warnings: Mentions of blood, cursing

A/N: I started re-watching supernatural, cause I have to catch up with the final and I remember nothing from the previous seasons :´D So, I really got into the mood and the spirit! I also wanted to write something for Ateez for a while now, so yay! Hope you like it!

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The world is filled with monsters.

They hide under your bed, in your closet, sometimes even yourself. As a hunter, you had to learn that the hard way and you had to learn it as a child. On the day, you understood that all the stories were real, all the myths and legends were born from truth, you lost your mother and sister. Your father had slain the vampire, responsible for their death. However, both of you knew, it wouldn´t be enough to bring them back.

Furious in your mourning, you and him had sworn to rid the world from those creatures. Not just vampires, no. Everything that caused pain, suffering and death. You never cared that, in the progress, you left quite a trail of blood yourself. It was everything you could do not to loose your sanity. Everything, you could focus on, to not fall apart. A task. A duty. A family business.

Your father and you had always been a team and, soon enough, you were a big part of the hunter community. Connections in every city, aquaintances in every village. Your eyes and ears extended to every corner of the continent.

Which is how you met Yeosang. A talented hunter, despite being two years younger than you. From the first moment, the two of you clicked and soon enough, instead of joining your dad on his missions, you reached out to Yeosang instead.

He always had your back and you trusted him without hesitation.

Like right now.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio!” Your voice rang out loud in the shabby apartment and the woman in Yeosang´s grip screamed at an inhuman pitch.

As she thrashes, her nails dig into the boy´s arm, drawing bloody, red lines across his dirty skin. Her head knocks back against his jaw and he groans. She even elbows him in the ribs several times. But he doesn´t let up, because that would mean your certain death.

That demon had gotten to you when he wasn´t around. Apparently the news of the demon nest you, your father and Yeosang excorcised two weeks ago had gone around and now, the leftovers have decided to take revenge. She had taken you off guard, kidnapping you and waiting for your father and Yeosang to look for you. You´re tied to a chair, defenseless and, until Yeosang had removed the gag from you a few seconds ago, also muted.

If he were to let go, one hit from the demon would be enough to kill you.

You scream over your raw throat: “infernalis adversarii, omnis legio!“

The woman screeches again and your heart jumps, when you see familiar, black smoke emerge from her lips and eyes. It slowly rises into the air, like smoke from an extinguished campfire. Yeosang´s grip tightens and he scrunches his face up with the effort. It causes the cut on his lip to rip open wider, but he doesn´t even wince.

“omnis congregatio et secta diabolica!” You spit at the demon´s knees, pleased with her frightened eyes, as she realizes the situation, “Take that, you son of a bitch!”

The cloud of dark smoke breaks out of the woman like a fire and as you blink the sharpness of it out of your eyes, it disappears through the ceiling.

Then: Silence.

You release a breath, you didn´t notice you had been holding. Yeosang, with the now unconscious woman in his arms, sighs and falls back on his butt. You examine him quickly, taking in the wounds he sports on his torso and face; Apart from the cuts on his lip and arm, there is also a big slash on his ribs, the shirt around it torn. As you look closer at his low shirt-neckline, you even find something that looks like a bloodied bitemark. You´ve got a fair share of your own wounds, but in comparison, he seems to have gotten the short end of the stick.

Finally, Yeosang moves the woman off him and gently places her on the ground. Like the gentleman, he likes to say he is, he takes off his leather jacket and huddles it into a ball, to place it under her head. Then, he is by your side.

With a knife, that had been tossed out of his grasp throughout the fight, he cuts your restrains open quickly. When your wrists are free, you rub the blood back into them. There´s a burning sensation against your cheek, where the demon had repeatedly hit you and you carefully rub it.

“Don´t.” Yeosang catches your wrist, “It´s going to get infected. Wouldn´t wanna have that turn into a scar.”

You nod, getting to your feet. Cracking your neck, you stretch the stiffness out of your limbs.

“You okay?” he asks you, holding your neck and fixing you with a worried gaze.

You nod, “Better than ever. Seeing that fucker go down was more satisfying than a box of ice cream.”

He grins at your reply and together, you start to clean up. Yeosang calls two of your hunter friends, to take the woman to a hospital, while the two of you can go home and rest. As soon as you arrive at the motel, you´re currently staying at, you fall into your bed with a groan. You´ve never felt this tired in your life.

No, that´s a lie. You felt that tired, when you ran after that skinwalker for two hours last month. Unfair stamina advantage. You felt even more tired when you were haunted by a nightmare three months ago, and weren´t allowed to go to sleep for a good five days. You do feel very tired right now though and you think you have every right to.

Yeosang has different plans though. He walks over to you and taps your leg, “You´re going to get your bed all dirty. I doubt you´d be pleased to wake up tomorrow and smell like literal death.”

You just groan into your pillow, “Leave me here, the stench of death matches how I feel.”

He chuckles and suddenly, you´re lifted into the air. Squealing, you feel how Yeosang adjusts you in his arms and carries you to the bathroom.

“Let me down! You´ll hurt yourself!” You demand.

He does drop you onto the edge of the sink then, but only because he had reached his goal anyways. With a warm smile and a beaten face, he looks at you. You know that look of course, since it´s one of your favourites: It´s that pure sort of adoration, so innocent that you momentarily forget about your dark lifestyle. It´s relieving and addicting. Because, truth be told, you doubt that it´s a feeling you´ll ever be able to experience full-time. You´ve accepted that a long time ago, but to say that you don´t enjoy it, would be a lie.

“Good hunt.” Yeosang murmurs, his hands placed on either side of your hips, leaning against the sink, “I´ll give your exorcism a solid… eight.”

“Eight?” You mock-gasp, “How dare you, it was at least a nine.”

Yeosang shrugs, his face forming a thoughtful expression, “Nuh, you kinda slurred the omnis immundus spiritus part and your voice-technique could have had more projecting.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you, too.”

You roll your eyes and take his face in your hands, placing a peck on his lips. He smiles, happily, and dives right back in for another. And then another and another. Kissing Yeosang has the same effect as that certain look: It makes you forget everything you don´t want to think about, even if it´s just for a short moment. The shitty bathroom light glows on his cheeks and nosebridge and even with his hair dishevelled and blood-stained, he still looks as beautiful as you had always expected angels to look.

His hand sneaks up to your waist, but you stop him just in time, “Nu-uh. Wounds first.”

With a pout, he lets you shuffle the two of you, until your positions are reversed. Without asking him, he takes off his shirt, tossing it right into the trash. There is no way you could have washed the blood out of that, and even if you could, there are more holes than fabric at this point. Giving an appreciative hum, you treat each of his wounds with disinfectant and bandages, also making sure to check on the older wounds from the last days.

Once you´re satisfied, you let him pull off your own shirt and give the same treatment to you. It´s a comfortable silence that envelopes the two of you and you allow your eyes to close with a smile.

After a good ten minutes, Yeosang´s arms snake around your neck and he pulls you against his chest. His skin is warm and the touch gives you more comfort than anything else could ever have. You hug him back, nose buried in his neck and inhaling his familiar, unique scent, to the point that you wouldn´t want to breathe in anything else. His hand goes through your hair, soothing motions and steady pressure.

“I´m so glad you´re okay.” he whispers.

You smile to yourself, “Me too. Thank you for coming for me.”

“Of course”, his grip tightens just a little, growing almost desperate, “I´ll always come for you Y/N. You´re the only thing that makes facing this world, filled with monsters, worth it.”

Your heart jumps against his chest, trying to escape and join his instead, “Likewise.” then, with a happy little smile, you add: “Guess that means we´ll just have to keep each other alive, until we grow old.”

“I might sound naive, but I think we can do it.” he says.

You nod, “Yes, I think we can do it.”

It is naive, certainly. But if you don´t, then this world would bring you down tomorrow. Yeosang is everything you can hold onto. The silver lining on the horizon.

And you are his.

-*- FIN -*-

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agreatperhaps12 · 3 years

Text

revisiting some old writing this break and incredibly fond of the 2017!me that started writing OccHaz. hopefully 2021!me can finish what you started, pal.

Remus Lupin usually prides himself on being the exact opposite of a werewolf stereotype: a clean, well-read, mild-mannered boy. But if Remus Lupin is bedridden one more day in a row, there’s a solid chance he will murder one of his roommates in cold blood.

Even before opening his eyes, Remus can tell that it’s been raining, because the bunk is thick with the punishing smell of wet dog. Remus rolls over and smashes his nose into his pillow. It does not help. Superhuman sense of smell is useful for a great many things, but comfortably sharing a room with six werewolves is not one of them.

Remus drags his quilt over his head, blocking out some of the overhead lighting and none of the chatter from Malcolm’s radio. He doesn’t really have any intention of falling back asleep. For once, Remus has somewhere to be today. But it’s the principle of the thing.

Principles, however, go out the window when the radio host on Malcolm’s wireless fills the airwaves with some awful, angry music, and Malcolm obeys Lucas’s command to turn it up, mate.

Resigned, Remus plants his hands on either side of his chest and arches his back. The motion punches a pathetic, wheezing noise out of his mouth, and Remus collapses face-first back onto his bed. “I hate you,” Remus grumbles at Moony. It’s been five days.

Moony—a latent, lazy presence in the back of Remus’s mind—doesn’t respond. Typical. The wolf is always quieter in the immediate aftermath of a Full Moon, conveniently leaving Remus all alone to deal with whatever their body gets up to in Greenland.

Remus rubs the sore spot on his abdomen and heaves himself into a sitting position at the edge of his bed, careful to avoid the arm of a somehow-still-sleeping Ronan dangling from the top bunk. For today’s purposes, Remus’s injured abdomen doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether his left ankle can comfortably hold his weight. So when Remus stands up to stretch without his knee buckling, he feels a little flutter of triumph, despite the sharp twinge in his side.

It’s usually not this bad. As far as he can tell, Moony and the other wolves know to give each other a wide berth under the Full Moon to avoid injury, most of the time. But that’s the thing about werewolves, isn’t it. Remus’s hand automatically comes up to rub the ridge of scar tissue that cuts across his nose. Horribly unpredictable creatures.

And yet, in other ways, entirely too predictable. Across the room, Dante is hunched against the wall with one foot propped on a bent knee to clip his toenails without taking any pains to collect them. The soggy boots discarded at the foot of his bed mark the end of a muddy trail of footprints out the door. The source of the smell, Remus presumes.

What would Remus’s mum say.

Probably that Remus ought to pick up his own dirty clothing—since that now includes literally every piece of clothing Remus owns. Remus gingerly bends over to gather up his heap of laundry from the general mess on the floor just in time to avoid being nicked in the eye by a rogue nail clipping. He cranes his neck around his armful of laundry to tiptoe around Dante’s muddy tracks on his way out of the room.

“Oi, Loopy, you doing laundry?” Lucas says over the music.

“Yeah, mine,” Remus calls back, and hooks his foot around the door to pull it shut behind him before Lucas can hurl an expletive—or possibly something more bruising—at Remus’s back.

In the utility room, Remus dumps his soiled clothing on the floor beside the washtub, and the pair of rubber gloves draped over the lip jerks into midair. One glove twists the tap over the basin and sticks a finger under the water. The other pinches one of Remus’s shirts between forefinger and thumb, then promptly drops it and lurches back in disgust.

“What till you see Dante’s,” Remus says grimly.

In the kitchen, Remus opens each cabinet to take stock of what remains from his grocery run before the July Full. The inventory amounts to a sleeve of crackers, the heels of a bread loaf, canned green beans, unopened jam, and a jar of peanut butter that Remus saw Monty double-dip his finger into yesterday.

Remus glances at the queue of Portkey bottles on the windowsill, where all but the 08:00, 09:00 and 10:00 bottles are accounted for. Remus checks his watch. Almost 11:00. The 08:00 bottle should be back soon. Remus hopes that Lucas has taken it to get groceries in… wherever that Portkey is assigned this month.

