#Rise Against Suicide Sunrise Walk

[denimbex1986]

'Andrew Scott doesn’t always play the kindest characters on-screen – he’s known for villainous roles such as Moriarty in Sherlock and Max Denbigh in Spectre – but that really couldn’t be further from real life.

The actor is generous with his time and his thoughts, despite calling from Italy where he’s currently working 12 hour days shooting a new project.

Scott, 45, says he considers mental health similar to the weather. "The weather is a changeable thing," he says. "If you’re in the driving rain, there’s no point in screaming up at the sky saying, ‘Please stop raining, please stop raining’. The best thing you can do is just accept it’s raining, and know that it will stop."

For the Dublin-born star, a huge factor in the male mental health crisis is society’s perceived expectations of men, to be ‘manly’ and have a stiff upper lip. "I think it’s to do with vulnerability," he muses. "Expressing vulnerability is something that’s considered in some way a ‘feminine’ trait – but I think vulnerability is a brilliant trait in a person."

"There’s a real stigma about how we approach mental illness," Scott continues. "Not one of us would say, ‘I’ve never been physically ill’ – and in exactly the same way, it seems preposterous to me that we would say we’ve never had any mental illness.

"I think we associate mental health with having to check into somewhere or having to take medication, or being diagnosed with something. But I think we have to understand it’s on a spectrum. The difference between where we land on that spectrum has to do with communication."

Particularly as a result of the pandemic and what we’ve all been through during recent times, Scott argues now is "a good time to start talking", as most of us have experienced – to some extent – emotions we might "have never felt before", including a "lack of control and fear".

Scott likes to talk about mental health with "a certain degree of lightness", he says. "There’s a duality that exists… It sounds odd for me to say that, but as long as you can be light about your darkness, I think you’re [going to be] alright."

He admits it sounds "counterintuitive", but we need to have "a sense of humour about the fact we’re all a little bit f***** up in some way. And saying, that’s OK. Nobody said it was going to be easy all the time."

Warming to his theme, Scott continues: "It’s why sometimes funerals can be more enjoyable than weddings, because at a wedding sometimes people have this dreaded feeling of, you have to be happy, and it’s so comparative. We live in such an age of comparison with social media, and sometimes at a funeral – you don’t go up to somebody and go, ‘Oh my God, you look terrible’, if they’ve got mascara running down their face, because you’re not worrying. So people are going, ‘Here I am, I am a mess. It’s OK for me to cry’. And sometimes that’s when we feel incredibly bonded."

Scott says laughter is key to maintaining his own mental health. "I try and laugh every day," he says passionately. "It’s such a human attribute – the animals, as much as I love them, they don’t laugh as much as we do. Sometimes I think we can measure someone’s humanity almost by how much they laugh every day and how much they’re able to appreciate laughing.

"[Sometimes you have to say] this is all ridiculous, this doesn’t end well for any of us – we’re all going to die. So in a way, you’ve got to laugh as much as you can – that’s my attitude certainly, as I move through life."

Scott says exercise is also central to his mental wellbeing ("without a shadow of a doubt"). Despite a gruelling schedule filming in Italy when all he might want to do is sit down at the end of a long day and eat pasta, he says: "I genuinely believe it’s an essential thing. With exercise, people think, ‘Oh my God, I have to be really fit or join a gym’, but there’s nothing I like more than going for a walk with somebody."

Walks might feel "very 2020", but "there’s something very beautiful about going for a walk with someone, because you can talk about things but you’re not facing each other," says Scott. That’s why he’s supporting the HUMEN charity’s Rise Against Suicide Sunrise Walk, which aims to ‘inspire more men to get active and talk’.

There’s another reason Scott likes a simple walk. "I love a non-event," he says. "I like the day after a wedding or getting accidentally drunk on a Tuesday afternoon with your friends. Sometimes you can have really meaningful conversations just going for a walk – or hysterical conversations. Life happens in the in-between, because there’s no pressure."'

[countrymusiclover]

66 - Rescuing Klaus

( Gif rightfully belongs to @geekorunique , thank you for making these gifs )

Part 67

Gemini Runaway

Tag list ask to be added @icefrye19 @secretdreamlandmentality

Sitting myself upright I twisted my limbs, waking up and seeing that there was a blood bag on the bedside table. Someone entered the room where I lifted my head seeing that it was Nik. “So is it true then. Lucien has become more powerful than an Original?”

“Unfortunately yes my love. Not even my hybrid blood could cure him.” He slowly walked over looking like a broken man when he sat down on the edge of the bed.

A few days after Cami was turned into a vampire Lucien had found a way to turn even stronger than the rest of us. He ended up killing Finn who had come back around the same time as Kol did. “Then we have to make sure that he doesn’t get close to the girls.”

“And I will do so while you stay here.” He grabbed my forearm stopping me when I rose from the bed trying to leave and go fight.

Whipping my hair around in my face I drew my hand from his grasp. “You can’t be serious, Niklaus. You have said that we are stronger together than we are apart.”

“But if he bites you there is no cure. I won’t be able to heal you and I refuse to lose you to one of my other vampires.” He explained when I turned to face him. He ran his hands down my arms pressing his forehead against mine. “I love you, Raelyn. You are life, you and our daughters.”

Drawing slightly away from him I cupped his face in my hands. “And they also need their father.”

“Rae,” He attempted to say.

I cut him off closing the gap between our bodies where our chests were pressed together. “I need you, I love you. We may have said a vow but forever I do always meant more than that. So don’t you dare go off on another sucicide mission without telling me. I can’t go through that again like with Tyler.”

"It's not a suicide mission, love. I need to stop Lucien but I can't be worried about you while I do so." He sniffed through tears running his fingers through my hair when I dropped my hands. "I will come back to you, I promise."

It was almost sunrise and he still wasn't back yet. Watching our daughters sleep in their beds, someone vamped inside where I saw it was Cami. "What are you doing here?"

"Klaus came to my place and I called him a few hours ago. He didn't answer. Aurora did though." She said frantically.

Rising to my feet I vamped in her face beginning to have a panic attack. "And what did that bitchy redhead say!"

"She is holding him hostage at Lucien's and she's going to kill him." She told me mirring the terror on my face.

Cami and I had made it to Lucien’s apartment. I waited inside the elevator using a glass spell to see inside the room without Aurora knowing at all. “I’m going to ring her neck for hurting him!” I threatened to myself when Cami gasped seeing Klaus was chained up and on his knees. He was bleeding down his chest and he was struggling to keep his eyes opened.

“We’ll save him.” She said taking my hand in hers. “Try not to die. You are my sire after all.”

Letting her hand go, I nodded listening in on their conversation. “Don’t count on that ever happening, Cami.”

Aurora held a stake against her heart about to stab herself. “That's it? Nothing more to say? No more taunts tripping from your tongue? Well, then I suppose it's time I finish this.”

Klaus grunts. “What are you doing?”

“I'm gonna drive this into my heart, die, and be reborn. And then, with the aid of my newfound power… I'm going to silence you permanently.” She almost did so until the elevator door opened. “Well, it appears we have company.”

She gasped seeing it was Cami standing there. “Oh, my. This day just gets better and better. Cami, it's been a while. How's vampirism treating you?”

She responded. “As a matter of fact, I'm enjoying it. That's why I'm here, to express my gratitude.”

The red head smirked. “Ooh, you cheeky little minx. Have you come to have a go at me?”

Klaus warned her. “Get out of here, Camille!”

“Shut up, Nik. This is between us girls. Though I suppose I will let you listen to her cries as I tear off her limbs like the wings of pretty little butterfly.” Aurora shouts back at him.

Cami smirks. “I'd like to see you try.”

Aurora was unmoved by her threats. “Ooh! You're brandishing your antiques at me. I suppose I would be scared if I thought you were quick enough to use them. You really did not think this through, did you?”

The newbie vampire said simply. “Actually, we did.” The second the elevator door opens I launched myself on top of Aurora knocking her onto the ground.

She grunted through her teeth trying to punch me until I got to my feet. “Ha ha. The siphon ripper has come to save her husband. I’d like to see you try and kill me.”

“Oh I plan to do just that!” I snarled, throwing my hand out, launching her against the wall. “Moths!”

“Rae!” Nik exclaimed, sounding so relieved to see we had come to save him. He tried to move up but the chains wouldn’t allow him too.

Aurora winced. “Don’t you have any other tricks, Raelyn?”

“Sure do.” I snapped at her before I shoved my hand inside her chest about to rip it out, hearing her heart slowly dying . “Tardus pulsate!”

Nik shouted in my direction causing me to stop. “Stop! She drank the serum.”

Aurora took her chance to twist my arm inside her chest breaking the bone. I screamed when she threw me onto my back. We threw punches at one another but she managed to throw me before I could hurt her. Sliding on the floor I felt cuts on my knees and on my face that would heal. “I will kill you for hurting him!”

“Nik, what a conundrum. Godmother of your children over here, woman of your dreams over here.” Aurora turned to Cami then she pointed her index finger at me smirking. “Which one should I kill first?”

He shifted his body forward as much as the chains would allow. “I'm the one who betrayed you. I'm the one you hate.”

She didn’t seem to care. “And they're the ones you care for. So what a pleasure for me to watch your face as I rip them apart.”

“Hey. I'm right here, ready and waiting.” Cami called out.

She moved back in her direction giving me the chance to crawl over to my husband’s side. “Oh, Cami, the hero was never a good look on you. Trembling and helpless is more your style.”

Aurora and Cami threw punches and she tried to stab the Martel. While I grabbed Nik’s chains trying to siphon the magic holding him. “I told you no more suicidie missions, urgh!”

“I didn’t choose to get captured, love.” He snapped at me.

Focusing my attention back on the restraints I winced when it burned my hand. “Damn vervain!”

“Cami, did Nik ever mention to you what happens when a vampire goes into a room without being invited?” Whipping my head upwards I began panting heavily seeing Aurora holding Cami up by the back of her neck in front of the doorway.

She was the only one of us in the room that hadn’t gotten an invite in yet. “Aurora no!” I growled trying to stop her but she shoved her against the barrier making her scream in agony.

Nik shouted at her fighting to stop her. “Aurora! Please.”

She paused for a slight second doing the same thing again. Klaus heard me scream vamping in front of her before the red head snapped my neck. “Let her go!” I collapsed onto the floor taking a little while before coming back seeing that she was still holding Cami.

Cami screamed over Aurora’s words. “Hush, Nik! Don't make her final moments any worse than they need to be! ‭Darling, I almost feel sorry for you. Blinded by love as I once was, ready to give everything, even your life, for one who is and always will be unworthy.”

Cami shook her head with her eyes and nose bleeding finally getting the chance to stab Aurora in the gut. “Rae!”

Vamping to my feet I magically throw Aurora over the barrier line to Cami. “Motus. “Cami, lights out for her!”

Cami yanked out a needle holding her by her throat stabbing her in the vein of her neck. Aurora gasped before she passed out. “Go to him, Rae.” The brave bartender said catching her breath afterwards.

Running over to him I slide over onto my knees placing my hands over the cuffs not worried that they were laced with vervain. "Magia tollux de terras. Magia tollux de terras…ah ha gotcha. Nik, it worked." The chains snapped open where I called his name softly.

"Raelyn.." He weakly spoke falling into my arms barely having any strength left.

Moving his body to lay against mine I held his face in my hands. "Nik, hey, hey. Stay with me okay….urgh drink” I bite down on my own wrist drawing blood holding it out underneath his mouth.

“Rae…no…” He slurred his words seeing me scanning his face. His eyes were heavy and his hair was a mess that looked like we had sex.

Shoving my hand up to his mouth I force fed him since he was too weak. “Just drink. Don’t talk.” His fangs broke into my skin slowly tasting my blood. I gasped feeling him drink from me. Raising my freehand I ran my fingers through his hair until he had enough and removed his fangs.

“Thank you…” He whispered, pressing his face into my chest breathing in and out slowly.

Resting my chin on top of his head I wrapped my arms around his weak form. His fingers clutched the fabric of my shirt for some comfort. “Sssh, Nik. I’ve got you.”

