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anonymousewrites · 4 months

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A Not-So-Disastrous Romance (Book 1) Chapter Twenty-One

Kusuo Saiki x Reader

Chapter Twenty-One: Adventures in London

Summary: Kusuke uses Saiki's one weakness against him: (Y/N).

“Kusuo, come to my research lab,” said Kusuke, smiling at Saiki. “I want to show you something.”

After being dragged around London and losing the pieces of his receiver (because of his father, unsurprisingly), Saiki finally had his dampener fixed and could control himself and his abilities once more. Unfortunately, Kusuke’s mind still couldn’t be read due to the new device he’d created (which was frustrating for Saiki since his brother was always cooking up some new scheme).

“Why can’t we go with you?” asked Mr. Saiki.

“I want to see where you spend your days,” said Mrs. Saiki.

“You can enjoy London by yourselves now,” said Kusuke. “I got you a reservation at a restaurant with great roast beef.”

Mr. Saiki looked away nervously and addressed his wife. “Do you want to go on a date? I wouldn’t mind.”

“Me? I wouldn’t mind, either,” said Mrs. Saiki shyly.

“This isn’t your first date.”

Still, Kusuke’s suggestion won, and Mr. and Mrs. Saiki disappeared for a nice date in London. That left Saiki and Kusuke together.

“Those two never change,” said Kusuke as he started leading Saiki into the city.

“What is your intention?” questioned Saiki instantly. “I have no interest in your lab.”

“Let’s play rock-paper-scissors,” said Kusuke instead.

“Don’t ignore me,” said Saiki.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” said Kusuke. He played scissors, which lost against Saiki’s rock. “I lost,” said Kusuke, an awkward smile on his face.

“Are you happy now? I’m going,” said Kusuo, turning to head away.

“My record against you is zero wins and 725 losses now,” said Kusuke. “Your winning percentage is the lowest when you play rock. Well, I guess that’s because I chose to play scissors only 104 times. I have lost the word games thirty-1 times. I have also lost shogi fifty-nine times, chess ten times, and video games 189 times. I have also lost mah-jongg four times and the memory game seven times.”

If (Y/N) was here, they’d comment on his obsession. That thought lightened Saiki’s mood.

“There are others, too. Altogether, how many times have I lose against you?” continued Kusuke. “My total record against you is zero wins and 4,254 losses.”

(Y/N) would call this creepy, decided Saiki fondly. Still, what is he scheming this time?

“Hey, Kusuo, will you teleport us to this address and room?” asked Kusuke, holding out a paper.

Saiki narrowed his eyes. “No.”

“I’ll tell Mom and Dad if you don’t,” said Kusuke, smiling. “Don’t you want them to have a good time and know we’re having a good time?’

Weaponizing Mom being upset at us. What a dirty trick, thought Saiki. “Whatever.” He took the paper, Kusuke put his hand on Saiki’s shoulder, and the pair disappeared and reappeared.

“Wow, teleportation really is amazing,” said Kusuke.

“Where are we? A hotel room? Are we in London—” His eyes widened in alarm as his heightened senses heard voices in the next room over—all very familiar. “That can’t be. I must have misheard.” A sweat drop appeared behind his head.

“Did you figure it out already? Correct!” said Kusuke. He grinned creepily. “They are in the next room.”

In the next room over, Nendou leaned out the window. “Wow, runt, pinky, look at this! The buildings look like drawings!”

“Why did we have to come here for a surprise?” wondered Kaidou.

“It’s for Kusuo,” said (Y/N). “But I’m just hoping he feels well. He wasn’t in school because he was sick…” They knew the real reason, but their concern was immense either way.

In the other room, Saiki glared at Kusuke. “Why are they here!?”

He was torn between annoyance and suspicion. Not only were Nendou and Kaidou troublesome at the best of times (though he was friends with them even if he would never admit it), but Saiki hadn’t expected Kusuke to involve (Y/N), and yet there they were, still worried about him. Saiki didn’t want Kusuke to pull (Y/N) into any of his schemes, and that irritated him immensely. (Still, the inkling of relief to have a person he cared about so deeply there with him still made an appearance).

“I summoned them,” said Kusuke, smiling innocently. “I called them a day before your arrival. I asked them to come to London to surprise you. I sent them plane tickets.”

“You’re kidding, they wouldn’t have—” Saiki interrupted himself. “Well, they—” Nendou and Kaidou, dumb as they were at times “—would. But (Y/N) should’ve known better.”

“Really? They were the most worried about you.” Kusuke grinned. “ ‘Is Kusuo alright?’ They really seem to care.”

Saiki glared at Kusuke. The last thing he needed was his brother figuring out anything about his feelings and interfering in his (nonexistent) love life.

“Why did you bring them here?” demanded Saiki.

“Let’s play a game, Kusuo,” said Kusuke.

“A game?” Saiki curled one hand into a fist and punched it into the other.

Not intimidated, Kusuke continued, “Let’s play tag in London.”

“…What?” Saiki deadpanned even more than normal.

“I lost rock-paper-scissors. I will be it,” said Kusuke. “The time limit is three hours. As long as you don’t leave London, you can take buses, taxis, or subways. Well, sounds like fun, right?”

“What is the point? London is larger than the twenty-three wards of Tokyo,” said Saiki.

“You will play with Kaidou and Nendou as well as (L/N) so that you can’t use your powers,” said Kusuke.

“I don’t want to play,” said Saiki.

“You don’t care what happens to those three? With one signal, I can make those two explore London and return to Japan,” said Kusuke.

“(Y/N) would want to see me,” said Saiki. “They wouldn’t go along with it.”

“If you win, I’ll treat you to afternoon tea in this hotel,” said Kusuke, knowing Saiki’s sweet tooth was his biggest weakness. Or, almost.

“…What happens if you win?” said Saiki. He really wanted afternoon tea and the confections that came with it, but first he needed to understand Kusuke’s angle on top of just getting a win on the board.

Kusuke smiled brightly. “If I win, I’ll tell (L/N) you have a crush on them.”

Saiki’s jaw dropped open. What a brutal blow from Kusuke.

“Did you think it was hidden? It’s obvious,” said Kusuke, waving a hand. “As soon as they said your first name and mentioned your receiver, I knew you were open with them. The pieces were simple to put together.” He grinned. “So, what do you say?”

“We’re playing tag.” Saiki could not let Kusuke win—not if he wanted sweets and for his feelings to remain hidden. He wasn’t ready to admit anything, and he wouldn’t let Kusuke of all people do it for him.

Saiki and Kusuke opened the door to the room (Y/N), Kaidou, and Nendou had been stuck in.

“Hey, pal!” cried Nendou excitedly.

“Did we surprise you?” said Kaidou, grinning. “We’re in London.”

“How are you feeling, Saiki?” asked (Y/N), frowning.

“I’m fine,” said Saiki, nodding and pointing to the repaired receiver.

(Y/N) visibly relaxed and smiled. “I’m glad.”

“Now come on, we have to get going,” said Saiki.

“Huh?” said (Y/N), tilting their head.

“We’re playing tag,” said Kusuke with a wide grin.

“Tag?” asked (Y/N), Kaidou, and Nendou.

“I will be it, and Kusuo will hide. You three need to help him,” said Kusuke.

“What about the surprise?” asked Kaidou in confusion.

“He was surprised! We did it!” said Kusuke.

“That was it?” said Kaidou.

Knowing Saiki wouldn’t get involved with this of his own volition, (Y/N) looked at him. “You got bribed with sweets, didn’t you, Kusuo?”

“Afternoon tea,” admitted Saiki.

(Y/N) chuckled but smiled. “Alright, I’ll help. What are the rules?”

“The time limit is three hours,” said Kusuke. “You can go anywhere within the borders of London. You can take buses, taxis, and subways. Get ready, start!” He pressed the start of a timer. “I will begin searching in thirty minutes. Run!”

“Let’s go,” said Saiki, immediately grabbing (Y/N)’s wrist and hurrying to the street below.

“What is this, Saiki? I don’t understand,” said Kaidou.

Saiki took a map from a stand and glanced over it. “I’m sorry to involve you, but just shut up and follow me. This is a serious game.” Too much was on the line to mess around (sweets and his feelings).

“Don’t worry, Kusuo, we have your back,” said (Y/N) brightly.

“Isn’t this too easy? London is larger than Tokyo’s twenty-third ward,” said Kaidou.

“There are cameras in the subway like on the street,” mused Saiki, focused on the game. “Well, we could put some distance between us.” He led them down towards the underground.

“Your brother probably has a trick up his sleeve, doesn’t he?” said (Y/N).

Saiki nodded (he actually responded to them).

Sure enough, as they reached the bottom of the stairs, the shutter was down. The sign read “Tube Strike” in English.

“Yare yare. There it is,” said Saiki.

“He knew that the subways would be closed, which would make the lines for buses long,” said (Y/N). “Wow. He’s a genius.”

“Don’t praise him, he’s as weird as everyone else in my family,” said Saiki.

“We need to move fast!” said Kaidou, panicking. “He’ll be coming soon.”

If he’s watching us, I’ll watch him. Saiki crossed his eyes. Clairvoyance. He saw his brother on a hang glider. He’s coming this way. He’s close. He can reach this place in five minutes.

“What should we do?” said Nendou.

“There!” said (Y/N), pointing. “Bikes for rent.”

“Good idea.” Another reason Saiki liked (Y/N): they were actually helpful in these situations.

“But there are only three, and there are four of us,” said Kaidou worriedly.

“I can stand on the spokes on the back of one. I’ve done it a ton with Mera,” said (Y/N).

Saiki pulled out a bike. “Get on.”

“Are you su—”

“We don’t have time.”

Saiki didn’t want to admit this was nerve-wracking since he wasn’t a fan of touch usually, but he was choosing this. And it was (Y/N). He was comfortable with them. Of course, he also just didn’t want them to be so close to someone else, and with the other idiots with them, Saiki only trusted himself to keep them safe from Kusuke (not that there was really any danger, but Saiki had to justify this to himself without just getting to the point that he had a crush on (Y/N) and wanted to be close).

“Alright,” said (Y/N), getting onto the back and holding onto Saiki’s shoulders as he began pedaling.

Their cheeks warmed as they held onto him, and they fought to remain composed and focused. Their feelings were strong, but that didn’t mean they could lose focus and mess this up for Saiki. That would ruin any of (Y/N)’s chances to be close with Saiki.

On his part, Saiki kept a straight face as usual, but he kept his eyes carefully ahead instead of glancing at (Y/N)’s hands on him. They were warm even through his clothes, and his heartbeat quickened as their proximity.

Still, they all managed to remain focused on the task at hand and turned through a few streets and alleys to escape Kusuke. The bicycles were working. Unfortunately, not everyone riding them was working. Kaidou’s terrible stamina caught up, and he collapsed to the side.

“Let’s take a break,” he gasped.

“We’ve been biking for fifteen minutes,” said Saiki. “But we did try to avoid cameras. We should be alright. If we move around too much, he’ll detect our location. Perhaps we should’ve move location.”

“That’s what you think!”

From above, Kusuke dropped in with a motorcycle. Saiki and (Y/N) threw themselves out of the way.

“Seriously?! Why is he here?!” cried Kaidou.

“Are you alright?” asked Saiki, helping (Y/N) stand, and they nodded.

“So cool!” said Nendou.

“This isn’t the time for that!” cried Kaidou.

(Y/N) and Saiki jumped back onto their bicycle, and all four sped out of the alley with Kusuke on their heels.

“How did he find us?!” said (Y/N) over the rush of wind. “We avoided cameras!”

“Maybe he has psychic powers,” joked Nendou.

“It would run in the family,” said (Y/N) quietly, chuckling.

“If he did, that would be terrible,” said Saiki. Luckily, his brother was just a genius, not a psychic.

“Does he have a tracking device?” said Kaidou, giving a much more plausible idea.

Saiki’s eyes widened. “My control device.”

“He put a tracking device in it,” groaned (Y/N).

“That jerk.” Saiki looked back, his eyes glowed, and a piece of Kusuke’s motorcycle broke to stop him in his tracks. He biked on, leaving his brother behind.

They only stopped once they reached a giant department store, and Saiki led them in to try to lose Kusuke in the crowds.

“As long as he knows our location, this is better than walking around,” said Saiki. “We need to avoid standing out.”

(Y/N) coughed to avoid laughing. “Good luck with that.”

Nendou was already driving a tiny kid toy car around the store, and Kaidou was examining all of the gaming equipment.

“We have an announcement,” said the PA system, except it spoke with Kusuke’s voice. He was up to something again.

“That voice?”

“Uh-oh, he’s trying another tactic,” said (Y/N).

“Please look for three young Japanese teenagers,” said Kusuke. “One has pink hair and has climbed Big Ben. Another has (H/C) hair and dressed up as a Grenadier Guard. A third is a bad child with shifty eyes who calls football ‘soccer.’ Another is a serial killer gorilla.”

“Is the gorilla Nendou?” said (Y/N), not really fazed by the strangeness of Kusuke’s strategy. They had heard stranger things.

“Definitely,” said Saiki.

“It’s them!” cried an English man, pointing at the group. “Get them!”

Instantly, a crowd converged on them, and they took off running. Saiki led them into a bathroom and a stall. People began to bang on the door, and (Y/N)’s eyes widened. They were pinned, and with the tracking device and the crowd, Kusuke would find them in an instant.

“Okay, everyone, don’t worry,” said Kusuke’s voice in the bathroom.

“He’s almost here!” whispered (Y/N) urgently.

“That was a false announcement,” said Kusuke.

“Oh, really?” murmured the crowd, slowly dispersing.

“Up,” whispered (Y/N) to Saiki.

He looked at them, and (Y/N) pointed up.

“Up,” they repeated.

Saiki’s eyes widened as he got the message, and he mentally thanked the world for giving him a friend like (Y/N). For all the trouble they got into and their air-headedness, they came through at all the rights moments.

Saiki teleported them all a floor up. There was no change in the layout of the bathroom, so Kaidou and Nendou didn’t notice. Best of all, though? Kusuke’s tracker wouldn’t see the change in elevation. He would open the door of the stall below and find nothing.

“Time’s up,” said Saiki.

Kusuke had lost once more.

“We won!” cheered Nendou.

“Now do we get to really explore London?” said Kaidou excitedly.

“Do whatever you want,” said Saiki. He opened the stall door and walked out. He had a prize to collect. “(Y/N), do you want to come to tea with me?” Kaidou and Nendou might tail after him, but what mattered was if (Y/N) came or not. They made any additional company so much more bearable.

(Y/N) grinned. “Of course!”

Saiki’s hearts warmed at their brightness.

“So are Kusuo and Saiki always like that?” asked (Y/N), taking a sip of their tea and looking at Mr. and Mrs. Saiki.

Saiki himself was glad that (Y/N) used his first name now since if they called him and Kusuke the same thing, he’d just get frustrated to be lumped in with him.

Mrs. Saiki laughed. “Oh, yes, since they were small. They’re always competing. It’s so cute.”

“Troublesome is more like it,” said Saiki. “He never stops challenging me.”

“They’re brothers. Brothers are like that,” said Mr. Saiki.

“No, he’s just a nuisance.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “Well, it was kind of fun. I mean, I don’t have siblings of my own to compete with, so running around with Kaidou and Nendou and Kusuo was a real adventure.”

Saiki looked at them and their shy smile. Okay, fine. So maybe the entire situation hadn’t been that bad since he got to spend time with them and it made them happy. Saiki would never admit it out loud, but he was thankful that Kusuke’s endless competitiveness led to more bonding with (Y/N) and their joy.

“Morning, Kusuo! Where are your parents?” asked (Y/N).

“On another date,” said Saiki. It was the following day, and there was still time until they were scheduled to return to Japan, so his parents were taking advantage of the time.

“That’s cute,” said (Y/N), smiling. They liked how in-love Saiki’s parents were. It was how married couples should be.

“Where are Nendou and Kaidou?” asked Saiki.

“They went back to the department store to buy souvenirs,” said (Y/N).

“Of course they did,” said Saiki.

“Do you have anything you want to do?” asked (Y/N).

“Not particularly,” said Saiki.

“Well, I was thinking of going for a walk to find a bookstore and then head to a café to read,” said (Y/N). They shifted nervously. “Do you want to go together?”

“Yes.” The answer was instant, unusual for Saiki.

(Y/N) brightened. “Really?”

Saiki nodded.

“Awesome,” said (Y/N), grinning ear-to-ear.

Soon enough, Saiki and (Y/N) ended up in a bookstore off the trodden main roads of London. It was quaint and lovely, quiet and private.

“They have so many books,” said (Y/N), looking at each excitedly.

“Can you read English?” asked Saiki.

“Not perfectly, but I’m trying to improve,” said (Y/N), laughing sheepishly. “That’s why I’m trying to find a book that interests me. Then I can improve my vocabulary outside of just what school assigns.”

Saiki nodded, understanding. “How about this one?” He handed over a book.

“Pride…and…Prej-Prejudiice,” said (Y/N), trying to sound out the words. They brightened. “Oh, I’ve seen the movie for this. I love it!”

“What type of story is it?” asked Saiki.

“A romance between a headstrong woman and a man who doesn’t know how to show his feelings,” said (Y/N). “It’s so cute.”

“Would you watch the movie again with me? Maybe over break?” said Saiki, daring to ask (Y/N) for a private moment with them that wasn’t their usual homework or cooking. This was something more akin to what many considered a date. It was a risk to ask, but Saiki wanted to be closer to (Y/N). He wanted to show that he cared.

(Y/N)’s cheeks warmed, and their smile softened. “I’d love to, Kusuo, but are you sure you want to interrupt your time alone?”

“I don’t mind spending time with someone when it’s you,” said Saiki. “You’re my…you’re my best friend.” He avoided eye-contact, unused to his own honesty.

(Y/N)’s heart nearly burst, and, overwhelmed with their own emotions, they dared to reach out and touch Saiki’s hand. “I’m glad you like spending time with me, Kuso. I really like i. You’re my…well, you’re my best friend, too.”

Saiki looked down at the hand touching his own, and he let himself take their hand and give it a gentle squeeze. Neither had spoken the complete truth of their feelings, but it was enough. They both cared about the other. That was all their hearts needed to know for now.

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delirious-donna · 2 months

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Best Laid Plans [Part Two]

story summary: Levi isn’t hungry, or so that’s what he claims. A vampire must drink to survive, and his sire refuses to let the man give up without trying every trick up his sleeve. When a new ‘donor’ appears, one who is different from all the rest, will Levi be able to keep resisting?

pairing: Levi Ackerman (vampire) x female reader (human)

warnings: nothing really just vampire antics and allusions to mysteries in both the reader's and Levi's life and backstory, SFW, this is a slow chapter but it is setting up plot points so please bear with me, Erwin is so calculating and I love it...

Part One | Masterlist | Part Three

“What does it mean if your blood sings?”

The question pierced through the oppressive silence like a thorn pricking fresh, unblemished skin. Two sets of eyes fixed on your huddled figure in the back seat of the car, Hange at your side and the driver through the reflection of the rearview mirror.

You had always wondered why the myth of vampires casting no reflections was so prevalent when it wasn’t true, but now wasn’t the time to dissect the nuances of vampire lore.

If their expressions alone were not enough to tell you that they were uneasy, then the short sharp gasp from Hange’s throat surely did.

“Is that… did he say that your blood was singing?” Hange finally asked, humourless and at full alert.

You chewed at your fingernails, a habit you hadn’t indulged in years, and slowly nodded. The weight of the driver’s eyes felt uncomfortable, forcing you to curl further into yourself to hide from his penetrating stare. Hot fear trickled down your spine, the sense that perhaps you shouldn’t have voiced your question was overwhelming. You felt foolish for speaking at all. It served as a reminder that whilst you had been met with nothing but kindness, these people were not your friends.

“We have to report this,” the driver said directly to Hange.

“Hold your horse, Miche! Stop acting so whipped. It might be a simple misunderstanding.” The brunette turned their body towards you, slowly reaching for your hand like you might do to a fearful child. “Can you tell me exactly what Levi said?”

Their touch was cool, and a tingling sensation spread from your fingertips right through your hand and up your arm. Your mind hushed; the overabundance of noise shooed towards the periphery of your conscious as if soothed by the physical connection. In your right mind, you might have questioned if something else was at play, but the thought was so far removed that all you could think about was the man you had been reluctant to leave behind.

His stern face was imprinted behind your eyelids so that each time you blinked, he flashed back at you with those grey mercurial eyes swirling ominously. The words were so clear in your memory that it felt like you were still living in that moment, his voice so ragged with rage and what felt like fear that you wanted to run… but in which direction? The shift had been sudden, so completely unexpected and you didn’t know why you had any emotions other than terror when you knew nothing about him.

“He said… ‘your blood, it’s singing to me.’ I don’t know what he meant but he looked terrified by it. Is that not normal? Is there something wrong with me? With my blood?”

Panic rose along with bile in your throat. Memories flashed behind your eyes and threatened to consume you. Images of hospital wards along with sensory overload, the smell of antiseptic and death, the sound of constant beeping machines and the harsh glare of fluorescent white strip lighting. It was not the time and place to be succumbing to your worst memories, you were not as safe as they wanted you to feel.

Your fingertips dug harshly into the meat of your palms, deeper and deeper until you could concentrate on the pain of nails embedding sharply into skin.

Hange stared at you intently.

Little did you know that their heart was jumping wildly in their chest from the excitement of what this could mean. Unlike Levi, they recalled the stories of old that Erwin would regale them with and the wistful expression he would wear whilst speaking. If what they remembered was true, this discovery could be monumental, and not just for Levi—though he likely didn’t realise either way—but for every vampire.

The balance of power would be disrupted, of that they were certain. The scientific part of their brain was loathe to discuss it so soon with Erwin, despite Miche’s immediate inclination to do so. Wouldn’t it be far more intriguing to let events play out just for a smidge longer...? To tease out more information that was very likely being held close to the chest right now. It would be naïve to think that Erwin didn’t already have some inkling, especially when thinking back to just how pleased he had seemed when you walked willingly into their world. Right now, it was important to settle your anxieties.

“Hey, don’t worry. Your blood is fine. You are fine, more than fine! Let’s get you back to the estate and to your quarters, I’ll even call ahead and have a bath waiting for you. I think a nice hot soak will help you clear your head.”

Hange was already lifting the phone to their ear, listening to the dial tone whilst you stammered and hiccupped about not wanting to be a bother. Their eyes rolled over and there was a sense of deflation at your meek display. Levi would walk all over you if given half the chance, or at least send you running for the hills if he was feeling magnanimous.

Where was the strong woman from earlier? The one who had squared their shoulders and walked towards their fate with head held high and not a falter in their heart rate. Ten minutes in the presence of Levi Ackerman had reduced you to the mass of nerves sitting beside them, and they scowled at that fool of a man.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He supposed there wasn’t much he could do, not without crawling back to his master and he was loathe to do so. It would prove that he needed Erwin Smith and there was not a single desire in his body to let that be proved true.

Levi paced the width of the room, and every pace increased his frustration, confusion and annoyingly, his curiosity. He could still smell you in the room, if he closed his eyes, he could believe you were still here, still sat with that impossibly brave demeanour cloaking your true feelings and those inquisitive eyes.

There was a vein of trepidation in his wandering mind… could you know more than you let on? Perhaps you were in cahoots with that bastard to bring him to his knees like he wanted but could not achieve on his own.

No.

Your expression when he spoke of the song of your blood was truly innocent, or at least, innocent in this particular matter. A fear that mirrored his own reflected back from your eyes and absolved you of the sin of knowledge. Levi couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to why this soothed him. It shouldn’t hold any weight, but it did. It did.