In the meantime, Remus settles for a jam sandwich. He’s never very hungry on waning gibbous days, anyway. He’s just twisting the cap off the jam jar when a sharp crack shatters the quiet from inside Greyback’s room. Remus flinches so violently that the jar nearly slips from his grip. Moony is on high alert, now. The thumping music from the bunk room immediately dials down. Remus holds his breath.

But there’s only silence from the other side of Greyback’s door. Disapparation, then. Remus exhales. Malcolm’s music blooms back to full volume. Moony settles.

One of the few, far-between blessings of Remus Lupin’s life is that Fenrir Greyback spends almost no time around the tent. But today especially, a casual run-in with Greyback would be… not ideal. Not that Remus is going to break any rules. Technically. Yet.

But if Greyback knew what Remus was up to, he’d definitely be suspicious enough to keep a closer eye on him. Which would be incredibly inconvenient for all the other times that Remus is actually breaking rules.

Remus packs his sandwich into his satchel and slips on his shoes. Outside, the morning air is heavy with humidity and the ground soft with rain. With a cursory glance around the clearing, Remus pulls his compass out of his pocket and points himself south—along the crooked line of a creek just downhill from the tent.

It’s immediately apparent that Remus’s tender ankle is going to slow him down. At the new moon, Remus could take two miles ten minutes flat. He could postpone this day trip until then. But ever since the pack set up camp here, just before the July Full, Remus has been keen to visit the magical boundary that Greyback has apparently cast around their new home.

They’ve never had a territorial boundary before. And Remus has always had an insatiable, if slightly masochistic, fascination with spellwork. He’s itching to see what an enchanted border wall looks like.

Of course, it’s not just the border. It’s the beyond. Remus doesn’t expect being able to see anything significant—even if he scaled a pine to peer out over whatever barrier Greyback has cast. Greyback would have established their territory at a safe distance.

But Remus will know, and that’s what counts. He’ll know that somewhere beyond those trees lies Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Sirius has just melted the front tire off his bike for the third time in as many minutes when James strolls down the drive.

“Not a word,” Sirius warns, punctuating the point with a cough. He waves his wand to clear the latest cloud of dark smoke billowing up around the bike.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” James says, tucking his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. He surveys Sirius’s work with politely suppressed amusement.

“Uh-huh.” Sirius mutters a Reparo at the puddle of rubber on the Potters’ pavement to reform it into his front tire.

“What are you trying to do, anyway?”

“Reinforce the tires to withstand the impact of landing,” Sirius says. He sticks his wand behind his ear and steps back, crossing his arms.

“Ah,” James says, nodding sagely—and undoubtedly recalling the incident in June that left Sirius with two busted tires, two broken arms, and two weeks during which Mia flat-out refused to let Sirius back on his bike. She only relented when Sirius promised to add some safety features to his list of planned magical amenities. “Have you tried—”

“Yes,” Sirius says flatly. “Whatever you’re about to say, yes.”

“Hmm.” James dips into a crouch to get a better look at Sirius’s front wheel, as though he knows anything about Muggle motorbikes or the magical enhancement thereof. “Fortification spells must get more volatile when you use them on something that’s been Engorgio-ed. And whatever else you’ve done to this thing.”

“What I’ve done for it,” Sirius says, nonetheless mentally scanning the list of souping-up spells he’s cast over the last few weeks. Maybe the reinforcement magic is mixing poorly with the sound-stifling charm—another request of Mia’s—or the speed-boosting spell.

“Sure,” James says, grinning up at Sirius indulgently.

“Did you need something?” Sirius takes his wand from behind his ear and twirls it absently between his fingers as he circles the bike.

James rises from his crouch. “Not really. Mum sent me out to see what was going on. Smells like burnt rubber all the way up in the kitchen.”

“Oh, shit.” Fleamont and Euphemia Potter are two of Sirius’s favorite people in the world, and not just because they’re currently letting him use their front drive as a mechanic-shop-slash-landing-strip. Sirius tries not to bother them, if he can help it. “Sorry.”

James’s shrug is utterly devoid of concern. “I don’t think she minds. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t on fire. You’ve been out here all afternoon.”

“Yeah, well,” Sirius says, glaring at his uncooperative bike.

“You’re in a mood,” James observes, which does nothing to improve Sirius’s mood. “Is this still a Regulus-related mood?”

Sirius gives a vague grunt.

“Thought so.”

Sirius aims a kick at James’s shin.

“Let’s go fly,” James suggests, dancing easily away from Sirius’s foot.

“I’m working,” Sirius says, because now that he’s been caught in a bad temper, he’s feeling committed to it.

“Work is productive,” James says. “This—” He waves his hand disdainfully at Sirius’s whole situation. “—is not. Why not channel all that destructive energy into beating around Bludgers?”

Tempting. It must show on Sirius’s face, because James says, “Take a break. The bike will thank you.”

“Sputnik,” Sirius corrects.

“Come again?”

“The bike. Her name is Sputnik,” Sirius says, smiling despite himself. Picking the name is about the only productive thing he’s done all day.

“What kind of name is Sputnik?” James says. “Sounds like some kind of black mold you’d find on a Flobberworm.”

Sirius scowls. “No, you idiot. Sputnik, like the world’s first satellite. Get it? Because, flying?”

James blinks. “Right,” he says slowly, with the trademark bemused expression he reserves for when Sirius starts talking Muggle stuff. “So, flying?”

“Sure,” Sirius says, because today is probably not the day he convinces James to take the slightest interest in Muggle science. “Let’s go.”

Remus makes slow progress on his sore ankle for nearly half an hour, stopping every few minutes to rest and jot notes in his journal. He makes a detailed map of the territory whenever the pack moves somewhere new. The others might be content to spend most of their time Portkeyed away in distant Muggle towns, but Remus can suffer a crowd about once a week at most.

How Ronan or Monty or anyone else can frequent Muggle pubs without constant terror of giving themselves away, Remus will never know. Give him an open sky and several square yards of personal space over a social interaction, any day.

Perks of being raised in the countryside and isolated from nearly everyone but his parents since the tender age of eleven: Remus is damn good at keeping himself company.

The forest around Remus is almost silent, except for the burble of the creek and occasional bird overhead. Remus doesn’t cross paths with so much as a squirrel. No surprises there. He’s used to dogs flattening their ears as he passes on the street, and even crowd-comfortable pigeons scattering at his approach. Remus has the sneaking suspicion that animals can tell there’s something wrong with him. Perhaps they’re put off by his smell, or some other ‘Dangerous, Do Not Approach’ signal he subconsciously broadcasts, even in human form.

In the unnatural quiet of the wood, Remus hears the border before he sees it.

He doesn’t realize what it is, at first—the strange, faint buzz that fills his ears some thirty minutes after he’s left camp. Remus halts and cocks his head to the side. There’s something distinctly artificial about the tenor of the sound. It’s more metallic than insect buzz. Closer to the drone of low-grade fluorescent lighting than anything Remus has ever heard in the wild. It’s quietly menacing in a way that Remus can’t quite put his finger on, but makes Moony emit a low, warning rumble.

“I know,” Remus mutters, and takes several steps forward to listen again. The muted hum gets slightly louder.

This is something to do with Greyback’s magic. It has to be.

Remus turns back toward camp and peers up through the leaves in search of the beacon projected into the sky over the tent. When he finally spots it: the faint beam of ultraviolet light invisible to all but the lycanthrope eye, Remus holds up his thumb and closes one eye to measure the width of the column against the sky. By rough estimation, nearly two miles away. Remus drops his arm and looks around. He should be coming up on the perimeter of Greyback’s territory, but Remus doesn’t see a barrier of any kind.

Remus cracks his knuckles uncertainly. Maybe the border is invisible. That would be disappointing. Not to mention dangerous. What if Remus accidentally steps through it, and Greyback—

Remus throws a paranoid glance over his shoulder, but of course finds himself alone. He wraps his arms around his torso and tells Moony to shh, please, so he can think.

Remus should turn around and go home. That’s the logical thing to do. The safe thing to do. But he can’t. Not when he’s so close. Not when he’s come all this way on a barely mended ankle, and it’s—and it’s Hogwarts. Remus has to see as far as he can see.

Giving himself a bracing squeeze, Remus drops his arms to his sides. He steps forward again.

With a few more steps, the buzz gets exponentially louder. Unmistakable as a hornet’s nest at close range, but tinnier. Electric. Remus not only hears the magic now, but feels it in his chest, as though he’s humming, even though Remus is holding his breath. He forges ahead, step by cautious step, heart rate escalating with the noise until—Oh.

A few arm’s lengths ahead, the air has a strangely lustrous quality, as though Remus is staring through an enormous soap bubble. The whirling sheen of open space is so faint that Remus can’t imagine he would have seen it if he hadn’t been looking. He wonders whether someone without freakishly good hearing would have picked up on the wall’s warning buzz.

Upon closer inspection, Remus sees the magical surface has a purplish, blue hue, just like the bubbles that Remus remembers blowing in the garden with his mum when he was little. Remus tilts his head back. The glossy dome extends as far up as Remus can see.

It’s hypnotic. Remus never would have thought he’d call any part of Greyback’s magic beautiful, but it is.

Greyback warned the rest of the pack about the border wall on their first day in this forest. Remus knew something was up as soon as Greyback called them all into the kitchen. He typically left the pack to their own devices as soon as they’d set up camp.

Like most of his interactions with the pack, Greyback kept it brief. “I’ve cast a territorial border with a two-mile radius around the tent,” he said, leaning back against the sink with crossed arms and glaring around at them all. “You will not cross it.”

The silence following this announcement was just long enough to be awkward, while the rest of the pack played a silent game of chicken over who was going to ask.

Fortunately, Greyback preempted the question. “The border is to protect us from our new neighbors to the south.” He grinned sourly. “The residents of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts.”

Greyback ignored their sharp intakes of breath.

“If you are discovered on Hogwarts grounds or in Hogsmeade, the Ministry of Magic will kill you for your lack of registration,” Greyback continued, as if they didn’t know. “If I catch you out of bounds, I will kill you myself.” As if they didn’t know. “Understood?”

Remus looked around at the others. Lucas had gone white, and even Ronan was chewing his cuticles. None of them, with the exception of Remus, had any firsthand experience with witches or wizards since the age of four or five. But if there was one thing Greyback’s pack had been taught to fear more than Greyback himself, it was wizardkind.

“Understood?” Greyback said.

Silent nodding.

“Good.” Greyback pushed off the counter and walked toward his bedroom.

The “Why?” that Malcolm blurted after Greyback’s retreating figure made Remus’s heart jump into his throat.

Greyback turned on his heel. He fixed narrowed eyes on Malcolm while the rest of the pack held their collective breath. “What?”

Malcolm swallowed. “Why did we come here?” he said, voice just shy of steady. “Isn’t it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

A reasonable question—if something as idiotic as asking Greyback to explain himself could ever be called reasonable. The pack had never set up camp anywhere near a magical community before, let alone mere miles from the only all-wizarding village in Britain and Hogwarts, for Merlin’s sake.

Greyback considered Malcolm for a long moment before, to Remus’s even greater shock, he answered.

“Do you know what lives in the Forbidden Forest north of Hogwarts?” he asked Malcolm.

Malcolm hesitated, then shook his head.

“No one really does,” Greyback said, “but there are rumors. Chimeras. Strangling vines. Trolls.” He paused for effect. “Werewolves.” Greyback grinned. “Students aren’t allowed in. Staff and villagers won’t go near the forest. But the concentration of magic in the air is high enough to completely mask dozens of unregistered Portkeys and other household magic. Convenient, eh?”

Remus instinctually recoiled as Greyback drew his wand. Dante took a full step back. But Greyback merely rolled the wand between his fingers. “The woods north of the Forbidden Forest may be the safest hideout for a pack of unregistered werewolves in all of Britain. Assuming,” Greyback looked significantly at each of them in turn, “the border remains unbroken.”

The night after Greyback’s border announcement found Remus lying awake, staring at the underside of Ronan’s bunk. His heartbeat thudded heavily in his ears, keeping time with Moony’s pacing around his brain. Remus rubbed his cheek against the rough fabric of his quilt and willed his heart to keep something like normal rhythm. It had been hours, but still Remus was—he just couldn’t believe they were here. Just miles away from the castle.

