#I am working from memory and notes frantically scribbled

[canyouhearthelight]

It's Just a Tale...

So, back in the long gone era of 2 months ago, I mentioned at the end of my last story that the next one would be something that wouldn't need any trigger warnings.

And now, after an unexpected pause in posting, I am able to FINALLY share it with you all. The idea is very much "Monstrous Rapunzel", and for the entirety of writing it, @baelpenrose was peppering me with questions about how the story would play out. As you will hopefully find out soon, the story isn't even that long, but he was hooked.

Please enjoy!

There once was a kingdom, as you would expect in this kind of tale.  A greedy king who didn’t believe he was greedy, a beautiful but terrified queen, and their three handsome sons - the eldest a soldier, the middle a scholar, and youngest an artist.  They ruled over their subjects as one does, neither particularly cruel nor notably kind.

The subjects of the kingdom often gossiped as common folk do, in furtive whispers over their work or mutters over watered down ale.  “The eldest son had to pay off another poor girl,” the women would shake their heads knowingly, sympathetically.  If daughters in the village kept turning up bruised, the king would bankrupt himself.  “That youngest prince was seen on the grounds by my wife’s cousin,” the barkeep would announce gruffly. “He’s a guard, says the boy had to be pulled from his rooms again, delirious.” The surgeon and the blacksmith would wince, shaking their heads that the royal household kept allowing the boy around such chemicals.

It was when the middle son, the scholar, came into the village asking about the tower in the forest, however, that the subjects finally spoke openly. “The tower is just a tale,” the baker told him. “Something we told each other when we were boys, that the tower had a girl trapped in it and we were going to save her.  But it’s just a tale.”

The owner of the bookshop chuckled when asked. “Oh, the girl with big, bright eyes, trapped in the tower. We’d be heroes, we swore, if we could just find that tower!” His eyes fogged over with the memories of youth. “But it’s just a tale.” He shook his head, slightly sadder than he had been.

 The middle prince left the shop, still determined.

“I can see the tower from the castle walls,” he would urge the tavern maid. “It does exist, but it’s several days’ travel on foot. Please.”

She shook her head, setting a plate of food and a glass of wine in front of him. “The boys played that game back in my granddad’s day.  Before he died, he used to swear they could hear the girl in the tower playing music. A harpsichord, he said, the first time he’d ever heard one.”

“But he was sure that is what it was?” the prince asked eagerly, hungry for any information.

“He wasn’t until the day your older brother was married,” she nodded, confused why it mattered. “Only time in my life granddad had been to church, and a lady played one in your brother’s honor.  Granddad said the girl in the tower must have the same long, elegant fingers to play so much more beautifully.”

The scholar prince made notes in his book, food forgotten.  The barmaid sighed and reminded herself to keep an eye on him, make sure he ate.  It wouldn’t do to have the king’s son waste away with a plate full in front of him.

As these things do, the more the middle prince asked about the tower, the more was added to the tale.  The girl was a princess, trapped by a wicked witch, with a beautiful smile, wide bright eyes, all the qualities that princesses in these stories tend to possess.  “I saw the witch once,” a rag man with milk-white eyes confided. “She climbed down the girl’s hair to leave the tower.  You always hear that witches are old and ugly, but she was prettier than a night sky and just as cold.”

“What happened next,” the prince asked, scribbling frantically.

“The witch caught me watching her,” the rag–picker sighed.  The prince looked up to see him tapping his cheekbone beneath his left eye. “Last thing I ever saw.”

A woman who had been sifting through the piles of cloth swatted the old man with the piece in her hand. “You lost your sight to a fever, you old liar,” she admonished.

“A fever the witch gave me!” he protested as the prince walked away with a sigh.

Eventually, the prince gave up and returned to the palace.  Life in the village returned to normalcy, even if the daughters and young widows were more prone to wistful sighs and dreamy looks for a time. Months passed. Then, one day, a herald called all the people in the village to the main road, bidding them to pay their respects for the princes and the party of knights traveling with them to the Western Wood.

With much murmuring and speculation, the men and women of the village came out to see the spectacle. “Princess?” could be heard, asked in confusion as trumpets sounded. First pennants, then horses, and finally riders soon became visible.  At the front of the procession sat, not only the middle prince - “our prince” the villagers called him with pride - but both of his brothers.  The eldest rode easily, head up and eyes watchful as the unmarried women of the village ducked their heads to avoid his eye.  The youngest clutched his saddle for dear life, an ungainly bundle of limbs who clearly could not decide what was more dangerous: the horse, or falling off of it.

When the group of riders reached the center of the village, they stopped. The eldest prince raised his hand for attention, and the crowd automatically fell silent. “We come bearing solemn news,” he intoned clearly but with no emotion. “The crown princess went into labor last night - “ A ripple of speculation spread through the villagers, causing him to raise his voice further. “Sadly, neither she nor the child survived.”

“Girl child, then,” the tavern maid muttered, earning an elbow in the ribs from her father and flat stare from the middle prince.  If an orphaned baby girl showed up in the village in the weeks to come… well, that was just a tale.

The eldest prince continued. “For the security of our kingdom, we ride forth to the tower in the Western Wood, to save the princess trapped there and bring her back so that I may remarry.”

“But how will you find the tower?” one brave soul shouted, too far into the crowd to be identified.

The youngest prince stammered. “I - I’ve made a, um… I made a map.” Flustered, he dug into the pack at his knee to pull out a carefully rolled up piece of cloth. “Starting from the, uh, from the castle.”

“And what of the witch?” the rag-picker argued, gesturing at his eyes. “What will you do with her?”

The knights surrounding the princes drew their swords, wordlessly putting an end to any discussions of a witch but not much of an end to the grumbling of the blind old man, who was thoroughly unimpressed. “The princess must be a hundred years old if she’s still alive.” He waved his hands dismissively. “She was older than I was when I was a boy.”

“Obviously the witch would have a new princess,” someone blustered.

“Oh, for the love of fish, it’s just a tale!” the woman beside the rag-picker cried in exasperation, completely forgetting the presence of royalty as she tried to shush her father and drag him away.

The old man shook her loose from him and stamped angrily. “It is not a tale, that witch was the last thing I ever saw.  I still remember her face, as plain as yesterday!”

With that, it seemed his fate was sealed, as the eldest prince gestured for two of the knights to escort the old man to the front of the crowd. “You are one of the people my brother spoke with.”

“And very kind he was, Your Majesty.  I could hear him writing down every word I said.”

“Can you ride a horse?”

“I can sit on a donkey as well as any pack.” A knobby hand stroked stubby whiskers, only shaking slightly.

The middle prince was able to raise one hand, only to drop it when his brother made the final decision. “Then a donkey it will be, for you will come with us and tell us everything you remember.”

The rag-picker’s daughter stuffed her fist as tightly to her mouth as she could to avoid screaming at the death sentence given to her father.  It was only through the kindness of the people around her that she kept her feet.

It was the next morning that the royal procession - now with the added luggage of a blind elderly man - left the village and headed west. The rag-picker’s daughter spent a week in bed, sick from sorrow for her father, but otherwise life for the people continued.  There was still bread to be baked and bought, ale to be poured and sold, gossip to be whispered while they washed and swept and carried about with their lives.  

Some things still passed without comment or speculation, exempt from the favored form of entertainment. The tavern maid showed up one day with a bonnie little girl wrapped snugly to her chest, despite never having been pregnant.  Everyone accepted the barkeep’s pride at his new granddaughter, and none even tried to guess at the child’s paternity.  And when thunder rattled plates on cloudless days for nearly a month, hands steadied everything and eyes only exchanged hard, knowing glances. The village women made a point to check on the rag-picker’s daughter, “with all this weather we’ve been having, and all”.

It was a month after the princes had interrupted their lives that a horse bolted through the village streets, lathered and wild-eyed with a tattered bundle tied to its back.  Only after it sank to the ground and began drinking from a tempting mop bucket was anyone able to investigate.  The baker poked at the bundle of cloth with the peel he used to retrieve loaves, and those gathered around leapt back when the bundle began to scream hysterically.

“M-m-m-m-m,” it started stuttering, pulling itself more tightly around the poor beast it was attached to. “M-m-m-m-mag….m-m-m-mag…”

“Saints save us, I think it’s the prince,” the baker gasped, rushing forward.  After much reassurance and no small amount of whisky, the youngest prince was extracted from the exhausted horse and led into the tavern.  There, he was given a bowl of broth and clean water to both drink and splash on his face.  

Finally, his shaking became a slight tremor and he was able to speak. “The tower…the witch.  She, she….encha…encha….” His fist hit the table in weak frustration. “A beast. In the tower.”

The tavernkeep, his daughter, the baker, and the rag picker’s daughter looked between themselves.  In a village that gossiped like they breathed, everyone was more than skilled at putting pieces of a puzzle together, and the tavernkeep and his daughter were professionally adept at translating what seemed like rambling nonsense.  “The witch magicked the girl in the tower into a beast?” the tavern maid finally asked, bouncing her quietly sleeping daughter the entire time.

The prince nodded rapidly.

“And you ran?” the baker asked, earning a smack from both women.

“The horse ran,” the rag picker’s daughter scolded. “Big beast like that, he couldn’t well stop it, could he?” Without waiting for a response to the prince, she asked a far less silly question. “Are you the only one alive?”

He shook his head and picked up his broth in both hands, most of it staying in the bowl in spite of his tremors.

The tavernkeep started tearing up a loaf of bread, and when the prince set the bowl back down, he dropped it in. “That will make the broth stay in one spot,” he explained in reassurance. “Are your brothers alive?”

“W-w-one.”  

Almost automatically, the villagers offered their condolences.  They even sounded sincere, since they did not know if it was the middle prince - their prince - who had been killed.

The youngest prince shook his head and dug a soaked piece of bread out with his fingers.

“Must’ve been the eldest,” the tavern maid sighed before shrugging. Noticing the glares from her father and the baker, she flinched. “I mean, it could have been worse.  We all know he was a complete terror.”

“Ass,” the youngest prince enunciated carefully, nodding.

“Ass! Oh, my father!” the rag-picker’s daughter cried, covering her mouth as the color drained from her face.

“Alive. The d-d-d…” His fist came down on the table again.

Exasperated, the tavern maid heaved a sigh. “Da, is there anything he can write with in the back?” Without waiting for a response, she was gone in a swish of skirts and back moments later with a stack of paper and a charcoal. “You’re a prince, an artist, and a mapmaker. I assume you can write.”

With another of his energetic nods, the prince held out both hands, grasping in relief.  He scribbled quickly, then held up the paper.

The rag picker’s daughter nudged her friend anxiously. “I don’t know my letters.”

Squinting for a moment, the tavern maid read aloud. “The donkey wouldn’t go near the tower, but your father shouted he was behind me when Daisypuff ran past.”

“Hell of a name for a horse that big,” the baker muttered, catching an elbow in the ribs for his joke. “Is the beast slain?” he asked, trying to recover.

A much shorter scribble this time. “You must be joking. Not a chance.”

The tavernkeep stood, hands on his hips. “Well. No sense worrying on it, then. If it’s a beast, it has never bothered anyone that didn’t go looking for it, so we might as well let His Highness get some sleep.” He nodded and inhaled deeply through his nose. “And a bath. I’ll put some water on the fire.”

The youngest prince ate his soggy bread, checked that Daisypuff was being well looked after, and, a very filthy bucket of water later, was snoring happily enough to garner complaints from the night’s tavern patrons.  Most grumblings were quashed by the third round of drinks, and the snoring was a far better sound to wake up to than drunks pounding on the door in the morning.  If the prince was still hiding in his tavern room a week later, nobody said anything and Daisypuff seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his well earned vacation and all the dandelions the village children would sneak him.  Certainly no complaints were heard about the mute lad who was clearing empty dishes in the tavern and humming to the maid’s baby girl, enticing happy giggles from the fat and pretty baby.

Ten days after Daisypuff’s heroic dash into the village, a haggard but alive middle prince knocked on the kitchen door of the tavern, holding the rope of a fat and dirty donkey with an equally filthy blind man on its back.  Again, the unofficial town council locked the doors and plied whisky and food in equal measure to the arrivals, this time with the youngest prince shoving forward bowls of stew and plates of bread.

The middle prince gave his brother a bewildered but silent look before tearing off a chunk of bread and dipping it in his stew the way the villagers did. “There was a beast in the tower.”

“We know, we know,” the rag picker’s daughter rushed as she dabbed stew from her father’s whiskers. “The witch enchanted the princess into a beast which isn’t slain, your third brother is dead, father didn’t even get within a mile of the tower because the donkey has more sense than he does.  Your brother is a fine hand at clearing plates and quieting babies, and Daisypuff apparently prefers thistle to dandelions.” She turned to the wide-eyed middle prince with a slow blink. “Are we caught up?”

Taken aback, the middle prince took in what was actually around him, finally realizing that he was the one catching up. He filled in the gaps he knew they would want to hear. “For the most part, the stories were accurate.  A witch is keeping a princess in the tower. The princess has long, elegant fingers - the kind with claws that tear meat from bone.  She has luminous eyes, though they are far more of the large kind that see well in the dark.  The music that has been heard is her way of drawing in prey, as is the long appendage that has been described as hair.”

“Appendage?” the baker asked, slightly green at the description.

Another chunk of bread and stew had the younger prince nudging a plate of crumbly cheese. 

After nodding, the middle prince clarified. “Like an arm, but this one comes from her head. Very monstrous.  Large, sharp teeth, too.”

Leaning over, the tavern maid murmured to the mute man beside her. “No wonder you were so scared.” He made a grasping gesture in reply, and she wordlessly unstrapped her daughter and handed the sleeping child to him.

The middle prince gave them a quizzical look but kept speaking. “Most of the soldiers with us deserted the moment they saw her true nature, and the first blast of magic from the witch sent Daisypuff off for home… or close enough to home, I suppose.”  He glanced at his brother, who was too busy happily humming to the bundle in his arms to respond.

“And the witch?” the rag picker’s daughter asked, having tucked a large cloth into her father’s collar and given up saving him from stew-drippings.

“Keeping the beast contained, apparently. I surrendered and asked her to speak with me.  She says she rescued the cursed princess.  Poor girl is the first born of a kingdom, parents tried to kill her, witch intervened against the wizard who was hired to curse the child. Minimized the curse, but it had to play out somehow.”

That was the moment when the rag picker spoke up. “But now we know, so no more expeditions to the tower.  Leave them alone, in peace, I say.”

His daughter sputtered, incredulous. “You’ve done nothing but ramble on about that tower since I can remember, swearing that witch made you blind. And now you just want to give it up as a lost cause!?”

Grasping, he finally found her hand. “From what His Highness is saying, I am willing to trust that the witch struck me blind as a favor, so I wouldn’t have to see that in my nightmares for the rest of my life.  And to save herself and her ward, from the armies a poor boy could have brought down on them.” 

The two women present looked between themselves, with the tavern maid being the one to speak up. “So there is a princess, who is a monster, but she’s not really a monster, and there is a witch, but she is protecting the princess?”

“That’s what His Highness said,” the tavern keeper scowled. He addressed the middle - elder? - prince next. “That stew won’t eat itself, and those carrots are the last ones we managed to save from the rascals overfeeding your brother’s beast.”

Clearly feeling properly chastised, the heir-apparent started eating.  If anyone present thought it odd that a man raised as royalty was taking orders from one of his subjects, no one said anything.  It didn’t hurt that no one thought it was odd, at all. After several bites, he pointed his bread-chunk directly at the tavern maid. “An orphan?”

Immediately understanding the question, she sat the rag-picker’s offended daughter back in her seat. “This child has a mother and a grandfather, not an orphan at all.”

“I stand corrected.”

With the matter of the Tower clearly over and done with, the younger prince silently handed his charge back to her mother before grabbing a broom.  All of those present took the gesture to mean it was time to open the doors again, and the elder - middle? their - prince was ushered to a room with another bowl of stew and a plate of bread and cheese.  Exhausted and more than familiar with the steady nature of the villagers, he took the hint and hid away with his dinner and the two buckets of hot water that arrived later in the evening accompanied by a set of patched but clean clothing.

He never did find the clothing he had arrived in, although given the smell emanating from the pile of ashes in the yard the next day, that may have been just as well.

Neither prince was particularly in a rush to return to the palace, but around a month later their hand was forced: posters were being placed across the kingdom, petitioning for adventurers to go find them and their departed sibling.  With much reluctance, the younger prince was hoisted back upon Daisypuff while his brother held the lead. Thankfully, Daisypuff had learned much patience in the past several weeks - he had certainly learned the connection between good behavior and apples, at least - and was willing to plod along the road he was being led on.

And if the tavern maid and her father were paid a fine allowance for their remaining days, it was certainly not something to be gossiped upon.  Genevieve - the baby - grew up with great luck in traveling tutors, and if a handsome dowry enabled her to be an independent woman for as long as she liked, it never managed to raise an ounce of curiosity in the village.  Perhaps the tavern maid married a strangely quiet man with a skilled hand at both cleaning and a paintbrush…

But that’s all just a tale.

[baskerville-incognito]

The Cricket Ball Emerald

As much as Greg hated to admit it, he would need Sherlock’s help with this one. A feeling in his gut told him that the explanation they had put together was missing something. Regardless of what Anderson said about this being open and shut, he just knew it didn’t quite add up, and he was going to get a second opinion. A break in at a jewelry gallery: a fairly standard case for Scotland Yard. Alarms had triggered just after 4 in the morning, when the glass at the front of the building broke. London Met was on the scene within 5 minutes, and Scotland Yard was called about an hour later. Once the store’s clerk arrived, he stated that only one item was missing: a rather large and unique emerald about the size of a cricket ball, valued around a million pounds. However, they had left a diamond- valued at 15 million pounds and not even three feet away- untouched. Why? Lestrade had asked.  ‘He was in a rush, obviously, he didn’t do his research. Probably some amateur,’ Anderson had explained. But to leave no physical evidence?  The scene was free from footprints, fingerprints, even hair... eerily immaculate. This was far from an amateur. Hesitantly, Lestrade ducked into his car, pulling out his phone and ringing the consulting detective. A brief moment of silence on the other end prompted him to speak. “Err... There’s something I’d like you to take a look at,” Lestrade muttered. He gave the detective the address, and waited for him to arrive, earning an irritated glare from Anderson. @real-scienceofdeduction

[lesiasmadness]

Pspsps I got a soft boy poetry lover Black Spy fanfic for y'all

Ah, is there anything better than having your arch nemesis chained up in just the next room? Well, maybe blowing them up or tricking them into slicing themselves in half… But that aside Black Spy loved nothing more than having White as his dear prisoner. Sure, it required constant awareness on his part, since escaping was only a matter of “when” and not “if” for this guest… But checking on your victim is but a treat, not a chore, when you get to see them this miserable...

Black’s colleagues already fetched him two tickets for a train tomorrow, which the pair of forever adversaries will take to where White is to be tortured for intel and maybe killed with no interruption from the local law enforcement. Till then Black only needed to keep the menace at bay. A more sensible way to go about things is to sit right in front of the captive and not let them move an inch, but out of pure arrogance (and maybe some pity) Black chose to stay in the next room. Good thing the apartment provided by his job was terrible enough to have the thinnest walls known to man, through which Black could hear the faintest shuffle.

And shuffle he did hear, as sounds of sliding paper and scribbling reached him. With no sense of urgency Black made his way to his captive’s room, and just as suspected saw hastily hidden paper stuffed under the rug. Tracing Black’s line of sight, White recognized he’s been discovered, and spit out a short bit of pencil he grabbed with his teeth to hide seconds prior.

-How did you even manage to write anything with your hands tied? … And where were the paper and pencil hidden? - Black picked up and started looking through the discovered notes, - I searched you all over before bringing you here

-Do you really want to know it in detail? - White smirked.

-Wouldn’t dream of it. - Disgusted, Black bit back. Adding “Degenerate.” in a disinterested mumble, as his eyes darted across the pages.

Only the further down the page his gaze slid, the more horror and disbelief seeped into his expression. White originally played it cool to hide how mortified he was at being unable to hide the papers, but now the smugness partly gave way to confusion at his enemy’s reaction. In truth, White was only making notes to pass the time, so what’s there to be so upset about?

Now visibly distraught, the captor frantically looked the papers over a few times, then grabbed his catch by the collar and practically hissed at him: “Whose poetry is this?”

That’s right, poetry. Embarrassing as it was, White was only writing down a few verses, afraid to forget a good turn of phrase.

-What, this? It’s all my secret code of course. Go decipher it for an hour or two, for sure I was going to send my bosses some juicy coded info. - White mocked.

-Did you write this from memory? Where have you learned these?!- Black did not let the topic stray, sounding almost… Desperate? This sudden obsessiveness threw White off his game, who now sincerely didn’t know how to respond.

-Look, I wish I could tell you but I just came up with those, so I have no better response than “here”.

-They’ll beat the lies out of you tomorrow anyway, so tell me now and maybe you’ll die with some fingernails still on your hands. You couldn’t have written this yourself, this is unmistakably the work of someone going by Dagger, who hasn’t published a single thing in a decade! - Black threw the papers at his captive’s face, but heard no response or insult coming his way. For just a moment nobody even dared to breathe, stuck in suffocating silence. The standstill was broken with Black’s weak steps backward. He slumped into a chair behind him, looking shell shocked, defeated.

-You’re Dagger. Am I correct?

Years ago, back on Black Spy’s home turf, he was informed he’ll be sent to infiltrate White territories. From that point on he studied anything he could find on the enemy culture. Mannerisms, traditions, clothes, trends, music… Aside from one aspect he could perfectly blend in. Aside from his language skills. All the textbooks and dictionaries were so tediously, torturously dull. For a mind specifically trained for unorthodox quick problem solving and long term scheming, the school level of simple memorization was unbearable.

Desperate, Black clung to any bit of literature he could find in enemy tongue, but obviously there wasn’t much. There wasn't much in this country legally, however he said that she said that they hinted that some items from beyond the border could make their way into Black country citizens hands. And this way Black Spy found himself in possession of a small recent publication of amateur poems. Most of them flimsy and unrefined. Amongst them however, were true gems of word and rhythm, and fascinatingly they all sat under one pen name - Dagger.

As limited as Black’s vocabulary was, he blazed through every small bit of poetry belonging to this author, and remained hungry for more. Now having found a new incentive for knowing the language, Black threw himself into honing his comprehension skills, and the more he understood of the intricacies of White country's language, the more brilliance he saw in those poems. The nuance and complexity of both the form and the meaning kept revealing themselves, like a sculpture form a marble brick.