He pushed a hand, trembling with barely restrained fury, through his hair and growled aloud as he strode back to his desk. The phone he hated to use was in his hand, the number imprinted on his memory punched out without thought and with two short rings, it clicked over to a commanding baritone that sent nails down a chalkboard in his head.

“I’m surprised it took you this long, Levi. Your restraint is to be marvelled, if not exactly admired.”

Levi counted silently, biting down hard on his tongue to stop himself from making demands that he might come to regret. If Erwin were to find out that he had exploded at the thought of his sire tasting your blood… well… he would use that information against him and leverage it for Levi’s cooperation and return to the fold.

“Shall I continue to talk, and you simply listen? Doesn’t sound very fun for me,” Erwin continued.

“Bullshit. You’ve always loved the sound of your own voice,” Levi countered with a hiss. He couldn’t stand the humour filling Erwin’s words when he felt like his insides were being ripped apart.

“Come now… there is no need for foul language.”

The sound of Erwin reclining in his chair painted the image vividly through Levi’s mind down to every minute detail. He may as well be in that office, the one he had been in so many times he couldn’t count. The scent of ink wafted through his nose, followed by traces of cloves and honeysuckle from the gladiolus adorning every windowsill.

Levi gritted his teeth and exhaled deeply through his nose. “You expected my call, why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Erwin chirped merrily.

“Answer the fu—” He paused to reel in his temper. “Answer the question.”

“She’s special, I guess you noticed it too given your reaction. Did she taste as sweet as I thought she might?” Erwin asked with more than a hint of genuine curiosity that had Levi pausing in his tracks.

Erwin hadn’t tasted her. He wished desperately that the sense of relief flooding his system didn’t toll his own doom, but he could ponder that foreboding thought later. Without realising, he had slumped into his chair. Every muscle eased as the high alert drained out of his body and left behind the hunger that was now so potent he could barely move a finger without the ache snapping to life with a bark.

“I wouldn’t know,” Levi admitted sullenly.

There was a clatter on the other side of the line. “You resisted again? Are you out of your mind? I don’t know what the hell to say… Levi, do you know what someone would pay to sample a donor that unique?”

“Will you shut up? I’ve told you that I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not some young brat that you need to haul back into line and you of all people should know that.” Silence met him, heavy and meaningful. After a beat, he added a concession. “Not that I really got the chance anyway, she was escorted rather hastily out of my home by your lackeys.”

At that moment, there was a faint knocking on Erwin’s side of the conversation and Levi held his breath when Hange’s voice drifted into his ear. They gave a very brief rundown of what had transpired, far briefer than Levi deserved given how recklessly he had acted. He was busy wondering what Hange was up to when your voice piped up and his body jolted upright.

“Did he hurt you, my dear? He can be rather coarse, and I apologise for not warning you thoroughly,” Erwin enthused. Levi wanted to scoff but he had the feeling that no one in the room knew he was listening in except for Erwin.

“No no! You misunderstand… he didn’t do anything wrong. I-I think maybe he doesn’t like me, that’s all. Perhaps I’m not the match you believed me to be.”

Levi wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake you. Why the fuck were you covering for his actions? They were inappropriate and you should be doing everything in your power to be kept away from him and here you were… protecting him. Stupid human.

“Oh, is that right? Well… I think Levi liked you much more than he expected to and that scared him. I urge you not to hold that against him, he has been trying to starve himself this past month and the hunger can be overpowering, even for us old-timers.”

“Hm. That makes sense, I guess. May I ask—why is he not feeding? Is he sick?” you asked with a thread of worry in your tone that wound around Levi’s withering heart. It pulled tighter and tighter with every faint thump the dying organ gave.

Erwin made a noncommittal noise, and Levi could practically envisage the shoulder shrug that more than likely accompanied it. Vampire politics were rarely up for discussion amongst vampires, even less so with donors, no matter how special they might or might not be.

“That might be a question for the man himself. However, since you seem unsure of his interest, I must ask if you would consider being a donor for someone else in my clan? I would hate to see a good investment go to waste…”

The bastard!

Levi shadowstepped without realising.

His focus on Erwin’s voice would always be enough to tether him to his location and he stopped short of stalking towards the much taller man with murder in his eyes only by the surprised scream that you gave at his sudden appearance.

“Ah. Your timing could not be more perfect, Levi. I assume you heard my offer and felt compelled to interject personally?” Erwin surmised with a knowing smile. Levi wished he could knock his teeth in.

“You-you were listening?” you asked, eyes scanning around the room but continually returning to Levi and searching his eyes.

He turned to face you directly, ignoring the jab at his expense in favour of wrestling his temper into submission. The song of your blood started immediately this time. Unlike the first meeting when it hadn’t been initially apparent, now it resonated in his ears and calmed the worst of his ire.

You were doing everything in your mortal power to not look scared and that both annoyed and pleased him. He had seen far less foolish humans be eaten alive by the predators he considered his kin, and he doubted you understood how dangerous this situation could be.

Levi hadn’t dared to mention the blood singing to his sire for fear that the information would be used against him, or worse that it would bring harm to his or your door. He hoped you wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone either, but he couldn’t know for sure until he had the opportunity to speak with Hange and Miche, who were both surprisingly absent.

For now, he could only pretend not to hear its sweet melody—a torturous task when all he wanted to do was reach out and pull you into his arms so he could run his nose along the thumping pulse in your neck.

“I must apologise once more. I thought I had disconnected our phone call but apparently, I was careless,” Erwin lied easily. “Levi called me because he was concerned for your welfare, isn’t that right?” The blond turned to Levi, his artic blue eyes twinkling with the challenge to defy him.

The desire to choke him out was palpable, his fingers twitching whilst they curled into tight fists and then flexed loose. He hated to be baited like this. Erwin knew this, of course, he did. More than a couple of centuries together would teach you a thing or two even if you weren’t as infamously observant as Erwin Smith.

Levi swallowed his pride and called out your name, the syllables melding together on his tongue like a lover’s caress. “I should be the one apologising. As you have been informed,” he glanced towards Erwin who had moved back towards his desk to give the two of you the illusion of space, “I haven’t been eating for some time and my emotions got the better of me.”

“It’s okay… no one got hurt and—”

“Whether or not someone got hurt is beside the point.” Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I acted rashly, and you deserve far better than that. Would you allow me a second chance to get to know you before I decide if you are a good fit as my donor?”

You paused, mouth forming a perfect oval and the rogue thought of placing his finger inside to feel the warm velvet of your tongue struck across his conscious like a lightning bolt. He wanted you. He didn’t want you. He wanted to push you away so hard that you would never dare to approach him again. He wanted to bring you into the safety of his arms to protect you until your dying day.

It was too much, and the confusion was the worst of it.

“I think I’d like that,” you sighed breathlessly, the skin of your décolleté heating from the sudden rush of blood to the surface and that was the final straw.

“Until then, goodnight.”

Levi shadowstepped before you or Erwin could think to stop him. He walked the hallways towards his bedroom and thought about that smug bastard’s face with every heavy stomp of his foot against the carpet. Whilst the idea of leaving you there with him made his blood boil, it was for the best. He couldn’t afford another outburst when things were so precarious.

Inside his bedroom, he went to his private collection of books and pulled out a stack for research. He needed to know everything he possibly could about blood singing before Erwin caught wind of the situation. If there was a way out of this predicament then he needed to know and fast, because he would be damned if his carefully laid plans were going to be destroyed this easily, and yet…

The best-laid plans of mice and men so often go astray.

#delirious writes #levi ackerman #levi x reader #vampire au #aot fanfiction #levi smut #levi angst #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi x you #aot angst #aot smut #attack on titan fanfiction #attack on titan x reader #snk x reader

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the-lonelybarricade · 10 months

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A Blaze in the Dark - (10/12)

Summary: On the eve of her wedding, knowing nothing about her husband besides his apparent disinterest in his soon-to-be wife, Elain uses a spell to meet her true love in her dreams.

All my love to @itsthedoodle for beta-ing this when my anxieties were running amuck, I appreciate you! And also shout out to the angst eding anon for being so nice, I hope you enjoy!!

Read on AO3 ・Series Masterlist・Previous Chapter

An open doorway stood between Elain and Lucien.

One glimpse at her husband’s expression and Elain’s memory was cast somewhere far away. Her mother had once warned that a doorway should always be approached with great caution. She spoke of curses upon thresholds—woven nets of magic that could trap the thoughts and memories of anyone who walked through, if not careful.

But at the Archeron manor, magic was not a concern. When Lady Archeron advised her daughters to always brace themselves before passing through a doorway, it was not because she believed their memories would become trapped. But rather because she wanted her daughters to learn to use the concept as a tool. To act as if a curse had been enacted in every doorway, they crossed and to use that small, ingrained warning to remind themselves that any unladylike behavior should be stripped away before crossing the unseen barrier.

A doorway, she said, was always an opportunity for transition.

Elain recalled sitting on a plush stool in the powder room of the Archeron manor, quiet as she observed her mother pressing a cold spoon to her puffy eyes. She must have swiped it from the dining room after she had excused herself. Elain hadn’t heard what was said over the chatter and clinking silverware, but the unusual tightness in her mother’s expression had compelled Elain to follow.

It was the first time she’d seen her mother cry.

She met Elain’s curious gaze in the vanity and sighed. “Now remember, Elain. We came into this room because we were feeling overwhelmed—and ladies mustn’t look overwhelmed where others can see us.”

Elain nodded because her mother had put on the voice she used when she was imparting wisdom. The spoon clattered against the table as her mother set it down and practiced a smile in the mirror. Elain practiced one, too, despite the odd tightness in her chest.

“When we go back through that door, Elain, we leave our overwhelmed feelings in this room, understood? We let it take the unpleasant memory. And we pretend we’re thespians, putting on our masks to play our part.”

This was a trick Elain had already discovered. She nodded, showing her mother her best impression of a lady’s mask—chin tilted, shoulder blades pinched, smile primed. Her mother strained a hum of approval before returning to fixing her own mask. It was perhaps the first time Elain fully grasped that what stepped out of a doorway was not always the same as what initially stepped inside.

Now, Lucien was staring at Elain from the doorway to the bathing room. And she had the sense that something had changed. Been left behind and filtered through that invisible net.

He offered her a lazy smile, wet cloth in his hand as he’d promised.

And yet she found herself sitting up. Asking, “What’s wrong?”

Lucien crossed the room in long, casual strides. “Nothing at all,” he said.

He pressed the cloth into her palm before turning his back politely. As if it wasn’t his own release she was wiping from her thighs.

“If you don’t want to stay the night…”

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.

What reason did he have to stay, anyhow? She had asked for help in making a child, and he had done just that. She had been the one to hint that he should stay, and like the gentleman he was, he’d spared her the embarrassment of rejection.

They had separate bedrooms for a reason. They’d agreed to a platonic marriage for a reason.

Once again, Lucien was making his feelings and intentions perfectly clear and she was choosing to complicate the matter with affections he did not ask for. And if she thought there had been something more to his tender touches and gentle words, that could only be blamed on her own hopeful misinterpretations. He was a kind man. Of course he would ensure the experience had been pleasurable, exactly as Vassa had said. Any further examination would be a disservice to them both.

This had been strictly a matter of child-making, she reminded herself.

“I will stay the night,” he said. Ever dutiful.

Elain should have left it at that for her own well-being. But she could recognize his heavy swallow, how the bob in his throat took the familiar form of unspoken words. And she risked cutting herself on their jagged edges as she pilfered the debris of his silence, guessing at what he was too kind to say to her.

But I do not want to.

But do not let this be an expectation.

But I will be gone before you wake up.

She set the cloth on the bedside table with too much force. Lucien’s shoulders jerked at the wet slap, and she suppressed an apology for startling him. It would not be what she was truly saying sorry for.

“Lucien,” she started—

“Elain.”

He turned to look at her. She could see him fighting to hide it, but there was a hollowness to him that hadn’t been present before. The flame in his russet eye was guttered. The golden one was spinning as though recalibrating. Lucien touched her thigh, much shyer than the bruising grip he’d kept when his head was buried between her legs. Had all that passion, all those honeyed words, been driven solely by lust?

His voice was quiet. “I’m staying because, just this once, I’d like to know how it feels to fall asleep holding my wife. I’ll do better by you in the morning.”

Just this once. Like he was doing it as a favor.

An indignant part of Elain wanted to tell him not to bother at all, but it was outweighed by her longing. She wanted to know how it felt to fall asleep in Lucien’s arms, too. Even if it was just this once. Even if it would break her heart in the morning.

Elain leaned over to snuff the gaslamp before her expression could slip into dismay, and Lucien took that as his cue to sink down beside her and pull the blankets over their bodies. It took a moment for their weight to settle, where the snaps and pops of the hearth filled the spaces between their breaths. She was afraid of what her voice would reveal, and Lucien clearly had no words to offer that would spare her unrequited feelings. Had she made herself too obvious? Too eager?

After a moment, as though he had been waging some internal battle with himself, Lucien shuffled closer to Elain and slipped an arm around her waist. All it took was a slight tug for her back to find his warm, solid chest. He curled around her, knees pressed behind her own, face against her neck, hips flush.

“Cauldron, you’re cold,” he murmured, rubbing his palms over her arms like he could banish the chill. She supposed, with the magic heating his skin, he was doing precisely that.

“You were in the bathroom for a while,” she said.

A subtle question, which was met with crackling silence.

She could sense him calculating his response, and perhaps she was vastly overthinking things. Maybe nothing had changed at all, and the time he’d taken in the bathing room had simply left space for reality to creep back in.

“Apologies for my neglect, then.” He kissed her on the shoulder. “Allow me to make it up to you.”

His heated palm slid from her arms to her stomach, moving in slow circles. Up her abdomen, along her hips, up and around her breasts. She arched into the touch, feeling her eyelids grow heavy as she focused on the soothing sensation. How infuriating—that he could be so doting and reserved at the same time. She wanted to scream at him, but all of her temper was being quelled beneath the movement of his hand.

“Allow me to call on you during my next cycle,” she said, only mildly joking.

“Please do.”

The ease with which he offered, the sincerity in his voice… Elain could not understand him. There was amity between friends, there was fulfilling their marital obligations, and then there were the fingertips dragging against her skin with a reverence that spoke of more than simple duty.

Elain summoned the courage to speak his name, prepared to ask him for the truth of his feelings, but it clashed with the sound of her own name on his lips.

His idle strokes paused.

“You go first,” she said.

“Do you remember what you said in the carriage, that secrets are a currency?”

And like currency, they can be exchanged, traded, lended. Or stolen.

She had said it to wound him because she’d been irritated by his secret-keeping and had wanted to remind him that he was not the only one capable of seeing beyond what a person wished to reveal of themselves.

“Yes,” Elain said, wary of its relevance here, now.

“I was going to propose a trade. In the interest of knowing more about my wife. One secret from you and one secret from me.”

A very dangerous game if she did not play it correctly.

“A secret of our own choosing?”

“No,” he said carefully. “It would be too easy to choose something irrelevant. I get to ask you a question met with honesty, and you receive the same.”

Elain fought to keep her body from tensing up, knowing that with Lucien’s body pressed against hers in every way possible, he would be able to feel it. And she would betray her guilt before he could ask anything condemning.

“You can go first,” Lucien offered.

Was it better to go first? She would be able to measure the vulnerability of his answer to gauge how much she should reciprocate. But he had clearly started this game with a question in mind, one that she would not be able to return by going first. And one she could not hope to guess at.

Then there was the matter of what she should ask him. There were too many things she wanted to know. And far too many of them would give away the hope turning on a spit in her chest. Lucien began moving his palm again, unaware each touch was another laceration. She shut her eyes, ignoring what she truly wanted to ask because she couldn’t bear the truth of it.

“How did you lose your eye?”

Lucien stiffened.

Elain was instantly flooded with guilt. “I’m sorry. It is surely a painful memory—let me ask something else.”

“No, it’s okay.” His voice had taken on a solemn quality that chilled her bones, even as Lucien’s arms tightened around her. “As you can imagine, it’s not a happy story.” He cleared his throat. “Before I reached maturity, one of my brothers had an illegitimate child with a commoner woman. As a result, my father forbade us from having any relationships outside of the matches he explicitly approved. All of my brothers broke the rules—quite frequently, I might add—but I was the only one who got caught. And my father decided to make an example of me. He took my eye and left half of my face scarred so that I would be… less desirable. I can’t say if it had that effect, but it kept me in line and coaxed me down the aisle, so he got what he wanted in the end.”

Elain’s stomach knotted. Not only had Lucien been given no choice in their betrothal, but he had been punished, severely, for seeking any other match for himself. No wonder he resented her, this marriage. She winced, recalling the accusations she’d hurled at him on their wedding day.

“Lucien—”

He was quick to press his lips to her neck like he might temper her horror with gentle touches. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel any guilt. This happened well before I was betrothed to Elain Archeron. Though I hope you might forgive me that I was too stubborn to court you properly before our wedding. And that I acted in haste trying to separate our lives.”

There were no words to fully express the deep, abysmal horror caving open inside her. She only managed a weak, “When did this happen?”

“Over a year ago now. My father gifted me this palace shortly after as an apology, though I think he simply grew tired of witnessing everyone’s sympathy. It might be the closest he’s ever come to remorse.”

Elain had guessed that King Beron was cruel, but she hadn’t known the depths. She thought of the Queen’s sunken eyes and the way Lucien’s hand trembled standing before him. How Vassa kept her voice low, always cautious of listening ears. For a man whom she had never seen step foot in this home, he haunted every corner.

“He’s a monster,” she whispered.

“He is.”

And this was their King. Her father-in-law, the man who would grandfather any of their future children. Elain pressed a hand to her stomach, contemplating if her desire to be a mother was worth one day exposing their child to Beron Vanserra. The thought of him holding their baby, knowing what cruelties he’d exacted on his own son…

Lucien’s hand fell over Elain’s, intertwining their fingers. “I am doing what I can to keep him away from you. Once tensions settle in the North, he’ll fix his interest elsewhere.”

“And if they don’t?” She struggled to stay her rising panic. “If Rhodes and the Eastern Kingdom go to war?”

“Then I pray my father will see no further use for you and Nesta as pawns. And that he’ll leave you in peace while I go off to fight.”

Then, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t become his hostage. Especially with Lucien gone, sent away to lead some war camp on the other side of the Kingdom. Would she ever see him again if that happened?

Lucien added soothingly, “Eris is convinced this conflict will resolve without war.”

She thought of his eldest brother’s cutting gaze, so similar in nature to Nesta’s icy stare. But where Nesta was all cold temper, borne from feeling too much, there was an underlying ruthlessness to Eris that caused Elain to suspect he felt very little for very few.

“And you trust Eris?”

Lucien huffed, not quite a laugh. “I trust that Eris will act in his own best interest. This war will serve nothing but Beron’s pride.”

“I hope you’re right.”

His voice was little more than a whisper. “I hope I’m right, too. And if I’m wrong, I’ll find a way to get you out. Maybe back to Carterhaugh or—somewhere else.”

Fleeing the Kingdom while Lucien stayed behind to fight a war? As the Lady of the estate, it would be disgraceful, even if she risked becoming a hostage in the dispute. But the way Lucien’s voice wavered gave her pause.

“Where else were you thinking?”

Lucien was quiet for a long minute. Then he said, “Before I left on my trip, you asked me what I would do if your True Love demanded I give you to him. I asked if you would want to go, and you didn’t give me an answer.”

“I-Is that—” Elain, tripping over her tongue, stopped for a moment to compose herself. She forced her voice not to wobble despite how the thundering in her chest tried to shake her. “Is that the secret you want in exchange?”

“No,” Lucien said, too quickly. Like he couldn’t bear the answer. “No, it’s just—It occurred to me that there is a true love somewhere, searching for you. And if everything here went to shit, I could take you to him and trust that he would look after you. He could give my wife a chance at happiness where I have failed.”

She twisted to face him. It was dim in the bedroom, but the hearth cast enough light to see his face. His cheeks, smooth and scarred and dusted with dark freckles. She raised her hands, drawing the backs of her fingers along both cheekbones. Those beautiful eyes watched her beneath pinched, wary brows. Her fingers curled beneath his strong jaw, and she rose to kiss each side of his face.

A pleased, startled noise kindled in the back of Lucien’s throat.

Elain held his gaze, saying with every ounce of her conviction, “You have not failed, Lucien.”

She could see him fighting the urge to add yet. He had not failed her yet. Elain didn’t want to press him on what he feared this conflict would bring, why he felt it would be necessary to smuggle her out of the Kingdom if war truly did break on the horizon.

Forcing lightness into her voice, Elain teased, “And how do you know that you aren’t my True Love? You could be delivering me to yourself, for all you know.”

But she knew. And she was a wretch for pretending she didn’t, but it was a nice thought. Lucien and her True Love, the same person. It would spare her the guilt of betraying her husband before their wedding while painting him as some callous monster.

Elain brushed her thumb over the pulse in Lucien’s neck, faint with a rhythm so familiar she could have sworn she’d listened to it all her life. As if all along, they’d been tied together by a thread that spanned the ever-changing distance between them. And their hearts were the expert musicians, plucking a song that could only be heard on the other end, through Autumn and Spring and the vast stone walls of the Archeron manor. She’d heard his song even before she’d had any awareness of him. She could hear it now.

And she knew what her heart, swelling in answer, was telling her, even if magic—if fate—said differently. Her heart beat more surely than a butterfly’s wing, anyway.

Lucien’s voice was strained. “I doubt the Mother would look upon me so favorably. I’ve done nothing to deserve a wife as lovely as you.”

“Nor I a husband so insufferable,” she said, hoping to draw out his smile.

His lips twitched. The world’s smallest victory. He leaned forward to brush a soft kiss against her forehead. “Sleep, wife, and I’ll endeavor to be less insufferable tomorrow.”

“But you didn’t ask me for a secret in exchange.”

“Another time,” he said, shutting his eyes decidedly. But he didn’t withdraw.

His lips were still pressed to her forehead when his breathing leveled out. And Elain, content in knowing he wouldn’t be sneaking away once she was asleep, allowed the warm darkness to slowly overtake her.

Falling asleep in Lucien’s arms was a perilous thing.

Elain knew just this once would be an excruciating promise the next time she tried to fall asleep and there would be no warm, sturdy arms to wrap herself in. She’d expected that by morning, she would wake to cold sheets and a deserted bed, her husband long retreated back to his own side of the palace as they had agreed upon the day they were married.

She wasn’t expecting the slow waking of lips against her neck. A nose, dragging behind her ear and burying in her hair like he was trying to memorize its scent. Elain made a soft, sleep-contended noise and turned her head to bury deeper in that warmth. His laugh rumbled against her cheek. She felt his arms tighten, readjusting to curve his body around her. The hearth had died in the night, but the morning chill was somewhere far away, a concern only for the maidens who weren’t presently cocooned by their husbands.

Elain hummed, her sleep-addled brain taunting her as she thought, this is how it feels to wake in the arms of someone you love.

Lucien kissed her again, this time on the crown of her head. He must have thought he could get away with more while she was asleep because those were his fingers lovingly tracing the shape of her spine. Warm, like all of the rest of him was.

She wanted to luxuriate in this moment for eternity.

A knock on the door reminded Elain that the Mother and her Cauldron would never be so generous. With a noise that sounded decidedly like a grumble, Lucien pulled away from Elain. Cold air invaded the space he left, persistent against the protest that rose in her throat. Even as she pulled the blankets back around her, the cold stayed, an unwelcome reminder that their evening of bliss had finally ended.