Greyback was probably right that the pack would be safe in the Forbidden Forest. After reading so many his father’s magizoology books, Remus had a lot more than rumors to go on, when it came to imagining the forest’s dangerous inhabitants.

But Remus would bet a thousand Galleons that Greyback hadn’t disclosed the whole truth about why they’d come here. The pack had bounced from one remote outpost to another with all the magical trappings inside their tent for years. Greyback must be working on some heavy-duty, high-grade magic to require such extra concealment—though Remus couldn’t begin to imagine what that might be.

Six years in the pack, and Remus had never quite worked out what Greyback did for his mysterious employer. The wards on Greyback’s door are very good at keeping his business private from the rest of the pack.

Whatever Greyback’s reasons, Remus was selfishly, secretly giddy about the move. He’d stopped hoping nearly a decade ago that he would ever get to see more of Hogwarts than illustrations in Hogwarts, A History. Now, Remus was less than a day’s walk away. Even if he couldn’t actually see the castle, the prospect of glimpsing the perimeter of those hallowed grounds made Remus hide a stupidly wide smile behind his blanket in the dark.

Now, though—actually staring through Greyback’s translucent wall, Remus isn’t smiling. A burning sensation builds behind Remus’s eyes and in his throat. He grits his teeth, surprised at himself, because this was supposed to be exciting. A rare opportunity to look forward to something. A wonderful treat on a grey day.

Remus wants to let himself have this. Find simple, uncomplicated joy in a good thing, for once.

It’s just—it’s Hogwarts. Right there. Paces away. And absolutely, painfully untouchable as ever.

Flying against James in a game of one-on-one is hardly fair anymore. Back in first year, he and Sirius were fairly evenly matched. But ever since James made captain third year—and especially since a Tutshill Tornados scout approached him last fall—James has gone a bit mad about practice.

It’s a good thing Sirius is on the team, if only because he’s the only one who will tell James to eat hippogriff dung when he refuses to cancel practice in below-zero windchill.

Also, compared to people who are not aspiring professional Quidditch players, Sirius is a damn good flyer. Even better with a bat. Sirius feels pretty confident in saying he’s the best Beater at Hogwarts—which is something he used to say because he was a cocky little shit, and now says because it’s true. The possible exception being Macnair; Sirius has deadly aim, but Macnair shoots to kill.

Sirius tries not to think about Macnair has he dives toward the Potters’ lawn with the Quaffle tucked against his chest. Thinking about Macnair makes Sirius think about Slytherin, which makes Sirius think about Regulus, and the whole point of this was not thinking about Reg. Sirius has been trying not to think about Reg for three days, now—since the Potter’s owl Athena returned with Sirius’s birthday gift to Regulus unopened.

“Bet your hag of a mum turned Athena around before Reg even knew something arrived for him,” was James’s consolation.

It’s possible. Sirius wouldn’t put it past Walburga. The problem is, he doesn’t know if he’d put it past Regulus to turn Athena around, either.

Sirius has no idea where he and his brother stand these days. They haven’t spoken since Sirius left home last summer. Granted, Regulus never spoke much to Sirius at Hogwarts. He’s much too close to Cissy and Bella for that. But during holidays…

Well, Sirius can’t remember Reg ever defending him in an argument against their mum. But Regulus would at least order Kreacher to sneak him food when Sirius was locked in his room. That was something, and now—

Sirius doesn’t notice James rocketing up from below until he’s already knocked the Quaffle from Sirius’s hands. James catches the ball with irritating ease—Seekers, honestly—and makes a hairpin turn toward the opposite end of the lawn. Sirius steers into a U-turn and follows, but not quickly enough to stop James hurling the Quaffle through Sirius’s post and pulling a celebratory corkscrew.

“That’s fifty-nil!” James calls. “Go fetch!”

“Yeah, yeah, I can count,” Sirius says, Accio-ing the Quaffle from a shrub by the guest house. “Ready?”

“Are you?” James smirks.

Sirius tears away without response, aiming for some low-hanging clouds. The wind seems to streak right through him, momently stripping away Sirius’s Regulus-related anxieties, whittling him down to a weightless point. It’s wonderful.

Quidditch is always the best distraction. Even better than working on Sputnik or reading the teetering pile of Muggle novels that Tufty lent him for the summer, since they won’t get to any American authors during their literature module this year.

(Sirius has had his nose in The Bell Jar all week—to James’s deep concern, given Sirius’s dour mood. Sirius says it’s a fair sight better than The Crucible, which was so disturbing Sirius had to put it down halfway through. Sirius may finally get why American wizards were long forbidden from marrying Muggles.)

When Sirius dips back down into the clear air, he glances over his shoulder and curses at the sight of James’s wicked grin less than ten feet away. But James’s goalpost is straight ahead now. Sirius flattens himself against his broom. Almost there, almost—

“Ha!” Sirius pumps both fists in the air as the Quaffle soars cleanly through the hoop. He whips around, triumphant grin in place, but the smile quickly slips. James isn’t behind him anymore. He’s suspended about twenty feet away, watching a small black dot in the distance. Sirius’s stomach flutters, half in hope, half in dread, that the owl might be from Regulus.

But the unfamiliar owl comes flapping down onto James’s shoulder. James unties a postcard from the bird’s leg and winces as its talons dig through the fabric of his shirt to take off again. Sirius would ask who’s sent the card, but he can already read the answer on James’s face. He wonders where Evans is on holiday.

Sirius dully summons their discarded Quaffle, knowing full well the match is over. James responds to every one of Evans’s messages as soon as they come. Sirius can’t hold it against him, really. James and Evans only got on good terms last spring, and Sirius is all for preserving whatever fragile friendship they seem to be cultivating.

Sirius can’t say he’s ever quite understood James’s fixation with Evans, for many more reasons than the fact that Evans is a girl. But his best friend’s obsession does seem slightly healthier, now that his interest is not so intensely one-sided.

“Lily’s visiting a pen pal in America,” James says as they drift down toward the house, eyes still fixed on Evans’s handwriting. “A witch who goes to Ilvermorny.”

“Cool,” Sirius says, touching down and dismounting. “I wonder whether they’ve [TK].” Sirius doesn’t know much about magic in America, but he does know a little about the No-Majes from Muggle Studies.

“Dunno,” James says distractedly, pocketing his postcard.

Inside, James promptly buggers off to write Evans a response. Sirius wanders into the kitchen, where he finds Mia at the table with a cup of tea and a book. She’s wrapped in a green pashmina, wearing her boxy reading glasses, and holding one of the Potters’ many cats on her lap.

Sirius has not bothered to learn all of the Potter cats’ names. Most are strays that Mia convinced Flea to let inside “for just one night” and never left. Sirius isn’t sure Mia even has names for all of them. The family’s tireless team of house-elves, Dot and Minnie, are the only thing preventing a fine layer of cat hair perpetually coating every surface in the manor.

Mia greets Sirius with a smile as he sits down opposite her at the table. She pushes her glasses up onto her forehead. “I had Minnie bring in your bike, since we’re expecting rain.”

“Thanks,” Sirius says. “Sorry ‘bout the smell.”

Mia bats away his apology. “What’s experimentation without a few accidents?”

From the moment Sirius met James’s parents on Platform 9¾ at the end of first year, Sirius knew he was jealous. But he didn’t know just how jealous he should have been until he moved in last summer. The Potters are so incomprehensibly warm, Sirius found it off-putting at first. All the easy laughs and casual hugs and insistent reminders that Sirius call them Flea and Mia. Sirius has called his own parents since their Christian names since he was about thirteen, but only out of spite.

Sirius wouldn’t say he’s exactly gotten used to Flea and Mia’s hospitality, but their affection does something warm and wonderful to his stomach, rather than putting him on his guard.

“What are you reading?” Sirius says.

“One of yours,” Mia says, holding up The Great Gatsby.

“Good one,” Sirius says. “Have you gotten to—”

“Hush,” Mia says, eyes wide. “Don’t give anything away.”

Sirius makes a zipping motion across his lips. “But you have to tell me when you’ve finished.”

“I’m hoping to finish before dinner, which—” Mia glances at the clock “—I ought to have Dot get a start on. How does beef stew sound?”

“Excellent.” Even though he’s lived with the Potters every holiday for over a year, Mia still has a habit of treating Sirius like a guest. Sirius doesn’t know how to convince her that they could eat dry toast for every meal and he’d still rather be here than Grimmauld Place.

Sirius stands, figuring a shower is probably in order before dinner. There’s a not-insignificant chance that he still stinks of burnt Rubber and Mia is simply too polite to mention it.

As Sirius gathers freshly laundered towels from his room, he catches sight of the still-wrapped mirror that’s lain on his desk since Athena returned it. Sirius runs a hand through his hair. Despite being completely alone, he’s suddenly overcome with a wave of embarrassment that he can’t just get over it.

Having the thing in plain sight certainly isn’t helping. Sirius sticks the mirror in the bottom of his trunk along with its twin, then waits to see whether the sweet relief of closure sweeps over him.

It does not, but the silence of the house is abruptly broken by an emphatic “Oh, dear” from downstairs, which surprises a bark of laughter out of Sirius. He supposes this means there’s not much left of Gatsby to spoil over dinner.

#occhaz #moonstar #fic things #writing projects for this year #first draft inspo #remus lupin #sirius black

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blkpnkwriting · 5 years

Text

something to nothing

part i. / part ii.

Lisa x Reader

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, all the Lisa angst

Word count: 6,414

NOTE: “Hi!! Not sure if ur taking requests or not and I'm super sorry for bothering u with this if ur not but if u r, is it possible to request a part 2 for something to nothing? Love ur writing by the way!! Thanks for all the amazing stories!!”

there was also another request that i lost in tumblr for this as well aslkdfjaslkdjg SORRY but omg here we are and i sincerely hope everyone enjoys !!!

happy holidays and happy new year’s !!! xoxo Q 💕

“I’m sorry,” you whispered brokenly. Again.

How many times was it going to be like this? Salt stained lips parted and you watched as Jennie didn’t bother to wipe them away even as you slipped the back of your hand across your mouth. The same gesture meant to clear the memory away as well.

Every time you closed your eyes and tried to let Jennie near, all you could picture was her.

Jennie knew and she understood. A sad smile appeared like it always did and she wrapped you in her arms, expecting the tears to fall more freely as they often did on her shoulder. The sobs cracked through your ribs. You couldn’t keep doing this to Jennie. Told her that. The only response you got in return was always the same. That she would always be there for you, to be the strength you couldn’t find some days.

It wasn’t fair.

.♡.

You had found a dear friend in Jennie. In some ways, you thought she needed you too. You frequented the bar she tended most weekends, when there was the time to spare. Drinks were on the house but you tipped her anyway, sneaking the bills into the jar when she wasn’t looking, lest she pull them out and toss them back in your face with a blown kiss. She was too good to you, and god, why couldn’t you just fall in love with her instead?

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her heart wasn’t completely in it either. You never asked — never felt your place to — but there was something holding her back. Someone. And you knew just where to look in her features to catch that glimpse of regret you were all together too familiar with.

It was fleeting. But if you were careful, you could see it. In the late hours of the bar, when there were few to serve and mindless chores to cater, Jennie would stand there. At the end of the bar, cleaning a glass that had already been polished. Cat-like eyes staring off into the inky dark distance but with a melancholy to them that made your heart weep. It would last a moment, and then she would find her answer somewhere out there in the black and look away. The moment would pass. You would look away before she could notice you watching her.

You’d never want to interrupt a moment like that, especially ask about it.

.♡.

“The bar’s hosting a Christmas party this weekend,” Jennie informed, sliding over your usual lemon vodka on the rocks. You opened your mouth to reply (to decline) but she knew you better by now and continued, “And you’re coming. I want you to meet my friend, Jisoo. You’ll love her, and that way, you won’t feel alone while I’m trying to be two people at once.”