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[sharkfish]

"WEAKNESS FOR WRITERS"

once i wrote that some days are like climbing the savage  mountain with bitter sharps for bones. i didn’t say that some  walks are long and some walks are longer. i didn’t say that  some nights are dark and some nights are darker. 

once someone wrote nights like these, they tear me  apart. and he wrote, i was never that good with the words  anyways. i always had a weakness for writers. it’s why i  memorize poems so i can count down the moments when  i’m afraid. it’s our favorite thing for other people to notice,  our smiles, i recite like an incantation to protect me against all the angry ghosts. it’s all either one of us have to offer. it’s  why i always smile as i step off the trail for someone to pass.  i’ve brought you an offering, i say without saying at all.  please accept me.

some walks transport me liminal. i have been on this path my whole life, back to the first burst of light into nothingness. i will always be on this path, up until the  final midnight. some days i stand tall, gravity overlooking  the weight on my shoulders, striding fast and strong. other  days i hunch and other days i cry. the birds just watch and  wait, even in the vivid hush of sunrise.

i just keep marching towards there and then turning to  trudge and back, where everything ends in a gravel parking  lot. there’s the grind of disappointment in my knees, in my  hips. the line seems trite now but once someone wrote and  miles to go before i sleep and when i was young and sad it was  a comfort that someone else knew what it was like to come  down the mountain. when frost could finally rest, did he dream  of the people who couldn’t see the bite in his blued fingertips?  were they tired of his excuses? did they blame him for not shrinking  the mountain so he could make it home a little faster, the way they  always seem to blame me? 

once someone wrote tell me what you know about dreams and he  wrote tell me what you know about the night terrors. once someone  wrote he has dreams where he dies, dreams where we all die. once  someone wrote i’ve just been too scared for too long. 

my mountain keeps rising. once someone wrote he was still on top  like he’s scared to drop and i was envious that he’d seen the height  of his peak while mine still reaches giant into the fog. i was envious  he wasn't ready for the fall when i’ve stood at the edge of cliffs  for years, trying to trade pennies for courage. i wish, i wish.

once i wrote that i’d be all right when my hands get warm, or maybe  that was someone else, it was so many miles ago. once i wrote i feel  stupid when i cry. once i wrote that i’ve been redacted, black bars  covering my name and my face. once i wrote help me. once i wrote  that i’d never forgive you for making me endure, and endure, and  endure, and i never have. 

no matter how many trekking poles you put in my hands, i’m still  thousands of feet into the ever-violent atmosphere, and there’s  no rest in sight. 

“nights like these” - lucero “convenience stores” - buddy wakefield “stopping by woods on a snowy evening” - robert frost “hit the switch” - bright eyes “pursuit of happiness” - kid cudi “14 lines from love letters or suicide notes” - doc luben “money in the grave” - drake

[shegottosayit]

[love-pyramus]

Last Days

Hey! Third chapter of the BFU AU/Halloween fic! 

WC: 4679

Trigger warnings! The part with Bruiser has mentions of religion, and the entire fic deals heavily with death! There’s hanahaki, murder, disease, and suicide, so stay safe! If there’s anything I forgot to tag please let me know.

@joshkatz @logic-cat @thatsmycigarbutyoucanborrowit @ryanseamans @mushe-room @panicky-pancakes @awstenknyght

First Part - Previous Part - Masterlist

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

Day of December 14th

The noise from the people heckling Bruiser slowly faded into the background as he continued to run. He never ran from fights, never. But despite his constant displays of stupidity, he wasn’t idiotic enough to think that he would be able to take on seven men, a few of which looked much larger and stronger than he was. With each step, his feet pounded and his bag slammed against his side, his pace mimicking the beat of his heart. 

After a few minutes of running, he ducked into an alley, taking his hat off his head to fan himself with it, despite the cold air. Each gasp he took filled his lungs with the frigid air, causing a sharp pain, though he couldn’t tell if it was because of the cold, or exhaustion setting in. He hunched over, trying to catch his breath from the run, the slurs and jeers from the group that had chased him ringing in his ears as he gasped. 

Finally, his vision gained clarity, and he noticed the pair of shoes facing him. As he walked his gaze up, he realized it was one of the men who had been chasing him, and his vision went out again as he heard a sickening crack, and his head slammed against the wall. 

When Bruiser’s vision came back, and he could see and feel, he was in the arms of someone, both his own and the person carrying hims breath fogging up in the cold air. The fog created mixed with the winter sun, creating a light around the person carrying him’s head. 

A halo. 

“You’re my angel, aren’t you?” He asked, looking up, his eyes darting around to take in the sight of him. 

“No- no-” 

As the angel holding him tried to speak, B whimpered, reaching to grab his crucifix, pulling it, trying to press it into the hand of him. “Please angel-” he whines, his eyes slipping closed as the ground slipped out from below. 

Angel. 

You’re my angel, aren’t you?

King jolted awake, looking around at the dark lodge. It was full of sleeping boys, and a small chill crept up King’s back, the thin blanket doing nothing to keep the cold and fear at bay. Not like Bruiser had been able to. It was nearly November, meaning the air was becoming colder by the day. And even with the chill on the outside, King could feel the burning of the flowers inside his lungs. 

He let out a weak cough, bloodstained petals fluttering down, and he quickly grabbed them, stuffing them into a rip in his mattress. King was dying, he knew this. And there were people he needed to say goodbye to. Getting up, he pulled his long sleeve on, and walked out of the lodge silently. The winter sun was just beginning to rise as he got to the Brooklyn Bridge, and he could hear the bells ring from nearby circulation gates. 

He takes his time on the bridge, pausing to watch the sunrise reflect on the water. He’d done this before with someone, he knew it. But each passing day without B made it harder to remember the good times with him. He began to drag his feet as he got into Manhattan, and his heart fell as he saw all the newsies running out of the lodge. He’d never find Mouse in this. 

Thankfully, or not, he couldn’t decide, he didn’t have to as he felt the smaller figure run into him. “Hey asshole!” She chirps, grinning as she looks up at him, but her smile fell at the somber look in his eyes. King was trying to disguise it, but he couldn’t, not all of it. “What’s going on?”

King sighed, clenching and unclenching his fist before taking Mouse’s shoulder to direct her. “Take a walk with me shortie..” he murmurs, and she nods, walking alongside him, ignoring the anxiety welling up in her chest. 

“I uh..I’m going away..and I don’t think I’ll be coming back..” King tries to explain, and he can feel the anxiety, or maybe flowers, welling up in his chest, making it harder to breathe. 

“What?” Mouse yelps, looking shocked, her eyes going wide. As she stares at him, flowers begin to work up his throat, and King coughs, falling to his hands and knees, blood and flower petals splattering onto the pavement as he did so, Mouse dropping to her knees with him, sitting. 

“You’re not- you’re not leaving...you’re goin’ for good..” she murmurs after the attack stops, and King’s feeble nod is enough of an answer for her. Once he caught his breath, Mouse helped him over to sit on a bench, sitting cross legged as she stared up at him. 

“I’m sorry shortie..” he mumbles. Mouse scoots over, letting her legs dangle, tucking herself into his side. “It’s okay..” she assures, even though they both know it’s not. Not really. 

Maybe ten minutes later, King looked down at the shorter figure next to him, and he pulled the two rings off his fingers. “Take these. Maybe give em to Sarah. But whatever you do, don’t let her go, aight? You got something real special with her.” He whispers, sliding them into Mouse’s hand. 

Mouse’s sniffles tell him why she isn’t responding, and he goes to walk past her to start the walk back to Brooklyn before feeling the force of her hugging him. 

“I love ya King. Don’t you forget, okay?” She whispers, voice shaking. King smiles sadly, forcing back tears as he bends to be at her height. “I love ya too Mouse. Never forget it.” 

After his final goodbye, he began the walk back to Brooklyn. He didn’t know why he wasn’t staying in Manhattan, all his friends were there, but he wanted to be with Bruiser. If he was dying, he was dying with him. 

“King. Wait.”

Spot’s voice stopped King in his tracks, and he felt flowers begin to work their way up his throat. 

“I’ve heard you’ve been coughing up flowers.”

King cursed quietly before responding. “Yeah, so? It ain’t contagious.” He snaps. 

“I’m concerned about ya-” “Your concern means nothing when you’ve acted like you’ve hated me since Br- Brui-” 

King couldn’t get the words out, choking, and turning on his heel, sprinting away. He feels the flowers clawing up his neck, felt the stem cutting his throat. He collapsed a few blocks away, wheezing on the ground before the flowers forced themselves out of his mouth, each one stained red. God, how he hated that color now. 

Flowers crawled up his face, roses probably, each thorn creating a new scrape and puncture. He just wanted it all to stop, but before it did, he heard shouting. 

“King!”

He smiled weakly. It almost sounded like Spot. If he cared. 

“King, get up!” 

“King!” 

“King’s dead, Mouse…” 

The sound of a slap echoed through the lodge, before the door slammed. Spot stood where he was, shirt splattered in the blood from King spasming, and held his cheek as more tears fell down his face. “I’m sorry..”

Mouse didn’t hear the apology though, she was already gone, already running. Her breaths were pitched and gasping as she ran the street, not even bothering to apologize to anyone she may’ve hit. She climbed the fire escape, shocked her shaking grip didn’t fail her as she began to bang on the Jacobs window.

“Sarah- Sarah!” She yelps, finally letting the hot tears fall from her eyes, only stopping her hitting when she sees the silhouette of her girlfriend at the window. The rings, which were previously in her pocket, were now clenched in her fist, losing the chill they had gained. 

“Mouse? Hey, hey, baby, what’s wrong?” Sarah asks, quickly climbing out the window to pull Mouse into a hug as her sobs increased. 

“King-” she managed. “He’s dead.” 

Sarah’s eyes go wide, and she softly takes the cap off Mouse’s head, running a comforting hand through her hair. She couldn’t tell if King had really died, or if it had simply been a dream (though she doubted that), but she held Mouse all the same.

“I’ve got you..shh, it’s okay..” Sarah hushes, holding Mouse close. “What’s in your hand baby..?” Sarah asks, noticing the tight grip Mouse had as she slowly let her go. Mouse, still quietly crying, carefully opened her hand, showing the two rings. 

Sarah’s face fell as she saw them. “Let’s put them on a necklace, okay?” She asks, gently going to take them. Mouse’s eyes go wide as she does, and she steps backwards, her hand curling around them in a deathly grip. “Don’t touch them!” 

“Okay- okay, I won’t- but still, we should put them on a necklace, okay?” Sarah soothes, going to get a shoelace. It was an old one, but would hold. Mouse carefully strung the rings on, sliding it over her head and tucking it under her shirt. 

“He was just here this morning! He- he came to say goodbye-” Mouse begins, pushing back the sob growing in her throat, and tears beginning to well up and fall again. 

“Let’s go on a walk, okay?” Sarah asks, taking Mouse’s hand and leading her down, watching as she pulls her hat back on. The two walk through Manhattan, and Sarah smiles softly as she watches the corners of Mouse’s mouth turn up occasionally. 

She should’ve known something was going to go wrong. It was nearly too perfect, and too still. Sarah barely had time to register it before she found herself pinned against a wall, a man's hand holding her against it, and Mouse’s angry shouts were in her ears as the man moved away from her. 

“Sarah! Run!” 

Not knowing, what to do, she did. She only stopped running when she heard a telltale shriek, causing her to trip on her feet. That was Mouse. And she was hurt. 

Ignoring the stinging in her palms and knees, she ran, back to the alley she’d left Mouse in. When she saw Mouse crumpled on the ground, hand pressed against her side, she dropped to her side, pulling her head onto her lap. 

“Hey, hey, baby, open your eyes..” she coos, holding her. She smiled a bit, tears running down her face as Mouse did so, blue eyes teary and pain filled. Sarah found one hand moving to cover the stab wound, her hand covering both of Mouse’s. 

“I- I love you so much mio amore..” Mouse mumbles, eyes flicking over her face to take it all in. 

“Stop it- stop talking like you’re going to die..” Sarah whispers, looking down, soothingly running a hand through Mouse’s hair as she groaned. 

There was a freezing feeling over her wound, and a hazy figure appeared next to her, King’s outline appearing for just a second before vanishing, along with the cold on top of her wound. 

“‘M gonna see King..” she murmurs with a smile, before coughing, choking as blood begins to spill from her mouth, dripping down her chin. “‘M gonna see King..” 

Looking up at Sarah’s face and the tears, she didn’t want to die, not yet. Not without one more smile. 

“Smile for me..?” She asks, feeling exhausted. She was so tired, and dizzy. But the small smile Sarah gave made everything light up. 

“You’re so pretty..” she smiles, eyes slipping shut. 

“Mouse? Hey, hey, Mouse, wake up! Stay with me-!” Sarah yelps, shaking her shoulder. The blood on Sarah’s hand was warm, god, it was warm. 

It felt like it was burning her, each droplet burning her skin in shame. 

It burned. God, it was so hot. 

It was too hot. 