And Lucien was again the husband who wanted nothing to do with his wife.

At least he was a naked husband who wanted nothing to do with his wife.

Elain peeled her eyes into the bleary morning and found that the sight of his firm, rounded backside eased some of her disappointment. Lucien had nothing to cover himself, which was ever so fortunate for her, though less fortunate for the poor servant on the other side of the door.

Lucien cracked the door just enough to peer through the slim opening, shielding the worst of his indecency.

“Clothes for you, Your Highness,” came Vassa’s response. The dry humor to her voice caused Elain to duck her face into the blankets, hiding her laughter from Lucien lest he think it was at his expense.

If he heard, he didn’t glance over his shoulder to see what had tickled Elain. He merely extended a hand to accept the clothes and nodded to the lady. “Thank you, Vassa.”

He began to shut the door, but she hovered.

“Shall I have the cooks prepare a breakfast to be served in Her Highness’s room?”

There was a question behind the question, one which carried more weight than perhaps Lucien understood: will you be staying to dine with your wife?

At this, Lucien paused. Paused as if he did understand the significance. That here, now, he’d be setting a precedent for what came after these attempts to produce an heir. He could stay, could allow them to connect their hearts just as much as their bodies.

Or he could leave. And with something so simple as passing through a doorway, the memory of all those fervent touches would be caught and tangled in that infernal net, and the evening prior, which had meant so much to Elain, would be reduced to little more than a fulfilled obligation.

The floorboards creaked beneath her weight. Elain hadn’t meant to get out of bed. In truth, she’d wanted to preserve what precious warmth remained of their night together before the phantom heat of his body became only a memory. But her body acted of its own accord, and the old wood groaned loud enough to turn Lucien’s head.

Elain had not drawn anything to cover herself. Her skin prickled in protest at the sudden exposure to cold air. She felt her nipples harden and resisted the urge to cover them up, particularly as Lucien’s gaze dipped, shameless in raking his eyes over the sight of her body in the full light of day. Was it less alluring without the flickering candlelight, the golden fire?

It didn’t appear that way.

Indeed, there was nothing covering Lucien either, and she was able to witness precisely how her naked body impacted him. And maybe, in a fair bit of turnabout, Elain let her eyes wander, too. To the swelling arousal between his legs.

No wonder she felt sore.

“Your Highness?” Vassa asked, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the door.

Elain tried not to squeak at the thought that only a plank of wood separated her friend and her fully erect husband. Lucien didn’t seem to mind or care. He was simply staring at her, not trying to hide the longing in his expression.

“Sorry,” Lucien answered distractedly, still not taking his eyes off Elain. “What did you… Was there a question, Vassa?”

“Would you like me to bring your breakfast to Her Highness’s quarters?”

From the look on his face, if he stayed, Elain had a feeling that she would be the breakfast.

After a long moment of consideration, Lucien’s jaw tightened. “No,” he said. “Bring it to my study. I’ve much to catch up on in my absence.”

There was a small pause in which Elain imagined Vassa bowing her acknowledgment. Her tone was more frigid than usual as she said, “As you wish, Your Highness.”

Vassa’s footsteps retreated down the hall. Lucien shut the door.

He hovered there, forehead pressed against the wood. Like he wasn’t prepared to face the fallout of his decision, the devastation she knew was plain on her face. She wouldn’t let him. By the time he turned around, Elain had slipped on the perfect mask of a lady. She was halfway to the armoire as if all that preoccupied her mind was what clothes she might wear today. It likely wouldn’t wound him to think she was indifferent to his answer, but at least she’d be spared the embarrassment of mistaking his desire for affection.

Neither of them made an effort to chase away the silence as they dressed on their respective sides of the room.

She thought he might even leave without saying goodbye, but Lucien paused with his fingers curled around the ornate door handle. He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and turned to stride across the room. Towards her. Elain froze midway through buttoning her bodice, worried now that she’d upset him in her refusal to speak. Even as he stopped in front of her, she said nothing, hesitant to guess at his motives.

He lifted his hand, and Elain stood perfectly still as it glided over her cheek, so warm in contrast to the air pressing around them that she couldn’t suppress her shiver. He stopped with his fingers captive in her hair. Even Elain’s pride couldn’t keep her chin from tilting up when he leaned down.

Nothing—not silk, or flower petals, or the whisper of a butterfly’s wings—was softer than the press of Lucien’s lips against her forehead. He lingered there, allowing her to carve the sensation into her memory. The heat of his breath brushed over the crown of her head, the fingers curling into her neck. As if his body and mind were at war, half wanting to stay and the other half desperate to go.

She imagined it must be awful to desire someone he didn’t love. How conflicted his heart must be. One eye of russet that saw her for who she was—his wife, a woman with no greater control than he, who was struggling to make the most of their situation. And one eye of gold that must surely gaze upon her and see his injustices made flesh—a woman who caused him misery, who served as a lifelong reminder that he served the will of a tyrant.

Though it was painful to love and not be loved in return, Elain thought she preferred it this way. Love had always been something she expressed outward. First, with her sisters, with what ways she could find to bring a smile to their faces. Then, with her plants, where she learned to nurture the soil until the flowerbeds bloomed. She would not know what to do if the warmth in her chest went hollow and there was none left to extend to the world around her.

And she pitied her husband. Because she sensed he had never been treated with very much love and perhaps had never truly learned how to extend or accept it. He’d believed, possibly all his life, that even his marriage was to be loveless. They were so different in that regard. Even as he pulled away without meeting her eyes, Elain let herself hope that a day would come when he wouldn’t need to leave her bedroom on such a somber note.

For now, it brought her peace to know that their marriage would not be loveless, so long as she loved him. A small part of her delighted in proving him wrong that way.

Elain stared blankly down the long dining room table.

It was longer than any table her family possessed at the Archeron manor, equipped to fit as many as two dozen guests. She tried to imagine the clinking glasses and laughter that bubbled as readily as flowing wine, but all she could see were the countless empty chairs. Had such a thing ever existed in this palace? It was clear that the ballrooms and banquet tables had been constructed with lavish parties in mind. This was a place that was designed to be filled with music and dancing. Life.

That seemed a laughable concept to Elain, who’d spent the better part of the week with only herself for company. Vassa checked in regularly with tea and cakes and idle conversation, but this was Elain’s honeymoon, and it was improper for Vassa to take up much of the time that should be spent with her husband.

Should.

“His Highness will be taking lunch in his study,” Vassa said. She did not try to hide her irritation.

Nor did Elain restrain her sigh. She had not expected differently. Lucien had taken every meal in his study for the last week. He claimed it was a consequence of being away for so long, but Elain suspected he was trying to reestablish the separate lives they’d promised to uphold. They’d started off on the wrong foot, with her fever and the exchanging letters. The lovemaking. She’d become too accustomed to their proximity.

Once your fever has passed and I have returned from my journey, I’ll see to it that this palace feels far from empty.

He’d promised that before she’d asked him for a baby. Before they’d made love. Elain thrummed her fingers against the wooden table, staring at the vacant seat her husband had occupied on the one and only occasion they’d dined together. Maybe she’d asked for too much.

“Do you know what he’s doing in there?”

Vassa shrugged. “Paperwork from the looks of it, Your Highness. And lots of reading.”

“He’s been in his study all this while?”

“I think he’s slept in there a few nights, if he’s even slept at all.”

What was he doing? Surely, his governing duties had not accumulated so significantly that they required his attention day and night.

Elain rose from her seat. “Tell the cooks not to fuss. My appetite is fragile this morning, and I’d much prefer to garden.”

The servants had been bemused to discover her love of gardening, but she had not met the resistance she’d encountered at the Archeron manor. Vassa merely insisted she wear a fur cape to ward off the Autumn chill, and the gardeners had been happy to supply her with the tools and seeds she needed.

The grounds of the estate were well cultivated with short grass and perfectly trimmed conical shrubs, but aside from the yellow and gold leaves decorating the forests in the distance, there was no color. Elain was determined to change that, and she’d been using this week of silence to dedicate her attention to the flowerbeds on the east side of the building.

Maybe she was hoping that Lucien would open his window and see her crouched below. And maybe within the flowerbeds, she was trying to quietly grow the courage to storm into his room and demand justification for his neglect.

An hour into gardening, Vassa appeared with a tray of tea and small finger sandwiches.

“You’re too doting,” Elain said, brushing the dirt from her hands before reaching for one of the steaming cups.

“Well, someone ought to dote on you.”

She said it loud enough that Elain glanced towards the open windows above, nervous that the words might have carried. She was certain Vassa had raised her voice intentionally.

“Thank you,” Elain said, meeting Vassa’s eyes so she could see the sincerity of her words. These days, it felt like Vassa was the only one keeping her sane. Nodding to the second cup of tea, Elain asked, “Will you be joining me for a moment?”

Vassa shook her head. “Oh, no, Lady. I thought you might be tired of my company, so I’ve brought an extra cup of tea, hoping to lure someone to join you. If not your husband, perhaps one of the handsome guards stationed by the door? I imagine one of them would be grateful for the warm tea and warmer company.”

At this, Elain laughed. “Do you think so? I found the one with auburn hair rather charming.”

“The guards have a job, you know,” came a voice from above. Both Vassa and Elain glanced up to see Lucien, forearms propped against the windowsill of his study. His hair was tied loosely off his face in a braid, exposing the full cut of his jaw. Elain was grateful for the distance between them so that he couldn’t hear her breath catch, though she still earned a raised brow from Vassa.

“And you, husband?” Elain called. “Do you not also have a job? I’ve heard it’s so demanding you have little time for anyone else these days. Yet here you are, idle at the window.”

Vassa pressed her lips together. “Speaking of jobs,” she said, “I must return to mine.”

With an apologetic—or perhaps encouraging—squeeze on the shoulder, Vassa fled back into the palace.

“My curiosity drew me away from my work,” Lucien said. “I wanted to know what my wife was up to while she spoke so discourteously about her own husband.”

Elain drew herself up and crossed her arms. “If you were listening as closely as you’re pretending, you would know I didn’t say a word against you.”

“Nor did you speak in my defense.”

“Well, a lady mustn’t lie,” she said primly. “And, in fact, it has been so long since I’ve engaged with my husband that I’ve forgotten his true nature.”

Ignoring the jab, Lucien nodded at the plants and the dirt on her hands. “What are you growing? You mustn’t forget this land rests in eternal Autumn. No spring will come to reward your efforts.”

Elain huffed. “You underestimate their tenacity. There are plenty of flowers that can bloom in Autumn.”

“Even with the chill?”

She looked up, meeting his eyes. “Do you anticipate that beauty thrives only where it meets no resistance?”

His lips twitched, fighting a smile. “Having met you, sweet wife, I’ve learned that beauty may thrive under any condition.”

“Even solitude,” she said.

That dealt the killing blow to his smile. His voice took on an edge as he said, “While these flowers may survive the Autumn, surely they do so in spite of the conditions. Would they not be happier in a more fertile land, one blessed with warmth and sunshine?”

Elain looked at the flowerbeds she’d spent a week tending. She shook her head at the arrogance. “No plant is the same, husband. Which is why you must learn about them to understand what they need.” She gestured to one section of the soil, which appeared to be little more than dirt at the moment but, in time, would be bright, blooming flowers. “It’s true that flowers like these asters and dahlias prefer warm weather, and they’ll bloom here despite the conditions. But here—” she pointed— “These violas will flower because of the cooler temperatures. Put them in a warmer climate, and you will be hindering their growth.”

There was a moment’s silence in which Lucien seemed to mull over this description, weighing how much of her words held a larger meaning. “How strange that a flower would require adverse conditions in order to grow.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Elain countered. “Steel tempers in flame, doesn’t it? And humans grow wiser with each new encounter, particularly the unpleasant ones. Nature is no different—it’s likely where we learned it from.”

“You have a curious mind, Elain,” he said, his voice softer now. More like the curling steam from her tea. “I’d like to know all your thoughts one day.”

Elain took a sip before she responded. “That would require spending time with me, Your Highness.”

He looked pained. She thought he might turn back into his window entirely, but he burst out— “Tomorrow?” She only raised her brows. He added, “You asked me once if we could look at the autumn leaves. We could go on a ride through the woods together.”

She was surprised he remembered. And though she wished he had sought her without Vassa’s taunting, it was progress.

“Tomorrow,” she agreed.

The next afternoon, Elain waited patiently for her husband to appear in the dining room. He hadn’t said he would join her for lunch, but she reasoned they would need to eat before setting off on their afternoon ride. The slightest sound from the hallway made her glance towards the doors, and though she coached herself not to seem too eager, she couldn’t help fiddling with the tablecloth while watching the entrance.

Finally, the dark mahogany wood swung open, and Elain was graced with company at last. Her smile faded once she saw that the arrival did not take the form of her husband but rather a scowling Vassa and a handwritten note which read,

My dear wife,

I’m afraid I am still held up in estate affairs and must postpone our ride.

I beg your patience for another tomorrow.

Your husband,

Lucien

Another tomorrow. She could see it now, their life made up of thousands of stagnant tomorrows, perpetually waiting for the one where Lucien would pity her enough to emerge from the eastern wing. She would not wait for another tomorrow.

“Pardon me, Vassa. I need to speak with my husband.”

Vassa flinched as Elain’s chair scraped back against the floor, but Elain marked approval in her fierce blue eyes. She bowed her head, stepping aside to allow Elain straight passage to the large double doors. From there, it was a matter of winding the halls back into the entryway, where the double-helix staircase stood proudly in the center.

Climbing the grand marble steps, she could admit that the staircase was an impressive feat of architecture, even as she fantasized about burning it to the ground. Besides being a tangible barrier in her relationship with her husband, she could not understand the practicality of a staircase that only connected to one side of the palace. It must have been a horrendous experience for the servants who had to climb to the bottom and back up any time they needed to move from one end of the palace to the other. But then, the architect likely hadn’t cared about the extra burden on the servants—the impracticality of the design was boastful in itself.

It did serve one purpose, however, and that was the slow kindling of Elain’s temper as she circled around and around, replaying all of her husband’s empty promises. That they would be friends, that the palace would feel less lonely on his return, that he would be present whenever she needed him. Up, up, up, she could feel her rage rising with every step, carrying her forward until she was before the door to his study.

Elain didn’t bother with knocking. She suspected he was up to something other than estate work, and she didn’t want to give him an opportunity to cover it up. Thankfully, a prince didn’t bother to lock the door. He expected that the respect of his servants was absolute and that his wife would accept his flimsy excuses with a meek smile and swallowed protests. Not any longer.

“Elain,” Lucien started, standing immediately from his chair. His russet eye was bloodshot. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she repeated, fighting the instinct to raise her voice lest he dismiss her as hysteric. Her eyes flickered to his desk to see that it was littered with books upon books upon books. Many of them open, words scribbled in the margins and pages of notes scattered about.

What was he up to?

“What’s wrong,” she said through gritted teeth, “is that we have not spoken for a week, Lucien. And you dismissed me today with some meager note as though this is not supposed to be our honeymoon.”

Lucien opened his mouth, but before he could slip in some silver-tongued excuse, she pushed past him and surged for one of the books on the desk. The small black and white rendering of a butterfly made her heart sink, but what was worse were the words written beside it: How to contact your true love.

She looked towards him, not trying to contain her hurt. “I see.”

“You don’t,” he said stiffly, reaching for the book.

Elain reared back, holding it over her shoulder, though she knew he towered her in height and could take it from her with enough force. Lucien let his arm drop, saying nothing as she hopelessly glanced toward the other tomes on his desk. Spellbooks, all open to similar pages.

How to reveal a true love’s identity.

Locating a true love.

Magic and true love.

Her anger drained as quickly as it swelled, retreating like the tide from the shore.

“At last, the silence makes sense,” she said. Hardly more than a whisper. She shut her eyes. “If you are going to be taking a mistress—”

“I’m not,” Lucien said quickly. He stepped toward her, arms out like he didn’t trust she wouldn’t launch the heavy tome at his head. “Elain, I promise you—”

“I have had enough of your promises, Lucien!” Her voice cracked, and she dropped her head so he wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes. She set the book back on his desk. “This has all made it plenty clear to me. My apologies for interrupting. I will return to my side of the palace, and you can keep to yours. Precisely the way you wished.”

Elain attempted to dodge around him, but Lucien stepped into her path. “I have not wished for any of this,” he said. She took a sharp breath, his words a knife in her chest. Lucien reached for her as if to offer comfort but stopped himself when she flinched. His eyes darkened, and his hand fell back to his side, fingers curling. “Elain, this is laughably far from what I wanted.”

“I know,” she said, more like an accusation than anything else. “You never wanted a wife and now you are shackled—”

“You are the one who is shackled.” He said it quietly, his voice so raw that her words dried on her tongue. Lucien ran a hand through his hair. “There are things about this universe that I will never fathom, Elain, and winding up married to you is one of them. This was supposed to be a punishment, a misery, and somehow, I’ve been gifted with the best of wives. And the only curse I can think of is that I’m to have this taste of happiness, and it will not be permanent. That you might be taken from me or worse.” He expelled the air from his chest in a dry, brittle laugh. “Or perhaps the torture of it is that I will be helpless in love while knowing that you loathe me, that I will forever stand in the way of your happiness.”

“I…” Elain blinked, looking again at the books on the desk. “Lucien, I don’t understand.”

“I think this is precisely what my father wanted,” he said, like that explained it all. He threw his hand out again, gesturing vaguely at her person. “He must have known that you would be lovely beyond comprehension. That you would bewitch me so thoroughly I would seek nothing more than your happiness. And that by trapping you in this marriage, that aim would be forever unattainable. Perhaps he wanted me to see myself in him. To understand how it feels to bear the resentment of a wife and watch her wither, knowing she would rather be anywhere else.” He followed her eyes to the desk, shaking his head. “I am not my father, Elain. I will not be my father.”

Love. He’d used the word love to describe his feelings for her, this marriage. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she couldn’t let herself hope, not yet. “You want to know what has been making me unhappy, Lucien?” She ventured a step toward him. “That you have been in here. All I have wanted this last week was to see you, talk to you. You promised me that the palace would feel less lonely when you returned. So what happened? Did I—”

Don’t say it, she could hear Nesta warn. Don’t let him know how much his absence has wounded you. It will give him too much power.

Elain’s lip wobbled, and she decided she didn’t care if it exposed too much of her heart. She wanted him to understand it, understand her. Voice broken, she choked, “Did I do something wrong?”

She watched his throat bob, working past whatever truth clogged his throat. Then he said, “I saw the butterfly wings, Elain.”

Feeling as if he’d struck her, Elain stumbled back. She laid a hand on her chest like that might keep the pieces of her heart from shattering. “W-what?”

“Beneath your sink,” he said. “I found them the night we made love, and I knew immediately what they meant.”

It was dreadful to think of what Lucien might have concluded. He didn’t sound angry, at least. She sensed there was no threat of him raiding the lands for whichever man was having clandestine meetings with his wife. At least not imminently. But did he think she’d been seeing her True Love in her sleep all this time? Did he believe her claim of loneliness was a farce, that she was trying to make a fool of him?

Elain shook her head, trying to quell the anxious thoughts swelling around her. “Lucien, please, you must understand—”

“You don’t need to explain it to me.” Rolling up his sleeves, Lucien returned to his desk. “Given your circumstances, why wouldn’t you seek him out? You deserve that happiness, and I won’t stand in the way of it any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

He reached for one of the spell books, skimming through the pages. “I’ve been trying to find a way to contact him. Perhaps you and Nesta can flee with him to the North. I’m sure your sister will provide the three of you refuge.”

“Lucien—”

He continued speaking, mostly to himself. “My father will lose his bargaining chip, and our Kingdoms will likely go to war, but the majority of it will be fought on our lands. You should be safe in Rhysand’s kingdom.”

“Lucien.”

At last, he looked up. It was midday, but with the curtains drawn, it was dark enough in the room that he’d lit the golden sconces on the wall. Elain maneuvered herself between Lucien and the desk, intentionally blocking the books from his sight so that he was forced to focus solely on her. Candlelight flickered in his red-rimmed eyes as they met hers.

Elain set her shoulders the way she was taught a lady should. Despite her shaking hands, she managed to keep her speaking voice level and deliberately slow, so that the full weight of each word had a chance to settle on him. She said, “I will forgive you for making so many assumptions about what I want without once consulting me. But I need you to understand three things, Lucien Vanserra.”

She held his gaze for a long moment before continuing, waiting for him to nod his agreement that he would listen without interruption.

Once he did, she plucked one of the books from his desk and chucked it to the floor. “Firstly, I have no intention of fleeing these lands or this marriage. I’m insulted that you so greatly overestimate my cowardice. Did you think you married a woman who runs away when things get difficult?”

Lucien, wisely, shook his head.

“Secondly.” The next book, which was thicker and heavier, hit the ground with a satisfyingly large thud. Lucien spared the leather-bound tome a brief, mournful look before he snapped his attention back to Elain. “I’ll admit that I sought my true love before our wedding. I was anguished that we had not had a proper courtship, and in truth, I did it largely out of spite. But I have not contacted him since I arrived at this palace, nor do I have any intention to. Burn the wings for all I care. True Love alone is not enough to earn my affection.”

Those full, perfect lips parted like he intended to say something. She cut him off by sucking in a deep breath and exhaling, “Finally—”

“Elain.”

She threw another of the books to the floor.

“You will listen!” She snapped in the wake of its silencing echo. He shut his mouth. “Finally, Lucien, I need you to understand that it does not matter that you are not my True Love. You will never be your father. Because I do not resent you, I do not loathe you. In truth, I love you so desperately that even fate cannot shake my conviction. I love you despite all of your foolishness and all of my own. You are my husband, and you are the man I choose to walk alongside, even if that may only ever be in parallel.”

Lucien said nothing once she finished, but she could sense him tracking her every breath like he was waiting for her to add something that would take it all back. His mechanical eye clicked as his gaze roamed from her eyes to her mouth, to her chest heaving out of her tightly laced corset. And finally, to the carnage she’d wrought on his study. The ancient—and likely valuable—books were tossed carelessly about, some of the spines likely now damaged, the pages folded over.

He offered her a sly smile. “Am I permitted to speak now, Your Highness?”

Just like that, all of the tension eased out of her. A small, astonished laugh bubbled out of her throat. “Only if you say nothing foolish.”

“In that case, it’s advisable I remain silent.”

Words weren’t required, anyhow. The way he reached for her hand and drew it carefully to his lips said enough. That soft kiss against her knuckles was a silent apology. The second, an admission that unfurled something warm in her chest.

“I have been a fool,” he conceded, bowing his forehead to the back of her knuckles. “I have been a fool helplessly in love with his wife. And you have been so patient with me.”

Elain winced. “I did wreck your study.”

“It was in need of redecorating,” he said, tugging gently on her arm now, trying to guide her into his lap. She obliged, perching herself delicately across his knees. One of his hands moved to brace her hip while the other raised to her chin, drawing her face down towards his. “You love me?” he said like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I love you.” She leaned down to kiss him, stroking a hand through his hair. His body was shaking. “But no more silence, please. I cannot bear it.”

“Consider it done,” he said.

“And the agreement we made on our wedding day, that we should live our lives separately?”

Lucien pressed his forehead into her chest, inhaling deeply before saying, “I am happy to cast it out of my memory for eternity. You can move into my bedroom in the east wing, or I can move to yours in the west. Or we can maintain separate bedrooms if you please, but I’d like us to at least be on the same side of the staircase.”

“And our meals,” Elain said. “We take them together from now on.”