Quite some time passed before he actually made it into the enemy country, but once there Black took no time hesitating before finding every single release bearing the Dagger name. What little accent he still had was ironed out while asking the book store owners and flea market goers for specific books and magazines. To Black’s great dismay before he even got into the country, this writer had been inactive for years. His bibliography wasn’t vast, and as years went by it only became clearer to Black that it wasn’t getting any bigger. But what poetry was there was so dear and close to Blacks heart that half of it he could recite.

No name, no gender, no age was ever revealed in these works, but trusting his deductive abilities Black painted a portrait of this person in his head: it must have been someone not much older than Black himself, someone just as invested in strategy, someone endlessly creative and perhaps devious… All so obvious just from the way his words twisted and played one with another. Black dreamed of someday finding this person, asking them all about their work, their inspirations… Why must this moment be so fascinating yet so cruel?

-Answer me. - Black retorted when his whole life stopped flashing before his eyes.

-I won’t deny nor confirm having written under that pseudonym. And besides, you won’t dig up much on my identity even if I confirmed my involvement.

-…Why did you stop?

-Because snitches like you could discover me if I were to keep being published.

-So you gave it up for this rotten job.

-To chase your rotten ass around, correct. Hypothetically.

-…

-Do they even read our poetry out where you’re from?

-Not when I’m not there, I’d assume.

-Do you think what I wrote is still as good as the stuff from years ago?

-…. Even better.

A poet and his captor sat opposite each other, a million questions between them, and only one night of time before the fated train. For the first time the two felt completely disarmed.

[pars-ley]

Try again

Pairing: Hoseok x Female reader

Summary: When your job lands you at one of the most famous Fashion shows in Paris, the last thing you expect is to run into an ex - the current most sought after model in the industry.

Genre: Exes to lovers / Smut / Fluff

Rating: 18+ (NSFW)

Warnings: Model Hoseok / Dior Hoseok / Unprotected sex (you know the dealio, wrap it when you tap it) / Ever so slight exhibitionism / Nipple play /

Word Count: 2.3k

Beta: @birbdae​ thank you for looking over it twice because I’m so extra (sorry) and thank you for all your help.

Notes: This is for my secret santa project with @thebtswritersclub​ for @yutasgalaxy​ really hope you enjoy! And I also used my square “Jung Hoseok” from my summer bingo card for the @bangtanwritingbingo​ event.

Taglist: @mwitsmejk​ @vantxx95​

The lights go dim and excitement blossoms like spring in your stomach as your eyes remain trained on the runway. Phone at the ready to take notes for this month's fashion article you are in charge of. 

The first model comes out and cameras flash wildly, illuminating the outfit. You scribble away rapidly recounting everything to write up later.

Dior's highly anticipated fashion show, one you had been eagerly counting down the days till. Flying out to Paris was the perfect opportunity for you to mark one destination off your travel list and you have not been disappointed at all. From the architecture to the food, you are undeniably impressed and living one of your ultimate dreams.

It's time for the most awaited outfit yet, everyone was on the edge of their seat poised. You look over at your photographer, he's in position and eager, looking ready to spring.

The lighting and music changes and out walks the model all in black. That's all the detail you notice as your heart stutters and stomach flips as your eyes shift rapidly to his face. 

Jung Hoseok. How did you not know he would be here? 

The cameras flash even more wildly, every photographer wanting to get the best pic of the most sought after model on this runway. Your hand however hovers over your phone, unable to scribble away like you were previously, too distracted by his general presence.

Swallowing the panic you feel rising into your throat you glance at your photographer, his eyes are already on you, pity creasing his brow but a message in his eyes that says "Focus on your job and get it together."

You take a deep breath and compose yourself, making notes on the outfit and nothing more. As soon as your eyes hit the harness stretched across his broad chest however, your legs squeeze together tightly, as not only do previous nights of passion flicker behind your eyelids but the temptation for one last night with him is almost too great to bear.

As you watch him strut down the runway, face impassive and professional, your heart pulls in a thousand directions. Memories of the few years spent together cloud your mind, taking you to another lifetime when he was yours and you were his - before fame, before everything.

You pinch the bridge of your nose hard, willing yourself to focus as you type wildly away on your phone, trying to stay focused.

The show ends a short while after your blast from the past's appearance and all you can think of is getting as far away from him as fast as you can. Before all your hard work of burying your feelings in an attempt to get over him is ruined by your self restraint.

As you head for the exit, a hand lightly grabs your arm. Turning you see a pretty young woman, a badge around her neck and a kind smile on her face, handing you an envelope.

"It's from Hoseok. He asked if I could make sure you get it." She said next to your ear so you could hear over the chatter of the other attendees.

You nod and mechanically take it. She's off through the crowd before you even get a chance to say thank you.

You head to the exit in a daze, clutching the envelope like it holds the answers to life's questions. As soon as you're out in the cool evening air you take yourself off around the corner of the building away from the scattering crowds. Your fingers fumble as you frantically rip at the envelope and open the piece of paper inside, instantly recognising his elegant hand.

Many love letters he would write to you with poetic words scrawled across the page, each sentence a meaningful lyric coming alive as your eyes danced across them with a barrier of tears waiting to fall. Those words tucked away in a box hidden deep in your wardrobe for those moments you wish to relive how he once felt about you.

You read and re-read the note, double checking the words are correct.

"I saw you as you came in, I always had the ability to find you in a crowded room and apparently that hasn't changed. 

I can't believe you're here. Please. Please, meet me at Guy Savoy at 7 o'clock tonight. I would love to see you and speak to you properly. I will book a table under my name. I really hope you show, you have no idea how much I've missed you."

That last line did things to your insides you weren't expecting. Your chest felt full and ready to burst open, love bleeding out of a fresh cut. Maybe you should just go back to your hotel and order room service, or go out for dinner with your photographer seeing as you were both here alone.

But you knew, even as you thought it, you knew you couldn't. You knew you had no intention of doing either. 

Folding up the note and shoving it in your pocket and went in search of your colleague to tell him you wouldn't be travelling back to the hotel with him. He wished you luck, even if there was a hint of apprehension in his tone, you ignored it and took a cab to the restaurant.

Sitting there waiting, your nerves were at their peak. You had chewed the skin along your fingernails until they were sore and you had now resorted to folding your napkin to make different origami shapes. Just as you didn't think your heart could take anymore, you picked up your bag but as you were about to stand and run away, you saw him. Walking towards you, shades on and the most familiar beaming grin that had always made your stomach flip. You couldn't help the pull of your lips, mirroring the same smile he wore.

He breezed up to you and wrapped you in his muscular arms, like a whirlwind his scent intoxicated you and jumbled your mind even further.

"You are a serious sight for sore eyes." he whispers in your ear before pulling away and pushing in your chair as you sit down in a daze.

"You're around gorgeous models all day, I doubt that." you reply, attempting to hide your blush.

He removes his shades and places them on the table, before pushing his fingers roughly through his hair. "Believe me, it’s not as glamorous as people think.”

There’s an awkward silence that falls on your table, with sly, shy glances from you both. 

“How’s it been? Your career I mean.” you blurt out, desperately trying to ease some tension.

He leans back in his chair and shrugs. “I can’t complain, at all. It’s going better than I could have dreamed.”

You nod, taking in how nonchalant he’s being. “I have to admit, I’ve been keeping track.”

“Of me?” he asks, shocked.

“Your career.”

“Really? I’m flattered.” his lips stretch into a toothy grin as a faint scarlet hue spreads across his cheeks.

“You should be very proud of yourself. You’ve accomplished so much, there’s no limit on how far you can go.” you find yourself saying all of this without meaning to.

He covers his face with his hands. “Ok, I appreciate this, really, coming from you this means so much, but I am more interested to hear about you.” he leans forward and places a hand on top of yours, the action causing your heart to soar. “What’s been happening with you? Are you still in the apartment?”

You nod as you take a sip of the champagne the waiter is pouring. “Yep, can’t bear to leave it, I love it there so much, a lot of memories too.” you add sneakily trying to gage his reaction.

His eyes soften. “Yes, we made a lot there.” his fingers entwine in yours, a movement far too comfortable for how long it’s been. "I miss it," he looks into your eyes so fiercely you're slightly taken aback. "I miss us."

Your heart inflates excitedly in your chest as butterflies swarm inside your stomach. But is this a good idea to rekindle an old flame, maybe there was a reason it was extinguished in the first place.

He senses your hesitation. "Are you with anyone?"

You shake your head. "No, I've dated but nothing serious. What about you?"

He laughs a bitter sound. "Same. I've not found anyone that could match up to you."

You hesitate again. "Hoseok…"

"Listen," he puts a hand up quietening you. "I know it was mostly me who instigated us breaking up in the first place but that is my biggest regret. I never should have let you go." he bites back the emotion in his words and swallows.

"But if you hadn't you wouldn't be where you are today." you add, squeezing his hand still clutching yours.

He makes a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. "I left my dream girl to follow my dreams and let me tell you, it wasn't worth it. If someone asked me to choose, it would be you. every. single. time."

He grabs your chair and slides it along closer to him. He reaches out to cup your face. "Please, let me come back." 

His plea does not fall on deaf ears. Your heart knows the decision it's made but you can't form the words to speak. Your libido overtakes the moment and you grab him by the collar of his shirt and crush your lips against his. The taste of him is so familiar and yet new at the same time. Sweet like butter as your mouths melt together as one. His arm around your waist almost pulling you off your chair makes you break away and giggle. The heat in his eyes is almost overwhelming, all your thoughts are no longer in your head but in your groin. He looks so good staring at you like that, like you are the reason for living, how could you not give into him?

"Come back to my hotel?" you whisper urgently.

He nods, throws some cash down for your ordered drinks, takes your hand and pulls you out through the restaurant. You jog along to keep up with his long legged stride. He flags down a cab and you're into it and moving off swiftly while his hands find you again. They roam your body, finding their way under your shirt and to your nipples. He rolls them gently between his fingers as his lips attach themselves to your neck.

His hand glides slowly along your thigh, up your skirt and just when he's about to reach the most desired area the cab stops abruptly, letting you know you've arrived. You groan with frustration but jump out, pulling him into your hotel and leading him up to the room. Your heart pounding so loud in your ears you can't think of anything, nothing but the taste of his lips or the feel of his skin under your fingertips and god, did you want to feel more. 

As soon as your door is unlocked you're on each other. Clothes can't come off fast enough and as they leave a messy path like a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards the bed. 

"God, I have missed you." he says as he glances down at your body before pulling you flush against him.

There's no time for sly touches or exploring, you're both too desperate to feel each other.

Your bare, naked flesh moulds easily together as he enters you, both of your moans echo out across the room. The feeling euphoric as it's what you know and yet what you are no longer used to. He moves inside you with a persistent, desperate rhythm as his hips wind in the most perfect way, hitting that sensitive spot every time and making your toes curl in consequence.

He looks down at you, a soft, determined gaze and says breathlessly, "I love you."

His words are your undoing, as you remember the sweet nothings he used to whisper to you while you were making love before. You unravel around him, blinded by pleasure as your back arches underneath him. He's quick to follow you as you feel his warm seed spilling inside you and you watch his face twist in pleasure, his eyes never leaving yours. The moment, so intense, almost too intense you had to look away.

Both of you breathless and riding on your high, lay back on the bed staring up at the ceiling. A thousand thoughts race through your mind as you panic that you've just made a huge mistake. What if his words weren't genuine? What if he leaves...again? What will you do then? You'll have to start over, all your hard work of pushing him aside.

Almost as if he can sense your rising doubt, his fingers entwine with yours, as he turns onto his side to face you, gently twirling a strand of your hair between his digits.

He watches you closely as if searching your thoughts, your eyes so open and vulnerable - letting him right in, wanting him to silence your fears.

He strokes your face and kisses you so softly your lips melt right into him. You want this. You want him. 

"Hey, I'm serious," he leans back, eyes burning into yours. "I want to come home to you. I want our life back, I want you, always."

Your panicking heart is soothed by his words and you relax and lean into his touch, your limbs softening against him.

"Please, can I have another chance?" he asks, so vulnerable and sincere any doubts are washed away in an instant.

"Let's give it a try." you reply.

He almost blinds you with his sunshine smile as he pulls you against him, his lips dancing happily with yours. And you lose yourself in him completely. You are his, utterly and completely. 

[steamed-rice-enjoyer]

Brand new ; shining and untangling your joints as you are renewed

a/n: prologue! this is part one! this is super fun to write. not proofread, as usual. ~1.2k words. cw: gn reader, dottore is a cw. dead body description. reader is partly blind, it gets better as time goes on. resurrection. one dash ( - ) means time skip. describing pain very thoroughly. physical trauma. generally creepy things are mentioned / described.

--

Your body is heating up, and you feel a slight burning sensation, but you aren't suspicious just yet, sometimes your corpse shifts in the depths of the water, turning around at an angle where a single ray of sunshine would potentially hit the thick ice sculpture that you are the prisoner of. But this one was simply not a shift in the water. You are completely out of it, soon to realize.

Whatever movement was spasming throughout your body on the side of the living looked like a demon exorcise. Limbs twisting in wildly unnatural positions. Bones cracking and potentially breaking. On your side, this event looked like fading in and out of existence. Sudden goodbyes and frantic screaming filled that domain as your spirit is being torn from one realm to the other. Feeling all elements of the world concentrated on you, this must be what hell feels like. You know better to not wish for something so cruel and painful now, cursing whatever maniac found your remains. "I don't want anything from this body. I want to leave it rotting, to decompose and be part of nature, to feed the mushrooms new life." - You say with wheezing breath like you had just run to Liyue and back. Your voice doesn't sound like your own, more like a broken record player, some notes skipping and others buffering. - "Carry on without me, stay strong. I will always love all of you, and look back on our time in pleasant recollection." - Those were the actual last words you said to your friends. Your pupils disappeared. That reddish-alive colour setting into you. Your friends could see some stitches appear all over your body, whatever your clothes were not covering. The most evident being around the thickest part of your neck, almost at the collarbones. You are bleeding blood from those stitches, it's flooding the domain. Being reanimated to life through what were unorthodox methods, was the worst pain you've ever felt. You disappeared, and so did your memories, and your unintentional demolition.

-

Thud. The sensation is similar to waking up from a falling dream but much, much more powerful. You mutter extremely groggily, not used to having a real body, and being exhausted from jumping in and out of it for the past however many hours, or days. This little trip has tired you out so badly, that your brain, now functioning physically as well, making you shield some memories away from you. So you can only guess what happened. You are laid down, for sure. The surface of whatever you are laying on is a question troubling you, you can't really differentiate between textures. There could be some form of fabric on you other than your clothes, but you are uncertain. "Huuuh..? Have I finally transcended the in-between? I'm… hnnn. - You feel your throat close up slightly, unfamiliar with the function of new and also old vocal cords. Trying to strike a conversation with a faraway shadowy figure, assuming it's a person, amidst the blinding light. - "Am I moving on? I can't see anything other than brightness…Are you a guide to the afterlife?" Expecting an answer, you turn your head to the side, to where footsteps are coming from, looking around as if you were lost in a big city. And since they are becoming indeed louder, your plan worked.

"Hm. The devil's advocate would be a more fitting description…" A rather deep and monotone male voice answers you. You notice noises, so many of them. Clicking of a pen. Scribbling on paper, clanking of machinery. Other people screaming, but it sounds faint and distant. Where even are you? "At least you survived and regained most, if not all humane functions. Already better than the others I've worked on. Your body didn't seem to reject any of the… add-ons I've made, good, good." - He starts muttering something in a language you don't understand. - Decent results. Could always be better. Ah, your sight should come to you soon. In a few days' time." - You feel the man's hands roughly turn your head from left to right, You furrow your brows at the sudden touch, it feels strange. He pushes your eyelids apart a bit, but your sight is still limited to only blobs of lights and shadows. - "It's not a problem to get you new ones, though. You can even choose, there's quite a variety."

"What happened to my arm?! Why is there a…a dent in it?" Raising your right arm to your left to feel the missing mass from it. Your arm fops down to your left, grimacing in slight pain. He deeply inhales and puts your right arm back where it was originally. "One of my newer subordinates came into my laboratory without knocking. I simply got annoyed at that level of disrespect and carelessness. I was busy with breaking the first layer of ice on your left arm as precisely as possible, and then" - An annoyed and harsh exhale, and an even deeper inhale, you find it amusing how this stranger is just full-on ranting to you. - "As if I didn't have enough problems with him bothering me, him being an annoying nuisance, he then proceeds to tap me on the shoulder, which is just a death wish by itself. The action stunned me, therefore making my footing off-centred, and accidentally hitting your forearm, and probably damaging your lymph nodes around your elbow." - He makes a gesture of raising both of his arms up to his face, then quickly crossing them. Although you can't see that, you did feel the sheer force of the action, air swiftly moving around your face and chest. You saw the sudden and quick dimming in that confusing and harsh brightness.

That means he stayed next to you, without needing to. That would mean he is either extremely lonely or discards the people he talks with. Maybe both, but who knows. Whichever is the case, you are okay with having to listen to a new voice, trying to make the most of a dire situation. "I've said it before, just a few very minor changes, everything is an easy fix. I have a great collection of limbs you can pick from. I would truly prefer to be here and merge you back into who you once were, but one of my coworkers just had to die in foreign lands just a few nights ago, and I have a tedious meeting to get to. I suggest you should sleep, I'll return in half a day's time." You nod, and there is only brightness left as he leaves, footsteps receding. Wait. You stop to ponder for a moment. Subordinate. Laboratory. Meeting. The ice you were in wasn't melting by itself, meaning that you are still in Snezhnaya - That would mean… no way, a harbinger out of all possibilities is the one who reanimated you? A few select memories come back to you. The sour taste of revenge makes your face scrunch up. Where is she, who pushed you to your doom? Whatever the price, you must pay it. You are quite tired, envy and wrath lulling you to sleep as you plan your next move.

[star--anon]

3 Times Wilbur Was A Lee + No That's It, That's The Post

Heyyyyyyy~! I left Tumblr for a little while, but don't worry! I'm back! And I've finally written the prompt that was sent to me over 2 months ago! Yay!

"Listen, I'm sorry, alright?" Tommy huffed out, resting his head on Wilbur's shoulder. "I didn't mean to! Honest! You're just being a big bitch about it!"

Wilbur didn't say anything back. He simply stared at the front door, waiting for Phil to come home with his fixed sweater.

While watching Tommy parade around the house in Wilbur's favorite orange sweater was, to some degree, amusing, it was not amusing when Tommy ripped the soft fabric. And although Phil had gone to get the sweater fixed, Wilbur was still incredibly upset with the seventeen-year-old idiot. He stuck a Post-It on Tommy's forehead with the words, "I am an idiot and Wilbur Soot does not talk to idiots," scrawled on the yellow paper in messy handwriting. He then resigned himself to the couch and waited for Phil to come home, ignoring Tommy's attempts at getting his attention.

It seemed like Tommy wasn't exactly on board with his idea, judging by the way he plopped himself next to Wilbur and began poking his shoulder, repeating, "...Answer me, answer me, answer me, answer me, answer me, answer me..."

It took every fiber of Wilbur's being to not whack Tommy on the back of his empty little head.

"...Answer me, answer me, answer me, answer me..."

The words, "Shut it", weighed heavily on Wilbur's tongue, and it took a massive effort to not let it slip from his lips. He had told himself that he would not talk to Tommy, and he was going to keep that promise.

"...Answer me, answer me, answer me, not gonna stop until you answer me, answer me, answer me..."

Gradually, as Wilbur remained unresponsive, Tommy's poking became quicker and more aggressive until he missed his mark. Instead of poking Wilbur's shoulder, he ended up poking his ribs. The older started and swallowed a squeak of surprise. He hoped that Tommy hadn't noticed, but that hope quickly sank when he saw him grin widely.

"I saw that jump, don't try and hide," said Tommy, poking his ribs again. As impassively as he could, Wilbur reached out and grabbed Tommy's wrists tightly. He never spoke a word and kept his eyes on the front door. He was trying to ignore the kid, after all. He squeezed Tommy's wrists and let go, hoping that the boy had gotten the message.

Don't poke me, he silently said.

Unfortunately, Tommy was never good at listening. The moment his hands were free, he immediately returned to poking at Wilbur's ribs, this time with renewed energy.

"Ahaha-!"

Wilbur cracked.

He dropped the ignoring act and squirmed away from Tommy. In his desperation, he made the mistake of falling off the couch and onto the ground, allowing Tommy to sit on top of him and poke him more.

"G-Gehehet ahahaway!"

"I knew it! I knew you were just ignoring me!"

"Tohohommy, gehehet ohoff!"

"Nah. I'm having a lot of fun."

"T-Tohohommy, Ihi'm seheherious!" Wilbur tried to flip over to throw Tommy off him, but he quickly abandoned the attempt when Tommy dug between his shoulder blades. "Juhuhust gehehet ohohoff! Plehehease!"

Although Wilbur's thin shirt was doing nothing to protect him from Tommy's poking, the blonde still decided to take it up a notch. He slipped a hand underneath the shirt and rapidly squeezed his ribcage. Wilbur just about shrieked, frantically and jerkily pushing at Tommy's chest. His arms flailed around; Wilbur was stuck between trying to push Tommy off him or covering up his red face to preserve what little dignity he could save. The younger grinned widely, easily grabbing Wilbur's hands and pinning them down high above his head.

"TOHOHOMMY, WAHAHAIT! I-IHI CAHAHAN'T BREHEHEATHE!" Wilbur was bluffing and Tommy knew it.

"Calm down, you're breathing just fine."

"GEHEHET OHOHOFF!"

"Awww, is this a bad spot?" Tommy made an exaggerated sad face. "This is a bad spot for you, huh? Your ribs are ticklish? Is that what this is? Hm?"

Wilbur whined at the teasing, turning a deep shade of red.

"TOHOHOMMY!" he complained. The squeezing and pokes to his ribs made it difficult to think, so he couldn't get out much more. Given the opportunity, he might have been able to formulate a proper and cohesive argument and rationalization to persuade Tommy into halting his petty actions.

He wasn't given the opportunity.

The laughing on his behalf and the tickling on Tommy's seemed to weaken Wilbur because he was finding it incredibly hard to do anything but lie there and take it. Take the digging nails between his ribs, the occasional raspberry on his ribs, the random squeezes and pokes and prods and wiggles and skitters and rubs on the bones and gently scratching...

"TOHOHOMMY! PLEHEHEASE, YOUHU'RE GOHOHOING TO KIHILL ME!"

"Calm down," scoffed Tommy. "I'm not going to kill you."