“There’s no use arguing, is there?” you replied, smirking. You took a sip from the tumbler, smacking your lips at how she managed to perfectly mix it every time. You didn’t even need to pop in the lemon wedge she sliced neatly and perched on the rim.

Jennie shook her head with a smile. “You’ll enjoy it. And you’ll need to dress up. It’s an event, actually. We’re part of the Santa Claus pub crawl but we also have our own costume party during it, so people dress up as anything Christmas related. Best ugly sweater gets free drinks for the rest of the night!”

“Ugly sweater it is.” The thought of meeting Jennie’s friend dressed as Slutty Mrs. Claus was less than appealing.

The bartender laughed despite herself, only stopping to take an order from a man who had stepped up beside you. The beer hissed, bubbling over slightly as she cracked the top off with practice and tossed the cap into a bucket nearby, handing over the drink. “You mean you don’t want to dress up as some promiscuous version of Vixen? You won’t be the only one.”

“I’ll pass,” you scoffed behind your drink. When Jennie raised a brow and you rolled your eyes, you amended, “On the costume. I’ll come to the party.”

.♡.

You were regretting the stuffy, ugly Christmas sweater by your fourth drink. That might’ve been the alcohol making it worse. Or the amount of people crammed in the bar.

Jisoo was just as amazing as Jennie promised. More than, even. The girl never met a stranger, a personality so charming it made you jealous because how could someone be so perfect? Nonetheless, she did well in keeping you involved and keeping you happy. Freeing your mind the second a storm cloud looked about ready to pass over your face. And if you were beginning to sulk, she made sure to push another drink into your hand and add another kiss mark to your cheek. She said it was a tally on how many you shots you had taken but you were sure they were starting to overlap and lose mark.

“I need some air!” you shouted over the strange variation of club and Christmas music that you actually quite liked even if you couldn’t hear anything else.

“Want me to come with you?” Jisoo yelled back, already setting down her mostly empty drink, licking shimmering pink lips that oddly enough reminded you of a heart. Behind her, Jennie was taking the glass away, glancing at you every few seconds.

“No, I’ll be right back!”

Jisoo’s hand hesitated on your arm as you turned to walk away. Your eyes scanned the crowd, a mix of Santa Clauses in various stages of undress, reindeer, elves, and whatever remotely related to the holiday. There was even a girl who managed to pull off wearing a set of bows as her outfit, and you had to applaud her bravery. It looked great but you could never. Setting your best course through the sea of merriness, you started off.

The room tilted and you stumbled into a shirtless partier. You were going to apologize for being so rude and jostling his drink down his glittery chest, but over his shoulder you saw her.

Or so you thought.

The words lodged in your throat. The bump forgotten. The man moved on without foul but you were craning your neck and trying to find the vision again. You couldn’t, and you were thinking it wasn’t even real, but the bile that tainted your mouth was and you had to get outside now.

The crisp air burned in your lungs but you gulped it down anyway. It steadied you, brought sobriety to your brain. What little it could. Most days were spent in some level of stupor because you couldn’t handle it. Anything. And this was proof. One little glimpse of disheveled blonde hair and high cheekbones and you thought it was her. There were plenty of girls out there who probably looked like her.

Lie.

Why couldn’t you move on?

Because you love her.

But she moved on, she’s with someone else, she’s happier without you —

Stop. Please.

Brick dug into the palms of your hands. You had managed to stumble around the side of the bar, somewhere Jennie couldn’t see you. And couldn’t save you. God, you were going to throw up right here, weren’t you?

It had been months. Too long. Just the mere sight of her made you sick. Because she wasn’t yours.

Never had been and never will be.

Drunken calls and whoops echoed down the alley, disorienting you further as they bounced. Red and green lights flickered above you, hanging like drops of dyed ice from the gutters and awnings. You were still hot and you were reaching down to rip off your sweater, sit down in the dirty snow under you, wanting to cry —

“She’s here, isn’t she?”

The voice cut through the cold haze. You looked up sharply to see Jennie slipping and sliding a little in her heels as she navigated the alley toward you, stopping only to put a steadying hand on your shoulder. You were keeled over, you realized, looking about ready to retch. The moment she touched you, hell, the moment you heard Jennie’s voice, it all started to melt away.

“I don’t know,” you said truthfully. Tearfully. You sniffled, wiping at your nose, feeling how cool you had become despite the confused heat of the panic attack that had you believing differently. “I think so? I — I don’t know…”

“It’s okay,” Jennie hushed, stepping closer. Drawing you into a hug, warming you. You closed your eyes, inhaling her familiar scent and the sweat of the overpopulated bar. She stopped working for you. “It gets easier — the first time is always the hardest.”

Her words opened your eyes, and you pulled back a little to find hers. See that sorrow you never questioned. The tears that danced in the light but never fell.

“You…” There was nothing you could say.

Somehow Jennie knew. And she nodded. And she hugged you again.

.♡.

It had been a week since then.

It had been another party since then. A house party with close friends like Jisoo and Jennie, and too many cocktails.

Jennie sat with you in a closet, drinking her courage as she cried.

You weren’t alone. You weren’t the only one left behind. Jennie saw the same in you as she had witnessed herself, that first time you had met at the bar. There was no way in her good conscience that she could have left you alone to pick up the pieces of what remained of you, much like Jisoo had been there to do the same for Jennie.

Now? Jennie was okay, and she said each day she could breathe a little better. Even if the metaphorical scar remained from where her heart had been ripped apart.

That was what she meant. That night at the Christmas party. It gets easier. And seeing what you had thought had been her for the first time since… since the last time was hard. But the worst was over, Jennie assured. If it happened again, you wouldn’t grow sick and want to scream and cry and never see the light of day again.

It had been a week.

You sat at the bar and threw peanuts in the air, attempting to land even just one in Jennie’s waiting mouth. You had always been a bad aim. You laughed as you missed again and Jennie groaned, grabbing a nearby broom.

“I swear you just doubled how much I’ll have to clean tonight.”

“Maybe if I had something to motivate me, I would care enough to actually make one in your mouth.”

“Wanna bet?” Jennie jumped at the chance. You rolled your eyes. “Every time you miss, it’s a shot. Every time you make it, I take a shot. Deal?”

“I’m gonna be an alcoholic by the end of this.” You popped a peanut into your mouth. For protein and to laden your stomach before you inevitably drank your weight in liquor.

“You should’a realized that when you became best friends with a bartender,” said she, reaching along a shelf to select a cheap bottle the bar could afford to lose. You stole that moment to smile sheepishly, a bit of light in your life in the form of Jennie. Your best friend.

The next series of tosses went surprisingly even, and didn’t stop until Jennie was sloshing more of the drink across the bar than into the shot glasses and you were laughing when you rested your elbow and slipped on the tarnished wood. You banged your arm but the alcohol kept the pain at bay for the morning, where a bruise would remind you that you could be happy like this. That you didn’t have to torment yourself with thoughts and memories.

It was getting easier.

That’s what you tried to hold onto as Jennie’s hand rested jovially on your thigh, as you watched her laugh that adorable laugh and she tossed back chocolate waves of hair and you motioned to clink your glass to hers and missed, tipping nearly out of your stool if she wasn’t right there in front of you to catch you.

Jennie caught you that night and she caught you now. Just maybe, it wouldn’t hurt when you pressed to her mouth and she was kissing you back. It didn’t hurt, even as your lips slid along hers and a leaden tongue sought entrance.

But maybe it was that lack of fine control. Alcohol was like that, providing false confidence and then sweeping the carpet out from under you. When you fell, it hurt. The picture clashed behind your eyes, and abruptly, Jennie was losing reality. Chocolate became honey blonde, and the hand on your hip suddenly mirrored the one that used to hold you down with a grip like she would lose you if she let go, and the noise you heard in the back of her throat was the sound of Lisa’s voice when she said —

“Get off of her!”

This time, someone else was tearing you and Jennie apart instead of your own guilt and shame.

You were out of your seat, stumbling drunkenly on unsure feet, a hand twisted around your wrist as you were ushered behind a figure that hadn’t been there seconds ago. It took your brain several kicks to register, to comprehend, what had happened, and you glanced at the shock riddling Jennie’s features before forcing glassy eyes up to the blonde hair you had been imagining.

Lisa.

“Seriously, it’s not what it looked like,” Jennie slurred, blinking rapidly but expression melting into something like it was all just a misunderstanding, like it wasn’t as dire as it seemed.

You were shell-shocked.

“What are you doing here?”

The words came before you could stop them and they were surprisingly level for all the things you felt right now.

Lisa turned on you then. Anger written in the snarl of her nude lips, the slant of her brows, the glare of her eyes, but all that softened the moment she saw you. Her hair was drawn up in a high ponytail, like she hadn’t the time to change after work. You took in the scarf around her neck against the bite of the cold, and the long grey peacoat, and remembered the position she held at her job now, the promotion she failed to tell you about until you were confronting her about it.

You remembered the boyfriend and the bile started its acrid crawl back up your throat.

There must have been something on your face then because Lisa was losing traction. She glanced between you and then Jennie, and then down to the wrist she still held tightly in her grasp, having torn you away from the sight she had seen. From where? Where did she come from? How did she know you would be here? What was she doing here? She never answered you. Until —

“I — I don’t know.”

It was uncanny how she repeated the same words you uttered the night of the Christmas party. Brown eyes turned caramel danced in the low light, fresh tears catching the reflection. She looked beautiful and torn and… like a stranger.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

And then she was letting you go. It felt like a burn remained where her fingers released your wrist. Tapered heels clacked against the floorboards in the now empty bar, and whereas you couldn’t find her before, you were free to watch her leave. She headed for the door without so much as a backward glance, bursting through into the snow speckled wind.

.♡.

It felt like a dream. Or more like a bad dream. Not quite a nightmare but nothing pleasant you would try to cling to in the early hours of a morning to relish.

Jennie tried to distract you in the same vein as apologize. She had nothing to apologize for, and really, you felt like you should be the one to say sorry, realizing later that Lisa had shoved Jennie out of her seat and away from you.

It didn’t bother Jennie, and she didn’t hesitate to embrace you when she saw you next. There was a moment of mutuality, and then she was teaching you how to mix cocktails with Jisoo who had a day off and wanted to spend it with you both.

Jisoo butchered yet another vibrant green lime with a knife she blamed poor maintenance of and so Jennie left to fetch a fresh batch when the door to the bar opened far earlier than any patrons dared to drink.

A girl with pale pink hair and a cute, meek smile and a body molded like a model strode in, bouquet of summer flowers cradled in her arms. You had no time to ponder the appearance, even ask what she could be here for, before Jisoo was digging the tip of the blade she still held into the chopping board, and yes it was still sharp for how it gouged the weathered wood, but what rattled your spine was the look you had never seen twist Jisoo’s features in the slightest.

“Get out.”

The voice was not her own but it still came from Jisoo. It made you feel like you should leave, but she was clearly talking to the newcomer.

“You don’t need to see her.”

The smile on the girl’s face faltered, becoming wary, and then her eyes shifted from you and Jisoo to the return behind the bar.

“Okay, I’m afraid to see you murder another poor —— Rosé…”

Jennie’s hands must’ve gone numb as the small box of fetched limes fell from them and bounced across the floor. Neither you nor Jisoo moved to pick them up.

“Hi,” Rosé murmured a sing-song voice, trying not to look at anyone else but Jennie. After a moment, she stepped forward, glancing at the bundle of flowers before lifting them up as if they couldn’t be seen. “These are for you.”

Still, Jennie didn’t move a muscle. Jisoo chewed her lip until you were sure you saw blood dotting her white teeth, knife still clutched in her hands. You felt suspended, out of place. Rosé saw that Jennie didn’t budge so she took another brave step closer to the bar and set them down on the counter, patting where the cord tied them all together, and then retreated back a pace.

It felt private, and so you removed the knife from Jisoo’s hand and replaced it with your own, forcing her to help you pick up the limes and then yourselves.

.♡.

The girl you came to familiarize as Rosé returned at random intervals. Sometimes with flowers to brighten the winter dull, sometimes with a coffee procured to Jennie’s exact taste after a long night, and then with movie tickets.