“Happily. Our baths, too, if you’d oblige me.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he laughed.

“You’ll forgive me for trying my luck.” He kissed her shoulder. “There is one agreement, though, I’d like to keep if you’re willing.”

Elain felt wary at the suggestion. “Which agreement is that?”

She could feel the wicked grin spreading across his lips. His voice dipped low. “I’d like to continue our attempts to conceive if that still sounds agreeable to you.”

Oh. Elain felt something heat in her gut. She lowered her voice, too, to remind him, “It’s been over a week since our last attempt.”

He hummed against her skin. “Something I think we should rectify.”

With a grin, Lucien withdrew far enough to reach an arm around her body and swipe the remaining books off his desk. Then he lifted her so that she was sitting atop the wooden surface, his body wedged between her legs.

“I believe the study will do nicely,” he said. “What do you think, wife?”

Elain reached for the buttons of his waistcoat, the top button already loosened by the time she said, “I think it’s a good thing someone relocated all of your books.”

#A Blaze in the Dark #Elucien #Elucien fic #Elucien fanfic #Elucien fanfiction #Elain x Lucien #Lucien x Elain

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mumms-the-word · 7 months

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The Art of the Night

Day 27 of the BG3 Fic February Challenge

Did I already have this scene written? Yes I absolutely did. I like Gale's romance scene but I was so disappointed when the game created a mashup of the Kama Sutra and One Thousand and One Nights and DIDN'T let us read passages from it.

So made up some passages for myself.

Check out my masterlist of BG3 fics!

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27. Choose any scene in the game and write it with your headcanon

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How about the perfect night in Waterdeep? Yes…let’s imagine how it would be. The scene is this: you and I stand in the room that is the centre of my universe. The sculptures, the paintings, the walls enlivened by the spines of a thousand books. The grand piano plays the Lliirian Suites all by itself, and as we look out beyond the arches that lead to the terrace, we see the weary sun take its daily dive into the sea.

———

Dani moved to the railing of the terrace, placing her hands on the wood and leaning her weight against it. It felt as real as any she’d touched in Baldur’s Gate, worn smooth by craftsmen, time, and weather. She closed her eyes and soaked in the warmth of the setting sun and the salt of the briny sea air. Just like home…

She knew it was all illusion and fantasy, that the magic was merely tricking her mind into feeling the weight of the wood and smelling the scent of the sea. But for the moment, she wanted to exist in that illusion. After so many days surrounded by decay, the warmth and light of even a setting sun was like a balm to her spirit and body.

She felt Gale join her at the railing and she opened her eyes, turning to look at him. But his gaze was on the horizon, a deeply thoughtful, almost sorrowful expression on his face. Despite the obvious concentration it must take to make and maintain this illusion, his mind was clearly on the future and the choice he felt was all but inevitable. He gazed at the horizon like a man who knew he would never see such a sight again.

She wanted to reach out and caress his cheek, turn his face back to hers, kiss him until he forgot all his worries. But she settled, for now, with taking his hand.

He glanced down, as if surprised, and then met her gaze. He gave her a soft smile.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She gave his hand a squeeze. “I love it. I could spend every evening watching the sunset here, with you.”

“Could you?” He seemed surprised by her words, lifting his head to gaze out over the ocean again, as if looking at it a little differently than before.

“Once all of this is over, yes. I’m a sucker for a good sunset.” She tilted her head, waiting for him to smile at her little remark, but he was lost in thought once more, his eyes scanning the world around them. Memorizing, she realized, or perfecting the memory. As though this might truly be the last night his eyes beheld the scene.

She couldn’t let him stay lost in his thoughts. She tugged on his hand, leading him back to the cushioned bench that sat off to one side. There, she sat down and patted the space beside her, inviting him to join her. He smiled faintly.

“My favorite spot,” he said, gesturing toward her. He settled beside her, body close, shoulders brushing. “Many times, evening turned to night and back to daybreak once more while I sat here, lost in words.”

She raised her eyebrows playfully at him. “Oh? Up all night reading? I do love that rebellious streak of yours.”

He gave her a teasing, half-mischievous look. “Allow me to live dangerously while I still can.”

His words, though said with humor, made her smile falter. She didn’t want to think about that now. His possible death. Not while they were, for the moment, surrounded by the comforts of home, his home, far, far away from the Absolute.

“What sorts of books did you read?” she asked. “It can’t have all been spell tomes. At least, I hope not.”

He chuckled. “No, not all spell tomes or magical theory, though there was plenty of that as well. I’d read just about anything I could get my hands on, if it interested me. History, philosophy, literature, poetry…romance…”

He shifted to reveal a book on the side table behind him. “This,” he said, reaching for the book, “might just be all of that wrapped in one.”

Dani glanced at the cover and instantly recognized it. “Is that…?”

“The Art of the Night,” he said, running his hand over the cover. It depicted a man and a woman in sensual embrace, their bodies fluid and ethereal. Around the woman’s head was a round halo of divinity, like a thin crescent moon in the starry sky that surrounded them. “It details the first thousand nights of a newlywed king and queen. They turned everything they did into an art. The art of conversation. The art of taste, time-honored and newly acquired.”

His thumb idly traced the halo of divinity around the woman’s head. “The art of the body. The exploration and acceptance of the self and the other. The art of the night itself.”

“I’m familiar with this story,” Dani said, reaching for the book. He gave it willingly, watching as she traced a finger along the curving lines of the woman’s body.

She recalled what she knew…what she had memorized, back when she’d gotten her hands on a version of the king and queen’s story a couple of years ago. She hadn’t kept it long, because her troupe had to travel light and books were heavy, so she had only memorized a few pages to entertain her fancy when she could no longer read the physical copy. It wasn't much, but what she did remember was that this tale was more than fairy tale. It was sheer, poetic eroticism, beautiful and haunting, alluring and sensual.

She stood and wandered a step or two away, opening the book and flipping through the first few pages, her eyes skimming the text. It wasn’t precisely the same as the tale she’d read. In the margins of the text, on nearly every page, there were magic symbols and words. Each night was embellished with the markings for a spell or a ritual, accompanied by poetic instructions on how to recreate the experiences and lessons the noble couple gained in their first three years of marriage. And, more than occasionally, the pages contained diagrams of the couple in the various ways they experienced their pleasure, drawn in the same fluid, ephemeral style as the cover.

This copy, this version, wasn’t just the tale itself, she realized. It was both the romantic, erotic tale and a magical Quarta Sune, both poetry and sex manual, mixing in magic and making the hypothetical romance of the king and queen entirely possible, if one knew how to manipulate the spells.

She turned to a passage she knew well, almost by heart. She was quiet a moment, reconnecting with the words, before she began to speak them softly, a note of fondness in her voice.

“‘That night, the king met his beloved once more in their chambers,’” she read.

“‘Dearest one,’ said he, ‘Gold I have given thee, and jewels from my store; chains for thy neck and bands for thy wrists; and still, thine eyes shine more brilliantly than any treasure in my kingdom.

‘What gem in all the realms can be more precious than thy gaze? What more can I give to you, my beloved, so that you may know the ardent depths of my heart? What more, when thine eyes alone make all riches seem as dull iron?’

‘Tender-hearted king,’ said the queen, ‘I need neither gold nor gems; my love is not so cheaply bought nor so willingly sold. And yet, already thou possess that which I long for most. Thy steady gaze, my love, and thy faithful hand are all I ask.’”

Gale stood and joined her, brushing nearly against her back as he looked over her shoulder and spoke the next few lines softly in her ear.

“‘Come, take my hand, and look beyond this simple visage. I will bare my soul to thee, this night, and gaze boldly at thine. For more than bone and blood are we, but spirits merely housed in flesh.’”

Dani’s breath caught, her mind distracted by the way his breath stirred her hair, by how close his lips were to her neck. She turned her head slightly and found his dark eyes watching her. He hadn’t been reading the lines, but reciting them from memory.

She was at a loss for words. He was barely touching her and yet she felt like her entire body was slowly kindling aflame, warmth spreading from her core to her toes and the very tips of her horns. She clutched the book a little tighter, casting about for something to say.

“My, um…my copy didn’t have pictures,” she breathed. "Or spells."

He blinked, as if processing her words, and then chuckled, shaking his head. “You were missing out, then. Some of the later diagrams can be quite…fascinating.”

When he looked at her again, his smile was half-apologetic and half-admiring. “You know…I must have read that passage a thousand times, but never have I heard the words expressed so beautifully as you did now. You have a gift, Dani. You are…”

He trailed off, his gaze slowly taking in the features of her face, lingering a moment on her lips before meeting her eyes again. “You are wonderful,” he breathed. “So wonderful I can scarcely believe any of this to be real.”

Dani didn’t know what to say to that. She felt lost in his brown-eyed gaze, trying to discern shades of deep amber from chestnut and mahogany, enchanted by the flecks of bronze that appeared in the light of the setting sun. She had never considered herself a fawning romantic, but staring into his eyes, she felt she could all too easily become one.

After several heartbeats, Gale dropped his gaze to the book, gently taking it from her hands. “Can I show you?” he asked, turning the pages. “What they mean? To experience love and pleasure in more ways than just the body?”

“You mean…like the gods do,” she said, turning to face him, the book between them. “Like you said before.”

“Precisely.” He smoothed flat the pages of the book, showing her two diagrams of hands, magic symbols and poetry surrounding the sketches. “Why confine ourselves to the pleasures of mortal flesh? It is but one stitch in a vast tapestry. Let me show you more.”

Something about the brightness in his eyes made her hesitate. He would know more than her what pleasures could exist outside the body, she supposed, and she trusted him. And yet…

As if sensing her hesitation, he closed his eyes in concentration. Dani felt herself grow lighter, floating apart from her body. The sky around them darkened and then shone with a million brilliant stars, draped with purple, blue, and red stardust shimmering in clouds and galaxies, appearing both within reach and endlessly far away. The more she turned her head to look, the more the structures and objects of Waterdeep fell away, leaving them in the expanse of beautiful, eternal space. Even their bodies were left behind. They existed now as spirits only, shining and translucent.

“What do you think?” he asked again. “Beautiful, is it not?”

It was, but already she missed the real Gale. As a spirit, his eyes glowed with magic and she could see the stars through his body. But while the swirling galaxies and glittering stars were stunning, she missed his rich brown eyes. When she reached out to brush his arm, she found his body simultaneously tangible and intangible, as though a mere thought could allow her to phase through him completely.

She had no doubt that if they stayed like this, Gale would reveal a hundred avenues of pleasure she had never experienced before, but her selfish little heart didn’t want to be impressed by magic. She just wanted the man himself.

“It’s our first night together, Gale,” she said. She could still sense her body, somewhere in the material plane, and focused there, reaching out to it like an anchor. Outside of the galaxy illusion, she placed her hands over his and closed the book. The visions of galaxies melted away, their spectral bodies becoming physical and visible once more, though the illusion of Waterdeep remained. “Shouldn’t we start somewhere closer to the beginning? I want to experience you first. We'll have time to try all the rest later.”

He looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“Gale,” she whispered softly, pressing her hand to his chest, over his heart. Her touch silenced him in an instant, though he still looked uncertain. “I’ve never been more sure. Tonight isn’t the end for us.”

This was what she wanted, more than the beautiful illusions or spectral experiences. She felt his heart beating beneath her palm, felt the warmth of his body. She wanted more of that. More of the real, touchable Gale, with his soft brown hair and his gentle, dark eyes. She wanted to slip her hands beneath his shirt and touch his skin, feel the way his muscles twitched or tensed when her fingers grazed over them. She longed to taste his lips and feel the weight of him against her and watch his face flush and see how far that flush traveled down his neck and chest.

With her other hand, she gently slipped the book from his grip and set it on the railing. She stepped into the space between them, filling it with her body, pressing her palm more firmly against his chest. “You are what I want, Gale. The real man in front of me. Not the illusion and not the fantasy."

"But—"

"You don’t have to worry about impressing me. I’m no goddess.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, placing his hand over hers. He said it as though it were a fact, irrefutable, and with such warmth that it made her breath hitch.

She was used to admiration, entertainer that she was. She was used to praise. She was used to flattery. But the deep sincerity of his words and the way he looked at her was new. He spun poetry from mere words without even trying, and she was always caught off balance by the beauty of it.

But then his clever smile was back, and he said, “Trust me, I would know.”

She scoffed and gave him a light shove. He swayed on his heels but didn’t budge, chuckling at her feigned irritation.

“That said…" He kept ahold of her hand, threading his fingers with hers as he lowered them away from his chest. "Will you meet me halfway?”

“Halfway?”

He snapped his fingers and the balcony and sunset shifted, bookshelf-laden walls enclosing around them once more. But rather than his study, this room was a little smaller, a large canopied bed taking up the majority of the space. Stacks of books sat precariously on beside tables and spots on the floor while a fireplace burned cheerfully on one wall, a cushy armchair angled in front of it. Dani half expected to find Tara curled up in the armchair, though she hadn’t the faintest idea what Tara might look like.

“Your bedroom?” she asked, tilting her head. "In Waterdeep?"

“Indulge me,” he said. “Unless you’d like a canopy of stars once more.”

She shook her head. If this was a true, or mostly true, reflection of Gale’s room in Waterdeep, she was in no hurry to leave. She looked around with interest, but some of the details, like the words on the spines of books, shifted and blurred beneath her vision, as though Gale didn’t want her looking too closely.

Not matter. She wasn’t here to read anyway.

“I’m sure you’ll find the bed more than comfortable,” he said. “And, should I soon find myself a little too distracted to maintain the rest of the illusion, the bed will remain. For a few hours, at least.”

She arched an eyebrow at him and he shrugged, offering no further comment. She grinned and hopped onto the bed, flopping back with her arms spread. He was right. It was solid beneath her, not at all an illusion, and it was certainly comfortable. Better than the bedrolls on hard ground that she’d been sleeping on this past month or so.

“Oh, I could get use to this,” she said, settling right in. “You’ll have to teach me this little spell.” She lifted a hand and gestured like she was revealing words on a banner. “Conjure Bed. School of…er…”

“Conjuration,” he finished, the humor obvious in his voice. “As the name implies.”

“Right, I could have guessed that.” She propped herself up on one elbow to find him watching her again, that same fond, enchanted look he’d worn the last few days, especially tonight. She held out her hand to him, an open invitation for him to join her. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

He opened his mouth as though to answer, paused, and then shook his head fondly. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He reached out and took her hand, climbing onto the bed with her. She lay back, cradling his face in her hands as he rested part of his weight against her, gazing down at her with a look so filled with love she could only smile and stare.

There they were, those dark eyes she loved so much. There, too, was the oddly pleasant scratch of his beard against her palms, the softness of his hair as her fingertips sank into it, the heat and weight of his body as it pressed her into the downy mattress. Exactly as she wanted it.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His smile was gentle and loving, reflecting her words before he even spoke them. “I love you, too, Meridan Zavrai.”

He bent his head to kiss her and she let the world around her fade into a hazy blur, until at last the only thing she could see, the only thing she could hear, the only thing she could touch, was Gale himself.

#bg3 #bg3 fic #bg3ficfeb #gale #gale dekarios #my fic #oc #dani #meridan zavrai #i am not a poet don't judge me for my bad poetry #i just wanted to give 1001 nights vibes #also dani didn't vibe with the psychadelic tantric astral projection sex thing but she doesn't mind illusions so yeah #thats how we ended up here

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mayhem-neverending · 9 months

Text

The Big Bad Wolf

Part XII

Word Count: 3,809

Warnings: Toma makes an appearance, what more can I say? Also, maybe not canon compliant just a little bit?

Notes: This is kind of a roller coaster, and I really hope that the pacing is okay and it feels real.

I forgot to mention this, but some of the dialogue is word for word verbatim what my son's father has said to me.

He must have misheard you. That was the only logical explanation for what you said before slamming the door. There was no way he would be leaving anytime soon, let alone with you. The council would never allow it. They planned on keeping him hidden away until he was on his deathbed; he was sure of it.

He scratched the back of his neck and stepped away from the closed door. The thought of picking out clothes like you had instructed him to do crossed his mind, but he couldn’t get his hopes up like that. Instead, he meandered back into the kitchen.

Everything you had pulled out was still scattered all over the counter, so he slowly worked on putting things away while he waited for you to come back. He stared out of the kitchen window while he cleaned the cutting board, his thoughts twisting and tangling together. The sound of your cousin sobbing shook him to the core. Horrid events replaying in his mind were one thing, they took on a dreamy quality. Even his vivid flashbacks had come less frequently now that he was spending more time in the present. But her voice shaking until it broke, the ragged edge of each breath; that was real. He could feel her grief and terror, and it sent him into a series of memories he had kept locked away.

Suppressed memories of his first few nights in that cave with Madara played out in his mind’s eye. He had been helpless, afraid of what would happen to him, even more afraid of what had happened to his friends after he had been crushed. His body ached with phantom pains from his missing limbs, trapping him to the bed with their invisible weight. He remembered sobbing and shaking uncontrollably in the darkness when he fully realized that even though he knew he was alive, no one else did. No one would come looking for a dead boy in the midst of a war.

His front door creaked open behind him, and he realized he still had his hands underneath the hot running water. He turned it off and placed the cutting board into the drying rack, wiping his hands dry while he listened to footsteps approaching him. There were two solid ‘thunks’ against the table and he turned to see Kakashi in his Hokage attire.

“Obito,” Kakashi stated seriously.

He pointed at one of the two bags on the table. “I have your uniform in there, along with a few other things,”

Kakashi waited for Obito to take action, but he just stood there. It was taking him quite some time to process what was happening. After a moment, Kakashi took the bag and handed it to him, hoping that would do the trick.

“She was serious? You’re letting me leave?” His eyes connected to Kakashi’s.

“You will be accompanying her on this mission. Go get dressed and we’ll discuss it when you’re done,”

He hesitated for a moment before exiting the room. He tossed the heavy bag onto his bed and unzipped it. He pulled out black pants, a matching heavy long-sleeve, a roll of tape and standard issued sandals. Looking back into it, he saw that at the bottom of the bag, a green vest with a red spiral adorning the back stared up at him.

Carefully, he lifted it out of the bag, inspecting every inch of it with his eyes. He bit his lip as a well of emotion rose and engulfed him. Tears stung at the corner of his eyes and he did his best to take a deep breath. He set it aside and dressed himself in the underclothes and sandals, taking his time with the wrappings while he focused on controlled breathing.

Kakashi silently appeared in his doorway when he was nearly done. Obito looked up into the worried face of his old friend, and the emotions he had been controlling washed over him once again. A stray tear slipped out, and he was unable to hide it.

Without permission, Kakashi entered his room and stood before him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. He remained silent while Obito regained control.

“Busy morning,” Kakashi commented.

“Heh, yeah,” he ran his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t fully understand what’s going on,” he admitted.

“I got in touch with my friend who lives near Akujia’s capital. The Zen’in clan was annihilated early this morning. The government sent a team to wipe them out while they were meeting to - this is what the government has released - “overthrow the government”. The entire compound was bombed and set alight, their lands with it - scorched-earth style,”

“Could they get their message across any clearer?” Obito asked, appalled.

“Only by killing the last living Zen’in,” he replied tonelessly.

Obito stood up, shaking his head. Thinking about the senseless violence made him queasy.

“The Elders and I are in agreement, for once, that it’s imperative for us to get HIna Zen’in and her unborn child back here safely. As shinobi and chakra-users alike, we can’t stand idly by and watch our people be slaughtered,”

“But why are you sending me? This seems like a job for someone the Leaf.. trusts,”

Kakashi sighed. “I can’t send Y/n alone, and she was right about your strength. If you’re attacked, the mission is less likely to be compromised if you’re there,”

“But what-” The sound of the front door opening stopped him from continuing.

“Guys?” You called out.

Obito and Kakashi went out to the living room to greet you. Kakashi walked over to the couch where you stood while Obito stopped in his tracks the moment he saw you, unprepared for the sight of you in uniform.

In his mind, you were something sweet; something small and warm, someone to be protected. Even when you sparred he couldn’t bring himself to see you differently, not when you let him pull you off the ground, sweaty and smiling every time you finished.

But you held yourself differently in your uniform. You stood tall, an aura of cool confidence exuding from you in waves. He had never considered that you made yourself smaller for others, but this version of you filled the room.

“I assume we’ll do a short debrief and then head out?” You were looking at Kakashi.

He nodded, not that Obito even really registered. He tried to wave Obito over to stand next to you for it, but found his friend slack-jawed and staring. Surprise registered first, then understanding, followed by a small spike of irritation. His eyes narrowed.

“Obito, come here,” you intervened before Kakashi could say anything.

He listened, immediately trotting over to your side. Kakashi cleared his throat to catch both of your attentions and began. “Right. We aren’t aware whether anyone knows Hina Zen’in is still alive, so the focus is on getting in and out. Draw the least amount of attention as possible and don’t use chakra if it isn’t an emergency. In case of an attack, I’m going to encourage you not to kill. If it is necessary, kill without using chakra. It’s too dangerous to use anywhere near the border or in Akujia,”

You both nodded during his short pause. He continued, “Your second day of travel, I want you in civilian clothes. Under no circumstance are you allowed to reveal that you are Leaf shinobi, no less headed west,”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly, the three of you heard muffled shouting from outside. Kakashi’s eyes flashed and he looked at you sheepishly. You narrowed your eyes. “Why does that yelling sound familiar, Kakashi?”

“Listen, his boss said he was busy and I couldn’t stay on the phone, so I told his boss to send him here,”

“Who?” Obito asked.

“Toma,” you answered with disdain.

Kakashi looked at you apologetically before leading the way as the three of you walked to the door. Toma was standing at the edge of the clearing, directly in front of the barrier. Your nose wrinkled in disgust at the sight of him. He shouldn’t be anywhere near a place you felt safe.

“Hello!” Kakashi called as you all shuffled through the snow toward him.

“That’s all you can say? Why the fuck am I out here? Why can’t I get any closer?”

You pursed your lips and glared at him. Usually you could stay completely neutral, but him being near the cottage was incredibly disruptive to your nervous system, causing you to feel on edge.

“You!” He said, jabbing a finger at you.

Kakashi stood to your right, Obito to your left when you came to a stop. “We just needed to discuss-”

“Sayuri broke up with me because of you,” he was pointing an accusatory finger at you, ignoring the men.

“Her actions are not my responsibility,” you replied dully, letting your eyelids fall midway so you looked bored.

His face broke out into a cruel smirk. “I know you still love me. This is proof of it. You wanted to get rid of her because you want me back. I knew it!”

“I don’t know how you came to that conclusion, but know that you’re wrong. I don’t have time for your nonsense, I-”

“You feel as I do, don’t lie to me. You’re only saying that because your little boyfriend’s here,” his eyes darkened and took on a frightening quality.

The men on either side of you looked between the two of you with growing concern, and Obito with added confusion. Toma was more animal than man when his mind got stuck like this, and his body reflected it. He stood like he was ready to pounce the moment you were close enough.

“I’m not lying. I don’t want you. Move on. You weren’t called here to harass-”

His smile only widened as he interrupted you. “I will win your heart back. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying if I have to, Baby,”

Your bored facade broke and your face twisted into a snarl at the pet name. “How many fucking times do I have to say it? I don’t want you. Even broken up you’re still trying to force yourself on me! Your feelings are not my fucking responsibility,”

“Nor yours mine,” he crossed his arms smugly.

Toma never made any sense and always thought he was right. You were glad they were able to witness it too, even if it was a little embarrassing. You looked at Obito and then Kakashi, exasperated and looking for help. Obito was starting to look irritated, his brows furrowed. Kakashi stepped forward.