Crutchie kicked the blanket off of him, too hot. He didn’t know how, granted everyone else had been cold from the December air. But Crutchie felt like he was burning out of his skin. The bunk across from him caught his eye, and he turned away. That bunk was still overbearingly empty, aside from the two rings hanging on the bedpost. 

Finch had moved his bunk since Mouse’s death, and most of the other newsies had abandoned the lodge. There was a new house downtown, and they’d all gone there. Crutchie could understand why. It was too quiet in the lodge now, and the clinking of the rings on Mouse’s old bed was haunting. Sometimes it really did feel like there was a ghost.

Jack walked into the lodge after selling, ignoring the bunk behind him as he kneeled next to Crutchie, sighing. “You know, you’re gonna get sick even worse if you keep kicking this off.” He murmurs, pulling the blanket up. “But its too hot..” he whines, looking at Jack through half lidded eyes, and Jack sighed again. Crutchie saw the shadows under his eyes, knew they were partly there because of him. He wished he could just get better, just will the sickness away, get rid of the numbness in his leg, and calm the raging storm in Jack’s mind. 

Looking across the way, he thought he saw Mouse sitting on her bed, and his eyes went wide. There was a fainter figure, one of a taller boy, behind her bed, standing there. He tried sitting up, ignoring Jack’s protests, but when he blinked, the figures were gone, the clinking of two rings the only sound in the lodge aside from Crutchie’s wheezing breaths. 

“Crutchie?” Jack asks hesitantly, watching him, looking to where Crutchie was staring wide eyed. 

“She was there- Mouse was there-” he manages, Jack shaking his head. “Mouse is gone kid, that’s just her bunk.” 

Crutchie rapidly shook his head, looking desperate. “No- no, she was there! And- and her friend-” 

His hand shook as he brought it to his head. What was her friend's name? He knew it, he knew he knew it. 

“That- that guy from- from Conlon’s turf!” He managed, Jack slowly laying him back onto his bed. “Calm down kid..” Jack hushes, pulling the blanket up. “They were here..” he mumbles, closing his eyes. His mind was heavy, and he closed his eyes, mumbling incoherently to Jack. 

His mind felt as though it was stuffed full of cotton, and what he wanted more than anything was to just sleep. 

“They were here Jackie..” Crutchie mumbles, his hand reaching to take Jacks as he closes his eyes. “They were here..”

They were here. 

They were all here. 

Jack barely looked up as he heard someone climbing the ladder to the penthouse. It was cold, freezing cold, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Jack? Come inside for the night.” Davey’s voice was soft, trying to get through to his friend's mind. “I know you’d rather stay here, but it’s freezing, and you’ll catch something-” 

Davey didn’t realize the error of his words until he’d already spoken, and the regret that flooded him made it nearly impossible for him to hear Jack’s response. “I don’t care.”

Davey huffed though, having heard it. “That doesn’t matter. You’re going to kill yourself, and I get that you lost Crutchie right after we lost Mouse, but the newsies here aren’t going to be able to take the loss of you as well!” 

“Then they can move on! I don’t care!” 

The rest of Davey’s words fell on deaf ears as Jack turned away, and Davey sighed, climbing down. He was at his wits end, trying to keep the newsies together, and their leader didn’t care. He was done. 

Jack sat, watching the stars through the hazy cloud cover. Each one seemed to blink out of existence with each passing cloud, and he couldn’t help but think about the lies he’d told Crutchie, about escaping. And now the kid was gone. He looked next to him, seeing a figure vanish as he did so. 

“Crutchie?” he asked weakly, and nothing but the howling of the wind answered him. The stars blinked out of existence as clouds blew over, snowflakes beginning to fall. His breath fogged up in the air as he sat on the edge of the penthouse. 

Almost as if his body was on autopilot, as if he couldn’t control it, he climbed to sit on the barrier, his legs dangling over the drop. The lights winked softly below, an inviting gesture. He’d be okay. He’d be with Crutchie. The air was cold as it rushed by him, and he smiled. He wasn’t going to be alone. 

Alone. 

He was really alone. 

Spot bit back his lip. It had been over eight months since Jack died. Nearly nine since Crutchie. Nearly ten since Mouse and King died. 

Spot bit his lip harder as tears began to fall. It had been over a year since Bruiser died. Most of the newsies he knew had aged out at this point. Not that it mattered, it was probably best. They leave, and they don’t die. They stay safe. 

The air was hot and humid, foreshadowing a summer storm soon. The clouds were heavy, meaning they’d break soon, and break they did, releasing a torrent of rain down on the streets. Spot didn’t care, he was wandering the path Bruiser used to sell on. It had been down near the Brooklyn Bridge, to see if anyone he needed to know about was crossing, and because it was a center for information. 

Each drop stung against Spot’s skin, and he felt whooshing behind him, as if people had run past him. When he turned though, there was no one, just a faint whisper in his ear, a word, no, a phrase, that sounded so familiar, but so far. 

“Come on shortie!” 

Spot closed his eyes, covering his ears. No, he didn’t hear King. King was gone, and so was Mouse. There was no one running across the bridge, playing stupid games. Not anymore. 

And Spot was so tired. He was so tired of being alone, of being forgotten and stared at. He just wanted it all to end. The thunderstorm reminded him of Bruiser and King. 

Each cloud reminded him of the swirling grays of B’s eyes, each thunder clap reminiscent of King, and his loud and explosive personality. The tears and rain mixed together on Spot’s face, creating a cold, salty taste in his mouth as he climbed onto the bridges railings. The water in the river below looked like a frothing mirror, each drop creating ripples that spread outward as they hit. 

The bridge supports creaked in the wind, Spot closing his eyes. It was quiet up here, away from his thoughts, and away from anyone who he could hurt.

The water hitting against the metal was soothing, and he smiled. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

And maybe, when his body washed up on the bank of the east river, people would stop hurting. 

Everything had stopped hurting..

King bolted to sit upright, gasping, the feeling of flowers in his chest finally dissipating. 

“King! Wake up!” 

Spot’s voice was loud, but also muffled, as if King was underwater. “I’m awake!” he calls, looking around as everything comes into focus. But as he looked down, a scream escaped his mouth as he pushed himself away, moving further from his own body.  

It was covered in roses, blood in a puddle around his face, and he began gasping, trying to figure out what was going on. Had he died? His breath forced itself to a stop as he realized. He was dead. He was a ghost. 

King sat with his body, waiting for the coroners to come and take it, following Spot. He was heading away from Brooklyn, towards Manhattan. 

Mouse. 

As the door to the lodge was pushed open, King forced his way past, before finding he didn’t have to, easily able to walk through people and things. Mouse was sitting on her bed, and the sound of metal hitting against metal told him she was playing with the rings. 

Fuck, she was going to take this badly. 

He was proven right, wincing at the slapping noise that echoed through the lodge. Before he could react any other way, Mouse sprinted out of the lodge, and King didn’t hesitate to follow, easily keeping pace with the small girl. 

He knew the pattern, going to the Jacobs apartment. Going up the fire escape, King finally heard Mouse’s sobs, and he tried speaking, tried comforting her, but nothing came. It was clear she couldn’t hear him, and she cried hard into Sarah’s shoulder. 

King felt maybe he was intruding, and maybe he should just leave the two alone. Sarah had taken good care of Mouse, even when King was alive. She’d do the same when King was gone, at least he hoped she would.

As King went to leave, something pulled him back, almost as if he was tethered to the spot. Not the spot, he found out as Mouse and Sarah began to walk. It was the two girls he was tied to. 

King found himself standing in an alley, watching helplessly as the disgusting old man pushed Mouse against the wall, his knife going into her side, and his screams were silenced to anyone in the real world. 

As Mouse collapsed onto the ground, King collapsed to his knees next to her, trying to stop the blood. He looked up at Sarah as she entered the alley, listening to the quiet whimpers. “Come on, let me help!” he hisses, pressing harder on the wound. As Mouse quieted, he looked at her face, and she was staring at him, a small smile on her face, before she gagged, blood dripping from her mouth, startling King, and he saw her smile drop. 

“I’m gonna see King..” she mumbles, before coughing, even more blood coming. “I’m gonna see King..” 

The quiet of the afternoon was ruined when Sarah screamed, shaking the corpse in her lap. As people came, King curled up, sitting next to Mouse. 

“Please don’t go shortie..I don’t want to be alone.” King whispers, trying to put his hand over Mouse’s. 

He heard coughing and backed away, watching as Mouse seemed to sit up from her own body, and she yelped as she realized. 

“What-?!” She yelps, looking at Sarah, before kneeling next to her. “Sarah! Sarah, I’m right here!” she shouts, trying to wipe her tears. Each time she did so, there was no reaction from Sarah. 

“Shortie.” King calls, pushing back his own tears. He couldn’t cry. Not here. Not now. He didn’t cry. 

But the look on Mouse’s face nearly broke him. It was filled with heartbreak, mistrust, and fear, before it was all abandoned. She ran to him, hugging him tight. “We died.” She murmurs, and King nods, holding her close. 

“Yeah.”

Months passed, and into December. Mouse was sitting on her bench, looking at the necklace on her bedpost, which swung idly in the wind. Crutchie was weak as he lay in his bed, and her face fell further into a frown as he kicked the blankets off. King was standing beside the bed, and her face fell as Jack came. 

“He won’t make it through the night.” Mouse mumbles, looking away, before her head shoots back over upon hearing Crutchie begin to clamor. 

“She was there- her and her friend-” 

Crutchie’s voice was more desperate, and Mouse sighed, letting herself flicker out of sight. She didn’t want to see. 

King, however, stayed. He watched as Crutchie stopped moving, and left in his sleep, and watched the ghost of the boy leave. He too flickered out then, letting himself leave for a bit. 

Jack was a ghost as well by the time the two wanted to return to the Manhattan lodge, but Mouse avoided them. It was too hard, their spirits too faint, simply remaining in memory to be with each other. 

The August rainstorm bright grins to both of their faces. The one advantage to their ghostly forms was that they couldn’t catch colds, instead able to run through the rain, grinning. 

“Come on shortie!” King shouts, running past a figure, before stopping, realizing who it was. “Spot-” he chokes out, feeling his chest constrict. 

No- he’d seen this happen to Mouse, but it couldn’t be happening to him, he had moved on. He wasn’t hung up on Spot anymore. But as Mouse caught up to him, watching him fall, ignoring the splash in the river, he realized it was. 

He let out a cry as he felt flower petals climbing up his throat, choking on them, looking at the now blurry outline of Mouse. He felt them pull, Mouse having grabbed them, trying to pull them away from him. 

“King! No- No no!” She was shouting, and he tried to respond to her, tried telling her he’d be okay. It was a lie, he knew it, and he knew Mouse knew it too. 

He began coughing, the flowers forcing up, forcing up his face, and he didn’t think he’d have been able to feel this level of pain again, but he was, and it filled his every cell with anguish. 

“King!” Mouse called, watching his form jerk before it stilled, and she screamed, watching herself begin to flicker, feeling blood begin to crawl it’s way up her throat, and she laid down in the middle of the bridge. She reached to take King’s hand, squeezing her face in pain. As she did, her own form flickered out of existence, and she vanished. 

 Through the decades, the energy faded from Mouse and King, their spirits so often caught wandering the paths they had when they were alive, mainly sitting in the Manhattan lodge. Each ghost hunter coming and going would poke and prod, and unbeknownst to the two ghosts, their reactions were caught on camera. 

So when Mouse kicked away red roses as King choked on the ones rising in his throat, confusion rose in them both as even more people came with the roses. Even more people came with knives, making stabbing motions in the air, trying to get the ghosts to show themselves, but all they’d get were faint sobs. 

They didn’t know why certain things caused them to react the way they did. Except for Spot. They knew why Spot caused them to die again. 

It was his fault. Spot blamed King for what happened to B. He’d pushed King, and any and all feelings for him, away, despite knowing King was going through the same thing he was. And King was still in love. Seeing Spot, or his ghost, really, was a death sentence for both Mouse and King. 

When King saw Spot, roses would begin to crawl up his throat without fail, no matter how quickly he’d left the room. Going down with quiet cries, he’d grab for Mouse, but despite this, she’d always go to attack Spot. Sometimes it was verbal, and sometimes it was physical, but it happens without fail. And that anger, and the pain of King dying again, caused Mouse to lose control. 

Once that happened, Mouse would become bloody, the blood from the wound spreading as Mouse screamed, the red dripping down her chin. 

So they avoided it, sitting in Manhattan instead of Brooklyn. 