Each time, Jennie grew softer. But never gave in. A quiet thank you for the gifts. A second of eye contact. The briefest of touches on their fingertips.

“I can’t accept this,” Jennie said after she rebuffed the contact and the tickets. You stood to the side, wiping down the counter for her. At this point, you were an honorary employee who didn’t get paid. Not that you minded.

“I knew you’d say that,” the pink-haired girl replied, tucking a wild lock behind her ear, a small smile on her lips. “That’s why I bought four.”

That caught Jennie off-guard, and she spluttered out, “Four?”

Rosé nodded excitedly. She had gotten braver over the visits, seeing you there with Jennie most of them, and she turned to you now to hold out a ticket she revealed hidden behind the rest. “Would you like to come? It wouldn’t be right without Jennie’s best friend there.”

You opened your mouth to — accept? Decline? — glancing at Jennie for any sway in the decision.

A gust of cool February air wafted your back. Before you could turn, you glimpsed the look on Jennie’s face morphing from confusion to concern, something else to focus on. Goosebumps prickled your arms.

“Actually, I was hoping she could come with me.”

Jennie was around the bar and at your side in a blink of an eye. Fingers prodded at the inside of your wrist, prepared to shield you, and it made your heart flutter. Or it could have been who was speaking.

Lisa looked breathless, like she had run here. You knew it was because she was nervous. Knew it without even thinking about it.

“I have four!” Rosé interjected, oblivious to the tension. She held them up, fanned for good measure, smiling brilliantly like it was the answer to all their problems. “I don’t think Jisoo would’ve come anyway, and if she did, it would’ve been to try and drown me in my coke.”

You didn’t miss the fond tilt to Jennie’s eyes as she glanced at Rosé.

“That could be fun,” Lisa said, fingers wringing together in front of her. Warm brown eyes gazed into yours, too intently, and it had to be because she didn’t want to see the way Jennie’s hand still rested loosely on yours at your side. “If that’s alright with you?”

Your heart was in your throat. Why was she here now? You knew logically that you should say no, that you shouldn’t let her back into your life after she so willingly left it.

What did you say you were to her — a coffee cup sleeve, picked apart and thrown away?

You didn’t have to answer.

“No.” Jennie was speaking, a hard line to her voice, cutting. It worked. It cut through Lisa and you saw it in how she practically sagged from the blow, the smile cracking. It hurt you still to see that. “You’ve done enough.”

“Jennie,” Rosé chided, she too losing her enthusiasm. When she reached out to touch the bartender’s arm, Jennie jerked away, against you. Rosé recoiled like she had been shocked.

“What’s going on?” Jennie snapped, a half-step in front of you. Both girls ahead of you appeared as though they had been simultaneously struck. “Did you plan this together?”

“What? No!” Rosé immediately responded. She threw a glance at Lisa, growing perplexed, and then stepped closer, desperate. “I’m sorry, Jennie. I’m sorry! I’ll say it over and over again! I’m sorry I let what my parents wanted for me decide our relationship!” She held up the tickets in both hands. “I just want to see you. Please, please come to the movies. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I miss you.”

In the background, Lisa flinched. She flinched again and again as Rosé clutched those stupid movie tickets and heard her spill her heart the way Lisa never dared, never tried, to you. You couldn’t look away.

It wasn’t planned. Just a sick twist of fate that they were both here. And you were sure that Lisa would leave again. You saw it in the tight pull of her shoulders and the droop of her pouty lips and the raw skin around her nails as she picked and picked and picked —

Rosé snatched her hand. Lisa’s eyes widened, glancing from Rosé, this stranger she had never seen, to you. Pleading.

“I don’t know what this means for you,” Rosé addressed you now, dragging Lisa closer as you stared at the captured blonde. “And we didn’t plan this, I promise. But please, let me take you and Jennie and—” she stuttered to glance at the stranger’s hand she was clutching.

“Lisa,” she supplied tightly, chest too tight for volume.

“— and Lisa to the movies.”

You failed to notice the nails that were scraping the back of your hand until this moment. Jennie was holding yours, and it was such a strange mirroring of the four of you.

“Okay,” you rasped. You didn’t know why you said that, only that when you looked at Jennie, it did seem to be okay.

What was more — Lisa looked ready to break. And she did, into a wide, watery smile. In the same breath as Rosé.

.♡.

pikachu⚡️💛 look behind u

You and Jennie spared a look between yourselves before glancing over your respective shoulders. Across the movie theatre lobby stood a lone figure donning a plain grey sweatshirt, hood drawn up over a large pair of dark sunglasses. The only detail you knew it to be Jisoo was the heart-shaped lips, and as you both squinted at what she could possibly be doing, she slowly lifted a hand to press a fake moustache beneath her nose. Like it somehow made her more inconspicuous rather than ridiculous.

It did make you laugh despite the jitters.

jen bun-bun🍸🧡 how the fuck does that help???

pikachu⚡️💛 lauren or whatever doesnt know what i look like but that other loser does

pikachu⚡️💛 and itll be dark in the theatre so this is just to help

jen bun-bun🍸🧡 if ur gonna be here ur gonna be nice

jen bun-bun🍸🧡 or at least try to

jen bun-bun🍸🧡 and its lisa and rose

pikachu⚡️💛 right

pikachu⚡️💛 the dumbasses who gave up two of the greatest people i know

jen bun-bun🍸🧡 ur the dumbass wearing a fake stache

You that is falling off right now

Jisoo gave up texting in order to fix her disguise on her face, and Jennie rolled her eyes before she was punching you in the arm, suddenly nervous.

“She’s here.”

The pale pink hair you had come to recognize was become more honeyed blonde as the days passed but it was still Rosé walking through the movie theatre doors and right pass Jisoo. You tried not to laugh again as Jisoo made a gesture like she was about to lunge out from the wall and stab her in the back.

“Hi!” Rosé greeted the both of you, skipping to halt and taking the tickets from her cardigan pocket. She handed out two and then paused as she realized there was still another person missing, adorable brows furrowing. “Where’s Lisa? Is she buying snacks?”

“She’s not here,” you responded emptily. Just as you thought, leaving you behind again. For what it was worth, the pain didn’t sink as deep as it would have in the past. Perhaps you were just becoming numbed. You waved a hand at Jennie and Rosé, adding, “You guys should get in line for the movie, I think I’m just gonna head home.”

Rosé didn’t even look at Jennie as she darted forward, touching your arm gently like she was afraid to break you. “No, please! Still come to the movie, I don’t want you going home like this.”

“I should’ve expected this,” you said, removing yourself from her touch even if it felt sincere and not like she needed a buffer between her and Jennie.

“I’m coming with you,” Jennie chimed in, taking the steps to close the space between you.

You stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “No, go see the movie. Rosé spent a lot of money on the tickets.” Rosé shook her head with a frown like it was nothing but didn’t try to interrupt. You still turned, giving Jennie a look that told her to stay before you did, and then started for the door.

Jisoo was preparing to move from the wall and bar your hasty exit but you rooted to the spot anyway.

Lisa flung open the door, unaware, busied with settling her hair from the wind and then smoothening her skirt. The way her lips were parted spelled out her breathlessness again, and her cheeks were flushed the same way you had seen them after a haunted house excursion.

For whatever reason, Lisa was anxious.

When her eyes lifted and caught sight of you, standing apart from the other two, she knew it meant that you had been about to leave. You watched idly, surprised — relieved — she had actually shown up, as Lisa hurried closer, a shaky smile forcing its way out. There was a stammer to her movement, in her hand, like she had been about to take yours but thought better of it and started picking at her cuticles again instead.

There was fresh blood lining the nail bed.

“I’m sorry I’m so late.” Lisa wasn’t really. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” Lisa had for a long time.

“It’s okay,” you said anyhow. Lisa was here now.

“Perfect!” Rosé exclaimed, beyond elated that the original plan was working. She bounced on the balls of her feet, handing over the last ticket that finally had Lisa playing with something other than her fingers. “Why don’t you three get in line and get some good seats, and I’ll try and get us some snacks before the previews are over?”

“Allow me,” Lisa chirped. A gentle brush, as though she wanted to touch you under the guise of stepping by you, and the blonde was patting the other’s shoulder. “You’ve already bought the tickets, it’s only fair I split some of the costs.”

“Hellooo,” Jennie jumped in, glaring at the two. “Do you think we can’t provide for ourselves? I make decent money.”

The pair of taller girls gaped, trying to find the right words to say.

pikachu⚡️💛 LET THEM PAY ITS THE LEAST THEY CAN DO!!!!!!!!! 😡😡😡😡😡

“Okay, fine,” Jennie sighed, clicking her phone shut once more. “I want —”

“— Sour Patch Kids! I remember,” Rosé finished, beaming.

Jennie let a small smile pass. It was the kind that wanted to be bigger but she was holding back.

Lisa, on the other hand, was fighting to keep from crumpling the ticket in her possession. It didn’t offend you that she didn’t jump at the ready to get you your favourite snack or display the same eagerness. It was enough that she was here at all.

“I’ll come so you don’t have to carry everything yourself,” Rosé breezed over, a hand on Lisa’s elbow to guide her toward the snacks.

“Let’s see if there’s any good seats left,” Jennie said as she looped an arm around your waist.

There was an expanse of four seats situated near the back of the theatre that worked. The space was already dimmed and humming with hushed voices, the previews started but ignored by most. Without thinking, you sat beside Jennie, leaving a spare seat on either side, and again you shared a look to question whether this was smart or not. Jennie’s phone buzzed in beat with yours.

pikachu⚡️💛 thanks for only leaving two rows between us Jerks

You didn’t even have to look over your shoulder to know the moustached stranger two rows behind you was watching.

A few minutes before the start of Wreck-It Ralph Breaks the Internet, Rosé and Lisa appeared. Their arms brimmed with snacks, Lisa balancing a tray of drinks on her forearm and Rosé hugging two large buckets of buttered popcorn. This time there was no containing the smiles from either you or Jennie as the others barely skipped a beat at the seating arrangement and separated.

“Hi,” Lisa whispered, a genuine smile across her glossy mouth as she slunk her long limbs into the theatre chair and started passing out drinks. As she leaned to hand over Rosé’s, you swore a spark flitted in the close proximity of your bodies, and Lisa’s eyes fell to yours. Like she felt it too. Then she was saying low enough only you could hear, “You smell nice.”

“Thanks, I showered.” It was a joke, one you both had used back in the early days of your fling.

Lisa giggled and there was no stopping your heart thudding against your ribcage.

The movie started, and the time passed slowly. It was funny and cute, a good decision on Rosé’s part, but you couldn’t quite grasp it when all that occupied your mind was Lisa.

One hand held her drink, high enough that she could chew on her straw. Her other hand, the one on your side, remained in her lap. Even without her other hand, Lisa fumbled, picking at the side of her thumb or using her thumb to pick at the rest. They weren’t bleeding yet, no dark colours spreading over the tips, but you didn’t want them to start.

Couldn’t bear to.

You swallowed around the knot in your throat, and without removing your eyes from the blurred screen, you willed your hand to not shake as you reached over and threaded your fingers through the pliant ones you sought.

Effectively stopping the restless pick, pick, pick.

Lisa didn’t look away. Even in your peripheral, you could see the grin curl wide on her lips. The hand in yours tightened, and didn’t let go.

You didn’t want to let go.

.♡.

The movie night went without incident, and Jisoo texted the group chat that she quite enjoyed the movie. That was ironic, considering Rosé had to sporadically turn and try to find just who it was in the crowd that kept carelessly tossing Sno Caps, managing to hit her in the head each time.

Lisa had asked if she could escort you home. It ended up with her asking Jennie’s permission, who finally allowed it after giving a look that said more than any threat could.

A hailed cab ride home and your heart was back in your throat, wondering quietly what would happen once you reached your apartment door. A neighbour passed in the hallway and the best you could offer was tight-lipped smile before you were coming to an end at your entry mat.