“You’re only here because I’m sending her on a mission and Hikaru needs someone to stay with. We’re in a time crunch,” he stated authoritatively.

The part about Hikaru seemed to go right over Toma’s head. “Her? A mission? Yeah, right. Like she could ever do anything worthwhile,”

He hardly paid any attention to your growing rage. “Sorry, babe, but you know it’s true. You’re weak and kind of dumb, no offense. I could do a better job than you without chakra,”

You took a deep breath, willing yourself to ignore him and not lose your cool again. Your nails dug into your clenched fists as you struggled not to snap. Snow crunched to your left and you looked at Obito out of the corner of your eye. He was red now, a vein bulging in his neck. Your stomach rolled over.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He growled.

Toma shifted his wild gaze from you to him, his distaste clear at being addressed by another man. He looked at you again with his predatory grin. “See, you can’t even stand up for yourself. You have to have a man do it because the only thing you’re good at is cooking and whoring,”

His eyes slid back to Obito. “Who the fuck are you anyway?”

He hesitated just enough in his shock that Kakashi had a chance to say, “Don’t say a word,”

He was seething, but clamped his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted to do was cause more issues for you in the long run. He did step closer to you though, taking a spot slightly behind you.

With forced calm, you said, “As was previously stated: we’re in a time crunch. Will you take Hikaru while I’m away or not?”

He scoffed. “Why would I? You say you don’t want me so why don’t you have your little boyfriend over there take him? Or are you not really going on a mission? I bet you’re taking a nice little vacation and sticking the kid on me,”

“That’s a ‘no’, then?”

“What do you think?”

“Great, you can leave now,”

You turned to Kakashi to discuss what you would do now, but apparently Toma wasn’t finished. “Not before you tell me who the fuck this is,”

“What’s it to you?”

“I wanna know what kind of men you’re bringing around our son,”

“Better men than you,”

“Go fuck yourself, you act so high and mighty but you’re just a dumb whore,”

You gave him a thumbs up. You glanced at Obito, who was glaring daggers into Toma so intensely you were surprised he hadn’t activated his sharingan. Kakashi wasn’t fairing much better on your other side, his jaw clenched under his mask and his fist opening and closing in an effort to keep his composure.

“We’re done here. Let’s go back inside and finish up so we can leave,”

Toma started shouting obscenities at you the moment your back was turned to him, but you had had enough and walked back inside without giving him a second more of your attention. The men reluctantly followed you, more disturbed by the interaction than you. Once the door was shut behind them, you visibly relaxed your shoulders.

“We were talking about not letting anyone know we were shinobi, I think. What else?” You prompted.

“Right…” Kakashi cleared his throat.

“Are we not going to talk about that?” Obito asked incredulously, still red in the face..

“We’ve already wasted enough time,” you replied dismissively.

“She’s right,”

Kakashi walked over to the table where he had placed one of the two bags he brought. He ignored Obito’s, “Are you serious?” and started back where he left off.

He reached into a side pocket and pulled out what looked like two thick silver chain bracelets. He held it up for the two of you to see. “These are chakra suppressors. Obito, I know you’re good at chakra suppression, but for security measures, I think the council will appreciate it if you wear these,”

Obito eyed them warily, but nodded slowly. The shift back to the task at hand sobered him some, though he was still tense. He held out his wrists and Kakashi unclasped one, carefully placing it around his wrist. The moment it clasped, it glowed and shrunk to tightly cling to his exposed skin. While putting the second on, Kakashi explained. “These recognize the wearer’s chakra signature so that they can’t be taken off by them. If there’s an emergency, Y/n will be able to take these off for you,”

“When you return, come straight here and contact me. No exceptions. I’ll send Sakura to assess anybody if needed, understood?”

You both nodded. Kakashi turned his attention solely to you. “What’s your plan for Hikaru? I can’t dismiss you until that’s sorted,”

“Well.. I’m sure my mom could take him for the weekend, but beyond that..” You looked at him pleadingly.

His eyes widened. He shook his head. “You’re not asking me, surely?”

“It’s not like you’d have him the whole time, it’d be two or three days and he’d be in school for the majority of it. Please? Sakura and Naruto could help you if you can’t pick him up,”

“Don’t you have anyone closer to you?”

“I would have already asked if I did,”

“..You don’t have anyone?”

His tone triggered something in you, and your expression soured. You gestured behind you and said, “How could I when I was dealing with that for years?”

He visibly winced. Your brows furrowed and you waved a frustrated hand through the air. “You know what, I don’t know why I even asked, that was dumb. I know you’re busy and it’s not your responsibility. I’ll figure it out,”

You snatched your phone out of your pocket and started stalking out of the room. Your frustration built up in your chest and between your shoulder blades as the weight of the day started sinking in with this new hurtle. What a rollercoaster of a day, and it wasn’t even dinnertime. You pulled up your mom’s number and pressed the call button.

Behind you, Obito asked Kakashi, “So, you’re actually dating, then?”

“No, that’s just village gossip,” he raked a hand through his hair.

Obito sighed in poorly veiled relief. “If that’s true, taking her kid would really make people talk. I’m sure she’ll figure it out. I imagine she’s probably used to, considering what that piece of shit said outside,”

Kakashi stilled. He looked blankly at Obito, his thoughts indecipherable. Without a word, he turned on his heel and followed you down the hallway, his Hokage’s robe swishing behind him. The door to the bathroom was cracked open, and he opened the door to find you sitting on the edge of the counter, aggressively tapping your fingers against the counter with your phone against your ear.

You hardly spared him a glance, caught up in your plight and struggling to contain your overwhelming emotions. Your mother hadn’t answered your first two calls, so your next call would be to your grandma, the one who was taking care of Hikaru. You pulled your phone away from your ear and groaned in frustration.

Kakashi called your name while you scrolled for your grandma’s contact. You barely heard him, so he went to stand in front of you. You pressed the phone to your ear after pressing ‘call’ and looked at him. He said your name again but you shook your head, listening to the phone ring with growing desperation. She had to answer, she just had to. You couldn’t handle not being able to contact anyone when you were on such a short time limit already. You had promised Hina you would be there, and you were going to be later than you had promised because you couldn’t travel at jounin speed on your second day. You couldn’t be delayed by this, too.

The call went to voicemail, and you couldn’t stop frustrated tears from springing up. You angrily wiped them away before they could fall. Crying was pointless.

“Y/n,”

“What?!” Your eyes finally met his, widening at your own tone.

You stared at each other in shared surprise for a second where you felt every negative emotion you had pushed away from that day wash over you.

Your face scrunched up and your tears sprang free. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated. I didn’t mean to do that,”

Kakashi shushed you and stepped forward to stand between your legs. He pulled you into a hug. “It’s okay, I understand. Listen,”

“I’ll take Hikaru, okay? Just give me your mom’s number and I’ll take care of it,”

You shook your head against his shoulder. “No, I can figure it out. I won’t burden you,”

“You’re not burdening me,”

“I am,” your shoulders lightly shook with a fresh wave of tears.

“I feel so fucking useless sometimes,” you whispered.

He tightened his grip around your shoulders. “You’re not, don’t say that,”

You huffed what he assumed was supposed to be a laugh. “I know that, objectively. Doesn’t make me feel it any less,”

You wiped at your face under the protection of his shoulder. You felt absolutely ridiculous, your emotions everywhere while your mind screamed at you to get it under control. You pulled away in an attempt to shut everything down. There wasn’t time for comfort, it was time for action. You pushed lightly against his chest and he stepped back, searching your gaze as you found the strength to shut yourself down. You succeeded with a couple deep breaths, reaching inward. In a few seconds, you were able to revert into a familiar dissociative state.

“That was embarrassing,” you commented, tears now dried.

His bewildered expression didn’t faze you as you continued now that you had suppressed everything. “He’s currently with my grandma, I’ll send you her and my mother’s information, if that’s really what you want,”

He nodded slowly. “Are you.. Okay?”

“Yes,”

You quickly texted him the information and slid off the counter. You shuffled past him and went into the living room. Obito was nowhere to be found, you noticed absently. Opening your bag, you rifled around until you found your keychain. You removed your door key from it and took it over to Kakashi, who was standing behind the couch, watching you with concern.

“For his things,”

He cautiously took it from you. You walked back down the hall in search of Obito and found him in his bedroom, staring at the standard flak jacket in his hands. Something about the scene caused your emotions to struggle against your hold. He looked over at you in the doorway. His brows furrowed in confusion and concern when he noticed your blank expression.

“Are you ready?”

“I-uh.. are you okay?”

You strode across the room to him and took the jacket in your hands. You held it out for him to put his arm through, and he complied, distracted from his thoughts by your actions. You went behind him and held it out and he slipped the other arm through. You stood in front of him and connected the zipper. Your eyes followed its path as you zipped it up. You looked up into his face when you had finished and stepped back.

You appraised him, scanning up and down. His uniform fit him well; his chest and arms filled out his shirt and his pants made him look even taller than he was. You noted that he looked unsure of himself, and you pushed gently against his shoulders until he stood straight. Your heart skipped a beat and once again your emotions attempted escaping their confines. You internally cursed him for depriving you and himself of this image.

Obito saw something flash across your face before it settled on neutrality again.

You patted his chest, and with a heavy voice, said, “Suits you,”

He inhaled sharply. You cleared your throat and tried not to look up into his eyes where tears were forming, fearing you would break the delicate line of your control. You left the room. He took a second to compose himself, then followed after you.

Part XIII

Tag List: @mostlyunsure, @humongousdreamlandbear, @ichaichahatake

#naruto #x reader #obito uchiha #kakashi hatake #obito uchiha x reader #obito x reader #obito lives au #au

28 notes · View notes

toobz-drawz · 1 year

Note

I HAVE A REQUEST!!! I’ve requested this to a few people but never got a response, but I’m in desperate need for a john x reader where they are childhood friends and slowly realize they like eachother 🙏🙏🙏 I also love a good bit of jealousy 🥰

Jealous Guy

John Lennon x Reader

•Warning: no warnings need. •Summary: John had been a childhood best friend of yours, over the years the two of your grow close, and one day someone decides to speak up. •Characters: 8,150 •Additional information: Sorry if this fanfic is a bit late, I have a lot of things to do, and school is starting up soon for me. Hopefully this is good and I didn’t disappoint you.

It feels as if it was just yesterday when you and John first met at a playground. At the moment there was a game of tiggy just starting out, you sat on the sidelines just watching as the boys ran around chasing each other, that was until one boy from that crowd ran up to you and tapped you on the shoulders, “You’re it.” The boy looked down at you, as your curious eyes looked up at him. “Oh— I’m not playing, sorry.” You raised up both of your hands in defense, “Well, you don’t look like you’re doing anything except watching us, so..I insist you get up and join.” The boy looked rather determined for you to join in on the fun, you couldn’t just say no and blow him off. You sighed, “Fine, alright, I’ll play.” The boy held out his hand for you to grab, and you gladly took it so you could lift yourself off of the ground. “Oh! I forgot to ask what your name was.” You took your hand away, wiping it on your dress. “My name is John, John Winston Lennon, and you?” He gave you a warm smile, “And my name is y/n, y/n l/n. I Must say your name has a ring to it, you’re rather lucky to have such a wonderful name.” You beamed, completely forgetting that you had been invited to a game of tiggy, that was until a boy who had been previously running away from everything piped up, “Oi! Are you going to play or what?!” The random boy said while peaking out of his hiding place which startled you. You tried reaching out for John, but he’d backin’ up, making it known he knew every trick in the book, before he started running away.

From that day on you hold that memory dear to your heart, knowing not long after that you two both had bumped into one another at school, slowly building up a friendship from there, and maybe something more deeper than you expected.

Currently you were seated at the dinner table, eating the meal in front of you with your mother and father, of course your father didn’t pay much attention, and kept his face buried into the newspaper. The silence between you three was rather deafening, until—

Ring, Ring, Ring

Your father looked up from the paper which was held by his one hand, while your mother had gotten up to see who was calling at this hour. She grabbed the phone, pulled it up to her ear, and spoke. “To whom am I speaking?” Waiting for a response, your mother turned her body, now facing the two of you still at the table. “John, John Lennon, y/n’s friend.” She pulled the phone away from her face, now covering the bottom part of the telephone, as she held it out. “Y/n it’s for you, dear.” You were a bit confused on who would be calling you, but you didn’t think it through that much. You’d gotten up and walked towards the telephone, grabbing it gently from your mothers grasp. “Thank you, mother.” You dismissed her, before pulling up the receiver to your ear. “Y/n speaking, who is it?” You started playing with the plastic covered wire while you waited for a response. “Y/n! It’s John, I just need to ask you something, I promise you it won’t take long.” Hearing johns voice felt like a relief wash over you, his voice always sounded so sweet and comfortingly to listen to, “Well, go ahead then, ask away.” John shifted on the other end, his talking so far seemed rather rushed and it made you raise an eyebrow, “Could you meet me at that coffee shop you’ve been dying to go to? I need to speak to you in private about something.” John didn’t give you much time to respond or think, before he had hung up leaving you with the sound of static on the other end.

You pulled the phone away, placed it back down, then gave your parents a rather confused look. You must’ve seemed so lost in your thoughts, I mean who wouldn’t be? Your best friend had just asked you something rather weird without a proper explanation. In private? Well, for starters a coffee shop isn’t that private, but you’ve been dying to go there anyway you never could find the time to go and just enjoy yourself. It wouldn’t hurt to find out what John really wanted to tell you, so you decided to go.

It was the next morning, you had just reminded yourself halfway through brushing your teeth that you had to get ready to go to that coffee shop, so you started getting dressed in a causal outfit and got your hair done to look presentable.

You loved John, John was such a big teddy bear and always got on your good side, thought Highschool you started to fall in love with him, but you always had a feeling that it was a bit strange to like someone you grew up with, I mean people called you siblings for Christ sakes! It just felt wrong. Yet you couldn’t help but twirl you hair and giggle thinking about him at night when you should be asleep, god, he was just so dreamy, you loved every second you spent with him, and you just hoped he felt the same.

It didn’t take you that long to get dressed and headed out the door as you might’ve thought, but you knew walking would be longer. You didn’t mind walking though, it gave you a second to appreciate everything around you and also on a good note it was a pretty nice day outside.

When you got to the shop, you looked around and found John, sitting at a table fiddling with his hands, looking a John a bit more he looked a bit over dressed for the place and stuck out like a sore thumb. He was dressed in a rather flattering black suit, his hair looked perfect, and everything else looked in place on him. You walked up to John, who looked as if he was lost in his thoughts, “John?” He snapped out of whatever trance he was in and looked up at you, you couldn’t help but smile. “Oh- Oh, hello y/n, sorry about the call, I didn’t mean to seem a bit—“ John stood up from his seat, trying to find the word he was thinking of, “weird? John, you sounded so stressed out I thought something was actually wrong.” He laughed, “Well, I just felt like now was the right time I must tell you somethi—“ John had been cut short by someone behind you call your name, it was another boy from school who often flirted with you and tried to get a bite of you. You turned your head to look at who was calling you. “I didn’t think I’d see a bird like yourself here.” The boy walked up to you, placing his hands on your waist almost immediately as if you two were actually together. John was fuming, he absolutely despised the boy since day one, at first he thought you two were together when he saw you two at school being all close, surely then he thought it was over between him and you, thinking it should’ve been him that talked to you that way and held you like that. He was already one step closer to punching that smirk off of the boys face in just one clean swing. “Oh! I was just here to see John” You tried pulling his hands off of your waist, but they wouldn’t budge. The boy looked up at John, seeing at how nicely dressed he was, “Looks as if he’s trying a bit too hard than one should to get a girls attention.” He leaned closer to you, making you just feel uncomfortable in the slightest. John had just enough as soon as that pip squeak opened his mouth, “How about you take your hands off of her and run along now, before it gets ugly?” John stepped forward, grabbing you and pulling you away from the boys grasp. “Whatever, you’ll never get that bird anyway.” He looked up and down at the two, then headed off.

You looked at John confused, that was until you connected the dots and everything seemed so much more clearer now. “You’re trying to ask me out aren’t ya?” John looked startled when you asked that, “How-“ you grabbed him by the collar, now looking into his eyes, “Let’s just say you made it a bit obvious with that suit, mister.” You kissed him on the lips, pushing yourself away so you could sit down and see what you wanted to drink. Johns face went red, he was stunned to say the very least, before he quickly sat down as well, trying to keep himself together before spilling his guts out, “So, is that a yes?” John asked nervously. “I think I’ll say yes to that, I’ve been waiting forever for you to ask me that.” You looked up at him from your menu, on the inside you were screaming and giggling, you were just happy that you could finally call John yours after all these years.

#The Beatles #the beatles x reader #john Lennon #John Lennon x Reader

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be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie · 1 year

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Okay no so I need to get this out of my head and what better way than to plop it into somebody else's lap so that they can add their two cents: I am convinced that the Sully family, at some point, would have an intensely divided war amongst themselves following an argument regarding what pet to get. If it was a human AU, then you best bet they'd be split down the middle on whether to get a dog or cat.

Neteyam is fully in the cat corner and has compiled a hefty amount of research devoted specifically to how to care for/own a cat, along with all of the benefits of having a cat vs. having a dog (for some reason I feel like when Neteyam goes he goes all in or else why bother? He's the oldest in a line up of future deviants, he has no time for half-assed attempts). He already has a name picked out for it and everything (Mittens, because for some reason I picture him being both basic and valid at the same time) and assures his parents that his choice is the best one to go through with.

Kiri is team dog, though she would settle for a cat. A dog would just be so much better for all the outdoors-y shit she and her family does. A morning walk? You can take the dog! Going to the beach? You can take the dog! Camping? You can take the dog! Sure, cats are pretty self-sufficient, but do you really want to have to spend time wondering what you're going to do with the cat while planning every trip?

Lo'ak, surprisingly, is team cat. Why exactly? He couldn't tell you. He just likes their "fuck off" vibe (okay and maybe their fluffy fur and cute little paws and how they meow and how they lie in a sweet little ball of fluff and have you seen how they yawn oh my Eywa their eyes close so adorably and, oh fuck it, he admits it he's in love just get the cat already).

Tuk is team dog and it isn't even close. Dogs are do cute! Dogs are so friendly! Dogs would definitely play with her whenever she wanted and she could train their dog to do the cutest little tricks! It would be her best friend and love her forever!

Neytiri is team dog. She just feels like dogs connect more to their families than cats do and she thinks that the main thing a person should want in a pet is for them to become integrated deeply into the family and all they do. You can take a dog far more places than you can a cat, too, which is also preferable (much like in Kiri's opinion).

Jake is, strangely enough, team cat. I have this little headcanon that he and Tommy spent a good deal of their life in the foster system in this huge city and throughout the many miserable homes they were placed in their only constant was the plethora of stray cats skulking around the city (that has long since stopped trying to get the problem under control because I said so this it my fantasy thank you very much). I also like to imagine that his mother died when they were very young and one of the only memories he has of her is this one time when she was crouching down to try and coax a cat into taking some of her tuna sandwich so he's always just had a soft spot for them because one of the only things he remembers about her is that she must have at least liked cats. Anyways, there's just something about a cat's quiet comfort that he digs. They're warm and small and just feel amazing to hold (plus, he's a sucker for the purring maybe if dogs could purr there would be more of a contest). They already have four rambunctious children (plus Spider whenever Norm fucks off to wherever his research takes him next) and he's not about to get a dog and take a shot at five.

I imagine it gets so out of hand that pretty much everyone around them places bets on which side will win. Ao'nung has zero faith in Lo'ak, so he's betting on team dog. Tsireya has a cat of her own so she's biased, team cat. Neytiri terrifies Norm, team dog. Tonowari has to side with his bro despite being a dog person, team cat. Ronal refuses to participate in this (team cat to spite Neytiri). Kiri has the Spider advantage, team dog.

Who wins? Fuck if I know. I say let chaos reign, I hope they never come to a decision.

ANON. THANK YOU FOR THIS GIFT HOLY SHIT. I AM ~OBSESSED~ WITH THE MINDMELDING WE ARE ALL DOING.

Okay, but consider this?? A dog AND a cat. Mo'at suggests it because it's the obvious solution and they are all dumb for not thinking of it earlier. So then they get a puppy and a kitten and it ends up being one of those fucked up situations where the cat turns out a little more dog like than usual and the dog gets a little bit more cat from the situation. All of a sudden they have a dog to take camping and on RV road trips and hiking and to the beach, and aLSO A FUCKING CAT. Mittens is basically free range dude, Neteyam straps the life vest on the cat and they go canoeing and shit. He and Lo'ak make fun of Kiri because her dog (River) barely fits in the canoe with her, and whenever he jumps out he capsizes her. Mittens can jump after him with little to no disruptions. It's all fun and games until River's trying to get up into Neteyam's canoe right after.

The cat and dog very much enjoy the Sully (and Spider and Mo'at)'s family cross country road trip. River sleeps with Kiri and to Neteyam's utter disappointment Mittens sleeps with Mo'at. Jake likes to throw Mittens overboard while he's throwing Tuk when they get to the sailing and wakeboarding part of their journey, and Mittens LOVEs it. He's the most broken cat of all time. Neytiri has a special raw food diet going for both animals, and they are both so obscenely well trained it's not even funny. They are better trained than Lo'ak, Kiri says. It also takes Lo'ak and Spider that entire summer roadtrip to teach River to skateboard so they can make a viral instagram account. They have to start all over when it comes to surfing, and Ao'nung is disturbingly dedicated to helping even though he "hates" them.

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lilpunkrock · 2 years

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where you go (i will go) — part ix

Summary: Secrets are revealed, journeys begin, and revelations are made.

Pairing: Dream of the Endless x f!reader

AN: Been looking forward to this one for a long time. Enjoy! x

masterlist

. . .

“Moon, walk me home,

I’m dying here, dying here;

Don’t leave me alone,

I’m trying here, trying here;

Save me from the night.”

Walk Me Home, Said The Sky, ILLENIUM & Chelsea Cutler

. . .

part ix

At first, you think your eyes must be playing tricks on you. A play of the light, or a rogue shadow. But light in the Realm of Attachment is perpetual, never-changing, and the well that the young man and woman are gathering water from is in the center of the village square with no source of shadows to be found. As you draw closer to them, Fates’ assignments in hand, your eyes rest briefly on the pale white thread that links the two mortals together. Your gaze then darts to the black thread emerging from the chest of the man at the well. No, this is no trick of the eye. It’s real. You follow the path of the black thread, watching as it snakes across the village square to terminate in the chest of a young woman bartering with a produce vendor across the street.

Extraordinary, you think, eyes wide with awe. You may still be relatively new to your role as Agape, Deity of Love, but you’re certain you’ve never seen a black attachment before. You’re even more sure you’ve never seen a thread that you did not place yourself. You’re familiar with the call that resonates from your attachments, the magnetic pull that draws you toward each one. The black thread speaks no such words to you; there is no stirring in your chest as you look at it. Eyes furrowed with equal parts confusion and curiosity, you reach out, closing your fingers around the thread tentatively–

Fire. Raging, searing, blistering. Pain splits your palm like a knife, and you cry out, ripping your hand from the black thread instantly. Though the pain lessens with the loss of contact, it does not disappear. A sharp ache permeates your palm as if you’ve been burned. A stinging sensation prickles at the back of your eyes as you hesitantly turn your hand over. You expect to see a slash of inflamed skin, angry and red. Instead, you find nothing.

“I wouldn’t touch those if I were you, darling.”