The night in June was quiet, the two ghosts simply walking around the lodge, when they heard the door open. “Oh my god- we’re really doing this.” A man speaks, walking in. Mouse paused on the stairs leading to the bunk room, watching them. She quickly went back up to the bunks as the men started walking up the stairs, one taller, and one a good bit shorter. 

They set up weird devices, and brighter lights, Mouse walking around curiously, while King stood in the back of the room. 

“Shortie, sit down and don’t do anything.” King instructs, moving to sit on her bed, and Mouse followed, pulling her cap down, tilting her head at the shorter man's words. 

“This week for our season finale of Buzzfeed Unsolved we investigate the Manhattan and Brooklyn newsboy lodge houses as part of our investigation into the ongoing question of ‘are ghosts real?’.”

[blossom-hwa]

Light the Pyres |Light| - SUNGYOON

Don’t know how I'm still alive after posting that last chapter but I appreciate the whole not killing me thing guys

Pairing: Sungyoon x gender neutral!reader

Genre: angst, bits of fluff, apocalypse!au

Triggers: cursing, death, implied suicide of a side character (no suicidal thoughts), semi-graphic depictions of blood

Word Count: 5.7k

As the world burns its last goodbyes, you find a jewel amidst the ashes.

Previous: Strike >> Light >> Next: Rise

Golden Child Masterlist

You wake up to silence.

Blearily, you blink once, trying to clear the inky darkness from your vision. It doesn’t leave – it’s still night.

You blink again, confused. Why are you awake…?

Silence. No second set of breathing, no shuffling in sleep.

Daeyeol?

Your head whips to the side so fast that your neck almost cracks. No one’s in the passenger seat. Where –

Oh.

Right.

You sink back into your seat, pressure beginning to pound behind your eyes again. Right. He’s dead. Even though he was here just hours ago, he’s dead. He’ll never be here again.

Blinking away the tears distracts you from the uneasy silence, but when they’re gone, the quiet settles again. Daeyeol’s absence makes sense. It should explain the lack of sound other than your breath, but…

Oh, fuck.

Fuck.

You whip around. The previous lump of mystery boy that used to be in the backseat is gone.

Oh my God.

Is he stupid?

Digging around your bag produces a flashlight and your gun. There’s only one bullet left – you curse yourself for not reloading earlier – but you grab the bag, shove open the door, and step into the night.

Warm night air curdles against your cheeks. You can already feel sweat beginning to bead on your forehead, sticking your dirty hair to your skin, but you quickly lock the car door and set off down the empty highway.

He can’t have gotten far. Mystery boy’s leg was fractured or something, and even though he was able to walk, you know that the injury means he can’t have gone more than a few miles. It’ll be a pain in the ass, especially since there are at least a few hours before sunrise – more opportunity for zombies to jump out of nowhere when you can’t fucking see, which makes you wonder again just what this mystery boy was thinking when he left – but. Well. You can’t just leave him, can you?

You could, an unhelpful voice in the back of your mind says. You could just ignore him and go on alone.

You stop walking. You could do that, couldn’t you? Wasn’t that what you wanted earlier, anyway? For mystery boy to just be gone?

But Daeyeol would never approve. He’d be upset, angry, disappointed, even, if you didn’t go after him. It’s what he would’ve done.

Even if it came at the cost of his own life.

Fucking Daeyeol. You sigh, stepping forward even as a tiny, tired smile curves your lips and tears burn in your eyes. Still your friend, still someone you look up to, even in the grave.

Besides, this is Daeyeol’s life that mystery boy is living on. The thought twists your stomach, but you keep walking forward. Hell if you’re going to let him waste it with some stupidity like this, even if you hate that the exchange was made in the first place.

Ten minutes pass. You take out a box of (dwindling) ammunition and begin to reload your gun. Twenty. Thirty. The slightest sound makes you flinch, though you don’t dare turn on your flashlight for fear of giving yourself away to predators, zombie or human. Forty. Fifty.

At the hour mark, light glimmers on the horizon, and you’re about to give up. Either mystery boy started out too early or he has some superhuman reservoir of strength that let him outstrip you even on an injured leg.

Or he’s dead.

With that depressing thought, you stop, contemplating turning back. You still have half a country to cross. You’ve walked back at least three miles, which means three miles to make up when you finally get on your way. And if that boy is dead by now –

A darker shadow in the distance catches your eye. It’s upright. Looks like it’s moving forward, away from you.

Maybe not dead, then.

It doesn’t take too long to catch up. Mystery boy hears your footsteps and turns around in evident surprise, eyes widening visibly even against the still-dark sky.

“Idiot,” is the first thing you snap when you finally catch up. He’s stopped walking – thank God – and you motion impatiently for him to sit down. He doesn’t at first, but when you gesture more insistently, he complies with what looks like an expression of almost relief. “What were you thinking, leaving at night?”

He doesn’t answer.

You sigh. “Look, I’m not the smartest person in the world, but even I wouldn’t be caught dead in the middle of an empty highway, walking on a possibly injured leg, essentially acting as a slowly-moving target for any straggling zombie or desperate survivor.”

“You didn’t exactly seem to want me around.”

Not his fault.

Not his fault.

Not. His. Fault.

You take a deep breath. “I didn’t,” you say truthfully, praying that a bite doesn’t find its way into your words. “But I’m not heartless.”

A small scoff. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Not.

His.

Fault.

“If I was so heartless, you think I would’ve come after you in the fucking dark?” you snap. “You’re going in the complete opposite direction I was headed in and I still came over here to fucking find you.”

“You didn’t have to,” mystery boy replies, now staring you right in the eyes with a disturbed gaze. You see a lot of emotions swirling around in the dark – confusion, anger, resentment, sadness.

Emotion rises in your own throat and you turn away, teeth gritted. If you look at him any longer, you’re pretty sure you’ll cry, and you really don’t need that. “You’re right.” You shrug, still not meeting his eyes. “But Daeyeol would have hated me if I didn’t.”

It takes a moment to realize you’ve just given him the name of the boy who sacrificed himself for your escape. You curse yourself. How could you have given up his name, Lee Daeyeol, the only thing you have remaining of your best friend besides your memories?

From the slight intake of breath, you gather that mystery boy has made the connection, too. “Was that… was that your friend’s name?”

You swallow hard, pointedly still looking away. No sense in lying. “Yes,” you get out, tears beginning to press behind your eyes. “And you’re living on his life right now, so I’m also not going to let you throw it away so easily.”

“So my life wouldn’t be worth as much if he hadn’t given up his for me?”

“Daeyeol was my friend for over twenty years,” you snarl, turning back to stare him in the eye. “The only person who knows me better than he does – did –” your voice cracks – “was my mom. So you ask me.”

He holds your gaze for half a second before dropping it, the fight draining out of his expression. “Fair enough,” he murmurs, barely loud enough for you to hear. And when his words do finally register, you think you’ve heard him wrong. ‘Fair enough?’ What kind of response is that?

“What?”

Mystery boy doesn’t reply.

After several moments of silence, you break it again. “Okay.” You fix your gaze on mystery boy again, even if he doesn’t look back. “What were you trying to do when you left? Where were you going? As far as I know, the city I found you in had a horde of zombies, and even if Daeyeol cleaned most of them out before – well, you’d have to be pretty much suicidal to go back.”

Silence. Then –

“My sister.” Mystery boy swallows hard. You can’t tell in the darkness even though it’s getting a little lighter, but his eyes look a little shiny. “And her boyfriend.”

Oh.

Oh, shit.

You turn away, trying to disguise your emotions. This is why you can’t deal with people, for fuck’s sake. This is why Daeyeol handled most of the human interaction over the past couple of months. The second you hear a sob story, the second you hear about the people others have lost…

Too late. Your heart aches, even more so because now you understand. Firsthand.

Your voice is barely a whisper. “Are they alive?”

“I don’t know.” He raises his head. “I left to find them.”

Jesus Christ.

Fine. You get it. Half of you wants to go back too, to find Daeyeol and give him a proper burial instead of being left to rot with flies buzzing over his body. But it’s dangerous. Possibly suicide. There were at least several zombies that Daeyeol didn’t manage to pick off before he had to use his last bullet on himself. You have no way of knowing whether or not there are more.

Daeyeol would tell you to keep going, to forget about his body and just focus on staying alive. If you hadn’t walked back several miles already, you might’ve taken that advice. But you did, and he isn’t here to talk sense into you anymore, isn’t here to be selfless.

And you need to do something, anything, for the friend who gave up so much for you.

You stand brusquely, hold out a hand. “Get up.”

Mystery boy’s eyebrows furrow. He doesn’t take it.

You sigh. “You’re trying to find your sister, right? And her boyfriend? Last time you saw them was in the city?”

He nods. “Yeah?”

“I’m coming with you.” Impatient, you reach down and pull him up. “If you collapse on that leg, at least you’ll have someone to carry you elsewhere.”

Mystery boy looks at you with dubious eyes that make your hackles want to rise. “That can’t be the only reason you’re coming.”

“Caught,” you snap, letting go of his hand. “You’re right, I’m not selfless enough for that. I want to bury my friend, even if it means going on a possible suicide mission. Sue me.”

For a moment, there’s silence. Then, an expression that almost looks like a smile widens his lips. “Doubt there’s a lawyer left in this country to sue you, even if I wanted to.”

He made a joke. He made a joke, and though it wasn’t even that funny, the corners of your lips twitch. “Come on,” you say, starting off so he won’t see it. “Let’s see how much that leg of yours can take before you collapse.”

. . . . .

According to the highway signs, mystery boy makes it another five miles before he needs a break. Though the sun’s gone up and you’re impatient, you give it to him. It’s slightly alarming, really, how far he got with an injured leg, and besides, there are only a couple miles left. In ten minutes, he’s up and you start off again.

Too late and too soon, you arrive at the highway exit that leads to the town where you found mystery boy. The silence between you two grows thicker, heavier with bloody memories as you keep slogging forward, the hot sun beginning to creep up the sky.

“Here,” you finally say, breaking the quiet. You recognize the junction in the streets, the mess of cars and broken glass at the end of this small alleyway between two buildings. “Where did you last see them?”

Mystery boy swallows hard, eyes flicking left and right. “They went into one of the buildings,” he says quietly. “We got attacked and I drew the zombies away so they could…” He trails off.

You really don’t have it in you to imagine what happened. “Which building?”

He points a glass-walled building. Most of the windows seem intact, at least on the first floor. Lettering on the glass spells out CAFETERIA. “I think it was that one.”

Well. At least you might be able to find some food or water. Assuming you don’t get killed.

“Watch my back” is all you say before entering the empty square.

Bodies litter the ground, mostly pale-skinned with tiny pupils and black veins. Dried blood powders the bottom of your shoes as you walk forward, gun at the ready.

You almost step on another gun. A very familiar one. Which means…

Bile rises in your throat as a mop of brown hair enters your periphery. You have to force yourself not to look that way, not to stare at the pool of blood that you know is his, not to follow the red stains until you see the body, the shell of Lee Daeyeol, your best friend basically since birth –

Your head snaps away and you take a deep, shuddering breath. Mystery boy has stopped walking too, staring at the empty bus where he was stranded less than a day ago.

“Come on.” Your whisper is a little harsh, but he jerks his gaze away and nods, following you over blood and glass towards the building.

And immediately you back away as the faint but sickening sound of groans fills your ears.

Behind you, mystery boy looks stricken. You understand. If there are zombies in the building, they could very well have caught his sister and her boyfriend already.

“Your call,” you whisper, back to hiding behind a wall. You can’t see any zombies in the cafeteria area, but the faint sounds indicate they’re deeper in the building. “You still want to find them?”

Dark eyes take in the scene. Mystery boy’s jaw sets. “You don’t have to come.”

He’s right. You don’t have to. You could just drag Daeyeol’s body away and find somewhere to bury it and ignore this boy whose name you still don’t know.

But it’s Daeyeol’s life he’s living on. And what the fuck was the point of Daeyeol dying if mystery boy only lived one more day than he would have?

“I walked ten miles to get here, and you’re living on Daeyeol’s time,” you reply, flicking the safety off your gun. Eighteen bullets. Each one needs to count. “What would be the point if you only managed to live one day extra?”

Something curdles in mystery boy’s gaze, but he nods. “We should see if we can figure out where the zombies are,” he says. “Better if we avoid them. Or are at least ready to face them.”

You can’t argue with that. So you carefully follow him around the building, slowly, quietly. No one pops out, but the groaning grows louder as you approach the left side. “Right,” you mutter, jerking your head in that direction. Wordlessly, mystery boy follows your steps.