Turning around, Lisa took a last step. The entire night, the only touch had been the hands you held during the movie and nothing else. Even now, the distance was respectable, Lisa not wanting to invade. How strange it all felt now when there had been so many nights that resulted in a much different entrance across the threshold.

You weren’t sure where to start.

“How’s…” and you suddenly noticed you never caught the name of the man Lisa had been dating. You swallowed and finished, “whatever his name is?”

Lisa blinked. Opened her mouth and then closed it and then opened it again.

“I ended things with him.” It was said like it had been obvious.

“When?” Your shoes were much more interesting then, finding it hard to keep looking up at her.

“New Year’s,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to start the year with a lie.”

Butterflies alit in your stomach but you didn’t let them show.

“Did you think I would be here if I was still with him?” The inflection of her voice was crafted carefully, without any accusations. If anything, it sounded hurt but only a little. Maybe she couldn’t keep it out.

“I don’t know.”

I don’t know you.

“I’m sorry.”

The dangerous waver in her words lifted your head. Lisa’s eyes were closed, chin bowed. Your heart was breaking in a way that was different than the last.

“I didn’t say it before,” she continued. “But I’m sorry. I’m really so fucking sorry.” Each word was becoming more jagged. “I was so scared. I couldn’t control what I was feeling, what was happening, and I knew if I didn’t do something to stop it that I was going to fall in love with you. I was so stupid. I was so stupid because even after I tried everything I could to feel in control, I knew I made a mistake. I couldn’t keep lying to myself, to everyone. To you.”

Those same fingers started their picking of her nails again. This time, they did start to bleed. You noticed too late that you were crying as you reached out to take her hands, stop them from hurting herself. You had believed that she had torn you apart like a play thing in her reckless hands but now you knew it was simply because she didn’t know how to hold onto you.

Before you, Lisa was tearing herself apart, piece by piece.

“I’m in love with you and I shouldn’t have tried to stop it,” Lisa cried, breaths short and sharp. Eyes still closed as the tears leaked from beneath long lashes. “I didn’t know how to make it better and I didn’t know if you’d ever want to see me again. I — I didn’t know what to do.”

.♡.

too scared of what she’ll see, somebody holding me

Lisa saw it all.

Through the frosted window panes, the love of her life drowning in drinks of clear liquid, presumably so that when the tears fell inside, no one could tell.

Between the Christmas costumes and decorations, the love of her life kissed over and over on the cheek until the red lipstick smeared and the laughter was for someone else.

Before her, the love of her life kissing another, prettier woman whose touch was gentle and intimate and everything Lisa should have been.

Lisa saw it all.

Lisa lost control.

.♡.

Sheets tangled in your legs. You tried to kick them away and kicked someone else instead.

You startled in bed, peeking through bleary eyes at the soft glow of sunlight dripping down the wall from curtains and then at the person beside you.

Lisa was still asleep, honey hair splayed across her pillow. It took you a moment to remember that you had only fallen asleep together, unwilling to let her go home alone but wanting nothing more than to be in her arms again. The strap of your camisole you lent her had slipped over her jutting shoulder, and you took a steadying breath as you tenderly slid it back into place on her collarbone.

Your fingertips lingered, replaying the memory of the few times you had been gifted this rare time to watch her.

In the past, you wondered how many more times you were going to be allowed this before it all went away.

The pillow felt plush and welcoming as you settled back against it. You could be late to work this morning. You wanted this. To hold onto it for as long as you could. Who knew when it would all end?

Sooner than you thought. Lisa stirred, sensing your gaze, lifting lanky arms to rub at her face. Then she was turning, finding you, smiling happily, shuffling closer to wrap you up flush against her.

Something was ending, that was for sure.

But something new lied in the wake.

#blackpink #blackpink scenarios #blackpink fanfiction #kpop scenarios #girl group scenarios #scenarios #WHY DID THIS GET SO LONG #wow sorry guys #but i hope you all enjoy !!!#i tried my v best !!! 😘

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radiojamming · 5 years

Note

Cody in the rdr2 world being a gremlin

i’ve been nesting on this one since i couldn’t figure out if cody would be in the law or an outlaw. now i know, and i also thing she would be a glorious thing to behold in the rdr2 universe.

also, cameo of a friend!!!

- - -

Arthur looks at the paper, at the faint line of Valentine street dust collecting in the crease, right down the middle of the girl’s face. Girl is probably not the right word. She’s a woman, around thirty-two by the bounty’s estimate, but she’s wide-eyed and grinning like a child in the photograph. It looks like a candid shot, as though someone caught her mid-boast.

The deputy clears his throat, and Arthur can hear him shifting his weight on the floorboards. “That’s, uh… Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her.”

“Can’t say I have,” Arthur says.

“Miss Oakley. She’s been somethin’ worse than a terror around here.”

Arthur hums in acknowledgement, but his eyes fix on disturbing the peace. Of course, there are charges for larceny, cattle rustling, train robbery, and attempted murder; but if Arthur knows anything about the life of an outlaw, disturbing the peace can have all sorts of interesting connotations. He’s earned that high honor quite a few times in his life.

The deputy goes on, “Came through here about, oh, five weeks ago or so. Feller at the saloon said she drank through a whole bottle of damn near embalming fluid, stole two bottles of prize whiskey, drank one while walkin’ down the street, stole some gentleman’s horse, and took off westerly ways beltin’ out somethin’ that’d make the dogs howl.”

“That all?” Arthur says jokingly.

The deputy doesn’t seem to think it’s all that funny. Arthur turns to look at him, only to find a morose expression twisting his face. “I’m afraid it ain’t.”

- - -

“Now sir, I know you said you were a gentleman, and I am completely prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. But, well–” There’s a decisive click of a revolver being cocked. “What you said ain’t so gentlemanly.”

The man on the ground whimpers like a scolded dog, trying in vain to scoot back while tied up tighter than a caterpillar in a cocoon. He only gets as far as the back wall of the cabin, and to his right side is the massive bear of man that’s been accompanying his captor. A heavy hand settles on top of the gentleman’s head, suddenly twisting it to face the revolver.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” says her friend, his voice like stone scraping stone. “If she misses, you’re gonna be in a world of hurt.”

“I didn’t do anything,” the man pleads. His voice wheedles out of him like some backwater farmer playing a reed. “All I says to ya was–”

“Oh, please do repeat what you so kindly said!”

He pauses, swallows hard, and feels sweat snaking down his back. “Th-that I wondered if–”

“Go on.”

“If you was red down th–”

- - -

Arthur finds bits of the poor bastard’s brain on the back wall of a cabin, but the campfire outside’s gone cold, and the bootprints circle around like Miss Oakley was trying to construct a maze, doing sprints in every direction. He curses, gets back on the horse, and tries again.

- - -

“I want it.”

“No.”

“No, wait, I need it.”

“You need food, water, shelter, and half a brain. I think you’re missin’ one of those.”

“Ye of little faith!”

A sigh. “I think I’m the only thing keepin’ you intact.”

“Ain’t so. I was doin’ alright before you came along.”

Another sigh. He’s going to wheeze himself to death, but he doesn’t deign a reply except for a more emphatic, “No.”

“Says you.”

A pause.

A longer pause. Her horse isn’t moving.

“Stop looking at it.”

“I’m gonna go get it.”

“Cody! Jesus Christ, get back here!”

- - -

The general store owner in Strawberry whistles through his teeth and stares at the ceiling in thought. “Yeah, yeah I think I might’ve seen her. Nice gal, really pretty, got a baby raccoon with her.”

Arthur frowns. “A what?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I can’t say I ain’t seen weirder things, but that was definitely a baby raccoon. Named it somesuch, uh–”

He pinches the spot between his brows. “But you did see her.”

“Oh, sure! Came in here, what, about three days ago? With a big, tall feller. Head nearly touched the ceilin’.”

“They take anything?”

At this, the owner gets a smile like a proud entrepreneur, ready to extol the virtues of his ventures. “Not a bit! Paid for it all right fair and square. Lady with the raccoon said they were spendin’ a windfall of theirs.”

He thinks of the corpse in the cabin, blown to kingdom come by a woman who is coming across more like a Heartlands twister than a human being. “Thanks, sir,” he says as he puts his hat back on.

“Wait! You gonna buy anything ‘fore ya go? Fair’s fair!”

Arthur grumbles and digs around in his pocket for change.

- - -

“Oh, I got a son in Valentine! Took him on and made him mine! Big ol’ eyes and a nice ringed tail! Eats outta the mayor’s garbage pail!”

“I don’t think that’s how the song goes.”

They’re riding up through the Grizzlies now, the horses huffing and pressing on through the snow. Inside Cody’s satchel, Jean-Jacques happily gnaws on an oatcake. In a moment, he sticks his tiny paw out of a fold in the satchel until she hands him another cake and coos at him like he’s a newborn baby.

Her friend sighs, adjusting his hat on his head and minding the dark clouds forming on the ridges above. “That’s a damn raccoon. Ain’t a pet.”

“You’re right, ‘cause he’s our son.”

“Your son– No. No, I’m not even gonna talk about this with you.”

They ride on, minding the twists and turns in the path, while the clouds get heavier and bluer with an oncoming storm. Finally, Cody grunts and hands Jean-Jacques the last of the oatcakes before drawing part of her duster up over the satchel to protect him. “Probably should make camp, huh?”

“Find a cabin, more like it. We’d wake up in four feet of snow.”

“That bad?”

He nods.

“Ugh, fine. Better for Jean-Jacques, anyway.”

He rolls his eyes. “And us, by the way. I know we’re inconsequential.”

- - -

The snowstorm has nearly cleared every single track that Arthur’s been following. Pursuing them this high into the mountains while fully aware the weather was due to turn bad wasn’t the brightest idea, but a bounty’s a bounty. The wind kicks up plumes of snow, shrieks through the pass, and chills him right through the heaviest coat he owns. It’s like Colter all over again, and Arthur’s determined to kick himself as soon as he gets somewhere warm enough to thaw his legs out.

The scent of woodsmoke draws his attention, and he turns his horse towards it. He can’t rely on sight at this point, with the snow coming down as a solid white curtain, blanketing his vision. “Easy, girl,” he tells his horse, running his hand down her neck. “Not much further.”

It turns out he’s right, as the cabin comes into view, jutting out of the mountainside like it’s as natural as the trees around it. There’s a small stable built off its side, currently occupied by an enormous draft horse the color of a new penny, and a sleeker, darker Arabian. There’s just room enough to hitch his own horse, and he hopes whoever the occupants are of the cabin, they won’t mind the liberty he’s just taken.

Once she’s secure, he comes back around and stomps through the snow until he reaches the front door. Hesitation would only make him more cold and miserable, so he knocks twice. Waits. Waits.

The door opens, and there stands Miss Cody Oakley, Terror of Valentine, mother of raccoons.

She grins like he’s just given her the greatest gift in the world.

“Well,” she says, hands on her hips. Her auburn hair is in a braid running over her shoulder. “Was wonderin’ when you were gonna catch up.”

- - -

He’s staying the night with two hardened criminals.

That statement shouldn’t mean anything in his life. He lives at a camp with hardened criminals nearly every day on the calendar. He’s a hardened criminal.

But these two are in another, comparatively stranger league. That is to say, they’d fit in so well with the Van der Lindes that Arthur’s surprised that Dutch hasn’t snapped them up yet. Her friend is an ox of a man, apparently happy to sit in perfect silence and eerie stillness next to the fire that they’ve built up in the crumbling hearth. His eyes, however, stay locked on Arthur like a wolf sighting prey. As relaxed as he seems on the surface, Arthur gets the idea that if he wanted to, he could spring up and tackle Arthur in a second.

Cody, on the other hand, is all movement. She’s a flurry of copper-colored skirts, dancing from one end of the cabin to the other, pouring coffee into tin mugs, setting out a plate of biscuits, and then twirling over to where a tiny, tiny raccoon is curled up in a satchel on a chair, happily snoozing in the warmth. She leaves it another biscuit, next to its head like she’s a spirit of animal generosity. Then, she’s off dancing again.

“You get used to it,” her friend says, just as she presses a mug of coffee into his hands, kisses him on his scarred brow, and shimmies her way over to Arthur.