The voice, slow and luxurious, startles you. You spin around, away from the mortals and the mysterious black thread. Several paces away, you find a fair-haired guest watching you with brilliant gold eyes. Their features are both powerful and delicate, simultaneously sharp and supple. A black chiton trimmed in gold adorns their lithe form. Their bright eyes watch you expectantly, red lips drawn into a wide smile.

The shock at seeing them here is dizzying. You try to shake it off, offering the newcomer a small smile. “Oh, hello,” you say quietly. You draw in a deep breath, seeking to calm your racing heart. “I’m sorry, you startled me. My name is Love. Do you mind me asking who you are?”

“Oh, I know who you are, darling. You don’t recognize me?” Their golden eyes are wide, expectant. Your brow furrows as you rack your brain for some memory of them, but you find nothing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t. I’ve never seen you here before. How did you get here?”

You might expect your guest’s face to fall at your lack of remembrance, especially when they clearly know you. Instead, their smile only stretches wider. Something in the recesses of your mind rears back at the sight. The abrupt sensation instills a tenseness in your jaw. Was the instinct something human? Something inhuman? How could you have such a reaction to someone you had never met?

When your guest speaks again, you strive to push the feeling away, to be respectful toward the stranger. “I am Desire of the Endless,” they say, voice dripping like honey. “Is desire not a form of attachment? I have always been capable of coming here. Perhaps you simply haven’t spotted me.”

An Endless. And not just any Endless, but the Endless with whom you shared your scales. Your nightly forays into the last memories of your mortal life had told you as much. Your lips part in awe, eyes wide as saucers.

“Desire of the Endless. I am so pleased to finally meet you.” Drowning out the incessant prickle at the back of your mind, you offer them a kind voice and a tentative smile as you take a step forward. While Desire’s reputation of vanity preceded them, you knew they were Death’s sibling. The thought lowers your guard, comforting you. “I intended to seek you out one day. I am sorry that I have not done so sooner. Adjusting to this new role has been…quite the undertaking.”

Desire’s eyebrows raise as they take a slow step toward you. As they do so, your eyes are drawn again to their smile. There is something about it that unsettles you. A lack of emotion, a lack of depth. Unease creeps into your bones, heavy as lead, and you shake your head slightly, trying to dissuade the feeling. After all, this is Death’s sibling. Surely they would do no harm to you.

“Oh, yes, I would imagine so, little goddess. Tell me, what did you wish to discuss?”

“I thought it’d be nice to talk about our functions and see how we can work together to keep everything balanced. Since we are two halves of a whole.”

Desire’s grin grows impossibly wider. This time, when the unease settles in, it persists. “Oh, darling, that won’t be happening. You really don’t remember me, do you?” A pause. When your expression gives nothing away, they continue, their tone nonchalant. “Truthfully, that’s unsurprising. The last time we were face-to-face, you were a little busy dying.”

Silence.

A shudder, like spiders creeping up your spine. You blink, stunned, confused. “What?”

Blood red lips and bone white teeth. A voice like velvet. “Did I stutter, darling?”

Your thoughts scatter, your mind struggling to process the words that Desire has spoken. Surely you misheard them. You had to have misheard them. You look around, suddenly realizing that the village square is now empty. Where did everyone go? The colors of the rainbow sky overhead seem more muted than usual. “I…don’t understand,” you say quietly, brows knitting together tightly.

Desire takes a step forward. When your mind tells you to take a step back, you listen. “Are you sure, Love? Perhaps it’s simply that you don’t want to understand.” A pause. Another step forward, another step back. “What is it that you require? Proof? Let’s see, what were the words he used? ‘I don’t want you anymore.’”

Your mind recoils violently against the words, your body rejecting them like a venom, a parasite. White hot adrenaline stokes through you, and you stumble several steps backwards. Desire grins with glee at the sight, at your fear. “Why don’t you think he wanted you anymore, darling? Because I made him want her.”

Your eyes clench shut tightly, a futile defense against the words, the painful truth. A sharp sting takes up behind your eyelids as the memory of his hands on her waist blazes in your mind, as painful as the day you’d fulfilled their attachment. You shake your head rapidly in an attempt to cast off the image, but the memory remains. “Why?” you croak, voice barely more than a whisper.

The sound of a low chuckle drawing nearer prompts your eyes to open. Desire stalks toward you in a steady prowl. When you take another step backward, you feel the cool, unyielding weight of stone against your back. The well. “Must there always be some grand, meaningful reason, Love? An elaborate, heart-felt motive? I did it because I wanted to. I am Desire of the Endless. Such exploits are in my nature. You just happened to get in the way.”

The utter disregard in the Endless’s voice forms a pit in your stomach, the weight dragging you down, down, down. Their cruelty hits you like a stone as nausea floods your gut, sudden and jarring. You think you could be sick.

Desire points a single accusatory finger at you, pressing forward. “It could have been easy. You could have died without a fight and gone to my dear sister’s realm in peace. But you didn’t.” Desire’s face, once split with wicked glee, turns cold and hard as a stone. “And for that, I am not pleased.”

You blink quickly, fighting back against the tears that threaten to spill from your eyes. “Why? What am I to you?”

“You are nothing to me but an insolent mistake.” The hiss is sudden and cruel. You jerk away instinctively, catching yourself on the edge of the well. Desire presses forward until they are mere feet away, their breath hot on your face. “You were meant to die by my influence. You really thought that you could escape me? A groveling human turned goddess? Your divinity means nothing to me. When I gaze upon your face, I still see a lowly human…suffocating on her own foolish delusion of love.”

Your heart hammers in your chest relentlessly. Blood courses through you in a rush, making you dizzy. You shake your head once, voice breaking as you whisper, “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Desire’s golden eyes widen, filling your vision, drawing you in. “You see, darling, that’s the best part. I don’t care. I am not known for my clemency, little goddess. My siblings would tell you I am known for my grudges….I say they’re no fun. But they are not untruthful.” One hand reaches out, toward your throat. You swallow thickly, petrified. “You have slighted me, something which you will come to regret dearly. Nothing will stand in the way of me getting what I want. I always get what I desire.”

When your legs begin to move, it’s without thought, without a plan. All you know is that you must get away from here, away from them. Fear, hot and fresh, scrambles your thoughts as you dart away from the well, around the village buildings, trapped in a tunnel vision.

You have to find someone. Have to find a mortal to get you out of this place.

Desire’s velvet laughter echoes through the town square as you run, ringing in your bones like a gong. When you round a corner to find a woman washing clothes in an outdoor basin, you dash toward her with abandon, nearly stumbling in your haste.

“You can run, but not forever, Love.” Faster. Just a little farther, Love. “One day, you’ll grow weary and tired, and when you do, I will be right there waiting. And I will relish in the satisfaction of having you under my thumb again, right where you belong.”

Your hand lands on the woman’s chest with forceful impact. You close your eyes instantaneously, reaching out to the other side, pushing through, tearing through—

. . .

Air tears painfully through your lungs as you bolt upward, hyperventilating. Disoriented, all you can see is the well, the villagers, those golden eyes, those blood red lips. You clench your eyes shut tightly, fingers fisting in the fabric beneath your palms like a lifeline. The fabric is cool and soft to the touch. Bed sheets.

Several shuddering breaths are drawn into your lungs before you dare open your eyes, blinking away the vestiges of your memories. As the images fade from your mind, the sight of your bedroom replaces them. A night sky twinkling with stars peeks through the crack between your curtains, soft moonlight casting a glow over the room. You’re home. You’re in your room. You are safe.

The pressure behind your eyes comes slowly at first, building like water against a dam. But once the first tear falls, the others come in relentless succession. A soft sob escapes you as you fold in on yourself, pressing your palms to your wet eyes, trying to stem the flow. A futile task, and you know it.

At first, you had thought that enough centuries spent reliving those memories in your resting hours, of hearing those words again and again, would dull the pain. You were mistaken. Each time you slipped into unconsciousness was like the first time, just as terrifying, just as real. It all felt so real. As if you weren’t just reliving the memories, but traveling back in time to experience them for the first time, again and again.

As you press your palms against your eyelids, a shuddering sigh escapes you. The weariness that settles into your bones is cold and heavy, cutting straight through to your soul. You were tired. So, so tired. Tired of being exhausted, tired of being afraid, tired of being haunted, tired of running.

Was Desire right, after all? They had warned that you could only run for so long. One day, you would grow weary of the race. You certainly felt weary now.

A soft whine cuts through the sound of your quiet sobs. You linger for a moment longer before slowly lifting your head from your hands. Theo’s wide, empathetic eyes gleam at you from within the darkness, barely visible over the edge of your bed. With a quivering hand, you pat the space beside you a single time. Theo jumps up instantly at your offer, curling into your side without hesitation. “Hello, little love,” you say softly, unable to muster more than a whisper. Your fingers trail through the soft hair on his back slowly, idly. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

The two of you remain that way for several minutes with only your quiet sniffles breaking through the silence. The longer you sit, the more restless you feel. The silence of your bedroom feels stuffy and suffocating. You had spent so many nights living through a similar series of events. Snapping into the Waking World in a blind panic, skin flushed and slick with sweat, only to stay conscious till morning, chasing off demons. If reliving the memories was exhausting, trying to forget them was equally so.

You wanted to get away, to break the cycle. You needed an escape.

Your gaze shifts to your nightstand unbidden, to the small pouch of sand there. As soon as you see it, you know what you must do.

You rise with a start, dressing quickly. When you slip the pouch of sand into the palm of your hand, the weight of it is comforting, grounding you in place. You press a quick kiss to Theo’s furry head, lingering for just a moment to breathe in his familiar scent. “I’ll be back soon, okay? I promise.”

Standing at the end of your bed, you open the pouch with steady fingers. The sand within it looks no different than any other, but a familiar feeling seems to emanate from the grains. A hum, a pull. A piece of the Dream Lord in the palm of your hand.

The pale grains slip through your fingers like tears. When they sweep up to twirl around your figure, it feels like an embrace. Within a matter of moments, the darkness of your bedroom has transformed into the darkness of the Dreaming’s throne room. Your quiet sniffles echo through the empty room as you watch the sands around you filter back into the pouch, ready to be used again.

A flutter of wings quickly tells you that you are, in fact, not alone as you’d thought. You hastily wipe the wetness from your cheeks as Matthew descends from one of the stone busts on the pillars above to land at your feet. “Love? What are you doing here?” His feathered head tilts as he searches your face. His dark eyes take in your red eyes, your swollen features. “Hey…are you okay?”

The genuine concern in his tentative voice steals your breath away. You open your mouth to answer, but find no reply.

Your silence is answer enough for him. With a resolute nod, Matthew flaps his wings, taking flight. “You wait right here, I’ll go find Dream,” he says assuredly.

Your heart skips a heavy, panicked beat. “Wait, no, don’t–”

But he’s already gone, soaring through the throne room doors in the blink of an eye.

The sigh that leaves you is worn and weary. Resigned to waiting, you walk toward the staircase at the front of the room, sinking down to the first step like a stone. The polished floors of the throne room gleam so clearly that you can spot your reflection in them. Your eyes linger on your flushed cheeks, your puffy eyes. Maker, you looked terrible. You didn’t want him to see you this way. You didn’t want anyone to see you this way, at the lowest of lows.

You feel him before you see him. As soon as he appears in the throne room, that familiar hum takes up against your skin, that familiar pull in your chest. You swallow thickly, gathering courage for what is to come. “Hey, Dream,” you say quietly, voice barely a whisper.

The padding of his boots echoes through the throne room as he approaches, his pace slow and measured. You refuse to look up as he walks toward you, keeping your swollen face directed at the space between your feet. When he draws in a breath to speak, you can feel it in your bones. You interject quickly. “I came to the wrong place. I didn’t know how the sand would work. I wanted to go to the sea, so I wouldn’t bother you.”

A pause. Silence. And then that familiar voice, rumbling like coming thunder, “The Dreaming is a part of me. I would have found you, even there.”

Of course you would. The smirk that lifts the corner of your lips is small, half-hearted. With a shuddering sigh, you lift your head to meet his gaze. Dream of the Endless stands but a few feet away, his posture stiff and still. His blue eyes study you intently, lingering on your furrowed brow, your tear-stained cheeks, your red-rimmed eyes.

You expect him to say something, ever full of questions. But his pink lips remain closed, pursed into a small, hard line. Your eyes flutter up from them to meet his pensive gaze with a question of your own. “Will you take me there?” you ask quietly.

For a moment, he moves not a muscle. When he does, his steps are slow, almost cautious. You’re unsure if he is uncertain of his decision, or if he hopes not to startle you. When he draws close enough to extend an expectant hand to you, you suspect it is the latter.

When you slip your fingers into the palm of his waiting hand, you’re surprised at the smoothness you find there. Soft as silk. You rise to your feet with knees slightly stronger than before. And in a flourish, Dream sweeps his cloak over you, transporting the two of you into a sky full of stars.

The shift from the cosmos within Dream’s cloak to the shore of the sea is subtle. The constellations above your head remain in place, twinkling down at you from above. Only the gentle whisper of the waves against the sand and the smell of saltwater tells you you’ve arrived. When you turn to the sea, you find the heavens overhead reflected in the dark waters, a mirror image. The full moon overhead smiles upon you, illuminating the beach in a gentle glow.

You draw the cool, salt-seasoned air into your lungs, savoring it. When you exhale, you feel a weight lift from your chest. “You know, you were right, back when you first brought me here. The vastness of the sea really does give you the space to think.”

The Dream Lord gazes at the ocean from his place at your side, the sparkling array of cosmos now barely visible within the folds of his cloak. The pale light of the moon seems to make his alabaster skin glow from within, accentuating the mop of dark hair that sweeps down toward his lashes. For the first time, your eyes catch the vaguest shadow of stubble along his sharp jaw. The sight startles you–you’re surprised you’ve never noticed it before now.

“What troubles you?” he finally asks, pale blue eyes turning to you.

You smile softly at him, the gesture unbidden. With a long sigh, you sink to the sand, patting the spot next to you. “Sit with me, Dream Lord?”

At first, Morpheus only watches you, his star-lit gaze searching your face for answers. And then, much to your surprise, he sweeps his cloak to the side and slowly lowers himself to the shore. The black sands are a shockingly comfortable seat beneath you. You curl your fingers into them idly, surprised at how soft the grains feel between your fingers. The Dream Lord breathes a soft sigh as he turns from you to watch the tide again.

“I just feel like I’m running, Dream. I’ve been running since the day I died.” Desire’s words echo in your mind, carving a hollow in your heart. You heave a sigh of your own. “I’ve been running for so long, and I’m so tired.”

“Running from what?” The Dream Lord’s voice is as soft as the sand beneath your hands.

You pause. What should you tell him? The whole truth? A half truth? Now that you’ve begun to open up, to be vulnerable, keeping your guard up is becoming so much harder. You could tell him everything in this moment: The what, when, why, and who of what happened to you. You could tell him about Desire’s visit to you the night before. You could tell him all of it.

And yet, as much as you want to, something holds you back. Dream’s words from the first day you met echo loudly in your mind. ‘I do not wish to sour the blood between myself and my siblings.’ He had already done so much for you. Taking a chance on you, allowing you to step into his world, to step into his work. You didn’t want to place an extra burden on him when he’d already done so much.

No, this was your battle to fight, and yours alone. A half-truth, then. “My past. Memories,” you answer finally. “I remember precious little from my mortal life, but what I do recall, I relive each time I slip into that place between waking and sleep where deities find rest. And none of it is something I want to relive. Makes me miss dreaming, really. Facing nightmares would be so much easier.”

The Dream Lord is silent for several moments. “Is that what upset you? What prompted you to come here?” he finally asks.

You swallow, throat tight under the weight of his question. “Yes.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Dream Lord. They’re not dreams. They’re memories. It’s not as if there’s much you can do about that.”

Silence.

The two of you sit on the beach for a long time, watching as the tide draws in toward the shoreline. When the waves stretch far enough to lap at your shoes, you slip them off and dip your toes into the water. The gentle lull of the waves is consistent, reliable, calming. Dream cocks his head ever so slightly, eyes trained on the water that laps at his own boots now. The starlit sky is mirrored in his eyes, a thousand white flames flickering within them.

“I know what it is to grow weary,” Dream says, his voice low and thoughtful. A breath of sea breeze slips past the two of you, touseling his perpetually wild hair. Your fingers twitch slightly in the sand, some instinctual compulsion to move it back into place. “The millenia are long and, at times, cumbersome. There have been moments when I have struggled to identify what truly lies ahead. One may compare it to…running in place.”

You hum quietly at his admission, deep in thought. “And what did you do about it?” you ask.

Dream’s gaze lingers on his shoes for a long moment before he slowly draws his attention to you. “My sister taught me that you must rediscover your purpose. You must identify what it is that you are running toward.”

The complexity of this answer leaves you at a loss at first. What was your purpose? To fulfill the bonds of love linking all mortals together. To give them that which you had treasured, yet not been able to keep. To protect others from a similar fate by combating Desire, regardless of the cost. But what were you running toward? Were your purpose and your pursuit the same? Could they be different?

Both, you think suddenly. They can be both. For the past three months, you had been running toward your goal of balancing your scales, of keeping up with Desire’s vendetta against you. This race aligned with your purpose perfectly. But something in your heart had shifted. You wanted more than that now. You wanted nights of rest and mornings free of ghosts and demons. You wanted to feel that you were the one in control. You wanted to be happy.

‘So, are you happy?’ Hob’s question from the day before echoes in your mind. You had told him that you were, and it was true. As challenging as it was, opening up made you happy. Challenging yourself to be vulnerable made you happy. Jokes with Matthew and conversations with Lucienne made you happy. Crafting dreams every night on the dock made you happy. And, perhaps the most startling of all, spending time with the Dream Lord made you happy.

These are not just what you’re running toward, they’re what you’re running for.

“You know, it’s the craziest thing. Thinking back on the past few months, I’ve never been so tired. And yet, I’ve never been so encouraged to keep going.” Your voice is quiet, contemplative, barely audible above the waves lapping against the shore. As you watch the tide, a feeling settles into your heart that has been building for quite some time. Something you haven’t felt in so long that you’ve been unable to name it until now. Peace. “You say that the Dreaming is a safe haven, a place of reprieve. I know I must have come here in my mortal life. Maybe that’s why I feel so at peace here, why everything seems so familiar.” You turn to the Dream Lord, offering him a small, grateful smile. “I may not be mortal anymore, but it’s still a safe haven to me. So, thank you, Dream. Thank you for giving me a place to run to.”

. . .

Hours later, when the beach is empty and you’ve returned to the Waking World, Dream of the Endless stalks into the Library of Dreams. The resolute thud of his footsteps echoes off the floors, ricocheting from the bookshelves to resound in the high ceilings above.

This late at night, the aisles of the library are dark and crowded with shadows. His countenance, even more so. He is unsure of what drives him to come here, what compels him to begin this search. He only knows that it is an itch he must scratch.

You have held secrets for far too long. It is time he learns them.

Ahead of him, a familiar figure sits hunched over a stack of parchment at one of the library’s reading tables. When he calls her name, she straightens immediately. “Lucienne.”

The librarian turns in her chair, her dark brows rising in surprise. “My Lord, it is late. I did not expect to see you at this hour.”

He presses onward, ignoring her obvious perplexment. “I require Love’s book. Where can I find it?” His voice is firm, absolute.

Lucienne’s brows rise a half inch higher. Readjusting her spectacles on her nose, she rises from the table. “My Lord, I’m afraid I cannot be of help to you. Because Love does not dream in her divine form, she has no current record here. The only volume we will have is under her human name.”

A pause. “And do you know it?”

Lucienne’s dark lips press into a hard line. She shakes her head once, peering at his stony expression over the rim of her glasses. “I do not, my Lord. She has confided in me that she does not remember it.”

“I see.” The Dream Lord’s voice is low and sober. His chin dips between the collar of his cloak, eyes closing in thought. The memory of your face lingers in his mind, your cheeks flushed pink, eyes swollen and exhausted. And yet, when you’d looked at him, you’d smiled.

Thank you for giving me a place to run to.

The Dream Lord lifts his head slowly, deliberately. When he locks eyes with Lucienne, it is with conviction. “I know who we must ask.”

. . .

You’re not sure what lures you to the library when you arrive home from the Dreaming. A call, perhaps. A feeling. When you’d placed your hand on the door knob of your townhome, hoping to enjoy a bit of quiet before setting off for work, the sensation had gripped you suddenly. An attraction, a pull. Similar to the calling between yourself and your attachments, and yet…different. More potent. More powerful.

You’d found the nearest morning jogger that you could.

Now, stepping into your library, the feeling is downright overwhelming. You draw in a shuddering breath against the incessant pull in your chest, your thoughts scrambled, heart racing. Letting your heart be the guide, you follow the pull as it leads you away from the reading nook and into the labyrinthian aisles of the library beyond.

It’s not long before you realize where it’s leading you. As you pass hundreds upon hundreds of years’ worth of volumes, the answer becomes clear. The feeling is drawing you toward the farthest edge of the library, the first and final aisle. A place you swore you’d never enter for fear of inciting the ire of another deity, another Endless.

Feet heavy as lead, you come to a stop.

The bookshelf before you is full of volumes. Some detail the attachments of deities who have long since faded into nothingness, others chronicling those who still remain. Your eyes settle on a single leather-bound volume in the center of the shelf. In such close proximity, the attraction in your chest pulses powerfully, thrumming like a heartbeat.

You take the volume into your hands with trembling fingers. Somehow, you know the name you will see on the cover before even looking at it.

Dream of the Endless.

Your heartbeat is a freight train in your chest, charging blindly toward an unknown destination, at risk of running off the rails. You smooth your fingertips over the chilled leather, the gold etchings embossed onto the spine and cover. What were you to do? Should you open it?

What would Dream do?

You open the volume quickly, before you can think better of it.

When your eyes settle on the inked page, you see everything and nothing at once. Your eyes flicker over the parchment, seeking to understand, to process. But you don’t. You can’t.

Your heart drops to your gut, heavy as a stone.

You close the book, return it to its place, and leave without a word.

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eurydicees · 7 months

Note

center by sir chloe ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼

shoutout to when i asked for music recs in exchange for fics in september and then wrote, like, one of them. well. better late than never?

the heart of the matter is that i love you quietly

summary: in the car, after a confession, kuroo talks. kenma listens. everything is as it should be, except for how it's not. prompt: music recs, center (sir chloe) pairings: "it's complicated/situationship" tetsurou kuroo/kenma kozume words: 2031 warnings: none

In Kenma’s head, they’re on the train together, making their way home from evening practice. They’re pressed close together on the seat, their thighs just brushing and knees knocking together every now and then with the unpredictable motion of the train.

Kuroo is on his phone, texting or scrolling through some social media app Kenma hasn’t checked in months. Kenma is on his PSP, playing a game, maybe one he's already completed but found himself yearning for a replay and a chance to try out a new route.

In Kenma’s head, they are eternally comfortable with each other and Kuroo never said what he did and nothing ever changed.

But the truth is that they’re stuck in the never-ending Tokyo traffic on a road that doesn’t seem to ever turn or smoothen out and Kuroo is humming softly along to the music and—by all means, this should be fine. Except there’s a tension in the air that hasn’t been there in years—not since the first time Kuroo said it—and maybe Kenma is the only one who notices it, but it’s there nonetheless.

Kuroo says, “There must be an accident up ahead,” and Kenma just nods. Kuroo continues, “Well, according to the GPS, we’ll be back in less than two hours, at least,” and Kenma offers a bare hum of acknowledgement.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Kuroo observes.