A locked door, easily picked, seems to lead underground. The emergency lights are miraculously still on – if there’s a generator and it runs on gas, you might be able to siphon some off and hotwire a car, which you note – but they make an eerie glow against peeling paint as you walk deeper into the building.

Every sound echoes on the walls. You try to muffle your footsteps but the echoes don’t die, only soften slightly and not nearly enough to stop you from wanting to bolt with every sound. Behind you, mystery boy’s breath has grown slightly harsher, more labored. His leg can’t be doing well. If you keep walking down these stairs, it’s only going to get worse.

But this was what he wanted. And from the look in his eyes outside, you’re pretty sure he’d rather die than try to run.

The staircase finally ends, leaving a smooth pathway to walk on. You pause for a moment to see if mystery boy wants a break, but he keeps moving forward, even though he’s almost hugging the walls at this point. You fall behind – you’re in more shape to keep watch than he is, anyway – and then you hear the groans.

Mystery boy stops. You swallow. “Let me in front,” you say, edging forward. “I have the weapon and I’m uninjured. Watch my back.”

He doesn’t protest, doesn’t say you two should just leave like you kind of want him to. So you keep walking through the eerie glow, groans filling your ears as the pathway opens into a large, empty room. Several machines line the walls with various warning signs, cables running over the floor. But that isn’t what catches your attention, what elicits the gasp from mystery boy’s throat.

At the far end of the room, two zombies are tied to a machine, rubber cables around their ankles keeping them from lunging across the floor. One has short white hair, a boy. The other, with long, dark hair, is a girl. They look like they tied themselves standing up, but since then, they’ve fallen to the floor. Snarling mouths and shrunken pupils fixate in your direction.

Mystery boy collapses against the wall. Wide eyes fill with shock, with fear, with loathing and self-hatred and despair as he stares at the groaning girl and boy, gaze unable to leave them.

Sister and boyfriend. You don’t know who turned first, but at least one had enough sense to tie their legs up before they fully transformed. Your chest tightens, bile rising in your throat as they struggle to crawl across the floor, trying to get to flesh, human flesh –

A loud, scraping noise sounds as the machine keeping the boy in place groans, the boy himself trying to scrabble forward on clawing hands. You whip your gun around, training it on his head.

“Don’t shoot.”

It’s barely a whisper, but mystery boy’s voice keeps you from pulling the trigger. You look at him, one eye still focused on the scrabbling zombie. “You want to just leave them?” you ask, unable to keep the incredulity out of your words.

Anger flashes in his eyes as he stands. “You try killing someone close to you,” he snaps. A tear slides down his cheek.

He’s upset. He’s scared. He’s desperate and horrified and probably still can’t process everything right now. That knowledge alone keeps you from screaming about Daeyeol and how he’s dead and how this boy right here killed him with his inability to keep the zombies at bay.

A groaning screech. Both of you jump. The girl’s machine squeals against the wall as she tugs, whitened arms outstretched toward your bodies.

You raise your gun again. “You have one minute to make the call,” you say, words shaking with grief and anger even as you try to steady your voice. “I can leave them here and go. Or I can put them both out of this misery and we can carry their bodies out and we’ll bury them with Daeyeol.” Your finger twitches on the trigger, but you don’t pull. “Unless you have good aim and want to do it yourself, but it’s easier for someone unattached. One minute and I make the decision. You know which one I’ll pick.”

Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven…

Mystery boy doesn’t say a word.

Forty-four, forty-three, forty-two…

You grit your teeth. “Thirty seconds.”

Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen…

“Ten seconds.”

Nine, eight, seven, six…

Cracked, broken words spill from equally broken lips. “Do it.”

You take a breath. Pull the trigger.

Bang. Bang.

The groaning stops, two silent bodies slumped on the floor. You lower the gun, two fewer bullets in the chamber. Blood oozes onto the ground.

You don’t look at mystery boy as you step forward, flicking the safety back on the gun. “Help me carry them out before other zombies find us.”

. . . . .

Blind luck leads you safely out of the building and back into harsh sunshine. Blinking against the bright light, you heave the boyfriend’s deathly white body into the open air. Mystery boy follows behind with his sister.

His sister. You swallow down the bile stinging your throat. If it hurts as much as Daeyeol’s death did…

There’s no tell-tale sound of groaning as you heave the two bodies into the square, careful to keep the mouths turned away from your skin. You look around instinctively, blinking sunspots out of your eyes as you look around for silent zombies, lurkers that might have escaped your ears.

Instead, your gaze lands on Daeyeol, his brown hair, the dried blood pooled around his head. His gun lies next to an outstretched hand. A few bugs buzz around, but he hasn’t been dead quite long enough for them to have fully taken over.

And his eyes are still open.

Oh, hell…

You swallow hard, blinking back tears as your nonexistent breakfast threatens to leave your lips. Don’t lose yourself. Don’t lose your mind.

As if on autopilot, you lay down the boyfriend’s body, enough sense left to use some care. Your feet take you to the dried blood, to the gun on the ground, to Daeyeol’s empty husk of a body, face a bit paler than you remembered, veins darker than you would have liked. Or maybe it’s just in your head – not enough time passed before he shot himself to make even a quarter of the full transition. None of that should be visible.

It’s better. It’s better. It’s better this way, you repeat over and over as you kneel down. At least you died before you turned.

Batting away bugs with one hand, you reach out trembling fingers to rest on his blood-stained hair, carefully avoiding the bullet hole in the side of his head. It’s longer than you remembered. Either he didn’t cut it as short as you originally thought or he’s shrunken in death and it just looks longer.

Death.

Dead.

He’s dead.

He’ll never wake up again.

Your fingers tighten in his hair even as the reminder of death flips your stomach. You card through the brown mop once, twice, trying to mimic the way you used to when he sometimes got sick as a kid and you would keep him company. Your hands move in practiced motions, slowly, smoothly, but it feels unnatural even though your muscles remember how to move. Maybe because Daeyeol’s scalp isn’t warm beneath your fingers, maybe because he doesn’t shift and sigh in relaxation and tell you he feels better already.

Tears burn in your eyes. Too bad you couldn’t have done it in his last moments. Couldn’t have given him the slightest bit of comfort after he had to turn the gun on himself for your stupid safety.

I’m sorry.

One tear escapes and rolls down your face. A lump rises in your throat and you swallow painfully hard, blinking fast to release the tears and calm yourself. Your fingers shake uncontrollably as you drop them from his hair, tracing down Daeyeol’s cold skin to slide his eyelids shut, one after another. You shiver when you let go. The sun lends a bit of warmth to his face, but it can’t fully chase away the chill of death.

You close your eyes. Take a breath. Hair flecked with blood and bits of brain stains the backs of your eyelids.

It’s okay.

You’re okay.

But Daeyeol isn’t.

Shoving away that traitorous thought, you stand unsteadily and turn back to mystery boy, who looks about as good as you feel. He doesn’t stare back, only keeps his eyes fixed on the two bodies laid out in front of him, face ashen and tears running down his skin. At some point during your little grieving session, he also knelt down beside the bodies, brushed their hair out of their faces and closed their staring eyes. You almost say something about getting up and moving on, but his expression and the tears racing down his face silence your voice.

You just shot his sister and her boyfriend, two people he clearly held dear. Even if they were essentially dead anyway, it wouldn’t – still won’t – be easy for him.

And you were kind of callous about it, too. One minute to make a decision, one minute before you made it yourself, one minute to decide whether or not to kill his zombified sister and her boyfriend…

Your eyes lower as shame burns in your chest. You go to turn away but Daeyeol’s body is right there and you have to turn back but then mystery boy is on the other side –

With a shuddering sigh, you sink into a crouch, hands over your eyes. You don’t speak, even though you can now feel mystery boy’s gaze on you, sharp, probing, probably hateful and angry and for good reason. You don’t look back. He’ll turn away soon enough, to go back and grieve for the people you forced him to let you kill.

The least you can do is give him some time for that.

. . . . .

A small, abandoned house in the town provides welcome shelter after burying the bodies in sweltering heat. Not even a few bloodstains on the floor and door deter you. Your hands are still caked with dirt and runny blisters from digging in the only soft ground you could find, an overgrown green park, but you don’t have enough water to justify washing them off. Instead, you find a towel hanging in the bathroom and pat most of the dirt clean. The white cloth comes away streaked brown and red.

In the empty living room, mystery boy lies on the couch, injured leg outstretched over the cushions. His gaze is blank, unseeing until you extend your half-empty bottle of water in his direction. Wordlessly, he grasps it. Takes a few swallows. Hands it back.

Two gulps of water soothe the sandpaper feeling in your throat while half a granola bar stops the grumbling in your stomach. You put the other half on the coffee table next to him and leave the room to look for anything useful. When you return, a box of band-aids in one hand and several towels hung over your arm, it’s gone.

You go back to work on your hands. Silence stretches. When you finish, you turn to him. He doesn’t look back for a good few minutes, but when he realizes you’re looking at him, he meets your gaze with blank eyes.

You motion to his palms, hold up the box of band-aids. Words would explain your purpose more comprehensively, but they stick in your throat. It doesn’t feel right, speaking.

His eyebrows relax and slowly, he reaches out his hands. You clean them probably with more care than you gave your own, even pouring out a tiny capful of water to soothe some of the larger blisters. The Hello Kitty band-aids you found in the bathroom cabinet look comical against his skin and yours, but nothing really makes you feel like laughing. Not now.

Silence stretches into the afternoon and then into evening. Taking advantage of what natural light you have, you walk around the house some more. Several clean sheets makes their way into your bag along with the box of band-aids. A few bottles of water are still in the kitchen, as is a box of stale crackers. You debate whether or not to open those – you need food, but crackers are dehydrating, and you can’t tell if they’ve gone bad – before stuffing them in your bag anyway.

At some point, you hear muffled crying behind the walls. You crouch down, hold your hands over your ears – you can’t leave the kitchen until it stops but it doesn’t stop, just keeps going on and on and on and you want to scream, it hurts, it hurts –

The sobs finally stop. It takes at least five minutes for you to stand up on shaking legs and another five for you to work up the courage to walk back into the living room.  

Mystery boy hasn’t moved an inch since you fixed up his hands. He shifts when you come back in, though, bag on your arm. His eyebrow raises over reddened eyes. “You’re not going to be an idiot, are you?”

It takes several seconds to register the insult, you’re so surprised he even spoke. “Sorry?”

“You called me an idiot for walking out in the dark.” He shifts again, pulling himself into more of a sitting position against the armrest. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to do the same.”

Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Uh.” You look at the bag, the weight hanging heavy off your arm. “No. I was… I was just seeing if I could find anything.”

Something relaxes in his expression. It makes you frown. “Are you planning to leave?” you ask. The weight of your bag feels even heavier as you shift from leg to leg, waiting for a reply. “In the morning, I mean.”

Silence. Then –

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

His words are soft. Airy. Sad, desolate, but more like a sudden thought than the dark realization they really are.

You flinch anyway. Even if he doesn’t purposely hide knives or needles in his words, you can feel the unconscious ones nonetheless.

You’re the person who killed his last family. You’re the one who left him alone.

You’re the one who caused this.

“Oh,” you say lamely. Your bag slides down your arm, almost dropping to the floor before you catch it tight in one hand. The strap digs into your skin, stinging the cuts beneath pink Hello Kitty band-aids.

He looks at you. “Where are you planning to go?”

You swallow. It feels like a slap in his face to even say it, to show the thread of hope that you have but that he doesn’t. “Home,” you get out. “My mother.”

Another eyebrow raises to meet the first, though he turns away before you can see the resulting expression on his face. “She’s still alive?”

That makes you flinch again, though this time it’s at the possibility that she isn’t alive, that you’ve gone all this way and lost Daeyeol for nothing. “I don’t know,” you reply, voice barely a whisper. “But… before everything…” You swallow. “I told her to wait. And that I’d come and find her.”

“Must be nice, having a purpose in life.”

You brace yourself, waiting for the words to hit and cut through flesh and stab your chest. But to your surprise, they don’t.

There’s no resentment in his tone. Muted anger, yes, and grief. But his hunched figure speaks of no blame, no bitterness – at least none for you, not yet. You remain silent for a moment, trying to understand.

The words slip out before you realize you were even thinking them in the first place.

“You can come with me.”

Mystery boy freezes in his position. You can see his muscles tighten, feel the tension radiating from his prone figure on the couch.

You panic.

“I – I mean –” you swallow, trying to explain – “if you want to. And you probably don’t, because of what I did. It won’t mean much, but I’m really sorry. I was rude and callous and I should have realized how hard something like… something like that would be…” You trail off. “But, just… if you want to, you can.”