“Thanks, ma’am,” he hears himself saying to his bounty target.

“Of course, darlin’! Ain’t nothin’ but hospitality here!”

“Occasionally murder,” adds her friend.

She gapes at him like he’s said the most scandalous thing she’s ever heard. “No! Not to this gentleman! He’s been nothin’ but polite since we met him!”

“An hour ago.”

“Perfect amount of time to create and enforce an acquaintance. Mr. Arthur, sir, do you take sugar in your coffee?”

He blinks, then shakes his head, feeling a smile come to him faster than he can control. “No, ma’am. Thank you.”

“So sweet!” she exclaims, and then puts her hands on her hips and directs a pointed glare at her partner. “You could stand to learn from him, sir.”

“Duly noted,” he rasps.

- - -

Arthur leaves the next morning when the exact amount of the bounty in his satchel, happily provided by Miss Oakley and her moose of a counterpart, who just introduces himself as the Soldier. Arthur’s full of oatmeal, warm biscuits, and coffee, with a tin of oatcakes for himself and his horse. Cody sends him on his way with a kiss to the cheek, which fails to rouse the Soldier at all.

“Come hunt us any time,” she says, holding both of Arthur’s hands in her own. She’s got the callouses of a gunslinger, and he can’t ignore the powerful grip she has. This woman could choke the life out of him if she wanted to. Instead, she smiles, just as bright as the sunlight bouncing off the fresh snow. “We love the company!”

“You stickin’ around?” he asks.

She giggles. The scourge of New Hanover giggles like a schoolgirl. “God, no!” she exclaims. “I like my neck unbroken, thanks. Nah, you’ll find us.”

Another quick kiss, this time to the end of his nose. Then, Cody’s sashaying away through the snow, pausing only to draw her raccoon son out of his satchel enough to make him wave one of his tiny paws in a bon voyage gesture. Behind her, the Soldier rolls his eyes so far back in his head that he can probably see his own brain. After that though, he gives Arthur a short, curt wave, then puts an arm around Cody’s waist and kisses the top of her head before leading her back inside.

Arthur’s not sure what to make of it. He’s fairly certain that what he’s just experienced was a very vivid and long fever dream.

Even so, he heads back to Valentine, fully prepared to explain that Miss Cody Oakley successfully escaped justice. Too bad, condolences, we’ll do better next time, and all that.

And he smiles the entire way back.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #oc: cody oakley #i lowkey ship them tho?#and yes! cameo!#who i also ship her with more!#prompt fill

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josiewinters1999 · 6 years

Text

What It Feels Like 6

Rocket Raccoon x OFC (Willie)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Summary: Willie awakes to find herself in The Collector’s gallery. She knows she has to escape... for Rocket.

Contains: Angst, fluff, feels, cursing, violence, really gross stuff for a hot minute

A/N: It has been forever and a day since I’ve uploaded and to my [5] fans, I’m so sorry. If you are reading this, thank you for coming back after my long absence and I hope this part is worth the wait. I’m actually pretty proud of it tbh. If you guys like this enough and I keep getting the time/motivation to work on it, I hope to extend it and add the other Guardians. Also, I’m thinking about starting up and writing about Willie and other characters, in her “canon” timeline (aka, the one I have meticulously planned out in my head). Drop a comment and tell me what you think of the story or anything I’ve proposed. And as always... enjoy!

The morning was just like any other; the alarm clock went off, he got up, dressed himself, and went into the control room of his ship. However, when Rocket realized upon entering that it was missing a certain person and all the comforting ambiance they produced, he felt his heart sink in his chest. Today was going to be a long lonely day.

He makes his way to the coffee machine, ready to brew himself a cup since Willie wasn’t there to do it like she typically did. With a drowsy paw, Rocket grabs the coffee and begins making the pot.

As the water brews, the raccoon’s distorted reflection grimaces back at him from the coffee pot. He crosses his arms and looks away, not wanting to be reminded how miserable he actually is. Brown eyes gaze across the common room of his modestly sized ship. On the table where he and Willie would normally be sharing breakfast, he spots his holocommunicator.

All the muscles in his body tense the second his eyes lock on it. He slowly makes his way to it, afraid he might startle it somehow if he’s too quick. It looks back up at him, almost begging him to make the call he so desperately wants to make.

Furry paws grasp the tablet and hold it feebly. It’s only been one damn day, his mind tells him. What could possibly have happened in one day? The voice of his conscious didn’t stop Rocket from wanting to make the call.

If I could just hear her voice one more time... his small fingers punch in her name and got to hit the ‘call’ button but stop in an instant, mere millimeters above the surface of the device.

She left you his darker side scolds him. She doesn’t need you and you don’t need her. Face scrunching up in anger, the raccoon throws the communicator back onto the table and returns to his coffee.

***

The space is still and stagnant, air not moving in any direction. It smells of plastic, harsh cleaning chemicals, and something foreign. Behind her eyelids, Willie can sense there was a light on.

Voices in the distance are muffled by a what sounds like a wall. They’re deep, masculine, and many. Mind not yet a full functioning, Willie is unable to translate and blows off the noise as the radio or television.

In her space, the Gallifreyan stirs, finding her position uncomfortable. The pain in her head suddenly catches her attention and her whole body winces. The sound outside her space changes from voices to loud thumps, each one increasing in volume before stopping.

Bang bang bang.

The sound of a fist on flat glass is enough to jolt the woman awake. She springs into a sitting position and makes the horrible choice of opening her eyes.

Flickering and humming fluorescent lights above her magnify the pain throbbing in her skull to levels unbearable. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, Willie squints, hoping it will help her focus.

The blurry room slowly starts to become comprehensible. There is a man standing above her with a wide, wicked smile on his face. He waves sarcastically as he bends his knees. His blue skin, black eye, and bloody lip make the Kree man instantly recognizable.

Too weak to make a rebuttal, Willie just snarls and the man laughs, his voice now being clear and understandable, “Not so tough now, are you, you stupid bitch?”

Willie’s memory suddenly comes crashing into her like a runaway train.Landing in Knowhere, going to her ship, having a smoke at her table in the bounty hunter’s bar, the fight in the bar, the fight in the alleyway, all while she was trying to get back to Rocket.

Rocket. Oh God…

One of the men from the alleyway steps up and pulls back his friend taunting Willie, “Come on Agron, let’s just let the man pay us and get out of here,” he leans into the blue skinned Agron, “this place gives me the creeps.”

Agron looks between his friend and his catch in the glass cage before walking away. This gives Willie a second to fully survey her surroundings.

Feeling a stiff, scratchy feeling on her skin, she glances down. She was now clad in a crisp, clean, white jumpsuit and matching socks. She feels a pain in her neck. Reaching up,she feels a small metal disk under her skin. Having used them on others before Willie knows exactly what its purpose is; electric shocks. Shifting to be on her knees, she crawls to the edge of the square enclosure. Peering out into the area outside it, she looks up and out at the vast storage area.

The ceiling seems to stretch on almost forever, receding into blackness as the items hanging in it begin to disappear. Hundreds of glass cases similar to Willie’s reach into the space above, each one filled with a different, rare creature.

Willie had heard many things about this man and had evaded his grasp many times by the hairs on her neck. Finally being in his care, in his glass case looking out, was something Willie had prayed she’d never see. Suddenly feeling light headed, she falls back onto the seat of her jumpsuit, the world before her becoming blurry.

In the distance, she sees three indistinct figures. The smallest of them hands something to the other two before they walk away. On the brink of fainting, Willie doesn’t notice the figure’s movement until he begins to finally come into focus at the edge of her tank.

He is slightly taller than Willie and wears a luxurious white fur coat draped over his shoulders, it’s hair matching that on his head perfectly. His tailored purple suit underneath oozed elegance and wealth. Wealth, Willie is now starting to realize, built on blood… blood like hers.

With straight perfect teeth, he grins at Willie like a passerby would grin at a cute dog. He bends his knees, purple fabric around them straining slightly. “Look… at … you,” his words were slow and full of pride, “After all this time I never thought I’d have one. A Time Lord. The last Time Lord,” he trembles slightly with giddiness, “And she’s all mine.”

“Jokes on you dumbass,” Willie grins back, “I’m not actually a Time Lord. I’m a Woodlander. We’re a different breed.”

The Collector stands, fixing his now lightly wrinkled clothes, “Makes no difference. You’re the last one left.” He looks back at her with a devilish grin, “You’re one of a kind.”

***

“I wish we could stay like this forever…” Willie sighs, rubbing the fur between Rocket’s ears gently with her long pale fingers. He grips her shirt tighter and smiles, inhaling her scent deeply. She smelled of cigarette smoke, tangy soap, and something distinctly Willie.

Curling into her side, Rocket can feel her warmth radiate onto him, the clear blue sky above him and the crisp wind completing the scene. “We can stay like this as long as you want baby,” He mumbles happily.

Willie furrows her brow, “We can?” The worry in her voice drains Rocket’s joy as he sits up to look at her. Her skin was perfect without a single blemish on it, like it had been airbrushed. “Why couldn’t we?” he asks, concern evident.

She brushes her vibrantly colored yellow hair back, looking up at the raccoon, “I don’t know.” Her hands find a blade of grass beneath her and twirl it in her fingertips as she continues, “Maybe because we shouldn’t be together.”

Rocket grabs her hand and holds it in both his paws, “Baby, we can do whatever we want. Who was it that made the rules of who can and can’t be together?” Her blue eyes glance at his hands and then back into his eyes.

“Don’t you love me?” the raccoon asks, deep brown full of worry. She only smiles, gracing his cheek with her free hand, “Of course I do. I always have.”

For a moment, time stops, the birds stop chirping, the clouds stop floating, and the wind comes to a halt. Willie’s warm smile is enough to last Rocket a lifetime. Her plump red lips turn upwards as she speaks in a low voice, “Rocket, I lo-”

The moistness under his chin wakes Rocket from his dream. Groggy and half out of it, he sits up, looking at the puddle of drool in his lap. Wiping the now cold liquid from his cheek, he looks at the clock on the ship’s console.

2pm. It’s barely past noon and he’s already bored himself to sleep. Living without Willie is harder than he thought it would be.

His hands tingle as if they really had just been touching Willie. He sighs, heart heavy and the images flashing through his mind. Rocket realizes he feels empty without her.

But again, her face, her real face, not the one in Rocket’s dream comes to mind; sunken in, covered in scars, nose crooked, and eyes permanently full of disdain and disappointment. The sight hurts just to think about. Hurt soon turns to anger and he clenches his fists around the armrests of his captain’s chair.

“Fuck her. Never needed that junkie slut crowding me anyways.”

***

Whenever Willie got any reprieve from being watched, by either The Collector himself or by one of his pink skinned minions, she searched her cell fervently. Top to bottom she looked for something that could get her out.

Fingers tapped, poked, and pried at every corner and seem of the glass. It was sealed tight, the only opening was the air vent above and Willie had already rubbed her fingertips raw trying to feel for a weak spot or anything she could wrap around her fingers to help in her escape.

Willie was beginning to learn the hard way how things work as a toy in The Collector’s box. Twice a day, every day, you were delivered food. The food was bland but kept you alive and healthy, just the way he wanted you.

When it was feeding time, you were told to get into position at the opposite end of your tank. This position consisted of you kneeling, ankles crossed and hands interlocked behind your head. Something you can’t get out of very easily.

The pink skinned girl would then open the door and carefully set the food down before shutting it and leaving. If you moved, she hit a button on the device strapped to her wrist and an electric shock powerful enough to make even Willie seize up would flow through your body, leaving you a sloppy mess on the floor.

Days passed, and many times Taneleer himself would come to just stare at the blond Gallifreyan in her case. Petting his fur coat like it was a living animal, he stared her down, grinning wildly and almost fondly at her. Every time, Willie would curse him, promptly earning her a shock slightly more potent than the ones delivered by the assistants.

Getting out of this place is going to be tough, that much was clear.