Still, he relented and stopped his attack, letting Wilbur (finally) take a breather.

"Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeheheah..."

"Cool."

"Cahahan youhu get ohohoff mehe?"

Tommy blinked. This was the first time in memory that Wilbur had asked for something — and politely too.

"Hm..." For a moment, Tommy considered it. Wilbur hadn't flipped him over and taken brutal revenge yet. He had asked nicely to be let up. It looked like he was sorry for ignoring Tommy. Well, then again, it only looked like he was sorry.

"Maybe if you apologize for ignoring," offered Tommy, "I'll let you up."

Wilbur glared at him. It was obvious he was trying to gain authority and control of the situation by activating his Big-Brother mode, but it was less effective when he was at Tommy's mercy.

"Fuhuhuck youhu," Wilbur snapped. "Let me up."

Tommy just shrugged. "Your funeral," he said, scribbling his fingers over Wilbur's ribs. The brunet screeched in laughter and immediately gave in.

"OHOHOKAY! OHOKAY IHI'M SOHOHORRY! SOHOHOHORRY!"

Huh. Well, that had worked out better than expected. Tommy made a mental note about Wilbur's ribs. What? It was valuable potential blackmail for later!

"Very sorry?"

"YEHES! V-VEHEHERY SOHOHORRY!"

"And you promise that you'll never ignore me ever again?"

"YOUHU SUHUHUCK!" Wilbur whined through his laughter.

"I don't hear you saying it~"

"NOHOT SAHAHAYING SHIHIT!"

"Don't think you have a choice here, Wil," Tommy murmured. Once more, he switched tactics, going from dancing his fingers around to digging in between each of Wilbur's ribs. Every once in a while, he'd blow a raspberry and smugly grin when he heard Wil shriek. "I think you better say it."

"IHIHI PROHOHOMISE IHI'LL-" Wilbur broke off with a high-pitched squeal as Tommy blew a raspberry on a particularly ticklish rib. "AHAHA-! NOHOHOT THEHEHERE!"

"Go on," coaxed Tommy. "Say "I'll never ignore you again, Tommy", and I'll let you up."

"DA-DAHAHAMN YOUHU!

"Say it!"

"IHIH'LL NEHEVER IGNORE YOUHU AHAHAGAIN, TO-TOHOHOMMY!" Wilbur managed to babble out.

Finally, finally, Tommy stopped. This time, with no intention of starting up again. "Really?"

"Yehes," Wilbur breathily replied. His chest rose and fell as he greedily sucked in some much-needed air. "I forgive you, okay? I'll stop ignoring. I don't think you're an idiot. I don't care about my sweater." At first, Tommy thought he was just saying it so Tommy wouldn't tickle him again. But that thought quickly left when Wilbur reluctantly grumbled out, "I love you. And I'm sorry."

"Awww! Thank you!"

"Now get the fuck off of me."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*

"Y'know, Tommy had a lot of fun telling me about his own tickling story with you," Philza helpfully informed, shifting slightly to better access Wilbur's underarms. He noticed that kneading circles made Wil's laughter go high-pitched, so he made sure to knead as many circles as he could. "But honestly, I think I'm having more fun than he did."

"AHAHAHA! PH-PHIHIHIL! PHIHIL IHIHI CAHAHAN'T! PLEHEHEHEASE! IHI- EEP!"

Phil grinned at Wilbur's reaction. He blew another raspberry on his neck and got the same response: a short, high-pitched shriek.

"You what? What is it, Wilbur?"

Wilbur simply shook his head, laughing too hard to be able to form coherent words. Had he not been sitting in Phil's lap, his arms held up with one hand and his underarms being tortured by a hand and a wing while another wing was running over his ribs, he might have been able to form a proper word. Phil noticed this and decided to give the musician a small break.

"...h-hehehe," Wilbur softly giggled. The tickling had stopped, but he still jerked and flinched and laughed like there were still fingers and feathers on him. "M-Mehehahaha..."

"What?"

"...mehahaha..."

"A-Are you okay?" asked Philza, starting to get worried. He hadn't taken it too far, had he?

Finally, after his breathing calms down and enough air gets into Wilbur's lungs, he whispered, "...m-mehehercy..."

"What's that?"

"H-Hahahave mehercy, Phihil." Wilbur shook his head once more, his giggles beginning to start up again. He tugged at his wrists, which were still held high above his head, and rocked side to side, almost like he was trying to evade poking fingers. The only thing was that Phil wasn't doing anything. "Cahahan't tahake ihit..."

"I'm giving you a break right now," soothed Phil. "I'm not an asshole."

"Yehes you ahahare," Wilbur cheekily said.

"Hey," said Phil. He ran his nails over Wilbur's ribs, earning a loud shriek. "I would be careful if I were you," he warned. "Don't forget, I know two of your spots now, and I fully plan on abusing my knowledge."

Wilbur squirmed in the avian's lap, his light-hearted threat forcing a whine out of him. His cheeks only got redder when he finally processed something that Phil had said earlier.

"Did he really?" he meekly asked.

"Did who really what?"

"Did Tommy really tell you about tickling me?"

Philza barked out a laugh. "You think Tommy's the type of guy to offer help in unloading the groceries?"

Wilbur flushed, his cheeks now a deep crimson. "Guess not," he grumbled. He had thought it was weird that Tommy was suddenly so eager to do a task that nobody liked doing — unloading the groceries — but he had just assumed that Tommy felt awkward around Wilbur after tickling him. He hadn't thought that... Wilbur kicked his legs as best he could and whined loudly.

"I can't believe you just stood there and willingly listened to Tommy talk about how he... how he tortured me to earn my forgiveness," he huffed.

"Torture," Phil snorted. "He didn't torture you. You make it sound like he had a knife and was drawing blood. According to him, all he did was tickle your ribs."

"W-Well, my ribs are very ticklish!"

"I noticed," Phil remarked. He dragged a single finger up Wil's ribs and smirked when Wilbur burst into sweet lil' giggles. Feeling a little evil, he added, "You know, he also told me get flustered easily~"

This, of course, flustered Wilbur. He buried his head in the crook of his arm, trying — and failing miserably — to suppress a goofy smile.

Phil took it as an invitation to continue.

"He also told me your laugh was adorable."

"Did he really-

"He told me you get all giggly when someone lightly rubs your ribs."

"Wh-What-"

"And that you get really red when someone tickle you."

"I don't-"

"You do, actually," Phil noted, eyeing the brunet's red face.

"Look," he said, booping Wilbur on the nose, "even your nose is red."

"I-"

"You look good though," Phil reassured. "Cute and a little messy, but good."

"St-Stop cutting me off!" spluttered Wilbur. The fact that Phil hadn't let him go yet probably meant that he planned on tickling him more, and Phil's constant interrupting wasn't helping Wilbur ease his nerves.

Phil's eyes widened at his outburst. "Well, there's no need to shout at your old man," he murmured. "I was just curious, that's all."

"S-Sorry..."

Phil hummed again, and the two fell into a comfortable silence — although Wilbur's nerves still didn't ease. Just as he was about to be asked if he could be let go, Phil said, "Aight, break's over. Let's start."

"Wait, what're you- AH! PHIHIHIL! NOHOHOT AHAHAGAIN!"

Phil cooed softly, drilling his wings into Wilbur's underarms while silently counting his ribs with his free hand. "I think Tommy was right; your laugh is adorable."

"FUHUHUHUCK YOUHUHU!"

Phil frowned at the vulgar language. He tugged Wilbur's arms to the side a little and began blowing raspberries on his ribs. Just as Tommy had told him, Wilbur immediately shrieked.

"AHAHAHA! WAHAHAIT! SOHOHORRY! PLEHEHEHEASE, IHIHI'M SOHOHORRY!"

Phil noticed that vibrating his fingers deep into Wil's underarms made him laugh louder than when he blew raspberries on his ribs. "Hey, I think your armpits might be more ticklish than your ribs!"

"PHIHIHIL!" Wilbur whined. "YOUHUHU'RE SOHO MEHEHEHEAN!"

"Me? Mean?" Phil gasped in mock offense. He ran the tip of his wing over Wil's left underarm while drilling circles into his right. The harsh contrast between the two sides was driving Wilbur insane! "I'm hurt, Wilbur. I'm genuinely hurt."

"IHIHI'M SOHOHORRY NOHOW STOP TIHIHIHICKLING MEHE!"

"Lemme sleep on it."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*

"No, that wouldn't work either," Wilbur dismissed. He leaned back in his chair (or some stairs, depending on how you wanna look at it) and gazed out the window, a half-amused smile tugging on his lips as he watched Tommy and Tubbo assemble and reassemble a large pyramid puzzle. To Technoblade, he said, "Think of something better."

"I'm trying!" Techno frustratedly snapped. "You've been rejecting every idea I've come up with! Plus, you haven't come up with a single idea yet!"

"Yeah, because good ideas take a long time to think of!"

Techno rolled his eyes. "Yeah? Good ideas take a long time to think of? Seriously? That's your excuse?"

"It's not an excuse! I'm trying to focus, but you're distracting me!"

"I'm helping."

From downstairs, Phil tiredly sighed, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Wilbur and Techno were arguing. Again.

"What else is new," he muttered under his breath before sipping his coffee.

Sometimes, the avian questioned his decision to introduce his adopted family to Technoblade. At times, it was good to have his friend around; he was always happy to have a helping hand in organizing the family. Techno was a good big brother.

There were, however, some problems. Even though Technoblade was over a thousand years old, Nether piglins tended to live for millions of years. By piglin standards, Techno was barely a toddler. His youth — and therefore inexperience — caused some (read: a lot) of chaos and unnecessary bickering around the house.

For example, it was Tommy's birthday, and Techno and Wilbur had been assigned to give him a gift. Phil had initially thought it would be a nice team/brother bonding moment, but it just ended up being another excuse for the two to argue.

"What if we made him a giant cobblestone tower?" suggested Techno. "I have enough. We could build it all the way to the height limit. It'd probably make Tommy happy; he likes cobblestone towers of powers."

"No."

The piglin blinked at Wilbur's bluntness. He waited for an explanation. When none came, he prompted, "...Because...?"

"I just don't like the idea," Wilbur replied.

Techno threw his hands up in wordless fury. "You are impossible to work with," he stated. "Absolutely impossible."

"Think of some good ideas and maybe I'll be easier to work with."

Finally, Technoblade snapped. Wilbur had been rejecting every single one of his ideas with no satisfying explanation. It was honestly starting to get to him.

Making sure Wilbur was still distracted by something outside the window, he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a book and quill. Flipping to page thirteen, he slowly trailed a finger down the paper, quickly reading all the bullets.

- A video where he's singing incredibly off-key - His secret drawer of photos of Sally - The one page in his diary where he talks about how amazing Tommy is - A video of him strumming an air-guitar like he's at a rock concert - That one time he accidentally encased himself in obsidian and I had to get him out - That time he started talking about how incredibly Tommy was before realizing I wasn't Philza

None of these help, Technoblade thought, slightly crestfallen. Usually, his book had all the blackmailing information necessary for any situation. But none of the bullets were helpful in this certain scenario. Eventually, he reached the final bullet on page thirteen, the page specifically dedicated to potential blackmail on Wilbur Soot.

- Ticklish ribs The words, "+underarms", had been hastily scrawled underneath.

Huh. Technoblade glanced up at Wilbur, who remained oblivious to his growing evil scheme.

"Alrighty then," the piglin sighed, standing up. "Villain arc time."

"Oh yeah?" Wilbur absent-mindedly murmured. "What're you gonna- AH!"

He yelped, caught off-guard, as Techno just about pounced on him and hauled him off his chair. He crashed into the piglin, sending them tumbling to the ground, each fighting for dominance. Though Techno was quite well-known for his strength and cunningness, Wilbur found it incredibly easy to wriggle his way out from his grasp.

Just as Wilbur had thought he had managed to get away, Techno "accidentally" hiked his shirt up and began squeezing at his ribcage. Wil immediately crumbled to the ground, feebly beating Techno's chest with a clenched fist.

"Ack! T-Tehehechno! Youhu cheheheater!"

"I win!" he triumphantly cried, flipping Wilbur onto back and settling down on his legs. Anytime Wil tried to resist, Techno would simply rub his top rib bones and watch (smugly) as Wilbur fell back down, giggling up a storm.

"Youhuhu cheheated!" Wilbur protested. "Thahat's not fahahair!"

"Hush," shushed Techno. Wilbur did not "hush". In fact, when Technoblade delved his fingers into his underarms, his laughter only grew louder. In mock exasperation, Techno snapped, "Pay attention, Wilbur, I'm showing you my really good idea."

"Thihihis ihis youhur idehea?!"

"It's good, isn't it?"

"Ihihit's ahabsolute shit!"

Techno's eyes widened.

"You take that back!" he demanded, not caring how childish he was being. It seemed like laughter truly was contagious, for Wilbur's loud cackling brought out a few chuckles from himself. Techno was glad that Phil had suggested for Tommy and Tubbo to go outside, because it would be very hard to explain why he, Technoblade, a deadly piglin who earned his title "Blood God", was currently sitting on top of a human and tickling him senseless, all the while wearing a large, goofy smirk.

"My ideas are great and you know it. Just admit it already."

"Fuhuhuck ohoff! Ihihi-" Whatever Wilbur was going to say was cut off by his own raucous laughter when Techno pushed his sweater up and blew a raspberry on his ribs (a trick he learned from Phil, who learned it from Tommy). "FUHUHUCK! WAHAHAIT! WAHAHAIT, TEHEHECHNO PLEASE! STOHOHOP!"

Technoblade did not stop. As a matter of fact, Wilbur's pleas only seemed to spur him on. Through slightly teary eyes, Wil weakly batted at Techno's shoulder as the pinkette blew raspberry after raspberry on his ribs. The hits didn't do much — Techno barely noticed — but it did throw him off a little when Wilbur missed his shoulder and whacked him in the face. Luckily, no one was hurt, but it made Techno flinch, and instead of blowing a raspberry on Wil's ribs, he blew one on his navel.

To which Wilbur screeched.

"NOHOHO! NONONONO! NO! PLEHEHEASE! NOHOHOHOT THEHEHERE! ANYWHERE BUHUT THEHERE!"

Technoblade grinned. He gave Wil's underarms a little break and moved to attack his tummy instead, skittering his fingers around the soft skin, occasionally dipping into his navel to lightly scratch around.

"Oh? Is this a new spot?" asked Techno. "Is your tum-tum ticklish? Is it? Is it so tick-tick-ticklish? Hm?"

"STOHOHOHOP!" Wilbur tried to demand. His squeaky cackles weren't really helping him make a point. He pursed his lips together and attempted to put on a mean, stony face. Techno dipped a thumb into his lil' button and vibrated it around, and his facade immediately crumbled. He squirmed underneath him, frantically trying to get free. "PLEHEHEASE! CAHAHAN'T TAHAKE IHIT!"

The piglin caught the strain in Wilbur's laughter and sympathized with him. He hadn't been tickled before, but Wilbur always tried to keep a strong, impassive reputation, and Technoblade doesn't know what he would do if somebody tickles him and reduced him to a red puddle of giggles.

"Alright, alright," he murmured, decided that Wilbur had had enough. "Just wanted to have my revenge for a little while. It gets annoying when someone keeps rejecting my brilliant ideas, y'know."

He slid off of Wilbur and walked back to his chair, where he had originally been sitting before he had gotten the random idea to tickle Wil. Before he could see what Techno was doing, the piglin quickly jotted down "+belly and navel" on page thirteen of his blackmailing book. He said nothing else — no apologies, no consolation, no explanation. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Goose eggs.

The moment Wilbur got enough air into his lungs and strength in his limbs, he staggered back onto his feet, face bright red and hair a mess. He ran a hand through his ruffled brown curls — like that would help — and sank into his chair, breathless.

"Ihi still thihink your ideas a-are shihit," he mumbled. He hugged himself around the stomach, ghost tickles still dancing on his sensitive skin. Technoblade glared at him. He had forgotten how annoying Wilbur was while he had been tickling him. He grabbed the first thing he could find — a marker — and pointed it at the brunet.

"I'll tickle you again if you're not careful," he threatened.

"I can take it," Wilbur arrogantly responded, eyeing the marker warily. His bluff was called, however, when Technoblade stood up and he squeaked. "AH! Sorry! Didn't mean it! I-I was just joking!"

Techno grinned. "You wanna admit that my ideas are good now?"

"No."

For a split second, Wilbur's stubbornness irritated the piglin. But then, after studying the marker in his hand, Techno's grin only widened, another equally wonderful idea popping into his head.

"Alright, I've got an idea I bet Tommy'll love," he said.

"And I bet it's shit."

Technoblade didn't say anything, simply grabbing Wilbur's wrists and raising them high above his head, which scared him.

"What're you doing?" he squeaked, voice high-pitched in terror. "D-Don't tickle me again! Please! I'm sorry!"

"Calm down," Techno soothed. "I'm not going to tickle you."

Wilbur relaxed a little. That is until Technoblade began pushing his sweater up, to which he shrieked, "What're you doing?!"

"I'm going to use this marker," was the pinkette's simple response.

"T-To do wha- EEP! Tehehechno! Nohohot ahagain!" whined Wil. "Plehease! Ihihi'm seherious, I cahahan't tahake it!"

"What? Seriously? You can't take a marker? Not even a marker?" teased Technoblade, more surprised than anything else.

"Ihihi'm tihihicklish!" the brunet defensively giggled.

"Well, that's good, because I won't tickle you all that much. Just stay still. I need to write something on your stomach. It'll be easier if you don't struggle."

"Ihihit tihihickles!"

"I know, but just stay still."

Wilbur tried — he really did! — but it was incredibly difficult to not laugh while Technoblade was writing something on his stomach with a black Sharpie. The soft tip of the marker was surprisingly good at tickling him, especially when it came close to the rim of his navel.

"Whahat ahahare yohuu even dohohoing?" giggled Wilbur. He couldn't exactly read whatever Techno was writing. It's hard to read upside down.

"I'm writing "TICKLE HERE" all over your stomach. And don't look at me like that," Technoblade added when the other gaped at him. "I know you're ticklish on your stomach, but I'm willing to bet Tommy doesn't~"

"Youhu wouhuhuldn't!"

"I would, actually," Techno replied. "Plus, I bet Tommy would love it. Admit it, Wilbur, it's a good idea."

Although Wilbur would continue to insist that Techno's ideas were shit, Tommy actually found Techno's birthday gift for him incredibly entertaining and enjoyed it immensely.

("Come on Wilbur, it's very rude to not sing me happy birthday~" "Ihihi'm tryhyhyhying!" "Try harder! Try to stop laughing. It might help." "Youhuhu suhuck!" "I wouldn't say that if I were in your position~" "ACK! WAHAHAIT! IHIHI'M SOHOHORRY!" "Don't forget to try his navel too." "FUHUHUCK YOU BOHOTH!")

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ*

I don't know why this prompt took me so long to do but I'm so fucking sorry Jesus Christ ᜊࡇᜊ

Also I'd just like to mention brag that the word count is 3,909 words.

-🌟

[prismatic-souls]

Prompt number two, Answer whenever you want:

"My small friend, If you can read this, I am teetering on the edge of insanity, I'm so sorry, My princess... I could noT WAIT"

*The rest of the letter is mostly unintelligible, mainly just scribbles with orange stains all over the silk paper*

Okay this one actually took a few minutes of very difficult thinking. So, forgive if it doesn't quite work, I genuinely was so lost on how to write this one. I did change your letter because I wanted it to seem like something that was worked on for a while during the course of the infection.

-

Hornet found the letter next to her makeshift bedspread. The thin layer of ash that had settled around her gave an idea of how long she had slept, and the even thinner layer of ash on the letter showed her when it had been left. The fact that she didn't wake up from the sound of someone entering the cave she slept in concerned her slightly, but that was a worry for another time.

The note was a silken paper-like sheet, with curving, yet sloppy handwriting that stirred memories in the back of her mind. The words were written in a sharp black ink that faintly glistened even in the dim cave.

"My small friend, if and when I can deliver this to you, I hope you're still well. I hope that the Radiance's Infection has not claimed your mind as she has so many others. I'm sorry I cannot visit you, but I still hold that vow I made all those years ago."

Hornet noticed a small orange stain on the side of the page, directly next to a black one that was not the same as the ink. She noted it as odd, but otherwise paid it no mind, aside from her avoiding where the orange was.

"I promised to protect you, and if I have to kill the Radiance myself, then so be it. If I am killed, remember that I tried. Remember me, as I remember you; with happiness."

A massive orange stain crossed the paper and there were obviously words under it, but they were not legible. The next chunk of writing, Hornet noticed, was frantic seeming, with harsh angles that seemed like the quill skipped off the page with how fast the author must have written the letter.

"For this final message, before I deliver this to you, I have teetered on the edge of insanity. The Abyss is still open and safe to you, I assure you. I hope that we'll meet again in this life or the next."

The writing continues for a little bit, but it was mostly looping what had already been said. It quickly turned nonlegible. There was a large amount of orange stains smearing the black ink all over, and Hornet set down the note before seeing another sheet of paper sticking out from the unsealed envelope.

It was a drawing. Specifically, her drawing. From when her father asked her to draw her 'imaginary friend.'

[dontmindmyshadowhunting]

When Clary meets Ash (Fan Fic)

Hey :) this is how I imagine Clary and Ash's reunion (after the events of TDA) in the fic I am currently writing.

It's Chapter 5 of "The new Shadowhunter Academy" (Ao3 link to the full fic is here but don't click or skip Chapter 4 if you are not in for Kitty sexy times).

Thanks to @amchara for providing beta work and to @blaidr for letting me bounce my ideas off him.

To give you context, Ash met Dru in Faerie and they exchanged their numbers. Clary seized the opportunity to obtain Ash's number from Dru and write him the following text message:

“Hey, Ash. Dru gave me your number and please don’t be angry with her, I am very strong headed and there was absolutely no way she could have refused. I am Clary. You may have heard of me. I am your late father’s sister. That’s right, your aunt. You can call me whatever you like. Emma told me what you did in Thule, how you saved her. How you saved everyone. That was very brave of you. In a way, both of us were faced with a very difficult choice and made the same. Doing what we thought was right. I would love to meet you and tell you about my mother – your grandmother – or just talk about anything. It can be things totally unrelated to the Shadow world. Hobbies, movies, books and games we like. You can pick the time and place. Neutral territory. Hope to see you soon. Clary.”