He stays still. Then the cushions shift as he turns to face you, eyes piercing into yours. Even though you’re the one standing and he’s the one sitting with an injured leg, you feel like you’re the one trapped here. Less power. Less control.

“Why?” he asks, voice suddenly sharp. You flinch. “Isn’t it hard enough just being here, knowing your friend died trying to save me?”

Why, indeed. You have no idea. The words just spilled from your tongue without thought – you didn’t even realize you were thinking them before you spoke. They don’t make sense, like he said. You were at his throat just a day ago. Less than that.

But still, you meant it. You didn’t just say your words as an empty invitation. You meant it.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you whisper. The words sting in your throat but they’re the truth. They’re the truth. “It’s not your fault Daeyeol… not your fault Daeyeol died for you.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

The monster of anger and grief tries to rear its head in your chest, but you’re too tired to give it reign. “It’s true,” you say, staring at the floor. “Even if I still need to convince myself, it’s true.”

Mystery boy opens his mouth again. This time, his words sting less, but they still seem to deepen the cuts on your palms. “Wouldn’t I just be a burden on you with my leg? Especially if you’re trying to get across the country as fast as you can?”

You shift, right leg to left. “It’s what Daeyeol would have offered,” you murmur, voice barely audible. “He would have thought it was the right thing to do.”

It’s true. And as much as you’d like to say otherwise, you think it’s the right thing too. But that isn’t the only reason.

The other reason?

You’re afraid. Afraid of traveling alone. Terrified, even. The mere thought makes you want to hurl on the floor. Setting out with no one to keep quiet company, no one to watch your back, no one to just be there, even silent, no one to keep you from going insane with the thoughts that spin relentlessly in your mind…

Mystery boy’s voice breaks into your spiral. “Is that what you think is the right thing to do?”

Your gaze returns to his, sharp, unyielding. And you nod. “Yes,” you say, because that much is true. You don’t even need to convince yourself of it. “I do.”

Something breaks in his eyes, but not in a shattered glass type of way. It’s more like the snapping of tension, a fear or worry finally dashed away, replaced with relief. He doesn’t smile, not quite, but the room feels a little more comfortable. “Okay.”

You blink. “So… yes?”

He nods.

A little burst of warmth fills your chest, subtle relief pulsing through your body. Like mystery boy, you don’t put on a smile, but if you wanted to, you probably could. “I’m Y/N,” you say quickly, ducking your head. He’ll probably want some peace, but your name is the least you could give him before you start off together to the other side of the country. And if he needs something in the middle of the night, he’ll know what name to call.

You don’t expect him to reply. But as you begin to leave the living room to find another place to sleep, you hear him speak.

“I’m Sungyoon.”

A pause. Then, softer –

“And thank you.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 prayer for this budding relationship bc god they’re going to need it)

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Reluctant hurt/comfort?  Why yes!

Both Tim and Jon have a bad time after the Buried.  

cw fever, illness, vomit mention, suicidal ideation, grief. Also as a note, the night I wrote this was a hard one, and the day after was worse and this might reflect that.  I don't think this is one I can go back through and comb for more cws, so hopefully that is warning enough.  Stay safe, and enjoy something that was very cathartic to write.

The day after the Buried, it doesn’t even occur to Tim that he should be hungry.  He hasn’t needed to eat in so long that he simply forgets.  Just downs glass after glass of water in the break room after a shower that lasts far longer than the meager supply of hot water.  He can’t be fucked that Daisy and Jon still need to wash the muck off.  At least Daisy has somewhere to go, Basira is hovering around, ready to ferry her out of this hell archive.  

Of course, it’s his own fault that he doesn’t have a flat.  

He supposes he owes Jon.  Or something.  

He doesn’t care.  

He’s still angry.  And tired and filthy and depressed.  The only thing the buried did was keep him from dying.  Hell of a suicide watch to be on.  

Sometimes when he closed his eyes down there, he could believe it was Jon or Martin lying on him.  Keeping his fingers from itching to do harm…  Well, almost, anyhow.  

After that, he sleeps.  And sleeps.  

And, well, after that.  He feels like shit.  

Complete shit. 

When he was a teen with soup for brains, Danny got sick.  A bad flu, but he couldn’t keep anything down for three days.  Three days of foisting broths and lucozade on his brother with little success.  Should have been taken to hospital, by all rights, but their mother didn’t really believe in the whole modern medicine thing, and well.  Dad was away, so Tim couldn’t even get Danny to an adult who could help, even if he didn’t give a damn.  It had been awful.  

He really thought his little brother was dying.  Cracked and dry lips, fever so high that he wasn’t coherent.  Three days he sat vigil.  Praying to a god he barely believed in.  

A fever that scooped out his brother until he was praying for a breathing corpse.  Giving oblations of thin liquid.  

On the third day, his eyes opened and he stroked Tim’s hand, as Tim shook with exhaustion by his bedside.  He had to be propped up to sip at his broth, but it was far better than trickling it down his unconscious baby brother’s throat.  

Pure helplessness.  Both in empathy for his brother, who was probably having a worse time than Tim, and because he was next to useless.  

Three days and Tim can’t keep down food.  Gave up trying.  Just shivers on the cot, gazing nearly sightlessly at the ceiling, muscles too wasted to move.  He doesn’t know if anyone notices that he’s gone.  He hasn’t heard any word from Martin.  Basira and Daisy fucked off days ago, as far as Tim can reckon.  Then again, he doesn’t have so much as a working phone.  He doesn’t even know if it’s been three days or thirty.  

His skin feels hot and tight.  Like the Buried is taking a new approach to suffocating him.  A dreadful thirst clawing at him, but he doesn’t have the strength to stand and get water anymore.  Barely could limp his way there before the lack of food and probable fever stole what little he had left.  

Is this just some divine punishment for prodding too hard at the forces of evil in the universe?  

He���d finally come to terms with the abstract and incidental nature of these things, but he can’t help the hazy imagining that he deserves this.  

Failed to keep his brother safe, for all his bedside bargaining and promises made to the wind on long walks after his brother disappeared.  All the broken promises betwixt his savior and himself.  Bitter words corroding promises that could have been harder than diamond.  

It was his fault.  Couldn’t hold up his end, and he deserves this dreadful heat and the foul desert of his mouth.  His body generating his own funeral pyre.  

He wishes he could bring himself to care.  But all he’s known since Jon betrayed him has been anger and dissent disinterest.  

There is an ache at his very core.  

He lies there, on the cot.  Tangled in the sheets.  Bone dry.  Dry as parched soil.  For he has no moisture to spare for sweat.  His own body out of anything that could bring his temperature down.  

Finding Tim isn’t easy.  Jon’s body betrays him after the Buried.  Months of uneasy sleep, and days of pressure on all the wrong parts of him leave him poorly put together and his joints slipping apart at the slightest provocation.  He spends days on the floor of his office, in too much pain to move, too dizzy to stand, and running a fever from the pain in his squashed and shitty joints.  

His own fault, but a small price to pay for Tim and Daisy.  

He would have stayed there if it meant getting them back.  

One less monster.  

Of course the Eye doesn’t let him die.  Aren’t humans supposed to die if they don’t drink water for three days?  

He spends most of his time passing out when he tries to stand.  

And he can’t bring himself to care.  He’s so tired.  Too tired.  

He didn’t expect anyone to come after him.  Certainly not Tim.  Not after everything.  

Well maybe he hoped.  

(He did).  

(Damn his… well it isn’t optimism.  Damn his longing for someone to give a shit if he vanishes for days.  He should know by now that no one is coming.  No one ever does.)  

Groggy and foggy and battered.  

He’s tired.  He needs a proper mattress for just one night, but he can’t even get off the floor.  Just lays in the remnants of mud, waiting to whither like the corpse he is, one just hasn’t stopped breathing yet (again).  

But something draws him upright, more or less.  Clinging to the walls, bracing his stilted journey on aching limbs.  

It’s probably the Eye.  Probably the Eye, or maybe Jon’s piercing curiosity, control slackened by fever, peering though a hairline fracture in the door of his mind.  

He all but crawls to the cot, securing a half empty water bottle from somewhere he probably should be worried about, but he arrives to find Tim burning away before him as his own vision swims dangerously.  

A face in front of his.  Features obscure and unreadable.  He can read the worry in those eyes.  Even in the half light.  

Tim couldn’t hear Jon in the Buried.  His hearing aids long since ran out of life.  All for the best, for the singing of the coffin in the rain will haunt his dreams (not only in a spooky way) for the rest of his life.  

Only knew it was Jon by Jon guiding his (Tim’s)  hand with too thin and gentle and burned fingers to his (Jon’s) mouth.  So Tim could read his lips by feel.  An imprecise thing, but better than nothing.  

Filthy fingers against dry and dusty lips.  Almost like a kiss.  Perhaps more intimate.  

The face hovers closer.  Thin and careful fingers soothing his brow.  

Pressing water to his lips.  Mouthing words that are lost to Tim.  And even if they reached him, he knows he wouldn’t understand them.  

Is this Danny before him?  Would he know his own brother?  After all these years?  After the Stranger chewed him up and regurgitated …whatever.  Is he lost as much as Sasha had been?  Like she’d been?  

And what good would knowing that do?  He would rather keep the memories he has, doesn’t want to know the creeping uncertainties that plague him when he closes his eyes.  

He supposes that the advantage of the Buried is that it keeps the mind off things that aren’t the slow process of returning stone to stone in a way that obliterates everything in between.  Everything but fear.  

Not Danny, but Jon, Tim discovers.  Pulled awake by uneasy stomach, and panicked breath, to find Jon fluttering out of consciousness by his side.  

He wants to be put out that they are flush with each other, but …but they were closer still in the choking darkness with air thick with the soil that Tim swears he can feel coating his internal organs.  

He’s drifting off again when he hears Jon gasp awake, looking nearly as unwell as Tim feels.  

The small figure curled at his back is not his brother.  But he feels as warm and as fragile as Danny did when he sat his vigil.  Counting the seconds between breaths.  His heart stuttering when they lagged and caught in his raw throat in the muted hours between sunset and sunrise.  The hours that Tim feared if he stopped willing the next breath to happen, they wouldn’t.  

But Jon is hardly human.  His pulse is jittery and uneven.  Each breath just a little more strained than they should be.  Likely matching Tim’s own.  

Some distant part of him… the distant part that can feel Jon’s pulse when the rest of him is floating away, untethered to a body too light and empty without topsoil and rich loam to brace him into and against the earth… worries that his own furnace of a temperature is too high and will roast Jon.  

Another equally distant part of him is annoyed that Jon dares to share this pyre of internal heat with him.  …If this is how he goes out, he wishes he saw the stars when he still had any strength.  

Tim wakes again to cool water against his tongue.  

Jon is mumbling to himself fervently.  And Tim can recognize that look.  That fear.  That determination.  The will of someone breathing for someone else.  Holding their life-force steady in the mind.  Knowing to let it faulter is a death sentence.  With wild certainty that is bounded in something beyond reason, for when you are willing another person to breathe, you are often beyond the reach of science.  

And Tim wonders who Jon could possibly be breathing for, because there is no universe in the extensive multiverse that Jon would ever will the life into someone who has spewed such hateful things and led another fragile being he swore to protect to his death.  

And yet…

Tim exhales deeply.  Sliding into what looks to be a restful sleep for the first time in uncounted months.  Watching the rise and fall of his chest look more natural and less like an afterthought, what little strength Jon had found, abandons him.  And he curls himself around Tim.  A small and fragile and dusty shield.  And is asleep in an instant.  Knowing without a doubt that Tim will sleep comfortably through the night, and if anything changes, Jon will know.  Both in body and from beyond the waterlogged door in his mind.  

[longitud-de-onda]

on a universal constant, falling off the bottom of the earth

pairing; javier peña x female reader summary; you and javier were best friends but life pulled you in separate directions. javi’s now just returned from colombia and you both find yourselves driving out to a spot in the desert in the middle of the night rating; t warnings; a subtle brand of depression, an existential crisis, some stuff that might be triggering if you’re suicidal or have a deep fear of death, so much angst you’ll probably want to sue me word count; 6.0k universal constant masterlist

July meant hot night air, so you leave your house and start up the truck, taking your time to wind through the streets. You don’t stop when you reach the edge of town, starting down the country road. There are no streetlights, just the great expanse of dirt and rock that rises into towering formations on either side. There’s no one else on the road. You’re too far away from anywhere anyone would want to be. 