***

Willie lay in the dark on her back. The Collector knew better than to give her anything in her case so she lay on the bar hard floor, staring at the grey ceiling, its only features being the light, now dimmed, and the air vent.

Nine days. It had been nine days. Why hadn’t anyone come for her? Where was Rocket? Hadn’t he seen her getting pulled away? Willie thought, hands folded on her stomach. Then it hits her. Rocket doesn’t care. He’s pissed I left. No one is coming…

Her thoughts and potential tears are interrupted by footsteps in the distance. She sits up, crawling to the nearest glass wall. She sees one the cleaning ladies scurrying in, a bucket in one hand and a wad of rags in the other.

“Hurry!” The Collector’s voice is distant, quiet, but unmistakable. “He isn’t going to clean himself now is he?” he shouts and the girl only runs faster.

After watching the pink girl disappear in the sea of dimly lit glass cases, Willie watches Taneleer emerge, steps angry and swift with his less formal, more comfortable night coat flowing behind him.

With the excitement seeming to be over, Willie sits back, listening intently. She could barely make out the sounds of cleaning. The slosh of water, the squeak of clean glass, and the occasional sob from the woman doing the dirty work.

Some time later, the assistant comes back, wet rags inside the bucket of now dirty water. Head to the ground, tears trail down her cheeks and she briskly speed walks out of the gallery hall.

Eyes trained on her like a hawk, the wheels in Willie’s head turn. She feels the blood rush through her body and a hunger form in her stomach; a hunger she hasn’t felt in a long time.

If she wanted to get out of this place, she was going to have to do it the dirty way.

***

Hours passed and her instinct was telling Willie it was turning from night to dawn. The creatures around he were beginning to stir and the hall seemed more alive than it is at night. The Collector comes out to gaze upon his prizes while his entourage of assistants come around with carts full of food trays.

The one that typically fed Willie approaches her tank, tray in hand and cart at her side. She gives a look to Willie and the blond glares at her, asking her to assume the proper position for feeding.

As she kneels, interlocking her ankles and hands, the woman slides the glass door open and sets the tray down before swiftly exiting and going on with her route.

Willie gets up and stares at the food as it practically stares back at her. The tray was like everything else in her tank, white and clean. Perfect, just the way he liked things. It disgusts her and makes her yearn for freedom even more.

Angrily grabbing the food and sitting it on her lap, she begins shoveling it into her mouth, waiting for the perfect opportunity to carry out her plan. She watches the people bustle about, going from tank to tank until their carts are empty. They then roll out in an almost single file line, ready to return in an hour to collect the empty trays.

Finally alone, Willie checks one more time to see if the collector is near. Without the man or any of his minions in sight, Willie sits back hearts racing. If she was going to do this, she’d better hurry.

With no more food left on her tray, she leans forward, looking down at the floor. She gets on her knees, pulling her hair over her shoulders and opening her mouth wide. She takes a deep breath, squeezes her eyes shut tight, and reaches her long fingers down her throat.

There was only a couple other times she’s ever had to do this, and being nervous always made it harder. She forces them deeper and harder down her throat, feeling around to find that sweet spot that will give her the results she needs.

Feeling herself gag, she knows she’s found it. Pressing harder still, she gags more and more. Sweat seeps from her pores, worry that she’ll be caught tickling her stomach. Soon enough she gags one last time and a waterfall of sloppy puke gushes from her mouth and onto the floor by her knees.

Coughing while the last bit comes out, she pulls her fingers out, licking them clean first and then wiping the excess saliva on her leg.

Surely when the lady came to take her tray, she’d see the mess and have to spend a good amount of time to clean it.

Willie’s prediction comes true sooner than she had hoped when Taneleer steps out from behind the row of tanks next to her and see her sitting in her own filth. Glaring at the Gallifreyan, she fakes stomach pains and curls into a corner, trying her best to further the illusion.

The Collector’s face heats up and turns a deep shade of read, “Carina!” he shouts, almost loud enough to make the glass shatter. Quick yet light footsteps rush to his side, “Yes, master?”

He forcefully grabs her arm and jerks her, making her look at the state of his prized piece, “What is this? Are you trying to kill her?” Stuttering but not actually responding, Carina’s mouth opens and closes nervously. “Clean it up...” Taneleer barks into her ear. She nods and rushes off to get her supplies.

The Collector looks Willie up and down one last time before storming off in a rage. If he were to stand and watch any longer, he knows he would most likely scream at Carina the entire time.

Unable to hold it in, Willie grins. Perfect ,she thinks. Within a few more moments, Carina comes back with the buckets, chemical solutions, rags, and sponges needed to clean Willie’s vomit.

Willie begins to tingle with anticipation. Carina doesn’t even bother to say anything to Willie before sliding the door open. The Gallifreyan’s eyes go wide in excitement as she stares at the woman’s wrist and the device strapped to it.

Carina wets a rag and kneels, beginning to wipe the floor. Every second seemed to drag on for years and Willie felt like she did in the forests of her home; nervously excited with a certain insatiable bloodlust as she waits in the bushes to kill her next meal.

Soon the weak prey turns her back to re-wet her rag. The predator lunges forward silently and swiftly, grabbing her by her throat to silence any screams. Prey’s eyes go wide and fingers claw desperately at the suffocating firmness around her.

Willie drags Carina into her tank, through the mess on the floor and up to her chest. The blood pumps through her veins, adrenaline making her stronger and eventually she can feel Carina’s spine in her palm, so close she can feel the bumps in her vertebrae.

The woman’s pawing becomes softer and softer, her pleaing grunts becoming quieter and quieter. Eyes roll up into her skull and she goes limp and heavy in Willie’s hands. Willie reaches down to her wrist and unstraps the device that controls the disc in her neck.

Strapping it on her own wrist, Willie begins punching every button she can find. How the hell do I turn this thing off? Her mind panics. Suddenly there is a beep and Willie quickly prays to every God she knows that that has done it.

Her head darts from side to side as she emerges from her tank for the first time in over a week. Not a soul is in sight and the coast is clear.

She steps swiftly and quietly through the gallery, keeping herself as concealed as possible. She weaves between the rows of glass cases, the creatures and plants inside watching her in awe as she does the thing they all wish they could do; escape.

The door has to be here somewhere. Her mind races and her pores leak profusely as she frantically searches for the exit. Each row only leads to nothingness and Willie starts walking faster and faster through them.

Finally, a grand archway presents itself at the far end of the gallery, barely within view. Face lighting up with relief, Willie makes her way to it, confident and giddy.

“You!” a deep male voice grunts behind her. Her body tenses up again and she whips her head around to see the voice’s owner. The Collector stands down the row from her, Willie equidistant between him and freedom.

She sprints as fast as she can for the door. Taneleer reaches his wrist up to push the button on his device to slow her down. Nothing happens. He presses it again and looks up. She is still running, and alarmingly fast.

His heart tenses and he shouts, “Get her!” No one rushes to his aid and he runs after her himself. Willie reaches the archway and dashes out into the familiar streets of Knowhere.

Luckily there was a crowd and she soon absorbs herself into it, hiding herself in the swarm of bodies lining the strip. By the time Taneleer emerges from his gallery, she is gone. He looks down at his wrist computer again and see a red dot on a radar. “You’ll be mine again...”

***

Weaving quickly through the crowd, stealing the paranoid look over her shoulder, Willie looks everywhere for The Collector or his goons. She’s certain they are right behind her.

After walking the streets and not seeing any sight of them for an hour, she relaxes. She’s outrun them… for now. Willie looks down at her vomit and sweat stained jumpsuit. If she wants to blend in and get off this planet, she’s going to have to change clothes.

She desperately searches the streets for where her ship was parked prior to her kidnapping. That comforting and familiar empty space between two buildings was a sight for sore eyes. A bright smile spreads across Willie’s lips and she runs to her ship. She can’t wait to throw open the doors of that fantastic invisible box and-

Reaching the space, she runs right through it. Where her ship should have been is empty. Her ship is gone.

Willie begins to panic, “No…” she whispers. She frantically feels the air for it. Spinning in circles like a mad man she searches for something that isn’t there. “No,” she repeats. “No no no.” She stomps the ground in anger. “He took it. Taneleer Tivan took my fucking ship.”

She gazes back out into the alleyway, “I need a phone…”

***

Hanging his ammo belt up on the rack at the entrance of his ship, Rocket sighs. Jobs just don’t satisfy him like they used to. The rush of blowing something up and taking someone down just doesn’t get his goat anymore.

They used to give him a sense of fulfillment that satiated his core like a desert flower getting its yearly rain. Things are… well… different now. He knew deep down why, but would never admit it to anyone, especially himself.

With heavy limbs, he trudges to the kitchen. Bounty hunting can sure work up the appetite. Rocket steps on his small ladder to reach the top cabinet. Before he can even fully grasp the handle of the door, the holocommunicator on the dining table rings.

His movements stop. He debates whether he should let it ring out or if he should walk over and reject the call. Either way, he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. The raccoon returns to the task at hand and opens the cabinet.

In the background, the ringing stops. “Guess they didn’t want to talk either.”

Reaching into the cabinet he pulls out a box of food and begins preparing it. He pours the contents of the plastic container into a plastic bowl, sighing with tired eyes and feeble fingers.

The ringing begins again and Rocket growls to no one in particular. Teeth bared, he angrily looks over his shoulder at the table muttering to himself, “Can I not sit down for five goddamn minutes?” Eventually, the ringing stops once more.

Tension releasing, the raccoon takes his food and walks to the captain’s chair to eat it. As he passes the table and holocommunicator sitting on it. It begins yelling at him again, almost as if it knew he was walking by.

Angry beyond comprehension, he slams his food on the table, a few bits of it falling out onto the surface of the tabletop. “Who could it possibly be?” he shouts at the top of his lungs. He picks of the glowing translucent blue tablet and reads the message:

Voice Communication. A3-Sector B09

The code at the end was instantly recognizable to Rocket. It told the raccoon that this call was coming from Knowhere. But why? At this point, Rocket’s anger has subsided and curiosity is slowly taking its place.

Slowly, he takes his paw and taps the accept button. Immediately he hears a hustle and bustle in the background of the call, confirming this call was where the communicator said.

“Hello?” the raccoon’s voice is unsure.

“Rocket!? Oh thank God I was starting to think you wouldn’t pick up,” distinctive voice worries to him. It was shaky and scared.

Rocket’s heart drops at the sound of it and he nearly faints, “Willie?”

She smiles on her end, “Yeah it’s me.” There is a pause as she swallows nervously, “Rocket, I’m in trouble. I need you.”

Rocket opens his mouth to offer his assistance but is suddenly reminded of the full situation. She left him. She left him after he poured his heart out to her. She doesn’t deserve his help. “Why should I help you?” he grunts.

Willie almost chokes at those words, “What the hell do you mean? Rocket, please. I need your help. I’m stuck here.”

He only shrugs, “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

The Gallifreyan bites a lip and lowers her voice, “Rocket, listen. I’m sorry for how stupid I was being. This whole thing with our feelings just is kinda hard for me…” she sighs, “I… I shouldn’t have left. I really had no reason to except that I was scared. But trust me when I say I tried to get back to you. I really did.”

Tears welling in his eyes, Rocket tries his best to make it sound like he isn’t crying, “Then what the hell stopped you?” he spits.

“I was kidnapped!” Willie shouts, her voice going through the communicator and filling Rocket’s ship.

He is taken aback by this, “Y-you were what?”

The woman lets out a deep breath, “The Collector got me. He’s been after me for years and he finally got me. It’s a wonder I was able to get out.” She anxiously scans the crowd as she speaks into the communicator on the Knowhere streets, “I think he still might be on my tail though. Can never be too sure. I need to get this stupid thing out of my neck. How soon can you be here? Because I am dying to kill this piece of shit.”

“Willie…” he trails off, unable to think of what else to say.

“Please Rocket, I need my big man to come rescue me.”

His heart flutters and he smiles, “I love you,” he blurts out.

Willie sighs, grinning like mad, “I think I might feel the same.”

The smile on Rocket’s face couldn’t be wider, “Lay low for a while doll. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

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