Kenma shrugs, turning to look out of the window. It’s dark, much later at night than he really would have liked to be out, and he can’t see much in the way of scenery. There’s just headlights and a glint of his own reflection. He looks tired, even to himself.

“I’m always quiet,” he says, eventually.

Kuroo snorts. “Not like this. There are different kinds of quiet. This is your overthinking and anxious quiet, not your contemplative or bored or analytical quiet.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the observant one,” Kenma mutters. “I’m fine, Kuroo.”

“I’m allowed to steal your tricks once in a while.” Kuroo quiets for a moment while the car inches just a little further forward. Then, “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? What I said earlier.”

Kenma swallows, shrugging noncommittally. Kuroo doesn’t say anything, though if that’s because he’s waiting for Kenma to speak or because he doesn’t have words of his own, Kenma doesn’t know.

Finally, Kenma turns away from the window to glance at Kuroo, and then to the license plate in front of him. “How can I not think about it?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Kuroo says, subdued and dulled. “Or it doesn’t have to be. I told you not to worry about it. It’s my problem to worry about, not yours.”

Kenma can feel his heart flinch at those words. “Then why even bother telling me?”

Kuroo’s hands tighten their grip around the steering wheel. If he weren’t driving, Kenma imagines his knee would be shaking: up, down, up, down. In his head, they’re going to forever be on that train, before the first time; and now, before the second time.

They had gotten halfway through the train ride back to their neighborhood when Kenma felt Kuroo’s eyes weighing on him. And it’s not like that’s exactly abnormal, because Kuroo watches people in much the same way Kenma does, even if he’s able to play it off as friendly rather than analytical. But this gaze felt different. Kenma remembers pausing his game to look over at Kuroo and ask what he was looking at.

In his head, he had not done this. But the memory goes differently than he would have liked it to.

What happened, instead, is that rather than ignoring it, he looked over at the flush of Kuroo’s cheeks and the unsteady bouncing of his knee and the stiff, uncomfortable way he forced himself to sit straight up and look away from Kenma. What happened, instead, is that Kenma studied him just a little too long; and saw that it’s almost like Kuroo was scared of what he himself would see in Kenma, or, like he was scared that Kenma would keep seeing him.

“Say it,” Kenma had told him. “What’s wrong?”

Kuroo exhaled, a little shaky, but determined. No—resigned. “Lev told you, didn’t he?”

Kenma swallowed. He looked away from Kuroo, and maybe that was answer enough, or maybe it’s not, because Kuroo forced himself to continue.

“He told you I’m in love with you, right?”

And look, Lev might have said something during a water break only a few hours ago, sure, but Kenma already knew. He knew before Lev, he knew before that train ride that feels they never left. He knew back in middle school, when Kuroo had begun to grow more and more excited about his life at Nekoma but never once looked away from Kenma. He knew.

But still, it’s different to hear it said out loud. It’s different for it to come from Kuroo himself. It’s different, Kenma knows, because hearing Kuroo say it, confess to him, hurts so much more than Kenma had ever imagined it would.

In the end, he had said, “Yeah,” and Kuroo had given him a sharp nod, wordless but still saying so much, and that had been the end of that. Kuroo didn’t bring it back up again, and neither did Kenma. On top of that, Kuroo must have told someone who told someone who spread the word, because any teasing about the blurred lines of their friendship stopped by the next day.

That should have been the end of it. Only here they are, two years later, and Kenma is once again thinking about what he was almost able to forget about after so much time and careful establishing of platonic boundaries; and after two years of Kenma pushing down and away all the thoughts and feelings and wantings of his own that are all so much easier to strangle than to say.

In his head, Kuroo did not confess in high school and it didn’t change everything for months and months, until they settled into a new rhythm with Kuroo away at university. In his head, this first confession did not wake up anything so overwhelming inside of Kenma himself.

And in Kenma’s head, Kuroo did not confess again, only an hour before the biggest game of his university career so far, when Kenma had come to watch and then to drive back home together for the weekend. He had not done it in an empty hallway between the court and the locker room. He had not pulled Kenma aside only a few minutes before the game’s start.

Kuroo had not said, “Don’t freak out when I say this, okay?” and he had not said, breathless and anxious and, again, so resigned, “I’m in love with you and I think I always will be, and I don’t expect you to—I don’t expect—I just need you to know. I’m tired of keeping secrets from my best friend. And it can’t come from Lev or whoever again.”

Then Kuroo had been pulled away to warmups, leaving Kenma with that stupid, soft, adoring smile. Leaving Kenma to stare after him in that deserted hallway. Leaving Kenma to his desperate wishing that those words had never been said aloud.

“I don’t like keeping secrets from you,” Kuroo says, sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, staring out at the taillights on their drive back home, some darker, more practiced echo of what he had said under the fluorescents of the stadium hallway. Then he laughs, a little too self-deprecating for Kenma’s comfort. “It’s not like you didn’t already know, Kenma. We’re both well aware that you knew.”

Kenma doesn’t say anything to that. He turns back to the window, squinting at the glass to see past his own reflection and into the spot in the road next to them. “That lane is moving faster. You should merge.”

“It’s that kind of attitude that creates traffic,” Kuroo says, which Kenma isn’t totally sure is true, but for once he doesn’t feel like taking up an argument.

It would be such an easy way out of the conversation—starting a mindless argument, that is—but Kenma doesn’t take it, despite everything in him wanting to avoid the actual subject at hand. He sighs, deep and steady.

“Yeah,” he admits, more to himself than to Kuroo. “I knew.”

Kuroo seems to recognize immediately that they aren’t talking about traffic anymore. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps his gaze steady on the car head. Again, the silence is uncomfortable, strained, and Kenma hates it, hates what this confession has done to a decade of friendship, hates that Kuroo was brave enough to give such a confession—and, really, honestly what Kenma hates is that he himself still isn’t brave enough to listen to it.

Because—because it’s not like Kenma doesn’t love him back. It’s just that Kenma is too scared to say it.

Kuroo has been waiting for Kenma to hear him out for two years now. He’s probably willing to wait a lifetime for Kenma to be brave enough for the vulnerability that comes with sharing a heart with another person. Kuroo has always been patient, if it’s regarding Kenma.

Kenma, meanwhile, has been waiting for Kuroo to give up or get discouraged or frustrated or angry or bitter for years, and it has yet to happen. But still, there’s always time for the other shoe to drop. One day, in his quest to uncover all that Kenma has kept hidden, he’ll bite down too hard and make bleed the hand that feeds him.

“Kenma—” Kuroo stops. Takes a deep breath; lets the car roll forward another few feet. “I don’t expect you to love me back, whatever promises we made back in high school. A lifetime has passed since you said to give you time to think, you know? I don’t expect you to be in love with me—that’s not why I confessed.”

Kenma swallows, another question or protest or something on his lips, but Kuroo shakes his head and Kenma shuts up.

Kuroo finally turns away from the stillness of the traffic to look at Kenma. He’s smiling, even if it’s a little sad, when he says, “You don’t need to worry so much, Kenma, I promise. I’m never going to get tired of being your friend. Whatever you figure out about your own feelings, and however long you need, that’ll always be true.”

“You deserve better than waiting for me,” Kenma says, feeling somewhat hollow as he says it, as he suggests that Kuroo find someone else to love.

Kuroo snorts, turning back to the car ahead of them. “Do you listen to anything I say? It’s not waiting for anything. You’re my friend first and I’m never going to be tired of having that.”

Kenma closes his eyes, tired of the taillights and the reflection of his own breaking heart. “Okay. If you say so.”

Kuroo hums. There’s infinite understanding in the sound and Kenma isn’t sure that he deserves it, but Kuroo has always been the kind of person to give until he has nothing left and Kenma has always asked for infinity.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Kuroo says tentatively, “but can I tell you I love you now? No expectations, just—it’s nice to say out loud.”

Kenma’s heart is in his throat, a lump of coal which could maybe be a diamond if Kuroo keeps pushing and Kenma keeps letting him. “That’s okay.”

“Okay,” Kuroo says, a real smile broadening over his face. “I love you.”

Kenma bites down on his bottom lip. He thought that the weight of Kuroo’s I love you would be oppressive and stifling, but he finds that he’s biting back a pleased laugh rather than the urge to cower. “You’re so embarrassing.”

Kuroo laughs. “I can live with that as long as we’re friends.”

Kenma rolls his eyes, but—yeah. It’s definitely something happy he’s holding in at the center of his chest, at the molten core of his heart. Maybe one day soon, he’ll be brave enough to taste it on his tongue and let it fly free. “Sure, Kuro.”

#i have a normal number of emotions abt kuroken btw.#my writing #haikyuu #kuroken #tetsurou kuroo #kenma kozume #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma #haikyuu fic #haikyuu fanfiction #kuroken fic

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sonderwrit · 9 months

Text

C121: Sincerely

I Have to Be a Great Villain - Masterpost

Author's 木火然 Weibo post:

The couple next door drives quickly* (no home base), even holding a long-distance romance (no). Next chapter will debut the adult Wang Yi! 😘😘😘 This world's XY will definitely love each other; if there's anyone to blame then blame Qin for being high-quality wood (in other words: blockhead).

*to "drive" is an euphemism for snusnu in Chinese *cough*

—

Wang Yi: Can I ask…

WY: What you're thinking right now?

[TL: is that blobby bit in there the "piece of X" that Qin Xian left in Wang Yi after feeding him himself in the last world ahhhh]

Qin Xian: Disciple seems more cheerful, but your soul hasn't changed, nor have you been resurrected from the dead.

WY: ?

S-0: ?

WY: (He's actually more concerned with whether his disciple's been soul-snatched.)

WY: Right, nothing's changed, but it's still different. If this was the old Wang Yi, he'd probably still try playing the obedient disciple to disguise his identity.

WY: But I've already "tricked" you too many times, so I don't want to hurt you anymore.

WY: (I've yet to confirm the visions in my head.)

WY: [I still don't know what S-0 means by "averting the crisis."]

WY: [I only know that Qin Xian's last few worlds weren't probably as easy as he claims. He must have been suffering most of the time.]

WY: [The same with this world.]

WY: [Even if I keep pretending, what awaits him is—]

(SCENARIO) Wang Yi: "Apologies, Master." WY: "My poison has aphrodisiac properties."

WY: [Betrayal from a disciple he gave everything to teach.]

WY: [So it's better to explain in advance since my heart can't deceive others anyways.]

WY: I said I'd pursue you.*

*implied to be romantically

WY: So no matter whether you remember the past, I'll still treat you well.

WY: (Ah, ah, why do I feel so happy just thinking of biting him.) [Looks like I still haven't calmed down yet.]

WY: You can read minds, so you should understand disciple isn't lying.

S-0: Host, what are you saying? Mr. Qin sealed his memory personally, so it's very easy for him to recover them as long as he wants to.

WY: (I really want to kiss him, bite him, and make a mess of him before swallowing him up.)

WY: (Blurred thoughts)

QX: ….

WY: If he can remember, then what's he doing right now?

S-0: Eh?

QX: Disciple.

QX: You said before for Master do [do what I want to do].

(FLASHBACK: Wang Yi telling Qin Xian he can do whatever QX wants)

QX: Were you sincere?

WY: Ah? It was sincere.

WY: (Why's he asking like that?)

WY: (Nothing to fear, I'll still chase him 'til the end of the story.)

QX: ….

S-0: So it's irrecoverable?

QX: I understand.

QX: I—

QX: Shall do as you wish.

WY: Huh?

S-0: ?

WY: (As I wish means…?)

S-0: Gahhh—

QX: For some reason, Disciple Wang Yi awakened a demon clan bloodline.

QX: It's certain that his mind is affected by primordial instincts with a tendency to deteriorate further.

WY: Hold on?

WY: What's this all of a sudden?

QX: He shall be exiled to the people,

QX: And never allowed entry into the sect again.

QX: The demon's mark has been engraved. I wish my disciple to live smoothly without worries from this day on.

WY: That's not it, Master! Whatever you want to do, I can do with you.

WY: (He wants to abandon me? What did I do wrong? He didn't even used to react when he knew I bit people.)

QX: Apologies.

QX: As long as you're here, I can't move freely. With your ability, it'll be better to live freely in the mortal world.

*WHOOOSH*

WY: Master?!

WY: Hah…?

WY: (He's never moved so quickly when we used to travel together… Was it taking my cultivation level into account?)

WY: Doesn't this…mean that I've never caught up to him.

S-0: Host!

S-0: What happened? I was blown away by the sword aura just then!

WY: (Aish, what a mess. I wasn't prepared at all.)

WY: Qin Xian seemed to have decided on something after reading my thoughts. He left a demon seal on me and left. Quick, help me check if it's got any debuffs or something. [It shouldn't have been done with malicious intentions.]

S-0: Oh, okay!

*SCANNING…*

S-0: Sigh.

WY: What?

WY: (He's got wrinkles on his forehead.)

S-0: The results of your full-body scan indicates that this is a daoist spell that [will hurt yourself as soon as you hurt others]. Yunshan Sect seems to use the sigil to identify those of other species.

WY: Oh.

WY: It's as if he really kicked me out of the sect…

S-0: But the strange thing is, Host still has a layer of strong celestial sword aura (Tiangang Sword Aura) around him left by a high-ranking cultivator. Its function is probably to resist fatal attacks from cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage.*

*Reminder: In the cultivation world the levels are: Qi-Refining > Foundation Building > Golden Core > Nascent Soul > Immortal Ascension > Overcoming tribulation and becoming a god

DIAGRAM: "Injury Backlash Spell," "Tiangang Sword Aura"

S-0: It'll be sensed by the caster during attack.

WY: The Tiangang Sword Aura is…Qin Xian's ability.

WY: (The huge spell formation just then didn't feel like a counterspell…)

WY: (More like…)

WY: …….

S-0: The Sword Saint might not have wanted to abandon you. Host, what were you thinking at the time?

WY: After eating the realgar and thinking about biting Qin Xian, I got a bit excited. But I quickly suppressed that thought with common sense…

S-0: Oh?

S-0: That's it?

WY: !

WY: ….

WY: I think.

WY: I know the reason now.

Wu Zhen: I know of the incident Sword Saint speaks of.

Wu Zhen: But the child you mentioned who underwent heavenly tribulation isn't my disciple.

[WU ZHEN: Yunshan Sect sect leader, early stage Nascent Soul cultivator]

Wu Zhen: He was probably using the sect's name to do evil deeds.

QX: Better send someone to investigate, this is no simple matter.

QX: (That child didn't lie regarding this point.)

Wu Zhen: ……

Wu Zhen: Since the Sword Saint insists, this really may be an anomaly. It'll be done as you said.

Wu Zhen: Speaking of which, where's your disciple? Why didn't I see him come receive the reward for slaying demons?

QX: …….

QX: My disciple left to gain experience and won't return anytime soon.

Wu Zhen: Oh? That's unlike you. How could the Sword Saint bear to let the disciple who clings to you all day suffer out in the world alone?

QX: …..mm.

QX: It's so he won't suffer.

[FLASHBACK]

WY: (I really want to kiss him, bite him, and make a mess of him before swallowing him up.)

WY: (Urk, I can't think like that. Otherwise, the future where Qin Xian digs out my celestial bone* and tosses me down the cliff will come early.)

*In cultivation novels, those with the aptitude to cultivate are sometimes in possession of special "celestial bones".

[END FLASHBACK]

QX: That I let him go.

QX: (Wang Yi and that spiritual cat seem to be saying)

QX: (That as long as the demon bloodline exists, in the near future I will personally slay my own disciple, right?)

QX: Oh right, help me investigate how to strip demon bloodlines out of someone along the way.

Wu Zhen: Hah? Along the way?

QX: (But I—)

QX: (Don't want to do such a thing.)

#i have to be a great villain #manhua translations #villain 121 #manhua #danmei

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scrollsfromarebornrealm · 7 months

Text

you're not alone--shadowbringers

Ran’jit had caught him with the serrated edge of his scythe. The blow had sent double shockwaves through Thancred—physically and aetherically, breaking his strained concentration. As he struggled to regain his senses—Ranjit struck again, unleashing a flurry of blows that sent Thancred flying back and crashing into a wooden wall. Dirt and debris rose into the air around him. For several moments the gunbreaker was motionless, his focus on breathing through the pain.

This…is not good. He was running low on his most powerful ammo, and his trick of cutting himself out of the aetherical flow was already starting to take a toll on his body. And Ran’jit’s transformation was making things much harder—even more so than normal.

Can’t be… With a pained wheeze, Thancred pushed himself up and forward. Digging the tip of his gunblade into the dirt, he squinted at his opponent. Ran’jit was walking towards him, and Thancred held—or rather, attempted to hold up a hand.

“Give me a moment to get back on my feet, will you?”

“Still think this is funny?!” Ran’jit snarled.

“Might be a little bit funny.” Thancred countered, blinking—there were two Ran’jits. He was certain that he was only fighting one. Unless he counted the snake-dragon thing. Which he kept forgetting to ask Reinhardt and Mathye about. Shakily Thancred started to rise—but his knees gave way, and he went back down.

Must…get…back up. He needed to stand. Needed to fight. Needed to protect Minfilia…Riven…Sebastian. Ran’jit stopped with him. Thancred gritted his teeth, looking up just as Ran’jit braced himself, and then launched forward—

Only to be suddenly blown back as a deafening gunshot went off. Thancred’s eyes widened as he watched Ran’jit reel backward. A black blur followed, and for several moments it was a dance--Ran'jit evading swipes and strikes, before landing a blow against Thancred's defender.

"Sebastian?!" Thancred got out. The younger man was sent skidding back, but was able to keep his footing. He immediately moved, placing his body between the pair. "I thought--I told you to stay with Riven and Minfilia!!"

"Shut up!" Sebastian snarled. Thancred blinked, he'd never seen the other Sharlayan that angry before. "Shut up and get on your feet! I'll kick your ass for thinking you could fight this bastard alone later!"

"Sebastian-!"

"Do you want to keep being like him?! The reason for her tears?!" Sebastian glared at his teacher. "Don't you want to remain by Minfilia's side for as long as you can?! That means letting us help you! And if you thought we were just going to let you play the self-sacrificing martyr, think again!"

They're everything to me. All I have and all I need. And I would gladly do anything for them!

Thancred closed his eyes on the memory of Minfila's words. The cracks he imagined that lived in his soul--he fancied he could feel a balm on them, something pouring into the wounds to fill them up.

I'm sorry for all the things I've left unspoken.

This was supposed to have been his atonement. Living through it would have been a privilege.

I'll not have you waste that newfound resolve on me.

He couldn't make up for all the things left unspoken...if he was dead. Gritting his teeth, Thancred rose, every muscle and nerve screaming in agongy. With a shaky breath he reached into a pocket, pulling out one of the few healing potions Ranjit hadn't destroyed.

"If you can think you can kick my ass after this, apprentice, you're dead wrong." Sebastian smirked at that, then looked toward Ranjit.

"Riven and Minfilia didn't have too far to go when I left them." He said. Thancred pulled the cork of the potion free with his teeth and spat it out to the side. Putting the rim to his lips, he chugged the liquid in one pull, then threw the bottle to the side. His breathing quickly became easier, the pain receding as the potion sank into his wounds. His footsteps now steady, he came up alongside Sebastian.

"And here I was planning on playing the hero." He quipped. Sebastian smirked.

"I'll watch Y'shtola tear you a new one for that when we're finished."

#ffxiv #thancred waters #sebastian astralyas #ffxiv shadowbringers #shadowbringers

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viscerax · 1 year

Note

You asked for requests, soooooo I am going to give you two!

Jam reunion or Jay gets eeby deebied back in time after he died, you choose when

Go crazy!!!

Reunion

Tim stares out the window while his hands absent-mindedly fidget with Jay's old camera. It had been awhile since he needed to use it. Who's counting?

Tim was. It had been 457 days since Jay died. Tim never moved away. He wanted to so badly, but it turns out being a minimum wage stock clerk doesn't exactly provide him with enough funds to move out. So he's stuck in that miserable house, with those miserable memories, and that miserable feeling in his gut.

He was tempted to sell Jay's camera, get some extra cash. But he couldn't. Anytime he opened Craigslist or e-bay, he stared at the web page for a moment before closing it. He couldn't bring himself to do it. The camera was the last proof that any of it happened, its scuffed edges and cracked lens. Without it, he might as well have just been crazy. No one else believed him. He knew damn well telling his therapist would just land him in another facility and numbed up on so many meds that he probably wouldn't even be able to remember his own name. He's been through that, and he wasn't going to do it again.

He sighs, setting the camera down again. He's about to get up when he feels something rub against his leg. He flinched a bit, looking down and finding a furry face staring back up at him, his new cat, affectionately named "Jay". He reached down, scratching her chin and earning a satisfied purr. It wasn't much, it certainly wasn't a replacement for Jay, but it was better than nothing.

He pulls his hand away, earning a needy chirp from the feline. Tim sighs, standing up with a grunt. "I know, i know. You're hungry, I get it." Tim makes his way to his kitchen, reaching up to the top cabinet and grabbing a bag of kibble for the feline.

He's standing on his tiptoes, and curses himself for putting the bag so out of reach. Normally he'd keep it on the floor, but he learned very quickly that wasn't an option with Jay, lest he wishes that she tear the bag open and feast upon it's contents in a single night.

He has the bag just barely pinched in his fingers and dragging it over the edge, when a sudden barrage of knocking at his front door catches him off guard, and the bag comes falling down, spilling open over his head.

"God damnit!" He shouts, allowing the now half-empty bag to fall to the floor. He turns to his cat, eyeing the pile with a look that could only be described as gluttony. "Jay, don't you fucking dare." He mutters to the cat, before picking the bits of cat food from his hair and off the front of his shirt.

"Just a moment!" He shouts to whoever is knocking at the door as he does his best to shake the kibble from the inside of his shirt.

"Tim?"

Tim freezes at the voice. He thinks its got to be another auditory hallucination. After all, there was no way it was him. He saw Jay's dead body. He buried him himself in the woods, mainly because no one else even knew who "Jay" was. His parents said they only had a daughter, not a son named Jay.

Except, it can't be a hallucination, because it catches his cat's attention too.

Tim takes a shaking breath. Maybe he just heard it wrong. Maybe it was just the mail man. Or a neighbor. Or one of those missionaries. Yes, that must be it.

Still, he trudged towards the door, hand shaking as he reaches for the knob. What if it's the Operator, back again. Playing tricks on him?

Tim slowly unlocks the door, slowly turning the door knob. He squeezes his eyes shut, not worrying about how he might look crazy to whoever is on the other side.

"Tim? Timothy?" The voice is there again. Tim can't take it anymore. He opens his eyes. He sees both his best dream and worst nightmare.

Jay Merrick standing at his doorstep.

He wants to speak, move, but he can't. He doesn't know what to do. Jay, Really Jay, is standing there, staring at Tim like he was the walking corpse.

"Tim, oh my god." Jay breaks the silence, and Tim can't stop the choked sob that spills past his lips. He almost falls forward, but catches himself on the doorframe. Jay flinched back a bit, and he can't tell if Tim is still angry or not. Not like he would blame him.

"Tim I didn't- im sorry- I don't know what I was doing and-" Jay starts rambling, tripping over his words and fidgeting with his trembling hands.

Jay almost topples over when suddenly a very heavy weight is crashing against him. But he doesn't fall. Instead, he's enveloped in warm, trembling arms. Tim is hugging him, and Jay is practically stunned.