This is what happens following the text:

*****

Clary wrapped her oversized woolen coat tighter around herself, as she made her way through the crowded streets of Manhattan. The route was familiar. She took it almost every week to meet up with her parabatai and have what they called their “mundane hour”. They talked about everything, from Clary’s art to the latest TV shows they had binge watched. No topic was off the table, save for anything related to Shadowhunter duties, and the Shadow world in general. As co-head of the New York Institute and since recently, artist owning her own gallery, her weeks were very busy so she looked forward to those rare and precious moments when she could escape with Simon. Her heart rate seemed to accelerate with each of her steps, and it didn’t help that she also had the strange feeling she was being observed. When she reached her destination, she took a deep breath and opened the double glass doors leading her inside the coffee shop. She and Simon had their regular routine there, and her gaze went automatically to their usual spot, near the large windows.

A broad-shouldered jock with a baseball jacket was already sitting there, speaking loudly to his cheerleader girlfriend. Two of his friends were standing next to him, mock punching his muscular arms. It made her realize that Ash probably never had this. High school friends and romance. Ash. She was still struggling to figure out why he had asked her to meet up at this place, at the exact time she usually got there with Simon. Was it him being considerate, a clumsy way to make her feel comfortable in familiar surroundings? Or was it a warning? I know your habits, and precisely where you take your coffee, when and with whom.

Her gaze swept over the crowded room - her heart seemed to have moved up her throat, the frantic pulse almost choking her - and zeroed on a tall, white blond haired boy ordering coffee at the counter, standing with his back to Clary. She sucked in a breath. Ash. He was fully clothed in black - Dru had told her that was his usual style - and huge headphones were covering his ears. She slowly and cautiously approached him and when she was close enough, put a tentative hand on his elbow. “Ash,” she whispered. The boy glanced over his shoulder, his blue eyes quizzical and… it was not Ash.

She mumbled an apology.

“Clary,” said a voice coming from behind, and she froze. It was not a boy’s but a man’s voice, the sound beautiful and ethereal. She just stood there for a few seconds before she slowly turned.

What had she expected? Merely a taller version of the young boy with pointy ears and a sour expression that she had met three years before, dressed in the same refined velvet clothing threaded with gold that identified him as fey royalty?

If so, she had clearly been mistaken.

She blinked a few times to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks. He was tall, as she had anticipated (Sebastian had been after all). At least two heads taller than her and probably taller than Jace. But he was also very different from the Ash of her memories, from the sketches she had drawn of him after they had crossed paths. He had amazingly grown into his features, his face now the best combination of the Seelie Queen and Sebastian’s. As if he had picked the most alluring colours of the palette. And the result was… Stunning. Clary’s hand twitched, aching for a pencil.

He was not dressed in black, but in plain blue jeans and he had stuffed his hands in a very elegant, long pale gray cashmere coat. His white blond hair and pointy ears were concealed under a deep green beanie, the same colour as the scarf around his neck.

He arched a silvery eyebrow at Clary, his expression bemused, and she realized she was staring.

“Clary, seriously?” he said, his gently scolding tone at odds with his enchanting voice. “This guy isn't even half as good looking as me." He glanced pointedly at the patron in question, who was gaping at him, and shrugged. "No offense, dude,” Ash added as an afterthought.

He turned his attention to the barista. She was beautiful, dark skinned with long braided hair and pouty lips. “Hello, gorgeous. We’ll have a double espresso with oat milk and a dash of cinnamon for the lady and a plain black coffee for me.”

Clary stifled a gasp and tried to hide her discomfort. He knew exactly how she took her coffee, and she didn’t know how she felt about this.

The pretty barista nodded eagerly, her cheeks red and her big dark eyes dreamy as she stared at Ash. “Why don’t you… Go sit at your table and I’ll bring you your beverages when they are ready?” the girl offered enthusiastically. The long line of patrons that had formed behind Clary and Ash would probably disagree but she didn’t seem to care.

“That would be lovely,” Ash said in his euphonious voice. “And so are you.” He winked at her, and Clary wondered if she would need to catch her while she swooned. He paid before Clary even had a chance to reach for her purse.

“Come,” he said in a commanding tone, as he made his way to Clary and Simon's usual table. This was unnerving.

The jock seated there paused in the middle of his conversation with his girlfriend when he saw Ash stand casually next to him. Clary braced herself for a heated exchange, but she should have known better.

“You want to sit somewhere else,” Ash said evenly, one hand inside the pocket of his designer coat and the other stretched out in front of him as he studied his fingernails.

“I want to sit somewhere else,” the jock repeated in a monotonous voice, his gaze blank. He stood, as if in a trance, and his girlfriend and friends followed him, puzzled, to an empty table at the far end of the room.

Ash drew a chair for Clary and she sat. He did the same, opposite her. He pulled off his beanie, and shook his silvery hair, like a crown of liquid white gold. He wasn’t dressed for the part but he had never looked more like a prince.

“Ash… please don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Your mind tricks.”

He cocked his head and observed her, his face unreadable, for what seemed like an endless minute.

“You’ve been my aunt for what? Five minutes? And you’re already trying to boss me around?”

“I am not trying to boss you around, Ash. Simply asking you not to abuse your powers.”

A shadow flickered across his green eyes.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Clary. I spend much more time and energy holding back than using my powers. If I did let go, trust me, you would know.”

Clary opened her mouth to reply but was cut short as the barista popped in front of them and placed the mugs on the table. She slid a paper napkin to Ash, her phone number scribbled on it. Clary tried not to roll her eyes, as Ash flashed his dazzling smile at the girl, who almost tripped on her own feet as she returned to the counter.

Clary lifted her cup to her lips and paused, as she caught sight of the cinnamon powder floating on the surface. She put it down.

“What about this?" She pointed at her coffee mug and waved around them. “ What is it, if not a show of power? What are you trying to tell me? That you know everything about me? That you’ve been spying on me?”

Ash pulled on a fake shocked expression, mouth open and green eyes wide in mock innocence. “Spying on you? What are you talking about?”

“Come on, Ash. The evidence is right here.” She lifted her cup abruptly, and hot liquid splashed out of it. “You know exactly how I like it. When I take it, where I take it.”

Ash’s mouth twitched. “Where did you pick up these lines? From the script of some lame X-rated movie?”

“Adult movies have storylines?” Clary asked, arching her eyebrows.

“Of course they do. Where do you think the Grimm Brothers took their inspiration from?”

He grabbed the paper napkin and started mopping the coffee she had spilled on the table. The blue ink faded and the barista’s phone number vanished.

“You lost that girl’s number,” Clary noted.

Ash shrugged. “I have a girlfriend now.”

Right. Drusilla Blackthorn. From the moment she had met her, Clary had known that the smart and quiet turquoise-eyed girl would someday turn heads.

Clary knew that Dru hadn’t really confirmed their relationship status yet, but it was neither the time nor place to broach the subject with Ash. She was, after all, on a mission to win over her nephew and had not been doing a very good job so far.

A young lanky boy with pink hair and piercings covering his skin walked by and dropped a glossy flyer of the upcoming Mortal Instruments concert on the table between them. Clary hid a smile. It reminded her...

“I have something for you.” She said as she fumbled inside her bag and took out the drawing she had made of Jocelyn, Luke and herself, in front of Luke’s upstate farm (before it was turned into the new Shadowhunter Academy) and laid it on the table.

Ash looked at it hesitantly, like a kid who really wanted to grab the candy but was afraid there was a mouse trap under it. He hunched his shoulders forward and clasped his hands under the table, as if to keep himself from temptation.

“I recognize your art. I like it. I also appreciate Julian Blackthorn’s but I may not be as objective where… one of the subjects of his drawings is concerned.”

“You’ve seen my art?”

He leaned back on his chair, crossing his long arms behind his head. Somehow, he managed to make it look graceful.

“Which Shadowhunter hasn’t? I noticed that you often drew Jace with angel wings.”

“Yes. That’s how he used to appear to me. In recurring dreams.”

“Was it?”

“Was it what?”

“Jace. In your dreams.”

“Who else would it be?”

“Someone who looks like him, but who actually has wings.”

“You mean Kit.”

Ash shrugged. “It would make more sense.” His gaze flickered back to the drawing, which still lay on the table, untouched. “You look a lot like your mom.”

“So do you”, Clary blurted before she could take it back.

Ash shot her an unfathomable look.

“How is she?” She asked.

“You mean, the Seelie Queen? You tell me. You must see her more often than I do.”

“Well, not really. I am not that involved in politics, even though Alec is Consul. Julian Blackthorn is the one who deals with her most of the time. She appears to have... a fondness for him.”

“Who doesn’t?”

Clary’s mouth quirked up.

“I am glad you are getting along with the Blackthorns. They are such an incredibly strong and talented family.”

“They are.” He turned his face away, but not before she could see the expression of longing plain on his delicate features.

She swallowed. She was painfully reminded that Ash never had a shot at a happy family. Born of a political union, and dragged here and there, though interdimensional portals, by people more interested in his powers than anything else he had to offer as a person. And judging by how Dru talked about Ash, he had a lot to offer.

“I imagine it must have been awful living in Thule… But what you did for Emma and Julian back there... if it hadn’t been for you…”

“I don’t want to talk about Thule,” he interrupted her. “Can I borrow this?” He asked, his long fingers brushing the Mortal Instruments concert flyer.

“Sure.”

She watched as he started folding the paper, realizing with a jolt of surprise that he was making an origami and wondering what shape would come out of it. It was odd seeing him doing such an innocuous thing, as if he was not a faerie prince with a heavy heritage and a giant target on his back, but an ordinary boy. She remembered what Emma had told her of her encounter with Ash in a nightclub in Thule. The way he had shown no interest, playing a video game in a corner of the room, while Sebastian was committing atrocities. Had he really been as indifferent as he looked?

“Ash, we don’t need to talk about Thule if you don’t want to, but if I can help you… If there is anything I can do-”

“Why?” He looked up sharply. “Are you able to create a rune that could undo the things I saw?” His tone was even, but his delicate fingers had started slightly shaking and he suddenly dropped the paper - his work unfinished - to fold his hands under the table to hide it. From that moment, she knew.

“No…” Clary said, drawing the word out. “But trust me, coming from someone whose memory has been tampered with... it’s not a solution.”

“I said undo. Not forget.” He snapped. “I am not such a coward that I would choose blissful ignorance over knowledge.”

He caught himself, blinking, then clenched his jaw and looked away. As if he was ashamed he had allowed himself to show any emotion at all. But Clary had managed to catch a glimpse of what lay underneath the mask and wanted nothing more than to see the rest of it.

“I don’t think you are a coward,” she said.

He looked over at her, a silver eyebrow raised. “I let it all happen, didn’t I? I didn’t lift a finger.”

“Because you couldn’t. Sebastian would have killed you. And you, Ash, are just like me. A survivor.”

He snorted and crossed his arms in front of him, leaning back on his chair. He had stretched out his long legs and Clary realized that he was tapping a foot nervously next to hers.

“Wrong. I could have. I chose not to. Because I am selfish. I don’t care about other people’s fate.”

His face split into a lazy, wicked grin. Clary could see Sebastian’s influence in his leer, but she wouldn't let it deceive her. Just as she wasn't fooled by his laid-back demeanor.

“I think it’s the opposite, actually. I think it’s because you care too much. It’s not death you are afraid of. The thing is, you have such a tender heart, you need to protect it from an affliction far greater than any physical pain you could endure. So you’d rather lie to yourself and pretend you feel nothing.”

From the long conversations she had with Tessa about her ancestors, Clary knew of a Fairchild boy who had been too compassionate for his own good. And he had been surrounded by loyal friends and loving parents, even though he had shut himself, putting on a facade while burying his grief in alcohol. Ash never had that kind of support. Throughout his life, he was left to figure things out on his own. If he was as empathetic as Clary thought he was, Ash probably had no other choice but to deal with his sensitivity alone. It was a miracle he had turned out the way he did.

“You have a lot of imagination,” he said after a moment. The ghost of a smile was still playing on his lips but something had passed across his eyes. “Then again, you are an artist. You seek beauty in the ugly. You find colors on a blank page. I admire your faith, but in this case, there is nothing to see.”

Clary jutted her chin stubbornly and they held each other’s gaze - his green eyes glittering in amusement and hers dead serious - in a staring contest.

“Still,” he said when he finally broke, first. “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I am sorry.”

Clary softened. “Don’t be. I am glad you are finally showing your true self. You don’t need to wear your mask around me, Ash.”

He chuckled. “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“It’s funny that you would quote Oscar Wilde.”

“And why is that?”

She shrugged. “Just another thing you share in common with a Fairchild I heard stories about.”

“Clary,” he said in a gently reproving tone. Her name sounded like a caress in his melodious voice. “Are you being purposefully cryptic to arouse my curiosity?”

She moved closer, so she was sitting at the edge of her chair, and leaned forward, hands folded over the table.

“If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” she whispered. “Let me in. Shed all pretense.”

“I can’t promise you that,” he whispered back in confidence, leaning closer still so that their faces were inches from each other. “It’s like fabric that burns and melts into skin. If you peel it off, the skin goes with it.” He grimaced, reclining on his chair. “It won’t be a pretty sight. I don’t think even my level of hotness could sustain it.”

“Ash…” Clary said, sensing that she finally had an opening to say what she had been brooding over ever since she had learnt of Ash’s return from that forsaken land. “I wanted to tell you… I am sorry.”

Ash’s green eyes widened.

“Sorry for what?”

“I should have looked for you. I should not have given up on you.”

Ash’s jaw clenched and he looked away. “Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do. Seb-...Ash, we...”

“What did you just call me?” He snarled. His eyes snapped back to her, suddenly cold as ice.

“Sorry, Ash. What I meant to say is… we are family."

“I already have a family.”

“I know that you care about Janus…”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” he cut her off.

“And we don’t need to. I just wanted you to know… I understand that he’s been like a father to you, and I don’t plan on moving against him, unless he strikes first or makes it impossible for me to overlook his actions.”

“Because of me?”

“Of course, because of you.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Ash… You are my nephew, my blood. You may not feel the same way about me, but that’s how I feel about you. I want you to know that, if things go wrong, for any reason, you can always turn to me. My home is your home.”

“What you are actually telling me is, Ash, if I kill the one person who has ever really cared about you - and it might definitely come to that - you can always grab my hand, still sticky and warm from his blood. Well, how nice of you. To quote Oscar Wilde again, true friends stab you in the front.”

“That’s not what I am-”

“Clary,” Ash interrupted as he stood. “Do not make me choose between you and him. Because…” Looking down at her, he swallowed hard, as if the words pained him. “Because you will lose.”

She knew exactly what he was telling her. Because they were the same in that way. Ruthless, even with their own blood, when it came to protecting their loved ones. If I had to choose between killing him and you, I would not hesitate. I would end you. Yet, despite his cold statement, despite his sharp and resolved tone, his eyes seemed to carry a deep regret.

“Ash, I understand what you're saying and I swear I am not trying to make you pick a side”, Clary said, suddenly desperate, as she mirrored him and stood. “Please don’t go. I am sorry I brought it up. We will stop talking about him. Starting now.”

“This was a bad idea. Never try to contact me again.” He drew his green beanie from the pocket of his coat and put it back on. He turned and strode toward the exit. She grabbed the family drawing that still lay on the table, stuffed it in her bag and followed him, half-running, as he was quickly losing here with his long legs.

“Ash! Please. Give me another chance. I am so sorry.”

He paused right outside the coffee shop, closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t be. It didn’t change what I had planned to tell you anyway. I don’t want to know anything about you or your mother. I don’t want to have anything to do with either of you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said, and he whipped his head around to look at her in surprise. “I know you were under house arrest. You probably had to break out of whichever place they were holding you in to come here. You wouldn’t have done that unless you wanted something. Something from me. Tell me, Ash. Tell me what it is.”

He turned his face away so she could not see his expression. A full minute passed and she had almost given up on receiving an answer, when he finally spoke.

“My fa… Sebastian. How different do you think he would have been if not for the demon blood?”

“Oh. Ash.” she whispered. She brought her knuckle against her sternum instinctively, as if to cover the gaping whole in her chest. “I saw him, you know. The brother I should have had. The father that should have raised you. If only for a few minutes.” She paused to bite back tears. “In those few minutes, he told us how to get rid of the Endarkened and said he was sorry. It’s not much to go for, but… that’s not all. I have recurring dreams of the green eyed boy that was robbed from us. And I know in my heart he would have been the best brother a sister could ever dream of.”

He was still looking away and she could see the sharp line, the stubborn set of his jaw. She wanted to hug him, to tell him she would not fail him again. That they could mourn her brother, his father, together. That he didn’t need to bear the anger at everything that was wasted alone.

He finally turned to look at her. A tear had escaped to run freely down his cheek. He had completely shed off his mask, and what Clary saw was like a stab in her gut. She shivered. Wordlessly, he reached for his deep green scarf and tied it gingerly around her neck. The way Sebastian had when they had walked down the streets of Paris. Ash looked nothing like her brother had then. His green eyes held an infinite sadness that spoke of a grief deeper, older than the short years of his life.

“It doesn’t change anything.” He said - she hadn’t imagined his beautiful voice could sound so hollow - and turned to leave.

“Ash, wait.” She grabbed him by the elbow and he froze. His eyes widened as his gaze zeroed on the fingers covering his coat, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. She realized she had never touched him before.

“Clary, what do you want from me?” He asked in a tired voice.

“I just want to get to know you.”

“Trust me, you don’t. I am not the brother who was stolen from you. I cannot replace him. If anything, I am just like Sebastian was before me... my father’s broken toy. There is no way to fix me.”

“I don’t believe it for a second,” she said, almost frantic. “And I don’t want to find my brother's replacement, I want to get to know you! Ash. The real Ash.”

“I already told you. That’s not happening. Don’t ever try to contact me again. I am serious.”

“So that’s it?” She tried not to sound too whiny but panic was eating away at her stomach and she thought she would throw up. “You went through all this trouble spying on me, learning how I take my coffee to simply disappear from my life from one moment to the next?”

He gazed at her for a moment, his expression unfathomable. It seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke.

“I was not spying on you, Clary. I was merely following your stalker.”

“What? You were… protecting me?”

“Take care of yourself, Clary.”

He said as he stepped away from her and vanished into the crowd.

****

Clary threw herself in Jace’s arms as soon as he opened the door to their bedroom at the New York Institute. He froze, then started stroking her hair in a soothing gesture.

“Clary, what happened? Is everything okay?”

“No,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.

“Tell me, Clary. What is it?”

She pulled away and wiped tears with the back of her hand. Jace’s face was a mask of shock. Clary couldn’t blame him. She almost never cried.

“I messed up.”

“What did you mess up?”

She walked to the bed and sat on the mattress. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for his reaction. “Ash. I met up with him earlier today.”

Jace tensed and his hands clenched into fists. “WHAT- Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you would have insisted on coming.”

“Damn right, I would have. And I would have been right, too. Look at you, you look miserable.”

“It’s my fault,” she said in a small voice. “I pushed him too far.”

Jace sighed and came to sit next to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder. “I am sure you did nothing wrong, Clary.”

“I thought- When I showed him the drawing… the way he looked at it, Jace. He is not indifferent. He cares.”

“What drawing?”

“The one I made of the family,” she said absently, as she grabbed her bag and started fumbling inside.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The drawing wasn’t there. Peeking out in its stead, and folded out of the flyer of the Mortal Instruments concert, were origami faerie wings. The Fairchild family symbol.

[tickle-bugs]

One of a Kind

@amazingmsme I didn't want to post the thing you sent just because of the minor minor spoilers (I hate that we've lost a grip on spoiler culture on the internet so I am overcorrecting to keep my blog safe!) but what you sent was too goddamn cute. Have an unedited thing I wrote in one go. This takes place in the nebulous, non-existent gap between episode 5 and 6! I still haven't see the finale so....this is canon-adjacent-adjacent I guess. Enjoy!

Spoilers for the Loki series under the cut!

Cataloguing variants had always been time-consuming, but somehow Loki was making it take longer. Mobius knew that Loki should’ve gone through his stack already, especially with his reading speed, but he was just staring at one particular file and huffing at increasing volumes.

Alright, I’ll bite.

“I’d ask what you’re thinking about, but I know you’re gonna tell me.” Mobius thumbed through his file on another Loki, one who’d defected from Thanos in 2012 to join the Avengers. They’d pruned him pretty early. Mobius still regretted not being able to pick his brain for a little while longer.

“These other variants are incredible,” Loki scoffed.

“I agree.”

“I don’t understand it.” He stared at Mobius, brow furrowed, and alright, they clearly weren’t getting any more work done.

“Lokis tend to be extraordinary. It’s kinda a thing with you guys.” Mobius slid his files aside.

“Right, but in comparison, I am at the lower end of the bunch.” Loki frowned, gesturing as if this was a matter of grave importance.

“Okay, you lost me.” He folded his hands on the table and squinted at Loki.

“We have an alligator, an illusionist whose powers dwarfed my own, a child who killed Thor, a President--though I can’t fathom wanting to be a part of the American political system--and an enchantress. Those are the variants that we know about. So why am I here helping you?”

“You’re the best of the bunch.” The simplest and truest answer. Loki didn’t seem to buy it.

Mobius dragged his chair around the table and put it in front of Loki, effectively pinning him against the table--well, he could just stand up and walk away, but Mobius knew he wouldn’t. It was part of their thing.

“What are you doing?”

“Just gettin’ closer.” Mobius slotted his knees between Loki’s and pulled his chair as far in as it could go.

“I can see that. Why?”

“I just wanna be close to you, that’s all.” He gave his best convincing grin. Loki visibly softened.

“Loki, you are a genius with a good heart. You’re here because you are, at least in my book, a hero.” Mobius gave his knee a steady pat. Loki puffed with pride.

“Go on.”

“Wow, you are on a perfect swinging scale of narcissism. From self-deprecating to king of the world in no time flat.” Mobius laughed.

“Thank you.” Loki adjusted his tie, missing or ignoring everything but the word ‘perfect’. Mobius bit his lip on a chuckle--he really shouldn’t inflate an already dangerously-large ego, but Loki needed it, he thought. His confidence was all air, after all--smug posturing designed to fill the void of something genuine. Loki could use genuine, for a change.

He looked Loki up and down slowly, deliberately, and an absurd little idea took root in the back of his mind. It had worked in the Time Cell, so maybe...

“Why are you looking at me like that? Wh--Mobius. Mobius. Stop it.” Loki leaned back as much as he could. Mobius grinned and hovered his fingers just over Loki’s torso, dangerously close. Loki sucked in his stomach, looking frantically between Mobius’s hands and his face.

“This r-really isn’t necessary.” The wobbly smile on Loki’s lips told Mobius the exact opposite.