The clear night sky out in the country has always been your favorite sight. The shades of deep purple and blue dotted with millions of stars have always fascinated you. When you were a kid you would climb up to your roof, spend hours lying up there questioning how far away every star was. You would wonder how big the universe was. Sometimes, you would imagine your house hanging off the bottom of Earth, an upwards gravitational pull the only thing keeping you from falling forever down into the dark.

You’re much older now. You had drifted in and out of your home, off to college for some time. Coming back.

You tried not to think about space like that anymore. 

In the distance, you can see the white light of a gas station approaching slowly. By the time the sign saying it’s a mile out arrives you’re already slowing down. You pull into the harsh glow, parking the truck and jumping down onto the asphalt. The hot dry air hits you hard. It’s not the invasive, sticky, painful heat. It’s soft and a light breeze caresses your bare arms to remind you that it could be much worse.

You enter the convenience store, struck by the realization of exactly where you are. 

It’s like you’re on autopilot as you walk to the back of the store, straight to the refrigerators, pulling out a six-pack of the off-brand soda you used to drink as a teen. It has been longer than you can even remember since you last tasted the sweet liquid, and you wondered if it would still taste the same. 

You grabbed a bag of jerky and a pack of M&Ms on your way to the register. 

The guy working wears the same teal vest the guys did all those years ago. The same acne riddled face of a teenager asks if you want a bag, the same careless voice. Almost like nothing has changed in twenty years except the music playing over the speakers. Who the hell would sign up to work all the way out here?

You suppose you’d have applied had you been ten years younger and unemployed.

You’re back on the road, driving away from the light, further into the emptiness of the desert. It’s easy to let your mind wander. Why couldn’t you fall asleep? Why did you leave the safety of your home? What was calling you to drive in this direction? 

It’s not a conscious decision that causes you to pull off the road, begin driving on a dirt path that hardly exists anymore, more like muscle memory. No longer does the familiar route have the worn-out path, free of shrubs, and you wince every time you have to run over another plant. 

The headlights cast long shadows across the prickly bushes. Sticks and small rocks are illuminated like devilish hands grabbing at the tires. Plumes of dust rising behind you restrict any view out your review mirror. A small animal, possibly a fox but you’re not entirely sure, darts across the trail along the point where the light fades into the black again, the motion causing you to slam the brakes. 

You start up once more, your truck bumping across the desert, out towards the hill that rises up in front of you. 

What’s drawing you back here, you’re not sure. A sick sense of nostalgia? Or a state of mind you haven’t allowed yourself to acknowledge since you were a teen?

Even though it’s been years since you returned from college, you haven’t come back here since one August night after senior year.

You stop the vehicle at the base of the hill. A few deep breaths center you. You stuff the food into your pockets, grab your purse off the passenger seat, along with the cans of soda. They’ve grown slick with condensation and while you can do nothing to stop the goosebumps that crop up on your skin, as soon as you exit the truck and reenter the summer heat, the cold feels good. You lower the cans to touch your thigh, allowing yourself to close your eyes and take in the sensation of cold aluminum brushing up against you. 

Slamming the door closed and locking the truck, you begin to hike up the hill, stopping only when you reach a large flat outcropping of rock. 

You walk out onto the boulder, sinking into a sitting position on the smooth stone. 

When you were a teen, you and Javier would come out here

Every time Javi’s mom would come back down from her near-permanent high, once a month or so to show up for some baseball game or to take him out for dinner, she and Chucho would start screaming at each other the whole night. Javi would throw a stone up at your window and you’d slip out onto the roof, jumping down to the ground and you’d drive out, pocketing handfuls of pebbles on the hike up to your rock. You’d take turns throwing them as far as you could. Each time screaming out the name of someone or something that had hurt you. 

The one day where Javi beat up Niles Breckinridge ‘cause he kept asking you out and you kept saying no and he decided to corner you in the girl’s locker room. How Javi found out what he was doing you had no idea, but Niles was on the floor, nose bleeding, and Javi’s knuckles were bruised when he grabbed your hand and you ran out to your car, the two of you laughing and crying as you hit the highway, skipping class to drive out to the middle of nowhere. 

When your parents started screaming about your grades you had shown up at Javi’s doorstep, crying, and he led you to the passenger seat of his car. You drove in silence until just past the gas station, and up on this boulder, over canned beer and Starbursts, everything came spilling out: the way Mr. Wallace wouldn’t give you any grade higher than a C unless you wore that low cut top to school once a week, how Mr. Chapman wouldn’t explain why you got an F on every single essay even when you asked him how you could improve your grade, how Mrs. Hayes didn’t like you because you were the only kid in Spanish class who didn’t grow up speaking the language, so your accent was terrible, how Ms. Gordon would let you rewrite any essay you wanted but never offer any advice on how to improve things, how Mr. Phillips didn’t care that you could do more push-ups than at the beginning of the year, only that you still could do the least in the class. And as your tears hit the flat stone overlooking the desert, you stared up at the sky and Javi lay next to you. You laid like that for hours that day, not touching, just side by side, existing in each others’ presence. 

The time you found Javi crying at the park, having been dumped by Morgan Powell, and even though you hadn’t spoken in weeks cause he didn’t want to spend any time with you anymore, he didn’t complain when you held his hand, walked with him to your truck, and found yourselves out in the middle of nowhere. He climbed down the hill to grab a blanket from the car and only for those three minutes he was gone did you let yourself cry. 

The night before Javi left for Texas A&M you spent the entire night out here, watching the sunrise before you climbed back down to the car, and you fell asleep on the drive home. That was your last chance to tell Javi that somewhere along the line you had fallen in love, and you never had the guts to say it. He was gone by the end of the day. 

It wasn’t fair, but you were leaving too, thousands of miles away. One of the only kids to leave the state. You had managed to turn your grades around and were headed up to New York to attend Vassar the next week, and you didn’t come home for summer break that year or the next. The third summer you got a job at the pool. You saw Javi a couple times, as you sat upon your lifeguard’s chair and he brought a different girl every week, hands flying all over their bikini-clad bodies. After the PDA got a little less family-friendly, they’d disappear. Halfway through the summer, he brought along Lorraine Crawford, your middle school best friend who ditched you as soon as you entered high school, and she kept coming back, week after week. 

Javi never noticed you sitting up there watching his every move like a hawk. You had drifted far from his life, and you weren’t sure if you really knew him anymore. 

You came back home after you graduated, got a job in the town center, bought a house, didn’t have to speak to your parents again after they moved away. You became a regular at the diner down the block, and you stopped by the coffee shop on Main Street every morning before work. Some of the people you knew from high school would invite you out to the bar every weekend. You’d go. 

Javi became a police officer. Some nights you’d see him on the other side of the bar. You weren’t friends anymore and you weren’t really sure when you stopped. Probably long before that last night on the rock. 

One day a fancy letter showed up in your mail. Nice paper, frilly letters. A wedding invitation. It came with a handwritten note, not from Javier, but Lorraine. You almost RSVP’d with a no. 

The church was beautiful and happy, and more than a few people there from high school surprised you with friendly words. You were contemplating going to the reception as you waited for the procession. You weren’t close to Lorraine or Javier. Not anymore. Free food didn’t seem worth inserting yourself somewhere you didn’t belong. 

A half-hour after the ceremony was set to begin someone announced that Javier hadn’t shown up. The wedding wouldn’t be happening. As you walked out of the building you could hear Lorraine crying. A month later the word around town was that Javier had moved to Colombia. 

You look out into the dark desert. The smell of sage is potent in the heat, and a lone pair of headlights appear in the distance. You watch the car as it speeds along before the red taillights of the other side of the vehicle disappear into the opposite horizon. 

You pop open a can of soda. 

It’s a mechanical sound that contrasts the soft whisper of the wind and the snakes, a few birds in the distance, and the low hum of insects. 

It’s never quiet out here but this background noise is the only thing that has ever truly calmed you. 

The taste of soda brings back more memories you thought had been lost. The early days on the playground with Javi, two six-year-olds climbing to the top of the structure as your parents both call out for you to get down. When you were eleven the two of you ran a lemonade stand for the whole summer, saving up to buy yourselves bikes. 

It wasn’t until Javi turned sixteen and instead of wandering the streets to avoid your families, he could drive you out of town, floating between convenience stores and rest stops for hours. It wasn’t long before you discovered this spot up here.

This rock became your spot. A sanctuary.

What drew you here after all those years, you weren’t sure. You rip open the pack of jerky, letting the tangy scent fill the air. 

Why didn’t you ever come back? The hot desert air is like a healing bath, seeping into your body as you gaze at the stars. After Javi left you had dated guys, spent evenings with friends, and lived your life. But you sit here now wondering what has happened with all the time. Had you been really living? Or just wandering through a haze? 

The truth was, you knew why you never came back. 

These memories were too painful to have sorted through any earlier. A whole life, wasted, as you fell away from the one person you loved as a teenager and never truly climbed back up from. 

Another pair of headlights appear in the distance, cutting a line across the brush. The car slows straight ahead of you and pulls off the road, heading towards where you sit. You glance down at your truck below. There isn’t enough time to get down there and into your car before whoever it is reaches you. Your hand slips into your purse, grasping around the canister of pepper spray. 

If you’re lucky, they aren’t headed up to your rock. 

The car pulls up and stops alongside your truck. You jump at the sound of the door slamming and peer down. 

You’d recognize that leather jacket anywhere, even in the penumbra of the headlights of his car before they flick off. You didn’t know he was back.

Another sip of soda. Waiting. The sound of rocks sliding down the hill. A couple crunches of dirt under shoes. Plastic against stone as you pick up the bag of jerky. Metal against stone when you set down your can. Deep, slow breaths. Dark leather boots next to your leg, tapping against the rock. A low groan. Javi sitting next to you. 

You keep staring off at the horizon, your chest rising and falling. The last time you were actually really with Javi you were 18. His car parked in front of your house. 8:30am. He jostled your shoulder, pulling you up from your slumped position against the window as you slept. You got out, the blanket still wrapped around you and he hugged you on your front lawn. He whispered goodbye to you, and you were too tired to say anything back. 

All the other times your paths had crossed it had been in silence and at a distance. Years and years of nothing. You had everything to say to him but you weren’t sure if any of it was worth saying. The man sitting beside you used to be an extension of yourself. Now he’s a stranger.

You pull a cold can out of the plastic rings, extending it towards Javi.

“Soda?”

“Thanks.” He grabs the can, his fingers brushing against yours. Enough to feel how rough they were.

You had imagined his voice would be the same as the lanky teen he was back then. It hadn’t even crossed your mind that it would be this much lower, deeper, hoarser. Hesitant. 

A hiss then the pop comes. Your gaze shifts over to watch his hands. They’re so big around the small can and he lifts it up to his lips to take a sip. Finally, after all this time, you get to give Javi a good look. The years have treated him well. The Colombian sun leaving a deep bronze tone, his face a far cry from the clean-shaven boy he once was. You had seen him after college, after he grew out the mustache and his hair darkened, face filling out into an even more handsome one. But in the time since then, a few lines have been left in his forehead and around his eyes. Still doesn’t make him any less beautiful.

“Haven’t had one these in ages,” he says. 

You look away, not responding. What could you say? What was there to talk about? Could one night up here possibly cover even a portion of what had happened?

Then in a terrifying moment, your brain puts something forward that shakes you to your core. 

Did he even want to talk to you anymore? Or had you grown so far apart that there was nothing left?

Javi sets down his can and shrugs off his jacket, throwing it to the side. You can feel him staring at you, but can’t bring yourself to break your gaze at the sky. You lean back, lying on the cool stone. All you can think of is how the distance between you and Javier feels further than you and those stars.

“You know, sometimes during stakeouts, looking over Bogotá? I would pretend we were up here. Staring out over the desert like we did when we were kids. I’d wonder if you were lookin’ up at the same stars I was.” His voice cracks momentarily and he lets out a shaky breath. “I’d always think about how you’d talk about falling off the bottom of the earth.”

You press your eyes closed, blocking out the deep expanse of the universe. The speed at which you were zooming back to Javi was too goddamn fast. How can he say that? How can he think about you when he hardly gave you the time of day after you both left home for the first time. When he wasn’t even the one to invite you to his own wedding.

“Do you come up here often?” he says.

You still haven’t said more than a word since he got up here. You’re not sure if the honest answer is the one he wants. You say it anyway.

“No. Last time was with you.” You try to hide the fact that tears are streaming down your face but he wasn’t fooled by that when you were kids, he wasn’t going to be fooled now. It’s easier to let the tears show through in your voice than hide them as you say, “Did you bring Lorraine up here?”

He’s quiet and you hear the burbling hunting call of a quail. Then a soft rustling as he lays back onto the stone too. 