"I know, Jay. I... I saw the entry. I-" his words are choked off by another sob as squeezes Jay again. "Y-you're here. Y-you can't be. You're not real." Tim is trembling, face buried in Jay's neck. Jay doesn't know what to do, so he just follows Tim's actions, wrapping his own lanky arms around Tim and trying to comfort him.

"I'm... yeah. I'm here. I'm real. I promise." Jay mumbles, a hand tentatively reaching up and petting Tim's hair.

"Jay... I... I buried you, though. I- how are you- I don't get it." Tim rambles as he reluctantly pulls away, partly worried that he'd crush the man if he squeezed him for any longer.

"I don't... I don't know. And for once I don't think I want to find out." Jay lets out an awkward chuckle, and the statement earns a snort from Tim.

"Well thats a first." He takes a step to the side, allowing Jay in. He tries to catch his breath, trying to wipe away his tears but they just keep coming and he can't stop them. This had been the most he cried in... ever. Even during the whole Operator fiasco, he never really shed any tears. He felt emotionally blocked up, and now they were all flowing out of him like a broken dam.

"Tim... I... I missed you- I'm sorry for... coming back and drudging this all up again but I- I couldn't- i didn't know who else to go to and-"

Tim practically slaps a hand over his mouth. "Stop apologizing. I- I want you here, I-" he takes a deep breath, and more tears are spilling again. His voice cracks when he finally speaks again. "For years, I couldn't even shed a tear. And then you showed up. All these emotions that I haven't had a chance to experience or didn't realize I had all came out at once because of you." Tim takes a deep breath, swallowing and hoping it will make speech easier, but it doesn't. His voice still trembles. "I can't stop crying, I'm sorry." He lets out a sarcastic laugh, to which Jay just reaches a hand up and wiped away the tears before cupping Tim's stubbley face in his hands.

Tim had been so numb since Jay's death. He'd been... sad, sure. But he had been doing so good at shoving it all down, focusing on other things and eventually drowning out the world-shattering sadness that was currently flowing out of him like a river. He couldnt stop it now. He couldn't drown it out or focus on anything else because Jay was right there, staring down at him with those big sad eyes, and speaking to him with those cracked lips that Tim sometimes wished would just shut up and kiss him.

"Tim... I... I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd- I don't want you to cry. I'm sorry... shit, I-" his words are interrupted by Tim's lips crashing into his with a kind of ferocity he could only expect from the man.

Tim wasn't thinking straight. So many emotions and chemicals swimming around in his brain is what caused him to do this. He's about to pull away and profusely apologize him for his irrational activity, but Jay is kissing him back and holy shit, Tim doesn't think he could pull away if he wanted to with the way Jay is practically clawing to hold onto him. They're both trying to prove to themselves that this is real, and that this is really happening and that it's not just some dream.

Reluctantly, they pull away, damn the need for air. They stay in silence for a moment before Tim finally breaks it.

"Please... please stay. Just for a while." Tim hates how desperate he sounds but he can't bring himself to change it because he is. He's so desperate for Jay to stay that he can't bring himself to be angry at him in any way.

"I will never leave you behind again, if you'll have me." Its a promise, a promise that means so much to the both of them. Tim is so used to people running once they see all of him. Once they get past his bitchy exterior, once they see the sad man that he is. But Jay's seen it all. He knows so much more about Tim then most. And yet he's staying.

Tim answers him with another kiss, albeit shorter than the last. He pulls away and just holds Jay, hands roaming over his back, to his waist, and up and down his arms, still trying to lock in the fact that Jay us really there.

"Mrowww?" The two men are broken apart as their attention falls to a very needy feline.

Tim sighs and picks the cat up, holding her gently and allowing Jay to pet her.

"What's her name?" Jay looks back to Tim, still scratching behind the ears of the purring feline.

Tim panics. Surely it's not... normal to name your cat after your dead "best friend." But, Tim can't think of any creative lie in the moment, so with a defeated sigh, he mumbles his confession.

"I named her... Jay. After you. It was uhm, a recommendation from my therapist. She was supposed to be a therapy pet, but really she mostly just takes up most of my money and attention." He complains about the cat, although its clear from his tone that he doesn't really mean it. The cat means a lot to him, even if he's too stubborn to admit it.

"That's... cute." Jay chuckles, and Tim would give anything he had to make sure he hears that laugh again, even if it's at the expense of his own embarrassment.

"Yeah, whatever." Tim mutters, which only earns another chuckle from Jay. Tim thinks he's going to die from embarrassment, and very quickly sets the cat down, deciding to change the subject. "I have to uhm, clean up a mess, that she made earlier. Before she eats all of it."

Jay is a bit confused, until he looks over Tim's shoulder and sees cat food spilled all over the floor. He giggles and follows behind Tim, helping him clean it up, despite the others protest.

They're both so tired by the time they're done cleaning. It's not like it was a very difficult task, but Tim's pretty sure he's just worn out from the emotional Rollercoaster. He barely makes it to the bed, and tries to opt for passing out on the couch, but Jay practically drags him away to his bedroom, forcing him to lay down.

Jay is about to turn and take refuge on the couch, but Tim grabs his wrist.

"Don't leave. Please. Just for tonight. We can get you a bed tommorow." Tim groggily requests, and who is Jy to deny him, especially when he's looking up at him with those wide eyes that Jay adores.

Jay kicks off his shoes and crawls in next to Tim, relishing in the way he's practically enveloped in warmth.

"I love you. Welcome home, Jaybird." Tim sleepily mumbles into his neck.

Home. Jay hadn't had a home in so long, and he thinks he wouldn't mind if his home was Tim.

#marble hornets #jam mh #jay merrick #timothy wright #mh #jam #implied trans jay #wooo boy #this one made me tear up while writing it #hope you enjoy anon #this was fun to write actually #but i did cry

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soothingmind · 8 months

Text

Cat Behavior - [post Mt. Gulg, Pre Tempest]

Self indulgent Miqo'te - cat stuff between my WoL and Y'shtola. No I won't elaborate.

“When was the last time you cleaned your ears?”

Nimda had just settled down at the edge of her bed after getting into her pajamas. And it was Y'shtola who walked up to her from the other side of her room, looking at her to await an answer.

Nimda blinked. Her thoughts are completely and utterly blocked by this question.

“I … uh.” Was this … why she wanted to look after me alone? “... This feels like a set up ploy.”

But Y'shtola only chuckled. “Nothing of that. I just know how much trouble it is and knowing you, I felt I may just ask this uncomfortable topic when we're alone.”

… She still wasn't quite convinced, but Nimda took the explanation anyway. She started to think when and most importantly where to remember, but -

Oh gods, that was so long ago.

“Um …” Nimda scratched the side of her face with a finger in a very big thinking way. “... Yeah.”

Still having that smile on her face, Nimda could see how Y'shtola's eyes somewhat grew sad as she started patting her head. “Thought so.”

She sat down beside her and took out several materials to do just that. “So then, may I?”

There was no way she got out of this situation anyways and it was for her own good as well, so -

With a deep breath and a chuckle herself Nimda nodded.

Memories of a hazy time flooded back to her, from the very first days (weeks? it was all such a blur now) she spent the nights at the Waking Sands. It was there where Y'shtola first actually told these things to her - how to sit with a tail, how to sleep with one, how to brush and wash her hair properly, to properly eat the right things. And, the very first time she showed her how to clean these new ears of hers.

(“Surely you must have done that … previously?” “I … I mean, yeah, but, not …-” “... I see, I see. Sit down there. I'll show you.”)

Nimda’s other ear twitched as Y'shtola started her work. And suddenly the memories of this very first time started pouring back - Wait.

She flinched at the uncomfortable feeling, ducking away from her touch.

“... Sorry-” Nimda apologized right away though, cupping her face with both her hands.

“I know, I know. But hold still for me, okay?”

Her touches were very gentle, much more gentle than Nimda remembered all these years ago. She wondered if it was just because her memories were playing tricks on her, or if it had something to do that Y'shtola felt her way through it rather than seeing. Still, Nimda trusted her.

It didn't stop her other ear twitching all the time, but focusing on breathing instead definitely helped. She was just fully glad Ryne had mended the light earlier, otherwise it would have been very inconvenient if it acted up right now.

And as sudden as this process started, Y'shtola was done with both ears. Nimda shook her head and scratched the backs of her ears, a good tingly feeling running down her spine that made her let out a deep breath.

“How is that?”

Nimda hummed. “Weirdly … refreshing. In a good way.”

“I'm glad.” Y'shtola chuckled and patted her head again. She got up and disposed of the stuff she used, turning to Nimda again. “Time to get some rest, then. We will have a long day tomorrow.”

Even though it wasn't night, it was pretty late and Nimda felt the sleepiness creeping up to her. Though she wasn't sure if it was just a result of the general mix of feeling exhausted from dealing with the light and sleepiness itself. It probably was, but Y'shtola was right.

“And you will stay the entire time?” Nimda asked as she patted over her pillow.

“This is what we agreed upon, yes.” Y'shtola said. She already settled down on a chair a bit further away from the bed, book in hand. “You rest up and I'll keep watch.”

Right.

At least … at least there was the reassurance that there was actually someone right by her side and not watch from afar. Someone who could take immediate action. She so desperately wished it hadn't come to this in the first place, but -

Everyone was concerned, rightfully so. She didn't want that though. They shouldn't have to be concerned, but that wasn't something she could change right now. She was stuck in this situation and had to deal with it, in one way or another.

But she wasn't alone in this, even if her head tried to tell her otherwise over and over.

Barely five minutes had passed since Nimda had laid down on her pillow to find some sleep that she opened her eyes again. “Y'shtola?”

“Yes?”

“Can you … sit beside me, here?”

Y'shtola wasn't sure what she meant until she saw her pointing at the other side of her bed. She let out a curious Huh before she actually indulged in Nimda's request, climbing over her to get to the spot. She leaned against the headboard, the book in her lap, and Nimda curled up beside her, her back huddling against her legs.

“Like this?”

“Mmhm.” Nimda hummed with a smile.

Content, Nimda managed to slowly drift to sleep.

Y'shtola had to admit that it had been ages, ages ago since the last time anything like this happened to her. Maybe even as far back when Y’mhitra still slept on her side - it made her realize that this was something Miqo'te related she did not teach her and Nimda did out of her own. A smile played on her lips and she dropped her hand to gently brush her fingers over Nimda's hair, hoping to sooth her even further.

Yet eventually no matter how much she tried to stay awake, sleep would take her as well, dwelling in this forgotten comfort she re-experienced.

Of course a cough would rip her out of her slumber. Nimda's head felt heavy as she tried to curl up even further to prevent another cough - seeing the remains of droplets of light on her hand though, a mild panic ran through her and all that want to sleep vanished instantly.

No, no, not again, not now.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths - as Ryne told her to do should any uncomfort arise regarding the light - focusing on just herself and her inner flow of aether. And … it did seem to work. The need to cough vanished and she relaxed a bit, releasing the tension that formed all over her body.

… All it did was to make her feel lightheaded and her world seemed to spin. That Ryne did not tell her -

Nimda shifted onto her back, which somehow made things even worse, so she turned to her other side, reaching out to wrap her arms around Y'shtola's legs. And it made the woman stir in her sleep, but not wake her.

“Y'shtola.” Nimda whispered, clinging onto her even more.

Now that finally had her react and Y'shtola reached out to Nimda, gently caressing her head.

“What's wrong? … Should I get Ryne?”

“... Dizzy.” was all Nimda managed to get out. The suggestion of Ryne didn't even cross her mind, but as of right now the light itself was not bothering her. Maybe she could help, maybe it was because she tried to mend it herself -

But her thoughts went into nothing as Y'shtola grabbed her and let her lay against her, tucking her chin on top of Nimda's head as she started … to purr.

Her world was still spinning, somewhat, but this entire situation just now must have distracted her so much that it just stopped. Her cold skin against her head, the comforting purr she never had heard from her before, the gentle stroking of her temples - it all just made her sleepy again, and Nimda accepted this all just now, not questioning anything.

Not that she thought she would get any answer anyways, considering she didn't even know what to ask first.

“Better?”

Nimda wanted to respond in any way, but the comfort took hold too quickly too much. Even Y'shtola noticed that, feeling Nimda drift to sleep against her.

It was all she could have wished for.

For the one person she wanted to call her daughter.

#Unending Journey #WoL be small #they are so important to Me wah #they fambily ...

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griffin-girl-r · 1 year

Text

Chapter 2

Word count: 2,542

Warnings: Injury description, Cussing, Punching

Chapter 1 , Chapter 3

—

"It can't be..."

—

Maria's eyes must be deceiving her for sure, because she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

She never thought she'd get the chance to see her again.

Not after everything that happened.

This is surreal.

"Natasha..." A faint whisper of disbelief came out Maria's mouth as she stared wide-eyed in front of her

Her hair was long again and had its natural fierce red color, unlike the short, dyed blonde hair Maria remembers she had the last time she saw her but some of the blonde was still present at the ends of her hair.

She was as beautiful as the brunette remembers her to be but Maria could see that 5 years of pain, suffering, and loneliness left their mark on her features that seemed more mature than they have ever been.

She was lying on a bed, unconscious, with various monitors reassuring Maria that her Natty was breathing, that she was alive, even though there was a machine doing the breathing job for her through a tube that Maria knew went down the spy's throat.

Maria wanted to rush to her side, to take her hand in hers, to kiss her forehead, and to make sure she was okay, but something in her heart was keeping her from doing so.

The doubt of all of it being nothing more than an illusion was very present in Maria's mind.

Natasha has been dead for the past two years.

For two years Maria had to live alone in a world that didn't care about her.

"Natty..." Maria whispered again, shock written on her face "She can't be..."

The shock on Maria's face suddenly turned into anger in a fraction of a second as she quickly forced herself to turn around and punch the girl, that had brought her here, in the face.

"Ahh..." The younger woman groaned "What the fuck was this for?" She asked confused, raising her arms

"How dare you play with my mind like this?!" Maria shouted angry

"I told you, Maria." The girl stated in her usual raspy voice "There is no game. It's true. She's here."

"She's not! She is a hero!" Maria screamed as the anger in her eyes transformed into tears "A hero! You have disrespected her memory by pulling this little trick up. She died to bring half of the universe back." She stopped for a moment, feeling like she was about to choke on her own tears that started falling without her permission "She died to bring me back. She sacrificed herself for me and her family. To bring all of us back to life again. Me, her sister, her parents, Laura, and the kids. She did it all for us!" She sobbed

"I know." The girl softly said, wrapping her hands around Maria's wrists, stopping the brunette from using her hands "Believe me, I know. That's why I need you to believe me when I tell you that this is not a game or a sick joke. That right there it's really your beloved secret girlfriend."

"But she's been dead for so long." Maria cried "And how did you find out she was my girlfriend? No one knew. Not even Nick."

"I said it before, I'm going to say it again." The girl sighed "I know a lot of things. You will find out when the time is right why I know all this information."

"The one laying on that bed it's actually her?" Maria asked as hope faintly started filling her voice with emotion

The girl nodded and let go of Maria's hands.

"It is her." The girl kept nodding with a small smile "I'm going to explain to you everything you want to know about her state and how she's here. Let's just go in and take a seat."

The girl tried to offer Maria her help to walk inside but the commander refused it with a wave of her hand.

The girl without a name stepped back and nodded "Go ahead then, Agent."

—

Maria took in a deep, shaky breath as her legs slowly started carrying her inside the room and over to the bed where her entire world was lying.

The commander expected the ghost of her girlfriend to fade away and disappear with each step she was taking closer to the bed.

But that didn't happen.

Natasha kept existing outside Maria's imagination, in the real, physical world.

Maria was lost.

The overwhelming feeling of happiness that engulfed her was too strong for Maria to fight against it and have a rational thinking.

Maria first stared at her girl's peaceful face, a comfortable silence falling over the room as Maria expressed her feelings through actions, then she reached her hand toward Natasha's hand.

But she stopped, quickly pulling it back, afraid that she would wake up from her dream if she dared touch her girlfriend.

Her mind and body were painfully screaming at her to just touch Natasha and make sure she was actually there but Maria was hesitant.

She will taint with her darkness this sacred temple, that is Natasha's body, if she dares touch it.

Maria couldn't dare to touch Natasha.

~~~~~

"I don't like when you keep your distance from me." Natasha playfully pouted at her girlfriend when they finally managed to get a moment of privacy

"Well, you were the one to ask me to keep our thing a secret for the moment." Maria pointed out with a chuckle "You'll have to deal with it."

"At least hold my hand or touch me even if just for a brief second whenever you can." Natasha cuddled closer to the taller girl "I love having you as close to me as possible. I love your touch."

"If that's so, then I promise to never let go of your hand." Maria smiled, kissing the redhead's pout away "I will touch you with each chance I get to, in order to remind you that I'm always by your side. Even if it's just for a brief second."

"Thank you." Natasha smiled widely at Maria, resting her head in the young commander's lap

"I love you so much." Maria whispered, moving the hair out of her lover's face "I'd do anything for you."

~~~~~

Maria was brought back to the present by the beeping of the machines around her.

She had yet to make a move and the mysterious girl's gaze was still on Maria, patiently waiting for the older woman to make any move.

"I promised to never let go of your hand but I did." Maria whispered, trying to sniff away her tears "Forgive me, Tasha. I let go of your hand and I lost you forever. It's my fault."

Maria was met with silence as Natasha was unable to give Maria an answer yet and comfort her distressed girlfriend.

"I'm so sorry." Maria's voice came out in a high-pitched tone "I was a bad girlfriend. I never deserved you and your golden heart. Everyone I love dies. My mother died to bring me into this world and you died to bring me back to life. I should have never been born. I'm so sorry, my Natty." She burst out into tears "I'm so sorry I failed you."

Maria fell to one knee beside Natasha's head and turned into a sobbing mess as all the pain and guilt she bottled up over the last two years finally reached the surface.

Maria's shaky hand gingerly grasped Natasha's hand and the brunette gasped when her skin made full contact with her lover's skin.

Before, Natasha knew this small contact could easily drive Maria insane and turn her into a mess.

Now, just as before, this small contact was driving Maria insane as her heart was about to run out of the soldier's chest.

Oh, this small touch.

How she missed this touch.

The simple reassurance that Natasha was by her side just by holding her hand.

"My love!" Maria cried, gently placing a soft kiss on the back of Natasha's hand as she lingered on it "Baby, honey, sweetheart, my Russian princess, my life, I missed you so much, dear. How could I dare to keep breathing for more than one second without having your presence in my life? How could I open my eyes every morning and not see the face of this angel that it's you? How could I eat if you weren't there so I could share my food with you? How could I take showers if you weren't there to jump in the bath and shower with me? How? Why? Why did I fall asleep every night in our bed if your pillow was cold and the side of your bed unoccupied?" She kept sobbing "How could I have the audacity to live for so many years without you?" She slightly calmed down, sniffing her tears away "Thank you for taking me with you."

Maria kissed Natasha's forehead, her hand resting above her sleeping girlfriend's head, stroking the red hair that Maria missed so much.

The younger woman, who made this reunion possible, was silently watching Maria expressing her emotions and love towards the girlfriend she thought was gone forever, tears pooling in her eyes.

The girl quickly turned her head away from the sight in front of her and wiped a few tears away that dared to fall from her eyes.

She was also trying to hide away the smile that was slowly forming on her face as her chest swelled with pride at the fact that her plan was successful.

—

Slowly but surely, Maria's cries chased down and all she was able to keep doing was to stare at Natasha's face with a look on her face that displayed pure adoration towards the redhead.

"I love you." Maria whispered for the ten thousand time in the past few minutes as she kept looking at Natasha's face

"Don't you want to tell her that while she's awake?" The voice of the unknown girl took Maria by surprise as the older woman forgot that there was another person in the room with her

"Of course, I would like to tell her how much I love her while she's awake." Maria kept her tone harsh as she addressed the other girl "But you owe me some explanations first."

"Oh, God." The girl sighed, sitting down in a chair "From where do I start?"

"From the beginning." Maria replied, trying to extract as much information as she could from the girl "What's your name? How did you manage to bring my dead girlfriend here?"

"You still won't find out my name, Hill." The girl chuckled, crossing her legs "Nice try."

Maria rolled her eyes annoyed.

This girl for sure is good at manipulation.

"Now about Natasha, I managed to bring her here right after, you know, the jump." The girl whispered the last word

"I get that." Maria interrupted the girl "But how exactly have you managed to do that?"

"That's a story for another day." The girl chuckled "So, as I was saying, I managed to save her but I had to reconstruct her skull as it had been smashed by the impact into tiny pieces, repair her nerves, and tend to her broken spine and bones."

Maria tightly closed her eyes as pain hit her when she heard the injuries her sweet Nat had from that damned fall.

Oh, her precious Natasha had suffered so much.

"Her body has healed in a proportion of 90% so far from those injuries. She also had needed a lot of blood transfusions to help her body fight after she had lost an incredible amount of blood." The girl explained

"Natasha has a special type of blood that it's very rare." Maria tensed her shoulders "How could you have such a big amount of the blood she needed for the transfusions here?"

The girl was slowly getting tired of Maria's attitude "Because I have the same blood type as her." She shouted "I used my blood for the transfusions." She accidentally let this slip out of her mouth but quickly realized her mistake

Maria tilted her head to the side with a tiny satisfied smirk.

At least she managed to get something from this girl.

"Anyways." The girl cleared her throat "She's ready to be woken up at any moment, that's why I've brought you here. I thought that she would like to wake up to a familiar face."

"Did you owe her a debt as well?" Maria asked in a surprisingly calm and non-ironic tone

"Yes." The girl said "I owed her even a bigger debt than I owed you."

"Wow..." Maria chuckled sarcastically "Apparently you owe everyone a debt."

For the moment, the girl chose to ignore Maria's ironic comment.

"Natasha will have to learn how to walk and do basic things again." The girl said, making Maria's face fall "I managed to keep her muscle mass in good shape through massages and physical therapy while she was asleep. That means that she'll still be able to somewhat move her muscles after not using them for so long. This is as much as I could do without her help, which is still good."

"But physical therapy is still necessary." Maria nodded, sadness blooming in her voice "I get it." She whispered looking back at Natasha's face

"I know you'll be very happy to be there by her side and help her recover in no time." The girl slightly smiled "It's the least we could do for her after everything she has done for us." The girl took a deep breath before adding "She's an angel."

"She is, isn't she?" Maria smiled, running her thumb over Natasha's cheekbone "She's my angel."

"Let's call her your guardian angel." The younger girl chuckled "Because as soon as she wasn't by your side anymore, you went straight into getting in trouble and getting shot. And trust me, you're anything but straight." She smiled before very quietly adding "She's our guardian angel." Hoping that Maria wasn't able to hear her

The commander heard her anyway but she chose to keep silent.

Natasha is more important than any ironic comment Maria could say now.

"I'll give you some time with her." The girl walked over to Maria and patted her shoulder "You need it. I'll be back soon enough to wake her up."

The nameless girl started walking towards the door but she was stopped by Maria's voice.

"Kid!" Maria shouted after the younger girl, making her turn around "Thank you for everything."

"You're welcome, Agent Hill." The girl gave Maria a soft smile "It's been my honor to be able to reunite you both."

And with that, the girl that wasn't such a stranger to Maria anymore left the room.

"I'll have you back with me very soon, beautiful." Maria whispered to Natasha, leaving multiple gentle kisses on the back of Natasha's hand

Maria will very soon be complete again.

She will be able to hold Natasha in her arms after all this time.

And yet, Maria couldn't fully allow herself to enjoy Natasha's arrival back in her life as one question kept lingering in Maria's mind.

Who is this mysterious girl and why was she helping them?

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