“Nervous giggler, huh?” Mobius twitched his fingers and Loki jumped.

“No.”

“Perfect! Then you’ll hear what I have to say.” Mobius set his fingers adrift, passing languidly over Loki’s spots but never landing anywhere.

“Sylvie’s my favorite because she’s wild and unpredictable. I can never quite figure out what’s goin’ on in that head of hers, regardless of her being a Loki, and it fascinates me. You know I love my puzzles, and cracking open her head like a walnut has been a real highlight of my career.” Mobius’s fingers over Loki’s knee got the first giggles to bubble out, sweet and fluttery, and it took all of his strength not to chase them down.

“But you? You’re incredible. Quick wit, a quicker knife hand, and a will to survive that I haven’t seen in--” Mobius whistled lowly-- “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Plus, you’re pretty cute. Or, so I’ve heard.”

“You had me wrapped around your finger when we brought you in. I mean, you could talk a desert into bloomin’.” It was the first time in a few thousand Loki’s that he’d genuinely almost been fooled--something about this one, his Loki, just got to him in a way that the others never could.

“I still have you around my finger.” Loki’s smile and rosy cheeks ignited a gentle warmth in Mobius’s chest. Gentle, rolling chuckles flowed steadily from him, walls completely broken down, and if Mobius could keep one memory forever, it would be this.

“Oh, and that laugh. I’m almost jealous. Literal music to my ears. Y’know, the other Loki’s never laughed like this? It was always this fake, snooty chuckle that used to make my skin crawl.

“But not you. You’ve got this damn beautiful giggle. It’s like the old saying goes: every time a Loki laughs, a puppy is born. Or angels get their wings. A little bit of both.” Mobius let his fingers drift upwards to Loki’s ribs and he whined, pitching forward until his forehead hit Mobius’s chest.

“T-That’s not a thing.” The color on Loki’s face had matured into a wonderful shade of cherry, his voice pinching from the sheer volume of emotion--Mobius could actually see him working through it in real time. Another favorite thing that he could never express aloud--how earnestly and easily Loki wore his emotions.

“He speaks!” Mobius swooped his hands in, never touching but threatening, and Loki yelped around some more giggles.

“Stop it.” Loki swiped at his hands, but even at close range, he couldn’t coordinate enough to catch Mobius.

“You’re right, my bad. It’s rude to keep you waiting.”

“Wh--no, nonono, that’s definitely not what I meant--”

“You make it so easy for me,” Mobius sighed wistfully, seeking out Loki’s trick rib as easy as breathing. Loki shrieked, crumpling in Mobius’s arms, and Mobius held him as he deftly took him apart.

“You are a Loki, alright? There’s no doubt about that. But you’re you, and I like ya. Stop worryin’ about the others.” He wormed his fingers under Loki’s arms, then spidered across the backs of his ribs and up towards his shoulders.

“M-Mobius!”

“Excellent point. You also have me. That’s a pretty big deal--I’m one of a kind, y’know. Limited edition. So there’s that.” His hands found solace beneath Loki's jaw, pulling forth jumpy squeaks between...purrs? Huh. He made a note of it as he scribbled his fingers up Loki’s thigh, dodging swatting hands like a stubborn bug. Loki pulled his knee up to his chest, head tilted back in open-mouthed laughter, and Mobius followed him.

“Who’s got an ego now?” Loki smirked, eyes crinkled, and Mobius summoned his best dramatic gasp.

“You take that back!”

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (13) || atz

“Master!” You burst into the sickbay, eyes brimming over with tears as you desperately search for that head of green hair that has grown so familiar to you. You ignore the stunned faces of some of the pirates who are getting their wounds treating, the concerned glances that some give you, only to see Seonghwa standing there with a basket of dirty cloths in his arms and a startled look on his face at the commotion.

Then he sees the tears tracks winding down your face and his expression melts into one of horrified concern, he puts the basket down and moves to reach for you.

You simply throw yourself into his arms without waiting for him and sob into his chest, openly weeping in full view of all the pirates in the sickbay. The cook staggers back a couple of steps from the force of your embrace, but manages to upright himself before the two of you go bowling over onto the floor.

Seonghwa is warm. He always has been. Gentle, kind, compassionate and tender-hearted. And you’ve never been so grateful for a man like him. He lets you cry, hands softly winding in your hair, a little confused as to why it’s suddenly several inches shorter and out of its usual braid. You hear Jongho’s heavy footsteps behind you on the wooden floor, and his face must say something because Seonghwa’s body stiffens, his embrace around you tightening just a little as he folds you into his arms.

“What did you do, Jongho?”

Seonghwa’s voice is deliberately neutral. He trusts Jongho, of course. But the last person you were with was indeed the young battlemaster and he knows Jongho is terribly awkward with new people. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jongho had said something silly on accident and ended up causing you to get upset.

But Jongho merely exhales uncomfortably, looking down at his boots. “We should talk about this in private.” His voice holds no room for argument.

Seonghwa frowns a little at this apparent need for privacy, long fingers gently stroking through your hair as your warm tears soak into his shirt sleeves. “Jihyun, help me call San and tell him to come to his room immediately.”

A tall pirate nods, rising to his feet. “Of course, Seonghwa-sunbae.” He moves off quickly, disappearing from sight. Seonghwa then puts an arm around your shoulders, sweetly ushering you into the backroom where you’ve been sleeping for the past couple of weeks and sits you down on San’s bed, wiping the tears from your eyes with a tender hand. Jongho follows behind, shutting the door firmly behind you.

You feel weak, boneless, as the words run through your mind again and again on repeat.

“You will never find what you so desperately seek as long as you live.”

You reach out a hand. Seonghwa looks puzzled for a moment, but you think the experience must have at least made you and Jongho closer somehow, because he understands immediately and clasps your hands gently, almost timidly in his, as if afraid that you might break if he uses too much force.

Jongho probably could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands, but he cradles your hand like it’s a newborn baby chick.

“Just before you get the wrong idea, hyung, I didn’t do anything.” The young battlemaster says firmly, but there is guilt lingering in his voice. You know it’s not because he did anything to you, but because he regrets making you visit the fortune teller in the first place.

Seonghwa frowns in confusion as he moves to light the lamp in the room. “Then why is s-” He coughs lightly as the smoke from the lamp gets into his eyes and nose. “Why is he so upset, Jongho?”

You curl up on San’s bed, wrapping your arms around yourself as if that can stop you from falling apart.

The maknae opens his mouth to explain, but then San enters the room.

His face is smoothed over, carefully blank, but you can feel the pulse of his energy spiking erratically, feeling more like a burning stove rather than a warm radiance. Jongho and Seonghwa must both feel it as well, because they both stiffen minutely.

“Hyung, we need to talk-” Jongho begins to say, but San ignores him and makes a beeline straight for you, sitting next to you on the bed and patting his lap.

“Here.”

You don’t decline the invitation, laying your head in his lap and curling up beneath the sheets like you do every time you get nightmares. You press your nose against his side, and immediately the smell of him fills your lungs. Green tea, honey, and floral notes of ylang ylang and lavender mixed with the odd herb he’s been experimenting with combine to create a scent that is uniquely his, one that never fails to calm you down even in the fiercest of storms.

His hand comes to rest in your hair, carding through the strands gently.

Only when he’s sure that you’re no longer in hysterics and on the verge of a panic attack does he turn to Jongho with sharp piercing eyes.

“So, would you mind explaining to me why my apprentice is in this state?”

You feel bad for Jongho, having to endure all this questioning by himself when he technically was only trying to help you and encourage you, but San shushes you the second you open your mouth.

“I want to hear this from him.” His eyes don’t leave the young battlemaster.

“Well, do you guys remember the first time I came to Tortuga, I visited a fortune teller?” Jongho asks slowly. His hyungs exchange looks, and then Seonghwa nods hesitantly.

“Why?”

“I brought him to visit the fortune teller.” Jongho mutters quietly, his voice small. You realise that even though Jongho may be the strongest, best fighter on board, he still submits himself to the authority of his older brothers. “And the fortune teller said some things…”

San’s eyes narrow as his fingers continue to brush through your hair. Seonghwa seats himself at San’s work table to listen to what Jongho has to say.

“She something about a jar of clay… and some secret that would ruin our trust in her...” Jongho mutters, shaking his head.

San’s fingers freeze in your hair.

“I mean… The secret that stowaway’s actually a woman isn’t quite secret, am I right?”

A terrified squeak leaves your mouth, momentarily pulling you out of your daze. You jerk up, staring at Jongho with wide eyes and your mouth hanging open in horror. Seonghwa shrugs in response to the maknae’s words.

“I did find out rather recently, so I suppose it’s no longer secret within us three then.”

You gulp. San stiffens slightly, but then you can feel his muscles relaxing next to you. “How did you find out, hyung?”

“When she hugged me earlier.” Seonghwa replies easily, much to your shock. Then he pauses, glancing at you hesitantly. “I could feel her… ah, chest through her clothes. I apologise deeply for any inappropriate actions I might have done under the impression you were a man.”

Your cheeks catch aflame as you stare at the cook in a mixture of both horror and embarrassment, your mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Jongho’s nose scrunches up at his words.

“That’s gross, hyung.”

Seonghwa sputters incoherently at his dongsaeng’s words, looking like a rapidly reddening tomato. “Well, excuse me for not knowing she was a woman! How about you say how you figured it out?”

Jongho halts in all action immediately, jaw working furiously. His own cheeks have started turning apple red, and he looks away to the side, mumbling under his breath.

“When the fortune teller grabbed her shirt, I saw-”

You bury your face in a pillow to hide your embarrassment and scream. At this point, you don’t know what you are. Confused, shocked, mortified, everything. All you know you want to do is to crawl into a hole in the ground and slowly rot away, but then you then you remember you’re at sea in a ship and there is no hole in the ground for you to die in.

To your surprise, however, Jongho and Seonghwa don’t seem to be very affected by the fact that you are a woman. Jongho continues rambling on in spite of your mounting embarrassment.

“-her chest, okay? Well, not really her chest, but the bindings around her chest and I kind of guessed-”

“Okay, okay, we get it!” San covers your ears frantically before you can hear any more. “Let’s get back to the fortune teller bit. Jongho, do you remember everything she said?”

“Pretty much.” The young battlemaster turns to Seonghwa. “Hyung, do you think you could help me write it down before I forget?’

The cook picks up one of the stray quills on San’s worktable, pulling over a piece of blank paper. “Alright.”

Taking a deep breath, Jongho begins to recite the words from memory.

“Oh nameless one, child of the sea, you’re missing something very important to you.”

“Stowaway doesn’t have a name, so it does seem accurate.” Seonghwa mutters grimly, San nodding in agreement. The two of them are completely focused, intent on figuring out what the cryptic words of the fortune teller mean.

The sight warms you immensely despite the daze you’re in.

“And she is a pirate now, so the part of her being a child of the sea fits.” San adds, leaning his head on your shoulder. You shrug.

“She’s an amnesiac, so she’s missing her memories. We’ve solved the first bit. That’s good.” Jongho glances at the page as Seonghwa scribbles down their interpretation of the fortune teller’s words.

A frown tugs at his lips as he continues. “The secret you keep will ruin the trust you built. That’s the bit about her being a woman, isn’t it?”

Seas, it was weird hearing Jongho referring to you as her instead of he.

“I don’t see anything else that could be it.” San mutters thoughtfully, but Seonghwa cuts in.

“She could hear the voice of the sea monster that was chasing us the other time.”

Jongho’s jaw hits the ground. “You could do what?”

It almost amuses you how the young battlemaster is more shocked at the fact you could hear the sea monster’s voice as compared to the fact that you are a woman.

“Yeah.” You mumble under your breath, but Jongho’s eyes are huge with awe.

“That’s so cool!” For a moment, Jongho looks like the eighteen year old boy he is, still young, excitable, not quite a man yet, but he quickly catches himself and clears his throat. “Well, moving on. To pass the trial, one must cross into death and awaken into life. The biggest obstacle to overcome is yourself.”

He glances around at all of you. “That sounds cryptic and completely unhelpful. And I have absolutely no idea what it means.”

“What trial do you think the fortune teller could be talking about?” San scratches at his hair, frowning as he racks his mind. Seonghwa shrugs, just as confused.

“Well then. I suppose we could just leave this here for now.” Jongho mutters, shaking his head in disappointment. “A jewel resting in a jar of clay. That was when she went bat shit crazy and started shaking our stowaway here, demanding to know who’d made her.”

“Who made her?” Seonghwa questions, looking utterly bewildered as he jots them down. You feel your skin crawl at the words again. There seems to be some sort of significance to it that you can feel, something your mind screams at you to remember, but you can’t.

“She referred to stowaway as a ‘vessel that has only existed for a moon’, whatever the hell that meant.” Jongho supplies helpfully, and you feel San stiffen beside you.

Seonghwa looks equally uncomfortable as he glances at you. “A moon?” He repeats, hesitantly. You don’t know what the fortune teller was indicating when she said you had supposedly existed for a moon, but you don’t think she was referring to the silvery orb in the sky.

Your master frowns. “What I guess the fortune teller was referring to was a moon cycle. A vessel that has existed for a moon cycle.”

“Yes,” Seonghwa begins to argue, gesturing at you. “But how can she only have existed for one moon cycle?”

The two stare at each other for a while, both having some sort of internal battle as to what it could be. You tap Jongho’s arm frantically.

“How long is a moon cycle?”

At your question, Jongho swallows uncomfortably and looks away from you. “A little over twenty eight days.”

You feel like someone has just slapped you across the face.

Twenty eight days?

Your face must be a real sight, because San and Seonghwa immediately rush to comfort you.

“It could just mean that you’ve been without your memory for that long.”

“Yes! I mean, you can’t be that young. Don’t worry about it. It must be interpretation.”

You nod your head absentmindedly, still in some sort of daze. “Right.” Seonghwa gives Jongho a chastening look for revealing something that affected you so much. The young battlemaster mumbles an apology under his breath.

Then San sighs, rubbing his temples. “Honestly, we should ask Yeosang for help with this. No one on this ship is as good with cryptic nonsense, long, complicated words and obscure references as he.”

Jongho nods agreement. “Sometimes I don’t even understand what hyung is saying.”

You nod slowly. To be honest with yourself, you don’t really know what you’d do without these people by your side. Even Jongho, who you’ve just begun to talk to today, has been nothing but infinitely kind and helpful to you. You almost want to slap your past self for being such a fool, for even thinking he could have a bad bone in him.

“Thank you.” Your words come out a little choked with emotion, but the three of them accept it all the same. San doesn’t say anything, but just pats your head as usual.

Seonghwa beams at you gently. “It’s no problem, stowaway. You’re part of the family now. We’d do anything in our power to help you.”

Jongho looks at you seriously. “Wait… but we forgot one last thing. The sea witch.”

Sea witch.

Seonghwa flinches while San shudders, shoulders curling inwards. You frown at the two of them, a little unnerved by their reactions towards the word. The sea witch can’t be very terrifying, can she? Magic tended to be nothing more than the arcane, and from what Jongho has told you, only rare people like San are able to use this inner energy to their benefit.

“What is it?”

“The sea witch.” San echoes, drumming his fingers on his thigh absentmindedly. “We should probably ask Yeosangie more about this before you start to get any ideas, but if the myths are true… the sea witch is a being of immense power that lives on an island that only people in great desperation can find, surrounded by the sirens who serve her.”

“I read the legend of her when I was a child.” Seonghwa turns to you with a mixed look of both pity and worry. “The sea witch bargains with many beings, both supernatural and mortal, to make a deal. In the story I read, she gave a mermaid legs to be with the man she loved but took her voice.”

A deal.

Jongho meets your gaze, both your eyes drawn to the same object, the tiny crystal hanging at the end of your necklace.

The symbol of your bargain with the sea witch.

A headache starts throbbing at your temples, and you furiously rub at them, trying to ease the pain. Seonghwa notices almost at once and rises to his feet.

“We should let him-” He corrects himself. “-her rest.” San and Jongho nod agreement as they both rise to their feet.

“We’ll talk about this another day, apprentice.” San murmurs softly to you as you lie back on his bed, pulling the covers up to your nose. “We’ll talk to Yeosangie about this first, alright? He has a lot of books in Hongjoongie-hyung’s cabin, I’m sure we’ll find something.”

“Ok.” Your voice is small, and San gives you a warm smile before leaving the room, Jongho behind him.

But only Seonghwa lingers in the room for a moment, looking conflicted once more.

“What’s wrong, hyung?”

The cook looks at you for a long, silent moment before he speaks.

“You should tell the crew you’re a woman soon.”

Your chest seizes up. Yes, you know that Seonghwa and Jongho didn’t especially mind that you were one, and neither did they begrudge you for keeping this secret, but you knew not everyone would be this understanding.

“Especially captain.”

You swallow nervously.

“I will.”

Seonghwa manages a last, weak smile at you before turning to leave. As you lie under the covers, you wonder what might happen if Hongjoong did take the fact that you were a woman badly.

What if he left you in some town like he’d promised to do the last time?

No. No. You couldn’t have that. Not when you’d just started finding constructive clues to your past, not when you’d just started gaining family.

You needed to wait. Not now. You couldn’t tell them now.

The secret you keep will ruin the trust you built.

It was a decision you would later come to regret.

[c-is-writing]

sticky notes

pairing: wandanat x gn!reader

genre: fluff as per usual

word count: 1588

warnings: polyamory (reader’s girlfriends are wanda and natasha)

a/n: ahhhhh my first request :’DDD i’ve actually had this sitting in my drafts for a while but never decided on the pairing until now lmao. also! for once i am posting this at a decent hour for me. i hope you all enjoy it uwu

original request

Ughhhh, I can’t wait to go home in a few minutes. I really want a break just to spend some time with my girlfriends. You begin to clean up your work area, tidying your papers and organizing your filing cabinets. Just as you grab your bag, a co-worker of yours rushes into your office frantically. 

“Y/N! I need you right now.”

“Huh? Why? What’s up?”

“I just got called into a family emergency and I really need someone to finish my paperwork. Do you think you can do it for me?”

You pause, thinking it over. Do you do your friend’s paperwork or refuse and go home? You’d feel bad if you said no because your co-worker is one of your closest friends but you don’t want to keep your girlfriends waiting. After considering your options, you sigh and place your bag back down, “Yeah, I can do the paperwork. Take care, I hope everything is alright”. She lets out a sigh of relief and thanks you as she hands you the paperwork. Looking it over, it seemed like it would take at least two hours to complete. Oh well, looks like my break will be delayed.

You were wrong about the paperwork. There were so many issues and miscalculations with the paperwork that you had to redo all of it and go search for past files to ensure the information was correct. At this point, your girlfriends were getting worried as you were never the one to come home late without telling them. Three hours had passed since you were originally supposed to get home and out of worry and concern, Wanda calls you.

Breaking your concentration, your phone goes off. As you reach for the phone, you rub the tiredness out of your eyes and answer in a quiet voice, “Hey, Wans.”

“Y/N, baby, is everything okay?”

“Hm? Oh yeah, I should’ve texted you two earlier but my co-worker just had to leave for an emergency and I’m doing her paperwork, right now.”

“Oh, how much longer will you be there? You sound really tired, you’ve been working hard for the past month and you deserve a break.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve been redoing the calculations and double-checking the information again because there were so many issues with it. I just ca-”

“Okay..okay. Just take a deep breath and try to finish up the work soon, alright? Tasha and I miss you.”

You let out a light chuckle, “Mhmm, okay. I’ll try to be home soon. Love you.”

As Wanda bids her goodbye, you can hear Natasha’s faint voice in the background telling you to come home soon and that she loves you. Pressing the red button on your phone, you let your shoulders sag forward and rest your head on the table. Before grabbing your pen and going back to work, you groan and think about your girlfriends, both of them waiting for you to get home. That gives you a spark of motivation as now you are more determined to finish your work and get back to them as soon as possible.

Finally, after another two hours of work, you finished the paperwork. Letting out a yawn and listening to the pops from your back as you stretch it, you decide to grab your bag and leave. I’ll give her the paperwork and reorganize my office later. Heading to your car, you check the time on your watch, only for it to read “12:10am”. Once you get into the car, you lean your head against the steering wheel, wanting to go to sleep. You turn on some music in the hopes that it can keep you awake as you start the car and begin the journey home.

Upon arriving at the compound, you notice that most of the lights on your floor are turned off and your girlfriends are nowhere to be found. You assume that they’re probably in your shared bedroom, fast asleep considering how late it is. As you open the door, you find nothing; your girlfriends are still missing and there’s clothing on the bed. Turning on the lights, you make your way to the pile of clothing with a sticky note attached to it. “We’re sure you’re tired so change into these clothes and get comfy. Then, go to the place where we spend our late nights ;)” A small laugh escapes you as you think about how caring your girlfriends are. Within the next few minutes, you’re out of your work clothes and wearing Natasha’s hoodie paired up with Wanda’s sweatshirt. Both articles of clothing slightly baggy on you because they were always the type to have oversized clothes since “it provided maximum comfort” according to them. The stress slowly leaves your body as you make your way to the kitchen.

The overhead lights turn on and illuminate the kitchen to reveal a mess that resulted from impulsive baking, again, and a tray of brownies with another sticky note. Giggling to yourself, you think about all of the times the three of you shared late night baking sessions that always resulted in big messes and a lot of dirty dishes. Lost in your thoughts, you realize that you haven’t been able to bake with Wanda and Natasha due to all of the stress and work you’ve had for the past month. Shaking away those thoughts, you eye the brownies and pick up the sticky note reading, “Hey Y/N, you’re as sweet as these brownies <3. Bring a small container of them and go to the place where we had our first date.” Upon further inspection, you see a small scribble in Wanda’s handwriting, “PS. I made the brownies, don’t worry.” Laughing at the note and smiling fondly, you grab a couple brownies, put them into a container, and make your way to the living room.

Running your hand along the couch cushions, feeling the soft but slightly coarse texture on your fingertip, you remember your first date with Wanda and Natasha. What started out as a movie night with Natasha became a cuddling session with you sandwiched between your two favorite girls as Wanda joined you two. At this time, you were quickly coming to the realization that you had a crush on both of the women and that movie night solidified it. Once the movie had finished, the three of you had a talk and wanted to pursue a relationship together as three. Sitting on the couch, reminiscing in the memories, you notice a small yellow square on the coffee table in front of you. It captures your attention as you sit upright and reach to grab it. Tracing the words with your fingers, smiling at the small conversation happening on the paper.

*Wanda’s handwriting* “You know I always gave the best cuddles” 

*Natasha’s handwriting* “Hey! No, I did!!” 

*Wanda’s handwriting* “Hmm surrree Tasha. Anyways, come up to the roof, we have something for you :)”

Feeling your heart soar with happiness and adoration for the both of them, you push the sticky note into your hoodie pocket, hearing it crinkle against the other notes, and starting walking towards the staircase with the container of brownies in hand.

Within a few minutes, you reach the door to the roof and place your hand on the handle, unsure of what to expect. Taking a deep breath, you slowly push against the door and crane your head around it. This was not at all what you expected. The roof was softly illuminated by the string lights draped around a large picnic blanket with pillows, pasta, and best of all, your two lovely girlfriends: Natasha and Wanda. As you soak in the scene in front of you with eyes full of awe, Natasha gets up and quietly makes her way over to you. The red hair blocks your view as you feel Natasha’s hands grasp your shoulders. In a gentle voice, almost afraid to disturb the peacefulness, she tells you, “Hey, lyubov moya, we know you’ve been working hard and pulling late hours at the office for the past month. And I’m sure you were tired from having to stay late so Wanda and I wanted to prepare a relaxing evening for you, so you can destress and enjoy your long weekend.”

You look at her with watery eyes and bury your face into her shoulder, pulling her into a hug. Shocked by the sudden action, Natasha recovers and wraps her arms around you, gently stroking your hair as you mumble about how much you love them. At some point during the hug, Wanda joins in as you feel her chest pressing against your back. The two whisper words of praise as you take in the love that radiates from them. Freeing yourself from the sandwich and moving to hold their hands, you look at the both of them, overwhelmed with happiness and love, and say in a quiet voice, “Thank you both for doing all of this. I will never understand how lucky I am to have you two in my life. I love you, Wanda and Natasha.” They give you a fond smile, understanding how stressed you’ve been for the past month and knowing that this break was well deserved. Your girlfriends share a look as Natasha says, “Alright, let’s just cuddle and eat some pasta that Wanda cooked” and guide you to the picnic blanket. Settling in and sighing contently, you let your shoulders relax and forget about all of your stress and worries.

tag list (marvel): @imnotasuperhero​ @peggycarter-steverogers​

[dulce-pjm]

under the table

word count: 3.8k

genre: fluff

summary: you’re doing great! 100% amazing. a-okay! alright, no you’re not. but what does everyone say is the perfect cure for a heart that never had the chance to be broken? game night, of course! but knowing you, there will always be complications. 

You’re at peace. 

When things are like this, the universe is in harmony. You’re tucked away from the rest of the world, cuddled up under a blanket next to the thing most important to you, a relaxed smile across your face. You think you could spend the rest of your life here, content and happy. Safe. 

But you’ve never been particularly lucky. 

“The fuck is a board game club?”

“It’s fun, I promise!” Mina looks you up and down as she stands in the doorway of your bedroom. You know how you look, sprawled on your soft comforter in sweats and a grease-stained t-shirt. Your laptop sits beside you, a trashy drama playing in the background, while your hands are occupied with your phone and a large bowl of popcorn. 

“But I’m having fun now.” You gesture to your well-planned setup, grimacing when Mina turns the lights on. “Dude. Warning, please.” She sighs, stepping into the room with a stern look on her face. You can already feel your stubborn resolve slipping. 

Mina shuts your laptop and moves it aside, plopping onto the bed next to you. She takes your non-butter-coated hand in hers. 

“Y/N, I love you. But it’s Friday night. We haven’t gone out in a month. A month!” You glare, offended she’d bring up the subject. 

“Because you know what happened last time!” Mina opens her mouth to argue, but shuts it quickly. This discussion always goes the same direction anyway. 

“This won’t be like last time,” she reassures, taking the popcorn bowl from you, much to your dismay. “I promise. You like games! It’ll be fun and tonight we’re betting, so if you win you might even have some cash to take home.” 

“But I’m so happy here.” You cuddle your pillow childishly, puffing out your bottom lip. Mina is not amused. She sighs, massaging her temples. 

“I didn’t want to do this,” she begins. “But you owe me, remember?” You cock your head, no memory coming to mind. She sighs in exasperation. “You dragged me to that stupid dance class last semester! By the end I thought I was gonna puke!” You scoff. 

“Oh, puh-lease, you were practically drooling over the instructor. He was so hot I forgot about the pain. Too bad he has a girlfriend now. I stalked him on Instagram.” Mina laughs, a light tinkling sound compared to your usual guffawing, abrasive and obnoxious. 

“So… you’ll come?” You take a moment to think, despite already knowing your answer. You were too easy to guilt-trip, you knew. Too trusting, too. But Mina was right, you did owe her. You sigh. 

“Fine. I’ll come.” Mina’s entire face lights up as she cheers and hurries to her feet. Your joints creak as you heave your limbs off of the bed while Mina begins babbling instructions your way. 

You were rather talented at board games. And silly banter. You might even have a chance at walking away with the money. This will be fun, you assure yourself. 

“...So, yeah. Just bring ten bucks. And maybe change first.” Her eyes take one last glance at your outfit in light disgust. “Be ready in half an hour?”

“Mhmm,” you groan, stumbling to your closet. You sniff one of your old sweaters and when no ungodly stench meets you, you shrug it on in place of your tee. Mina thanks you before trotting out of the room, taking away your snack with her. 

This will be fun, this will be fun.

Or, at least it better be. You make a mental note that, if this goes south, you aren’t leaving this apartment for the next six months. 

After sprucing up your appearance and coating yourself with cheap perfume, you approach the supposed ‘board game club meeting’ (how the hell did that get approved, anyway?) with a newfound sense of confidence. Your smile is beaming, your shoulders are back and unbothered, your skin glowing. Wait, doesn’t that phrase mean you’re pregnant? You can’t remember. Not that pregnancy is even a remote possibility for you anyway. What with you never leaving the apartment and all.

You trail after Mina as she weaves through the library halls, before slowing in front of a corner study room. You’re astounded she made it here so easily, you had no idea this was even here. To your knowledge, this wing of the library was reserved for storage and staff. 

 Just as you’re about to follow her through the door, she spins to face you. 

“You know, I’ve been thinking and you know if you really don’t want to go-” 

“Oh my god, we’re here already! Let’s just go in!” You smile at her teasingly while she blushes. Despite how it might look to outsiders, you and Mina care about each other deeply. You appreciate how considerate she is of you.

 “Alrighty then!” She turns back around and throws open the door, drawing the greetings of everyone else in the room. Your eyes land on Mark, Mina’s boyfriend, who’s already shot to his feet and pulled Mina in for a kiss. 

You barely have time to scan the rest of the crowd before Mark’s wrapped you up in a hug, ruffling your hair. He’d always been friendly, definitely a little much for you. But his affectionate ways are perfect for Mina. 

“Hey! Didn’t expect to see you here.” He finally parts from you, allowing you room to breathe. You shrug sheepishly. 

“Well, here I am.” Your hands fidget nervously at the belt loops of your jeans. “So expect to lose.” Mark laughs, wrapping an arm around Mina. You suppress the part of you that’s immensely jealous of their easy-going relationship. You’ve never been able to achieve quite the same thing. Your relationships rarely lasted longer than a few months, at best. 

“I believe it. You always outplay me in Monopoly.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder. “But Yoongi might give you a run for your money.”

Your blood runs cold. Chills travel across your skin. A fire fueled by anger and embarrassment that had almost sputtered out over the past month is suddenly reignited, a blazing furnace beneath your face and chest. 

“What?” Mina’s smile becomes strained while you stand there, face void of emotion despite the thunderstorm raging inside. Her voice lowers to a harsh whisper. “I thought you said he wasn’t coming!” Mark, oblivious to the brewing conflict, smiles happily.

“Yeah, but his work thing got canceled, so I told him there was still plenty of room.” Pride beams off of his face. At any other time, Mina would congratulate him for his efforts to be inclusive and encouraging to their mutual friend. But right now, she was starting to be as panicked as you were pissed. 

Your mind is flooded with memories of fun conversation, casual flirting, and, ultimately, anxious nights spent staring at your phone screen, waiting for a very specific notification to appear. But it never did. You’re starting to see red. 

“God, Mark, I told you about this!” Mina turns to you, eyes frantic. “You know, if you just want to go back home, that’s okay. I’ll go with you, we can watch dramas and eat pizza and-”

“It’s fine,” you spit through clenched teeth. You force your fists to relax, allow a gentle smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes to settle across your lips. 

“A- Are you sure?” Mina touches your arm with concern, forcing you to tear your gaze away from a certain someone across the room. You shrug nonchalantly, forcing your smile to go wider. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“Y/N, you seriously don’t-”

“It’s fine, Mina.” She immediately clamps her mouth shut, knowing your will is set in stone by the harsh tone of your voice. She nods vigorously and steps back into the arms of a very confused Mark. 

“Okay, okay.” She puts up her hands defensively before smiling and facing the rest of the group. “Who’s ready to get started?” She’s met with cheers and smiles as Mark settles into a seat beside her and starts dealing cards, leaving one empty chair, across from Yoongi. 

You slide into it, meeting his intense gaze as he looks up from his phone. Not that it surprises you, but he appears exactly the same. He’s fucking gorgeous. His features are soft, yet when he meets your eyes with that piercing gaze and unreadable expression, he becomes sharp and intimidating. His greyish-brown locks just barely sit above his dark, umber eyes, effortlessly tousled. Even his taste is good, his outfit composed of a leather jacket and vintage band t-shirt, topped with a single hoop earring. 

God, he is so perfect. Was so perfect, until he’d ignited your unending anger. 

“Hey,” you mutter, words coming off much more bitter than intended. Whatever. It’s how you feel, anyways. 

“Hey,” he replies. “Been a while.” His eyes never leave yours. 

“Sure has.” Your nostrils flare against your will. “You doing alright? Gone on any more blind dates?” Yoongi’s lips twist into a scowl. 

“Can’t say I have. You were the one and only.” The staredown between you two could start wars. The negative energy you’re generating sends a chill down an unsuspecting Mark’s spine. 

Your brooding is interrupted when a shiny, white sticker is passed in front of you. 

“It’s a name tag!” Mina explains, looking between you two anxiously. “You can decorate it. It’s fun.” You internally roll your eyes at Mina’s not-so-sly attempt to break up your silent argument. 

You grab a stray pen to scribble your name, but just as the ink begins to meet the sticker, fingers tighten around your wrist. With his free hand, Yoongi takes the sticker from you, bringing it to his side of the table. 

“Let me do it. Your handwriting is shit.” You grimace. He isn’t wrong. You work to get your mind moving, you’re already behind in the insult-slinging. After a brief moment, Yoongi releases your wrist and snatches the pen from your fingertips, dipping his head to start writing. 

“So are your dialing abilities.” Yoongi pauses, his eyes lifting, a poorly built facade of confusion masking what you’re sure is smug pride. The little shit. 

“What?” he asks curiously, pen lowering. 

“You heard me.” You cross your arms and lean back in your seat, as if daring him to challenge you. This asshole had the nerve to pretend he enjoyed your company despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, treat you to a nice date, not call you ever again, NOT EVER CALL YOU AGAIN, and then pretend he didn’t know what you were talking about? God, you’d really dodged a bullet there. Or, you would have. If Yoongi had picked up the damn phone and taken a shot in the first place. 

After a few seconds, a smirk plays on his lips and he shakes his head, returning to the sticker. 

“I see you and Yoongi are acquainted!” Mark comments, throwing an arm over your shoulder while blissfully unaware of the situation. Oh, to be pretty and ignorant. “He’s a monster at Risk, let me tell you. He could probably take over the world if he really wanted to. Most of the time, he’s the lucky guy walking away with the payout.” Yoongi shrugs, eyes still focused on the project before him. 

“Or you guys just suck.” Mark laughs, the boisterous sound rattling from his chest. 

“Either way, he’s the guy to beat.” You nod in understanding as a plan hatches in your mind. You rub your hands together, not unlike a cartoon villain. Your fixed smile becomes slightly crazed and Cheshire cat-like. 

Interesting. Very interesting. So, if you were to, perhaps, theoretically, make some private bets and win this game night, Yoongi would be out a shit ton of money? Now that sounded like fun, Mina be damned. Screw closure and moving on, revenge is much more gratifying. 

When Yoongi finishes your nametag, you slap it on your sweater without so much as a glance, oblivious to the way his face falls. 

If it took every fiber of your being, you were going to beat Yoongi’s ass, steal his money, and never ever see him again. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Fuck!

How was it possible for somebody to be good at Candyland?! The game’s pure goddamn luck. But here Yoongi was, having claimed victory for three out of the six games played so far (you claiming the other three) and being well on his way to winning the seventh and final game: Uno. 

You, Yoongi, and Mina are down to three cards each, while Mark and the other participants are too caught up in rambunctious conversation to care that they’re losing terribly. 

Mistakes have been made. You had egged Yoongi on into raising the bets between you two from ten to fifty dollars. And now you were fearing you’d lose. But your will was still strong, refusing to give up so easily. And where there was a will, there were Draw Four cards. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Y/N?” Yoongi groans, reaching to draw from the pile. But at the last second, his fingers flicker back to his hand, slapping his own Draw Four card onto the table. You sigh, banging your head against the table without an ounce of embarrassment or true anger. That time had long passed. Now you were just exasperated. 

Mina cries out in protest, but having nothing to counter with, she begrudgingly draws eight, eliminating her from the close race between you and Yoongi, having two cards each. Yoongi smiles apologetically, making you laugh quietly to yourself. 

When he wasn’t being an ass, Yoongi still made pleasant company. He was nice and sarcastic and introspective, never failing to add something new to the conversation. Despite your initial resolve, you’d found yourself opening up to him once again, obnoxiously cracking your own jokes and telling wild stories from your past experiences. Whenever Yoongi smiled or laughed at you, your heart soared. If only he had called you back, things could be different. 

But they weren’t. This is a war now. A war you intend to win. 

“What are you doing?” The question startles you from the goofy selfie you’re taking as you wait for the play to make its way around the table. You set down your phone, ignoring the way that, in the picture, your eyes are straight ahead, meeting Yoongi’s, rather than directed at the camera.

“Texting my nephew.” Yoongi cocks his head, brows furrowing. “He’s five and has a tablet for some godforsaken reason. We just send each other pictures of ourselves making stupid faces back and forth. It’s silly.” You don’t know why you’re suddenly sheepish, heat rising to your face. It’s probably the bad air conditioning in this place. Yoongi’s confused expression melts into a soft smile, making the furnace beneath your cheeks blaze hotter. 

“Cute,” he murmurs.

“What?” He shrugs, taking a sip at his soda. Your eyes narrow. What kind of game is he playing? Does he think flirting with you will distract you from the mission at hand? Because if so, he’s an absolute idiot. 

“You’re an idiot!” you’re yelling just a few minutes later. Yoongi’s practically cackling from across the table, clutching his middle with one hand, the other holding just one card. You still had two, but no matter. It’s pretty unlikely he’ll be able to play his hand anyway. “The cookie is the backbone of the entire Oreo! Without it, the whole experience is ruined! Don���t disregard it so easily.” Yoongi only snickers more, his gums peeking out from behind his massive smile. He’s enjoying the way you get riled up so easily, how quickly he can get under your skin with the most meaningless of words. 

“It doesn’t even taste good, Y/N. The least they could do is make it taste like sugar, since that’s practically all an Oreo is.” You roll your eyes. 

“That ruins the whole balance. The only thing you could possibly add to an Oreo to make it better is peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter?” Yoongi leans forward in interest and slight disgust. You nod assuredly, finding yourself leaning forward as well.

“Trust me, it’ll change your life.” Yoongi looks at you earnestly. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s you that’s the life-changer.” Your eyebrows pop upward, jaw momentarily dipping open before you snap it shut. No. No. You’re not falling for this again. You scoff and fall back into the incredibly uncomfortable chair, which only makes Yoongi smile proudly. 

“Y/N, it’s your turn.” Mark nudges you and you barely acknowledge him, slapping your blue four onto the pile easily. 

Yoongi looks at you oddly, lolling his head to the side. 

“What?” you snap, giving him your best glare.

“You’re done with your turn?” he asks, expression turning slightly concerned. God, he was such a fucking tease. 

“Yes I’m done, you dipshit. Play your turn.” You glance at your phone screen, seeing several notifications from your nephew and a scolding text from your sister for encouraging his behavior. 

Yoongi sighs, drawing his card when he can’t play. When you glance up, there’s a smirk on his face once again.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Yoongi’s smirk deepens. 

“You didn’t say ‘Uno.’” You stare at Yoongi. He starts to snicker again. 

“Fuck!” you shout, ignoring Mina’s many comments about ‘language!’ and ‘non-competitive dialogue!’ Yoongi laughs in your face, not even bothering to cover his mouth and try to spare you. You’re about to go ballistic, your fists clenched as Yoongi does the favor of drawing four for you, sliding them in front of you. God, you hate him. 

In the end, neither of you wins. Some freshman with glasses you didn’t know took the victory, teasing his apparent girlfriend for losing. Who even let freshmen in here, anyway? The participants decide that the winnings will be divided between you and Yoongi, since you both won three games, and the mini-bet between the two of you becomes null, with neither of you able to fully stake your claim.

But you’re the one who’s really been defeated. You couldn’t even succeed in getting a second date with this guy, what made you think you could beat him in board games?

You give Yoongi a small, meek nod before standing to go. Mina left with Mark already after double and triple-checking that you were okay to walk home alone. You make for the door, open the handle as unexpected tears threaten to prick at your eyes. 

You’re so pathetic. You’d let a fucking blind date get you so upset you’d barely left your apartment in the past month except to go to class. Could you really be faulted? You hadn’t had so much fun with someone in your entire life. You could feel the connection, the spark, between the two of you. You were certain this was the one that would last. So you took the leap, gave him your number, proposed a second date. But he never called you. Not once. 

You’re unlikable. Unlovable. You don’t deserve to win game night, let alone to win at life or relationships or-

“Y/N, wait up.” Yoongi’s found his way next to you as you trudge out of the library, staring straight ahead. 

Great.

“What is it, Yoongi?” You shoot him a dark look, only to find his ears tinged pink and his hand awkwardly scratching his scalp. 

“Well, uh, I was thinking.” The sentence ends, thought hanging unfinished in the air. 

“You were… thinking?” Yoongi jolts, like he’d forgotten you were here. His eyes never meet yours, contrary to his crude confidence from before. 

“Yeah! And, um-” He sighs, taking a deep inhale through his nose. “I think we should use the money we won and go on a second date.”

What.

“What?” You’re openly gaping at him now. “Why?!”

“Because I really enjoyed our first date and I’d like another one.” You’re running out of air, sputtering on your breath. 

“But- But you didn’t even call me! I asked you out and now you suddenly change your mind?” After an excruciating moment, Yoongi’s eyes meet yours, panicked rather than unreadable. The image is unsettling and unfamiliar. You’re starting to feel dizzy. 

“Because you gave me a fake number!” You gawk at him in confusion. “Or that’s what I thought, until you were talking earlier and I put it all together.” He grins, seemingly finding his confidence again. “Your shitty handwriting made me misread your number. I almost thought it was on purpose until now, that you just wanted to get rid of me. But it was all a misunderstanding.”

The weight of his words settles on your shoulders, making your head spin. All a misunderstanding? All those stupid tears and endless nights over… a misunderstanding? You could laugh. You do, actually. The sound makes Yoongi jump as the two of you step outside, the night oddly warm despite the time nearly reaching midnight. A stupid, dopey grin spreads across your face. 

Yoongi doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t think you’re stupid or unlikable. You’d done everything right, well, almost everything right. It’s humorous, really. 

“So, uh… What do ya say? Tomorrow? Seven?” You smirk. 

“Bold of you to assume I’m free.” Yoongi’s grinning too, enjoying the casual banter significantly more than the way his face grew flushed and he couldn’t seem to spit out what he wanted to say. 

“Well, then cancel your plans.” His eyes flash wildly and you giggle childishly, taking delight in his antics. You nod, your cheeks beginning to ache. 

“Tomorrow at seven.” Yoongi grins as you prepare to go your separate ways. 

“Tomorrow at seven.” You spin and begin walking the other way, but not before Yoongi can call after you again. 

“What?” You laugh, yelling at him from down the sidewalk, the streetlamps barely illuminating his figure. 

“Check your nametag! And text me when you’re home so I know you’re safe!” You laugh again. 

“I don’t even have your number, dipshit!” Yoongi sighs loudly, the sound echoing down the empty street. 

“Just check the fucking nametag!” 

“Fine, fine!” You giggle as you peel the sticker off your shirt. Your giggle intensifies when you see its contents. 

Along with your name, Yoongi decided to draw a small picture that you could only assume was you, composed of an angry face, frazzled hair, and devil horns. And in the bottom right corner is a string of digits. You’re grinning from ear to ear as you stare at the piece of paper. You tell yourself to find a safe place to keep it when you get home. 

“Goodnight, Y/N!” he shouts, figure fading farther in the distance. 

“Goodnight!” 

You practically skip home, your body singing with adrenaline and joy. 

You muse that your world might never be in balance or harmony, not in your lifetime, anyway. 

But with you beside Yoongi, you thought it’d be pretty damn close. 

[bracefacefreak]

So I just finished the first fic I have written in AGES and the first thing I’ve ever written for TMA, so I thought I’d post it here. 

It’s an alternate take on S3 from about MAG 98 in which Nikola kidnaps Martin, not Jon. Basically very angsty with some realisation of feelings and implied canon-typical violence because I like to make my boys suffer apparently. May write more if I feel like it but for now this is just a peek at my idea. 

CW: implied violence, knife violence, strongly implied graphic violence, implied blood, implied skinning, captivity and kidnapping, restraints, stalking. 

I cut you a piece of me 

also available on ao3 

“Martin? Tim?”

Jon pokes his head out of his office, tired eyes squinting through murky lenses to try and make out anything moving amongst the shelves and teetering boxes. A chill creeps up his spine, the sensation akin to the slow tickle of spider’s legs over his skin. It makes his stomach turn; the sour taste of bile rises at the back of his throat. A light flickers somewhere on the other side of the archives. It is brief, likely nothing more than some dodgy wiring - or a plastic body passing in front of a bulb. Jon bites down, catching his tongue between his teeth.

His fingers twist in the wool of the cardigan he wears, tugging at the well-worn fibres as if they are some sort of lifeline. The garment is too big on him, the fabric spilling over his shoulders and bunching in thick folds around his wrists. He had found it shoved under a shelving unit in document storage, the crumpled, butter-yellow lump too inviting to ignore. It has quickly become a comfort for him during long nights in his office poring over statements, something soft and warm to counteract the increasingly dark world he finds himself inhabiting. He pulls it tight around him, but finds today it offers little more than a thin veneer of safety.

CLUNK.

He starts.

His eyes flick towards the stacks to his left, scouring the shadows that rest heavily between the shelves. The noise comes again, more drawn out this time and followed by a series of metallic taps. It doesn’t take much imagination to hear the snap of huge, mechanical jaws in the rhythmic sound.

Jon swallows thickly.

“Martin? I-is that you?”

The hollow clang comes again; this time Jon is able to trace it to somewhere above. Lifting his eyes, he half-expects to see a grinning plastic face staring down at him from the highest shelves. Instead, he is met by the sight of decrepit pipes, quivering slightly as the ancient heating system struggles against the pervasive chill. His shoulders droop as the pipes rattle in reassurance.

Slowly, he turns back to the original source of his suspicion, staring down the narrow walkway that leads to the assistant’s office and break-room.

Beneath the occasional clang of the heating, the archive is silent, still.

But he could have sworn he’d heard footsteps earlier: the soft shuffle of shoes over carpet and the squeak of the bottom stair that no-one seems bothered enough to fix, despite the numerous emails Jon has sent to maintenance. He had been recording a statement, one from the early 2000s about disappearances from a travelling funhouse, when he had heard it. He was certain. But then again…He takes a shaking breath; could this just be his rearing its ugly head?

No.

NO.

He was over that.

He knew what he had heard. Jon squares his shoulders, knowing that his small stature and bright yellow cardigan will hardly strike fear into the heart of any evil creature that has managed to get into the Institute. He pulls the pen out of his hair anyway. It will not be much use if it comes to a struggle, but it is better than nothing.

Measured steps lead Jon across the archive floor.

He calls out in a tight voice, rising to shrill at the end.

“Melanie?”

His pulse thuds in his ears.

“Tim? Basira?"

Sweat coats his palms and pools in the well of his clavicle, turning cold and tacky.

“Martin?”

He rounds a corner and is greeted by three empty desks.

Since arriving, Melanie has settled at Sasha’s old desk; it no longer bears its previous look of organised chaos but is strewn with shredded paper, a few crumpled fast-food wrappers, and pages covered in black scribbles that are indecipherable to Jon. It sends a pang of grief through him that echoes around the empty space where Sasha’s memory should be.

Tim’s desk is clear, no work having been done there in months.

And Martin’s is….

Jon frowns.

Next to an empty mug and a collection of pastel fine-liners Martin sometimes uses to make notes, is a cassette tape. It is unmarked, the brand different from any he has seen before in the archive. Jon reaches for it, hesitates, and then snatches it up. He turns it over in his hands, the shape and weight familiar. Something is building beneath his skin, fizzing, crackling, a flurry of static that rises and rises the longer he holds the tape. It calls to him. The white noise is a siren song drawing him in until he is moving towards his office and the tape recorder he keeps on his desk. His hands shake as he pushes the tape into place and snaps the recorder shut. For a moment the world narrows down to the feeling of the play button beneath his finger, its weight as he presses down, the soft whir-like a sigh-as the tape begins to play.

“Hello, my dear archivist.”

The saccharine voice that spews from the tape washes away the frantic desperation that had sent him scurrying to his office like a starving dog. He shivers, the memory of hard plastic hands around his throat making it hard to breathe.

The Eye drinks in this flash of terror, consuming it with abandon.

“It’s so luvely to be able to talk again. I was hoping to see you in person but ….I’m sure we’ll get to that later.”

There’s a tinkling laugh; the sound of fairground chimes, or blood dripping on porcelain.

“I thought now would be a good time to check in about that old skin you’re supposed to be getting for us. Not that I really need to. I am having you followed. It’s not because I don’t trust you but…well, I don’t trust you and I want to be sure that when you find it you don’t do anything silly. It is very powerful after all. I have to say, little archivist, I’m mighty….disappointed….by your lack of progress. It’s been a week now and nothing and I am on a bit of a deadline, you know. The world won’t dance itself new on its own.”

Nikola stops with a breathy gasp.

Jon waits, fingers clenched in the sleeves of his too-big cardigan.

He can make out the creak of plastic, followed by what sounds like a heavy door being opened. He leans in, straining to hear the dull thud of feet on stone. The jaunty melody of carousel music lingers in the background, ever-present and just flat enough to set his teeth on edge.

“Unfortunately for you, that means I need to up the stakes a little. We can’t have you getting complacent, that just won’t do.”

Another grating sound, metal against concrete and then a jumble of muffled grunts, almost as if someone is trying to speak against restraints.

“Do try and keep him quiet.”

Nikola hisses to someone whose response Jon cannot hear.

Something coils in his gut, cold and heavy.

“He spotted one of us outside the Institute one evening, tried to follow us. A rather stupid move if you ask me. You may want to rethink your hiring strategy.”

The mumbling intensifies.

Jon feels sick. His stomach churns, a deep sense that something is very wrong knotting up his insides.

“He seems awfully fond of you, I must say, putting himself in all that danger to try and keep you safe. What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion, little archivist?”

He shakes his head, trying to speak around the hard lump in his throat even though he knows Nikola can not hear him.

“P-pl…”

“Would you like to say hello?”

There is a painful ripping sound, then a scraping and a few ragged breaths.

The cold dread in Jon’s gut begins to unfurl, spreading out, freezing him to his chair.

“Jon?”

His heart stutters.

“Jon, p-please….please…d-don’t…”

Martin’s familiar voice, shaking and edged with panic, erupts from the speaker like a scream.

The copper tang of blood spills over his tongue. He looks down, realising he’s been biting his knuckle so hard his skin has split. Even as he watches the blood pool and trickle down his fingers, he feels no pain.

Nikola laughs again, something knife-sharp behind the sweetness.

Jon is cold, so cold, even beneath his tea-scented cardigan. His hands are like ice as he claws at the tape recorder, smearing blood over the plastic casing. He is not sure what he’s trying to do, his thoughts too muddled. He thinks he may be trying to reach through to wherever they are, to wherever Martin is.

“You see archivist, now we have some collateral. So, if you don’t manage to find that ancient relic, well….shall we have a demonstration?”

A strangled whimper is all Jon can manage as he listens to the squeak of plastic fingers, the tearing of fabric, the clear zhing of a blade. His eyes lock onto the tape recorder, transfixed with horror as he hears Martin grunt and then…..

Jon has never heard screaming like that before.

It cuts through him, reverberating down to his bones and settling in his marrow, so deep he will never be rid of it.

At the same time, it drowns him. Each new cry washes over him, relentless, never giving him time to breathe. He is suffocating beneath the sound, helpless and guilt-ridden, hands twitching as if trying to pull himself up for air. He can’t think, can’t speak, can’t breathe – chest too tight, pulse racing. His vision swims, blackness creeping in from the edges as Martin screams and screams and screams.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, cold tears spilling down his cheeks. He presses his hands over his ears, but no matter how hard he tries he cannot escape it.

It feels like a lifetime before the screaming begins to quiet and an eternity until Nikola speaks again, high and airy.

“Impressive. That was even through a gag. What fun we’re going to have!”

A sob fills the silence, faint and broken. Jon matches it with his own.

Somewhere the Eye swells and glows in gluttonous satisfaction. Jon can feel it preening, brimming over with stolen terror. He shoves it away in disgust.

“Lucky for us there’s plenty of him to use.”

Something slaps wetly. There’s a squelch, like fingers being shoved into dough.

Jon retches.

“This will make a luvely pair of gloves, don’t you think?”

He doubles over, heaving dryly into his wastepaper bin, for once glad he didn’t have lunch. Sweat beads at his hairline, spots dancing in front of his eyes as he gasps around the convulsions of his nauseated body.

“Now now archivist, no point getting upset. The sooner you find us the gorilla skin the more of your assistant there will be left. I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. Goodbye.”

The voice fades, leaving only panting breaths and pained groans before the recording ends with an abrupt click.

Jon lets it run on while he struggles to find a rhythm to his breathing. The background whir is a comfort, something to dampen the horrific shrieking that still rings in his ears.

Guilt sits heavy on his shoulders, a deadweight. First Sasha and now Martin. How many more people will he fail before the end? Who else will have to suffer because of him? He curls himself up in his chair and tries to consider what he should do, but his thoughts either will not come or fly past too fast to crystalise into an actual plan. Eventually, he gives in to the lingering heaviness of his limbs and the hollowness in his chest and he cries.

---

He isn’t sure how long he sits there.

The tape finally finishes and cuts off with a burst of static and the pop of the play button.

He is sat in silence when Basira finds him, folded up and trying to ignore the screams in his head. Her firm footsteps alert Jon to her presence as he can barely see out of his tear-swollen eyes. Her breathing pauses as she takes a moment to assess the situation.

Jon can picture the scene clearly: he sits, knees to his chest, hands tangled in his greying hair. The tape recorder perches haphazardly on the edge of his desk, smeared with blood that has dried a rich, rust colour. There are gouges in the surface of his desk and matching splinters beneath his fingernails.

“Jon?”

He thrusts out an arm, knocking Basira’s hand out of the way. The tape recorder falls to the floor with a crack, the cassette flies out, magnetic tape spooling on the floor. He stares at it for a moment. At least now she cannot….will not….and he does not have to either.

“Jon!?”

Her voice is clipped, hard. There is no room for argument or bullshit, no hint of concern. He would expect nothing less of Basira, and he has always respected her bluntness and the ability to bury her emotions so she can get the job done. As much as he would like to believe he can do the same, he knows it is a lie. Today has just proven that.

“Jon!?”

He opens his mouth to answer but only manages a strangled whine, which devolves into a sob. He takes a shuddering breath before trying again.

“M-“

It hurts. His throat is raw, almost as if he has been the one screaming. He is not entirely sure he hasn’t been. No one would have heard him all the way down here. He thinks Elias meant for it to be that way.

“Ma-“

The name sticks in his throat, coats his tongue with a sour taste, and lodges itself behind his teeth. He can not say it….does not deserve to say it…Nikola’s words repeat in his head, over and over.

What on earth did you ever do to deserve such devotion?

Jon thinks of all the times he has berated Martin, the mornings he has purposefully left his tea undrunk just to spite him, the cold manner he has used to decline every offer of help or comfort. And still, Martin had smiled, had rinsed out his mug and stubbornly left another on his desk made to his exact taste, had even pushed himself to research the Vittery case, almost risking his life just to try and get a good word out of his boss.

Martin, who writes poetry that overflows with tender melancholy. Martin, who had stayed up into the early hours with Jon while he had been staying in the archives, somehow aware that Jon was alone and afraid. Martin, who had persuaded the ECDC to hand over a jar of Prentiss’ ashes so he would feel safe. Martin, who had made it his mission to ensure Jon got at least one hot meal a day. Martin, who had lied on his CV to help his ailing mum. Martin, with his mop of curls and goofy smile and stupid hipster glasses and…oh…Martin....

Jon buries his nose into the yellow wool at his shoulder, inhaling the faded scent of Early Grey and spearmint toothpaste and lavender laundry detergent. It only leaves him feeling emptier.

Nothing, he wants to shout in reply to Nikola’s question, less than nothing!

“JON! What's going on?”

He sniffs, lifting his eyes to stare blankly down at the ruined tape recorder.

Basira’s gaze flicks to the device, before landing back on Jon.

He shivers, licking his parched lips and forcing the words out, voice cracked and tight.

“M-Martin….I-I need to f-find Martin.”

[cozy-the-overlord]

Dances and Daggers

Summary:   The Summer Festival is upon Asgard, as is the tradition of the dagger ceremony, where each unmarried gentleman chooses a lady to bestow with the honor of carrying his dagger for the night. As Prince Thor’s betrothed, Teki’s only goal is to accept his dagger with grace and hope that her violent stepfather doesn’t find fault with her in the process. But Prince Thor is unpredictable, and when he ignores his engagement on a whim Teki finds herself in a desperate situation. Luckily, Thor isn’t the only prince in Asgard…

Pairing: Loki x Original Female Character

Chapter 6: The Discovery

Previous Chapter |  Next Chapter

Word Count: 1,824

Chapter Summary:  So what’s in the box?

A/N: This one's also pretty short ... I promise we'll be getting back to longer chapters soon!

Thanks for reading! :)

TW: mentions of child abuse, threats of violence

Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae

if you want to be tagged, just send me an ask! :)

Read it on Ao3!

Teki stood outside the classroom, pulling at her sash anxiously. Her head ached with exhaustion. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night.

Her father had left years ago, before she could read words, before Brant had ever been born. He packed up his things and was gone without a trace. Except… there was a trace. Hidden in her mother’s liquor cabinet, for goodness knows how long. Teki had stared up at the pearl ceiling all night, her mind racing. What was in that box? What had her father left behind?

Her mother was going meet up with some ladies after breakfast, and Osvald said he’d be leaving as well, so Teki had spent the meal tapping her foot under the table as she waited for them to go. As soon as the door slammed closed, she was on top of the chair and scrambling for the key.

Brant watched from the floor with a frightened curiosity.

“What if Daddy finds out?” he whispered.

She pulled the metal box out from its hiding place behind the bottles. “He won’t.”

“But Teki, he always finds out.”

Her brother was right, but at the moment Teki couldn’t allow herself to think of like that. She ran her fingers over the engraving. Steinn. The name came alive every time she read it. Steinn. It didn’t matter what was in the box, she realized. This was proof enough—proof that her father had existed in a realm beyond her memory. Her eyes prickled with tears.

Brant was frowning. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.” She shook the box, the contents rattling against its metallic walls. There was definitely something in there. Teki picked at the lock. It didn’t budge.

“There has to be a key for this somewhere,” she muttered. Standing on her tiptoes, she scanned the top of the liquor cabinet, but found nothing.

Her brother pulled at her skirt. “Teki, he’s going to be mad!”

Teki hesitated. She couldn’t go tearing apart the apartment searching for a key the size of her fingernail. She’d surely be caught before even coming close to finding it. But… she had to unlock this box. It was a need that burned deep in her soul, something she didn’t have the words to articulate.

“Oh, is that all? I can handle that.”

Her mouth dropped open at the realization.

The maid she had run into in the royal wing of the palace had directed her to a classroom on the opposite side of the building, and so now she stood outside the door, waiting apprehensively for Prince Loki’s lesson to end.

Would he even care to help her? Her dismissal of him had been rather abrupt the day before. She couldn’t shake the image of him flinching as she snapped at him. Maybe he wouldn’t want to—

Teki was startled from her worries when the classroom door belched open to release an onslaught of children. She took an abrupt step back. At first, she didn’t see the prince in the crowd, her anxiety racing back full force. Am I at the wrong room? Is he not here? But after a moment, he slipped out of the classroom as well, emerald eyes staring blankly into the distance. He would’ve walked right past her if she hadn’t spoken

“Prince Loki?” she asked, stepping forward.

Loki turned around, eyes widening in surprise. “Teki? What—I mean—” he bowed. “Forgive me, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“No, it’s all right. I—” she faltered. “I was wondering. Could you—could you possibly help me with something?” Her cheeks burned. How pathetic was she, waiting outside his class to beg for a favor? He must have thought her truly pitiful.

But to her surprise, Loki’s eyes lit up. “Of course, anything!”

He followed her back to her rooms, listening intently as she explained the situation. He seemed absolutely fascinated.

“So, your mother has never mentioned that she had this?” he asked as they reached her apartment.

“No!” Teki replied. It was… odd, to be talking about her father so openly, but there was something relieving about it. It was as if the cord that bound her heart for so long had finally been loosened. “But she never talks about him at all. She used to get mad when I brought him up.”

“Do you have any idea what is in it?”

“None.” She pushed open the door. “I thought he took everything he had with him when he left.”

Brant was sitting on the floor of the sitting room. At the sound of the door, he jumped up nervously, but his face broke out into a wide grin once he recognized Teki’s guest.

“Prince Loki!” he cried excitedly. “Are you here to give me wings?”

Loki laughed softly. “I’m afraid I’m still working on that front,” he said. “But I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as I have.”

He followed them into the dining area. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Can I help?”

“You know what you can do?” Teki steered him back into the sitting room. “You can stay here and keep guard. If you hear anybody coming, you come tell us.” Brant huffed, but still sat back down obediently.

With her brother occupied, she brought Loki to the liquor cabinet, where she had hastily returned the box before leaving to find the prince.

“Here it is,” she said, handing it to him. Loki studied it, turning it in his hands just as she had last night.

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “I think this is Midgardian.”

Her heart sank. “Does that mean you can’t open it?”

“No, no, I can. It’s just strange. You just don’t see much from Midgard around here.” He looked up at her, excitement glinting in his green eyes. “Are you ready?”

Teki’s voice caught in her throat. She could only nod.

He flicked his wrist. With a click, the metal lid popped loose. For a moment, they just stared at it.

Loki held it towards her. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. When did the air get so heavy?  With trembling hands, she lifted the lid and turned it on its hinge. They peered over the edge with bated breath.

The musty scent of secrets long forgotten greeted them.

Loki frowned. “What the Hel?” Atop the stack of yellowed documents were two small glass vials, one empty, one sealed and filled with a deep burgundy liquid. Delicately, he lifted the full vial between his forefinger and his thumb, watching it slosh around as he shook it.

“Your father wasn’t a potion-maker, was he?” he asked.

Teki barely heard him. Slowly, as if she were underwater, she reached out to pick up the faded leather journal that rested besides the vials. She stared at it in her hands, like something out of a dream.

The prince followed her gaze. “What is it?”

“It’s—it can’t—” she flipped through the pages, drinking in the familiar script. “This is my father’s journal.” He had kept it with him wherever he went, always at the ready to scribble down some new melody or idea. When he was writing, he’d keep it balanced on the music shelf of the piano as he played, changing a note or two, testing out new sounds. How did that sound, Teki? Did you like that part better or worse?

Teki blinked furiously. “He took this everywhere with him,” she whispered. There was a deep, primal sort of panic building in her chest. She felt as if she might be choking. “Everywhere. Why would she have it? Why wouldn’t he take it with him?”

Loki looked as though he was about to say something when Brant scrambled in, pale as a ghost.

“He’s coming!” he hissed. “Daddy’s coming!”

Already?!

She slammed the box closed without thinking to return the journal. “You can’t be here!” she whispered frantically to Loki as she ripped it from his hands and shoved it back into the liquor cabinet. “The window! In my room!” She knew she couldn’t be making much sense, but Loki understood. He dashed out of the room, disappearing up the stairs just as the front door opened.

It was only then that she realized she was still holding her father’s journal in her hand. Teki barely had time to shove it under her sash and cross her arms atop it before Osvald strode into the room. She quickly dropped her gaze to the floor.

He glared. “What are you doing?”

Her fingers traced the outline of the journal under the fabric. Please don’t let him see it. “Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing?”

“I was just going to help Brant with his reading.” Her voice was trembling more than it should. Keep it together. Keep it together.

Osvald snorted. “You and your fucking reading.” He walked past her into the room, smacking her bottom as he went. Teki flinched. “Well, get to it.”

She fled to her bedroom.

Brant was huddled next to her window, face pressed against the glass. Loki was nowhere to be seen.

“Did he leave?” she whispered. Brant nodded, pointing to the ground. Teki followed his gaze. The prince was standing on the ground, just below her window, brow furrowed in concern. When he saw her looking, he visibly relaxed. He motioned towards her, then towards her apartment. Are you all right?

Did… did he linger just to make sure she was safe? Warmth flooded her chest, soothing her racing heart. Teki smiled and nodded, waving him away. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.

Loki grinned, giving her an exaggerated bow before he left. My lady.

Chuckling, Teki sank to the ground, back against the wall. But the lightheartedness was quick to fade. Her father’s journal rested heavily against her torso. She pulled it from her sash, cradling it against her chest. It shouldn’t be here. It should have been out traveling the universe at her father’s side, not locked away to rot in a liquor cabinet. She didn’t understand.

“What’s that?” whispered Brant, pointing at the journal.

She glanced at her half-brother. Did he even know about her father? He certainly wasn’t a topic that came up in casual conversation.

“It belonged to my father,” she said carefully.

He frowned. “Daddy?” he asked, motioning towards the stairs.

“No, not him. My daddy. My real daddy.” There was an ache in her heart as she tried to explain. How many years had she spent playing along with the charade that her father had never existed? How many times had she allowed herself to be introduced as Tekla Osvalddottir? There was a reason Brant didn’t know of him, and part of that reason was her.

Brant cocked his head in confusion. “Your daddy?” he asked. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” She inhaled slowly. Underneath the journal, a newfound determination was burning in her heart. “But I’m going to find out.”

[kpophours]

The Shape of You

➵ The Boyz: Sunwoo x fem. reader / one shot, soulmate AU, college AU / fluff

➵ warnings: slight cursing

➵ word count: 2.8k

You curse under your breath, dragging the pencil over the paper in front of you, adding two more lines to your drawing. Your fingers begin to cramp, but you try to push through the slight pain, desperate to finish this today. Suddenly, your door bursts open, making you jump and squeal, pencil falling from your hand. You quickly scan your drawing and sigh in relief when you see you didn’t mess it up. You swivel in your chair to glare at your roommate and best friend, the person responsible for giving you a miniature heart attack, but her bright smile makes you soften immediately. “I made dinner!”, she says, wiping her hands on the pink apron she’s wearing, the bold red lettering reading ‘don’t judge, I’m not a professional cook’ - you gave it to her last Christmas, and it makes you smile every time you see it, the quote an inside joke between you two, “I already called you a few times but I guess you’ve been too absorbed in your work.” You return her smile and nod. “Yeah, sorry. I really want to finish this tonight.”, you explain, and she crosses the room to peer over your shoulder, her eyes taking in the soft lines and dark shadows of your drawing, “What- no, who is that? Is that… Is that him?”, Hannah asks, and tilts her head to one side. You shrug, cheeks heating up. “Yeah, that’s the face I’ve been seeing in my dreams. It has been less blurry these last few nights, and I can finally remember more details.”, you murmur, fingers gently tracing the outlines of the face you’ve been trying to draw.

A sharp jawline, dark hair falling into incredibly big, deep eyes. You’ve been seeing small glimpses of this face in your dreams for years now - not every night, but more often than not. During most of those nights nights, his face has been turned away from you, sometimes you had been able to see glimpses of his profile, or just his smile - but most mornings, the details had quickly faded from your memory again. The boy of your dreams - and you don’t mean this in a sappy, corny way, but quite literally - has been haunting you in blurred lines and vague shapes for half your life now. But this morning, it’s finally been different, this morning you were able to recall his beautiful big eyes, deep with warmth and mischief. The rest of the face is still blurry, but you have the feeling you’ll soon be able to recall more and more details.

“I’m still glad my soulmate tell was so much easier than yours.”, your best friend says, her hand coming to rest on your shoulder. You smile up at her, tracing the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. You know the same one is gracing the wrist of her soulmate and boyfriend Chanyeol. They were lucky enough to find each other during their first week of college, after they quite literally ran into each other - Hannah spilling her coffee all over Chanyeol’s favorite shirt. You still remember how your best friend had come home that night, eyes shining, cheeks bright, her smile never leaving her face. Till this day, you still don’t fully comprehend how utterly perfect her and Chanyeol are for each other - even though you shouldn’t be surprised, soulmates usually make perfect couples. Of course not everyone always finds their soulmate - some also have “normal” relationships. Some meet their soulmates only very late in life, some very early on. It’s different for everyone - just like the soulmate tells are different for each person. But Hannah’s right, matching tattoos are way easier to figure out than seeing each other in dreams, especially when the dreams fade way too quickly in the morning, or the person you’re supposed to see is just a vague, blurry shape. 

“I hope I’ll be able to remember more of his face from now on. Maybe this means he’s… he’s closer to me now?”, you say, trying not to sound too hopeful. Hannah squeezes your shoulder. “I’m sure it does. Come on, let’s eat now - I made your favorite tonight.”, she answers gently, and you immediately jump up. “Why didn’t you say so?”, you tease her, and she laughs, following you out of your room and into the kitchen. 

As soon as you open your eyes, you reach towards your nightstand to grab the notebook and pencil you placed there last evening. This morning, you’re finally able to remember the exact curve of his smile, so you scribble frantically, trying to fit the bright smile into the drawing you began yesterday evening. The face is still incomplete, half in shadow and too blurry to make out every detail. You don’t know if you’ve managed to capture the exact shape of his chin yet, and his eyebrows - are they maybe a bit fuller? You groan, and fall back into your pillows, blowing some of your hair out of your face. “Why are you always disappearing again?”, you muse silently, and close your eyes, desperately trying to remember the exact shape of his face. What shade of tan is his skin, exactly? And his hair - you’re not sure if it’s black or brown. Maybe it’s even a bit reddish? 

The more you try to remember, the more his face seems to disappear again, the details slipping away from your grasp.

You only remember his deep eyes, and his bright smile.

But one thing you know for sure - he’s ridiculously handsome. 

The rest, it seems, has to wait for another morning. 

Over the next few weeks, you begin to recall more and more details of your soulmate’s face. The exact brown of his eyes, for example. His hair is a faded red, probably dyed. His nose looks extremely boopable, you think. His smile makes your heart race, and one morning, you wake up with his laugh still ringing in your ear. 

Your drawing gets more detailed with every passing day, until one evening, you have finally managed to draw a complete face. 

You were right - he’s handsome, incredibly so. In your drawing, he’s smiling, but by now you’re also able to recall how his face looks when he’s not smiling. You grin, noting that both of you seem to have a serious case of the so-called “resting bitch face”. “Truly meant to be, huh.”, you murmur, adding a few more shadows around his jawline, until you’re pleased with the final result. You take a sip of the tea Hannah has brought you over an hour ago, it’s cold by now, but you still drink it. Just then, there’s a knock on your door, and you make a “Mh?” under your breath, letting the person outside know it’s okay to come in. Chanyeol sticks his head through the doorframe, dark hair falling messily into his brown puppy eyes. He gives you a happy smile which you immediately return. “Hey there! Hannah and I are about to make pancakes, you want some, too?”, he asks, and you chuckle. “Hannah and you, huh? I think you mean only Hannah is going to make pancakes. You’re almost as much of a mess in the kitchen as I am, Yeol.”, you retort, and he ducks his head. “Uh, maybe. I might help with the batter though - just no cracking eggs for me, you know how that turned out last time.”, he admits, and you make a disgusted face when you recall the taste of eggshell in your otherwise yummy pancakes, “Anyway, you want some or not?”, he inquires again, and you nod. “I’ll never say no to Hannah’s pancakes. I’ll be there in a second.”, you answer, and he gives you the thumbs up before closing the door again. You sigh and gaze at your drawing again. “Who and where are you, dream boy?”, you murmur, before stuffing the drawing back into your sketchbook, finally joining Hannah and Chanyeol in the kitchen.

The next few days pass without anything exciting happening, and before you know it, school is starting again. You usually dislike the first day of class, everything is unfamiliar again, and you always get lost on your way to find the right buildings and rooms, but weirdly enough, today is different - everything goes smoothly, and you even have time to get yourself a tea on your way to your first class. You find a good seat not too far in the back, but also not too close to the teacher, and begin to unpack your notebook and pencils. You rarely take notes on your laptop, preferring to do so in a real notebook as you find the scratching of your pen on paper weirdly calming. You also love to doodle when you don’t take notes, and that’s much more fun to do on paper as well.

Over the next few minutes, more and more students begin to file into the classroom, and for some reason, you suddenly feel kind of giddy, nervously bouncing your leg while gnawing on your lower lip. Soon, the teacher gives his introduction, and begins to talk about this semester’s syllabus. About halfway through the class, there’s a small commotion when the door opens again, and a very late student slips inside the classroom. When you turn around to see who’s making all the fuss, you only see the back of his head - his hair is a faded reddish color, definitely dyed. For a second, the shape of the person seems oddly familiar… But then, you just shake your head, a small smile playing on your lips when you think about all the crazy hair colors you’ve had over the past few years, until Hannah basically forced you to give your scalp a rest. “You’ll go bald if you don’t!” Seeing the faded red color now, you kinda miss your own colorful looks. Mhm, maybe you could at least get some bangs soon.

The rest of the class passes rather quickly, and a glance at the watch says you have almost an entire hour until your next lecture begins. You text Hannah, asking how her first class went and if she’s free right now. She answers quickly, saying she’s already on the way to her next lecture but that you guys can grab lunch together. Occupied with answering her, you don’t notice that the person in front of you has come to a sudden halt. You squeal when you run into a broad back, dropping your phone to the floor, the sound of the screen landing on the hard concrete almost deafening in your ears. “Oh fuck.”, you mutter under your breath, praying to whatever God or Goddess is listening that your screen isn’t cracked - you definitely don’t have the money to get it fixed. Thankfully, the case seems to have protected your phone from the worst. You exhale, relieved, before straightening and getting ready to tell off the person responsible for this accident. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don’t text and walk at the same time.”, a male voice says, sarcasm lacing his words, and you look up to glare at him. 

The second you lay eyes on him though, your heart just stops for a few seconds, before beginning to race again, hammering against your rib cage.

You silently gape at the boy in front of you, taking in the red dyed hair hanging messily into deep dark eyes. His lips are pulled into a cocky grin, his head tilted to one side, showing off his sharp jawline, arms crossed over his chest, a backpack slung over one shoulder. 

Oh how often have you drawn that face by now. 

You know the exact curve of his lips, plump and rosy and almost a bit too kissable for your liking, and by now, you know way too well how your fingers always itch to brush his too long hair out of eyes that seem to hold all the stars and galaxies in them. 

“You.”, you breathe out, and it seems that he finally recognizes you too, as his eyes get even bigger and the cocky grin slips from his face, replaced by an awe-filled smile. “Oh my God - it’s you! You’ve… you’ve been in all my dreams.”, he says in a rush, just when you open your mouth to say the same. A giddy smile splits open your face, and you nod excitedly. “Just as you’ve been in mine.”, you answer, breathlessly, and like two magnets being pulled towards each other, you both take a step closer. “I’m Sunwoo.”, he introduces himself, sounding a bit breathless himself, before he holds out his hand for you to take. You accept his handshake, feeling electricity shoot through your whole body when your skin makes contact with his for the first time. “I’m Y/N, it’s nice to finally see you - really see you, that is.” When he smiles at you in earnest this time, you swear your heart stops again, before beginning to race twice as fast as before. “Well, I think I already have a favorite class this semester.”, Sunwoo murmurs, unconsciously tugging you closer to him, your hand still securely held in his. “I think so, too.”, you answer, and return his smile while looking at him, drowning in his deep, sparkling eyes. He cups one side of your face with his other hand, brushing some of your hair back behind your ear. “I’ve waited so long for you.”, he whispers, and you feel your throat close up at his words. “Me too.”, you answer, and slide both arms around his waist. He sighs, returning your hug and placing his chin on top of your head. You listen to his quick heartbeat, mirroring your own racing one, noticing how normal and right it already feels to touch him.

You just fit - like two puzzle pieces, finally put together again. 

The fateful day you met your soulmate for the first time would forever be engraved into your mind.

Since then, Sunwoo’s hair had gone through some changes - he had redyed it red for the first few months, until it had faded to a soft brown again, and then he decided to just go back to black. You had asked him once to dye it a bright pink, but he had just given you a funny look, shaking his head before continuing to watch your favorite movie - The Cat in the Hat, your choice for this week’s movie night. A few days later, you yourself had dyed your hair a bright pink, almost giving Hannah a heart attack when you opened the door to her room. 

Over the next few years, there were many amazing first experiences you shared with Sunwoo - your first dinner together (Hannah had been so nice to cook for you guys because apparently, you didn’t only share the resting bitch face, but also the inability to cook anything edible), your first kiss (yes, Sunwoo’s lips felt just as amazing as they looked), the first night spent with each other (you had talked about literally everything and anything until the first rays of sunshine had crept into your bedroom), your first holiday as a couple (a road trip gone horribly wrong, with you guys having to spend the night in the car because one of you (you were pretty sure it was Sunwoo’s fault) had typed in the wrong address into the navigation system), your first big fight (now you don’t even remember what it was about, but you had both sulked for two days until making up, the longest you had ever gone without speaking to each other), your first encounter with each other’s families (teasing Sunwoo about his younger sister being taller than him had quickly become one of your favorite hobbies) and finally, your first apartment together (it was a teeny tiny flat, but you filled it with many beautiful memories).

You knew that many more first experiences were still waiting for you - like adopting some pets together (you were already looking at cute kittens), and maybe a wedding one day (you had to admit, after attending Hannah and Chanyeol’s wedding and crying buckets when they said their vows, you weren’t as opposed to the concept of marriage anymore), and probably also having a family of your own together - one day, in the still far away future. 

You couldn’t wait to share the rest of your life with your other half, your soulmate, the person you called your home - and you knew that Sunwoo felt the exact same way.

for my light, my love, my Summer @sunmoonieverse​ 💞

[masterlist] | [requests] 

[mishapeesha]

hello friends! i have decided to start writing a fanfiction (although I am......not that experienced with writing, but I will trY)

anyways! the pairing is obviously deancas, and since I’ve just written the first chapter, the tags will be limited until I further develop the story. The rating will change if needed, trigger warnings will be added if necessary, and so on!

the summary: 

A package is mailed to Castiel Novak, a 27 year old with unknowingly very limited knowledge on a certain aspect of his life. It’s filled with what seems like hundreds of letters all to him, a single person. Memories and confessions of love are penned within those letters. As time goes on, he feels drawn to the person on the other end and sets out to find them – and the letter’s inevitable true destination that ties the final loose end in Castiel's life.

ao3 link!: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625316/chapters/70161738

i would really appreciate any feedback, or just boosting this would be pretty cool too! 

for anyone that doesn’t wanna read on ao3, chapter 1 starts below!

September 18th, 1992

           Castiel’s chest bounced as he jogged down the stairs aligned in a wide spiral, his eyebrow quirked up in confusion as his doorbell buzzed repeatedly with barely a second in between every ring. He winced at the harsh sound of it, noticing how military-like it was in the way that the alarm went off. It was always a task of his to get it changed, but he never got the chance to. Either because he didn’t feel like it, or because his memory disallowed him to remember something as unimportant as a doorbell.  

           “Coming!” He called out to whoever bothered to show up at his house so early in the morning. Castiel paused beside the bookcase placed beside his door, glancing at the mirror in order to adjust the loose strands of hair that spiked in different directions with the frantic brush of his fingers. He let out a sigh as his gaze shifted towards the reflection of the wall clock behind him, seeing that it was barely 7:05 am. Just as he turned to face the door, that annoying noise rang in his ears once more. Maybe one day he’d go through with that mental task of changing the buzz to something more audibly pleasant.

           His fingers wrapped around the metal doorknob, and a click emerged as he swung the door open, being immediately met with a man who he had never seen in his life. His eyes quickly scanned over the man, noticing that he was in uniform, so he classified him as harmless. What damage could a mailman do? Hand him a letter and give him a papercut? Though there was a look on the mailman’s face that Castiel couldn’t quite place. He was torn between thinking it was some sort of discomfort towards Cas personally, or just general exhaustion because it could just be that he was tired. There wasn’t really anything enjoyable about driving to several homes, handing gifts to so many people while barely surviving off of minimum wage and receiving nothing in return.

           “Castiel Novak?” The man asked, shifting in his spot momentarily as he held a medium sized box underneath one arm, and a clipboard in the other hand. Castiel took note that his name was Thomas after noticing the nametag attached to the pocket on the fabric of his blouse.

           “Yes, that’s me.” Castiel replied, opening the door slightly more after feeling more comfortable to do so. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked past Thomas, wondering if anyone was following him, or if they were being watched. They seemed to be alone, so Cas stopped tapping his fingers against the wooden door, although he hadn’t realized that he began to do that in the first place. “Is there anything that you need of me?”

           “Well,” Thomas began with a nod. He cleared his throat and placed the clipboard in between his legs to use both of his hands, and then offered Cas the box he held. “We’ve had this in the office for a while now, but it was specified to be delivered on this day to this address, and to you.” He explained, biting his lower lip in what Cas took as some sort of minimal panic, or uneasiness. “The sender wishes to remain anonymous, however.” He added, as if it were nothing unusual.

           “Anonymous?” Castiel questioned and drew a frown onto his face. He shook his head and reverted back to closing the door, but he kept a smaller gap so that the two of them could still communicate. “I will not be accepting a box from someone who doesn’t wish that their identity is revealed. It could be anything, and I am not willing to risk my safety.” He deadpanned before he glanced down at the box, not trusting whatever was in it. Why would anyone refuse to mention their name unless they were someone dangerous and not to be messed with?

           Thomas stared at Cas for a few moments as he was now met with the confusion of what to do with the box now that the apparent receiver was blatantly rejecting it. He swallowed hard as an uncomfortable smile curled the corners of his mouth.

“Mr. Novak, I can assure you nothing that will hurt you is in this box. Not only is it very light, but it would also be a shame if this was thrown out. As I mentioned, this has been collecting dust in our office. It has been for the last four years.”

           Castiel froze at Thomas’ words, struck with surprise. He had absolutely no idea who sent the box, what was in the box, or why it was sent in the first place. Cas was Cas. The person he spoke to the most was his brother, and even then, he barely saw Gabriel to begin with. They spoke less and less as the years passed, and so Castiel was alone for the majority of the time. So, he couldn’t quite process how he had a package delivered to him, when he knew his brother barely had the energy to stop by his house for a quick hello. He was a generally distant individual. An outsider to himself, his family, and others.

This did not add up.

           “Four years you say?” He asked, tilting his head to the side as he looked between Thomas and the box, earning a nod in reply. He sighed in defeat and once again, opened the door. “You really can’t tell me who sent it? Surely you must know.” Cas said, raising his eyebrow as he finally decided to take the box from Thomas’ hold. “It isn’t heavy.” He pointed out in confirmation to what Thomas previously stated, now more so curious to know what he was sent rather than worried.

           “I’m not at liberty to say. I’m sorry.” Thomas responded and rubbed the back of his neck before he remembered to pull the clipboard from between his legs. “Could you sign this, please?”

           Castiel took the pen and scribbled a random signature on the piece of paper, nodding at Thomas who offered a small smile at Cas. “Thank you.” He murmured quietly, clutching the box to his chest.

“Of course. Have a good day.”

           “And you as well.”

           A creak erupted from the door as Castiel let it close on itself, and eventually the atmosphere fell back into silence. But suddenly, he became almost hyper-aware of his surroundings. He couldn’t tell whether it was his actual heartbeat that he could hear, or if he was overhearing some rhythmic beat from his neighbor’s home nearby. And he definitely grew irritated at the loud ticking sound of the clock on the wall that seemed to follow him as he dragged himself through the hallway to the living room.

           The walls seemed to follow his every movement, making Cas feel judged and uneasy. And just for a moment, a sense of guilt rose in him. There was no source for it, yet there was some inexplainable physical tug to what Cas held in his hands, allowing negative emotions to faintly flood into him. He was convinced that his thoughts echoed off those same walls, as any word spoken in his mind just sounded too intense and loud in his ears.

           Cas sat down on the couch, sinking into the mattress as he leaned forward to place the box on the coffee table in front of him. His bottom lip became a victim of his anxious habits where his teeth would peel at the loose, dry skin, drawing blood that lightly pooled into his mouth and presented a metallic taste.

           “What could you be?” He spoke out loud to himself, picking at the loose thread poking out of the couch. He exhaled and used his nails to tear off the tape sealing the box shut. It looked like an average box, which made any assumptions as to what could be inside completely impossible to Cas. It’s not like he expected a bomb to be inside, but he also didn’t expect a proper gift. So, then what? What made a box so big, yet so light at the same time? What was so important that it absolutely had to be sent to Cas four years later?

           Once he managed to tear the seals off, he took in a deep breath. He didn’t know what he would be getting himself into, and yet he knew there was absolutely no way he’d be able to keep himself from looking inside. So, before he knew it or could hesitate, the box was opened, revealing the last thing Cas would have expected.

Letters.

Lots of them.

           “What the hell..?” He breathed out, flipping the box over so that the letters scattered out across the table. His eyes widened in both confusion and shock, and he immediately reached to pick one up. He examined the envelope: Clean, neat, and numbered with a bold 30 on it that was also in the colour of purple. There was no stamp. There was no name. Just a singular number, and nothing more than that.

Or it would be nothing more if he decided to keep the envelopes tightly secured.

Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it? Though at the same time, he really did have nothing to lose. A dance with death was the least of his current concerns.

By the look of things, it appeared as though there was a certain number of letters in the box, labeled from one to an unknown limit. For all that could be known, there could be fifty letters, a hundred, or a thousand. He doubted he’d read all of them, because what could possibly be so interesting that the writer thought it was imperative that Cas knew?

The bigger question was, who wrote them?

Castiel shuffled through the envelopes until he found the first numbered 1 in red. His mouth went dry, and his brain raced with questions that he had no answer to at all. He hated being blind to the truth, to be instead engulfed in a mystery, like his life was some sort of game. He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted to know now. But given all that Cas was presented with, he knew it would be a long time before he knew what was actually going on. It could be days, weeks, months. All depending on how much Cas read, and how fast.

He fiddled with the letter in his hand, debating whether or not to open it. He had to. He could just read this one and throw the others out. And maybe he’d get the answers he needed in the first envelope, making it possible to ignore the others.

The paper ripped beneath his fingers, and soon enough, he held a paper in his hands. The first out of many.

Quickly, his eyes scanned over the words written, immediately blocking them out because he refused to jump too far in what was visibly so carefully put together. He wanted to take his time and appreciate the effort put into all of this. But he did take notice of the handwriting. It was a combination of neat and messy. Definitely readable, and a little too familiar. It was nice, simply put. But Cas could sense the desperation in the way the words were written. They were rushed, and well thought out of as well. Like whoever wrote knew what to say, just not how to say it.

Dear Castiel,

Knowing you, you’re probably freaked the hell out right now. And... Well, you should be.

Cas frowned and scoffed, rolling his eyes at the paper. Already, the letter was referring to him, and he had no idea about who was writing. Clearly, off to a great start.

Or not. Actually, don’t freak out. You don’t need that. Anyways…grab yourself that weird coffee that I know you like and get comfy.

What I’ve done here for you is write a hundred letters. Or I’m planning to, at least. Hopefully I commit to this. I guess if you’re reading this, I’ll have succeeded, so yay me, I guess. But I want you to really read them. To understand it all because there is so much that you don’t know. About me, about you, and more importantly, about us. I know you might be scared-

Castiel looked away and shook his head, setting the letter down on the table causing it to fold in on itself with how long it had been creased for. He rubbed his forehead and sighed, mumbling something incoherent underneath his breath. Not even halfway through the first letter, and Cas was already overwhelmed. Everything in him begged him to stop reading, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching back towards the piece of paper and picking it up once more. He was certain that would be a decision he would regret in the future.

-and that’s okay. Fear’s good. Sometimes, at least.

Please, hear me out, alright? I need you to keep an open mind. You gotta, man. Or else this won’t work. I don’t mean to put on a show and get all dramatic, but I need you to level with me. To feel with me, and to get angry and hurt whenever you feel like it. I need you to bust open your damn walnut, and pull me out of that chest that you’ve got stuffed in there somewhere.  

Cas, you may not know me now, but I know you.

I’m writing this on September 18th, 1988. We met five years go..I don't really know when you'll get this. Could be ten years from now. Guess we'll see.

I need you to remember.

Work that big ol’ brain of yours and try to not be the dumbass that you tend to be. It's my fault you're in your current situation, but you need to try. If not for me, then for you.

We haven't spoken in so long, Cas. And saying I miss you won't change a damn thing because you don't even know who I am, but I do miss you. And you can take that however you want for now, but you'll understand it all eventually. If you decide to actually go through with this and read all that I've written for you.

“Situation?” Castiel asked out loud, as if he’d get a response. Of course, he was met with silence. But he still had no idea what was happening. He didn’t know what any of this meant, but he did know this had the potential to ruin his entire life. In fact, it felt like everything started slowly tumbling down already.

And yes, he had nothing. But was it worth the loss?

I’ll tell you everything. No plot-holes, not shit-holes, or whatever. All I ask is that you read. It’s that simple.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the short first letter. I’ll see you soon.

-Dean W.

“Dean?” He whispered, and at that, his chest knotted tightly as he took in a shaky breath. He widened his eyes and wheezed, an uneasy feeling creeping its way up his chest. So, the writer had a name. One that Cas mentally did not recognize, but he physically did apparently.

What the hell did the "W" stand for? He didn't know. Or rather he couldn't remember, according to what the letters were saying.

He set the letter down and stared at the others, scratching at his arm as he eyed the unorganized mess that had now grounded him in his place. Out of all of the things he could have received that day, he just had to get what was probably the most confusing thing he had ever been confronted with.

The possibility of fault grew, and all Cas could do for now was allow himself to become engulfed in the non-existent voice of a series of letters that he was yet to understand, and so rightfully dreaded.