“Why would I do that?” he asks. 

You have the guts now to tilt your head over and give him that questioning look. 

“Why wouldn’t you? You seemed to love her. Back before, you know...”

Once again he’s quiet. The sky seems to have lost any of the reddish tinges, leaving only the deepest ocean blue. You wish it was the ocean. Maybe if it was it wouldn’t make you think so much. You could just stare and stare and empty your mind. 

A breeze blows by and you shiver, cold for the first time this whole night.

“Yeah, well. Didn’t seem right, you know? This is our spot,” he says. 

You push yourself back up, staring back down at him.

“Our spot?” you ask. “Javi, is there even an ‘us’ anymore?” 

You place your elbows on top of your crossed legs and rest your forehead on your hands. You were always too quick to get worked up. Too fast to think through the things you said. Javi had extended an olive branch and you may have snapped it in half.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” you whisper. 

“No, I’m sorry. We drifted, I don’t know.” He sits back up beside you. “You never sent a letter and I didn’t either. That first summer back you weren’t there. After the second I thought you didn’t want to see me. Stopped looking, I guess. That’s on me.”

“I was back the third summer, you know?” you say, “I was a lifeguard at the pool. Watched you come in with Lorraine week after week.”

“You were?”

“Yeah.” You don’t say how you watched him with all the other girls too. 

“After I graduated, thought I might come back. Say hello. I heard Vassar already graduated, so if you were back, you’d be there. Your parents’ place was empty.”

“They moved out. I bought a house closer to town.” You picked up your soda again and took a sip.

“I saw you at the bars a couple times.”

“So did I. You never said hi.”

“You didn’t either,” he says. 

You pull out the bag of M&Ms from your pocket. Javi laughs. It sounds clear in the middle of the night. The only competition for airwaves is the quails. You fiddle with the edge of the plastic before it glides open, and you dump a few of the chocolates into your palm.

“Of course you were hiding those.” You can hear the smile in Javi’s voice.

You hold out the bag to him and he extends a palm, allowing you to pour some into his hand. 

Looking down at your own collection, you push the candies into colored categories as best you can in the desaturated night light. 

“You know, I was at your wedding. Lorraine sent me the invitation. Said you didn’t add me to the guest list but she thought you’d want me there anyway. I was sitting there in the pews as the time ticked and nothing happened. And you know what? I wasn’t getting worried about you not showing up. That never crossed my mind.” You take a breath. “I was sitting there debating whether or not I should go to the reception. Make the two of you speak to someone you both had fallen out of touch with. It didn’t seem fair.” 

“You were there?” he sounds distant, voice shaking a bit and you glance over to see his gaze glazed over, fixated on some spot in the desert.

“Yeah. Lorraine was really torn apart after that. We went out for drinks a week later. She asked me what the hell was wrong with you. I didn’t have an answer,” you say. “We made up. She was an asshole in high school, but so were so many others. I forgave her. When she got married to Randy, I was one of her bridesmaids.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you,” he says. You think he’s going to say more. Give an explanation. Nothing comes.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Not invite you? Or leave Lorraine?” he asks. 

“I don’t know. Both, I guess?”

He exhales. You’re putting him on the spot, you know that. But that’s what this hill is for. It’s where you say the tough stuff. You let each other cry. It’s the place where you let yourselves feel without voicing half of it because the other knows exactly what you’re going through. 

It still wasn’t comfortable enough to let you say the toughest thing of all.  

And worse, right now, you have no idea what’s running through Javi’s mind. 

“I couldn’t bring her into all of it,” he starts. “I had been in the DEA for a year by then. Knew the tough shit I’d have to do. If I was going to go up any higher, I was scared I’d be putting her in danger. And part of it was that I was just an asshole. Guess I still am.”

You pour out a few more M&Ms into your palm. The red ones go near your fingers, next yellow, then green, blue, and brown. All the way down to the heel of your hand. You eat the red ones first. One by one. 

“You’re not. You might have been to Lorraine, but you’re not. You care, Javi.” You look over and he’s still focusing on some little spot in the distance. 

“I am though. You don’t know what I’ve done. Down in Colombia. I—I did things you wouldn’t have liked.” He stopped to put an M&M in his mouth. A few minutes passed as he chewed the remaining candy in his palm, one by one. Then washed them down with the soda. “I killed people. And my decisions left even more dead. I did so many bad things.”

“Why?” You swallow.

“You used to not ask that.”

He was right. You used to say things. No explanations needed. You both had grown. “I don’t feel like I can read you as well as I used to.”

Javi sets down his can on the rock. The soft clink seems to echo across the sweeping land. You wouldn’t be surprised if the guy at the gas station heard it.

“I had to do a lot of the things,” he whispers. “Did a lot of the other things to forget the things I had to do.”

You look over him as he closes his eyes. You think you see a tear fall down the side facing away from you, but he tilts his head away.

“I’m sorry,” you say. You didn’t use to say that either.

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“You shouldn’t have had to go through that. Alone. You know?”

Javi deserved people in his life. He had gone through so much shit as a kid; to have to go through even more as an adult, it wasn’t fair.

“You mean Lorraine?” Your heart aches when you hear the way Javi says her name. It’s different from the way he says yours. Different emotions. You suppose that’s what his voice sounds like when he says the name of someone he loves.

You don’t fucking mean Lorraine though. You’re tiptoeing around it, but you mean you. 

“No, I just mean anyone. You might not have wanted to bring her into all of it but maybe you needed to have brought someone. So you didn’t feel so alone.”

If it was anyone else sitting next to him, they wouldn’t notice the way his hand shakes, the empty can making no noise, but it’s not anyone else. Maybe Lorraine would have noticed too.

You wish Javi had reached out to you, all those years ago when he thought you didn’t care. Maybe you could have gotten to be part of his life, even if you weren’t in the front row, you could still be in the theater. Not sitting in the parking lot, crying in your car. At least that’s what these past twenty years or so have felt like.

Underneath all the stars he looks so small. You both do. You want to hug him. Or something. You can’t even bring yourself to nudge his foot with yours. 

“Never said I felt alone,” he says.

“You didn’t have to.”

You feel the tears in the corners of your eyes and you try to blink them dry. It doesn’t work. You love Javi so much that if he really wanted to be with Lorraine, you were going to be there and make sure he was happy. But in the end, that wasn’t what he wanted.

It’s weird how having someone suddenly back in your life can make it feel like everything is right again. Like your entire existence has felt so pointless because he wasn’t part of it. You never believed in soulmates, but you thought that maybe someone was right when they decided that you’re bonded to someone in life. That their presence would make you whole again. They were just wrong in believing the other person would always love you back.

“I didn’t invite you because I didn’t know if you cared anymore. I felt we were too far apart that I wouldn’t matter,” he says. “I was scared you didn’t care anymore.”

“We could not speak for 50 years and I’d still want to be at your wedding, Javi. You’ve always mattered.” That was it, wasn’t it? Javi was always what mattered.

When your life felt like everything was falling apart as it always seems to when you’re a teen, he was always there to catch you. And you caught him too. Time and time again. And then your lives parted ways and you started falling with no net. Javi mattered.

“Why’d you come out here?” he asks.

“What?”

“Why’d you come all the way out here when you haven’t been back since we were 18?”

“Did you ever come back? Until today?” Even without Lorraine, you assume he might have. But maybe he’s like you. It hurt too much to come out here. Almost like you couldn’t without Javi. Not until tonight. And well, the universe seems to have had other plans.

“No,” he says. Simple.

“I couldn’t sleep. It was too hot and I was too alone. My house felt too small. Had to get out. I didn’t even realize where I was going until I reached the gas station.” You pull out another can from the pack and flip up the tab.

If you’re being honest with yourself, it tastes terrible. Like a Coke gone wrong. But it also tastes like nights up here with Javi. You don’t think a single time you came up you didn’t at least share a can. You used to each have an emergency case in the trunks of your cars. Even when you came up to drink beer and dance and tell each other about the things going on, there was always a can of soda. 

“Guess I had a feeling. I needed to get out,” you continue.” Tonight was just the night where I finally let myself need this. Didn’t even know you were back.”

“Only got back a few hours ago.”

No. A few hours ago? He woke up yesterday in Colombia and was now sitting here at 3am on a rock hanging over the desert with you?

“What?” you ask. “And this is the first place you went?”

“I dropped off my things with my dad.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Then yeah. First place I guess.”

He comes back and the first place he goes is here? What does that even mean?

He’s facing you now and you grin and raise your eyebrows. “Why?”

“Guess I had a feeling,” he mocks back. 

“Why up here. Why this first?” You’re not voicing the real question. Why is the first thing something that means you?

He reaches over, grabbing the bag of jerky and pulling out a piece. He puts it in his mouth and rips off a chunk. You know what he’s like when he doesn’t want to answer a question he knows the response to.

You stare back out and watch a car cross the desert. Then another. You lie back down, staring up at the stars again. And Javi still says nothing. 

“Maybe there’s a parallel universe out there where everything’s the same but we can both end up here but on different nights and not find each other.”

He doesn’t say anything but you can see him tilting up his head.

“Or maybe this rock is just a universal constant. Like in every version of Earth, one of us can’t spend a night here without the other. It just isn’t allowed.”

Your favorite thing about the night sky is how out here on a clear night, you can see the milky way, a saturated strip of stars belting across the dome. The fact that it’s so damn big has always scared you. You say as much to Javi.

“I’ve always been scared that we’re so small. That we mean nothing. If best friends can go from being everything to being strangers who avoid each other and don’t notice when the other is watching and the only people that care are the two friends themselves, who’s to say anyone cares about us? Maybe we’re all alone. A little rock flying around a bigger burning rock that somehow bubbled up intelligent life, an intergalactic anomaly... A little sphere that doesn’t care that my life feels pointless, and my life feels pointless because of that.”

“Your life isn’t pointless.”

“Then what is it? Because ever since college I don’t know what I’ve been doing. Stuck in my hometown, in love with all the people who don’t love me back.” It’s the first time for the night you know Javi can’t see you crying. Your voice is stable enough to hide it, and he’s sitting up, looking away from you. “And I guess it’s all fine cause I’m going to exist in this little millisecond on a cosmic scale and no one gives two shits if I live or die.”

“I do.”

“Do you, Javi? Because it didn’t seem like you were ever really looking. I could have disappeared and it would have been all the same.”

He’s quiet again and you think that it’s because on some level he knows you’re right.

“There was another reason I left Lorraine at the altar,” he says. You’re not sure if he’s answered more than one of your damn questions the whole night, only saying things that crop up new ones.

“That girl is amazing. She didn’t deserve to be someone’s second choice.”

“Second choice?” you ask. 

“Yeah,” his voice shakes and you sit up again, realizing that he’s crying.

You reach out to touch his shoulder. “Javi—”

He turns away from you. Then he’s leaning on his far arm, pushing himself up. You grasp at his wrist, hoping he’ll stay. Just long enough to finish this. He pulls out of your grip. And he still hasn’t explained himself.

“Javi,” you breathe out. “Stay? Just tonight. You never have to see me again after this. Please?”

That gets him to stop. “What if I want to see you again?”

You turn around looking up at him. The starlight shines against the longitudinal lines on his cheeks. He looks so much like the kid you grew up with.

You stand up, grabbing his jacket off the ground and handing it to him. You can’t make the same mistake you did when you were 18.

“You don’t have to stay, Javi. I’m sorry. You can go. It doesn’t matter what you meant by second choice. I don’t want to push you. I just, that last night? When we were kids? It was my last chance to tell you something and I didn’t have the guts to say it. And by the time I saw you again, it’d been a few years and you were bringing all the other girls to the pool and I was too scared to even say hello.”

He’s holding the jacket limply in his arms. You’re sure you’ve never looked at Javi in the eyes like this ever before. All those nights and you’ve never looked into his eyes and shared the vulnerability that you do now and seen the same expression staring back at you.

“I love you.” It was so much easier than you had ever imagined. The scary thing was actually not saying the words, but staring into Javi as his face shifted.

It began with shock then awe then admiration, all familiar expressions that you had seen a thousand times before. Then it morphed into something you didn’t know as he dropped the jacket and put a hand in yours, spinning you out so you stood side by side instead of face to face, and led you to the edge of the rock. He let go for a moment and when his hand returned there was a stone in it, which he closed your fingers around.

“Having to wait until now to be with the person I love,” he whispers. You’re confused until he’s winding up and throwing something. His own rock.

Oh.

You look down at the rock in your hand.

“Not telling people you love them before you almost lose them,” you say. Your rock flies even farther.

You’re smiling and you look up at Javi. He’s grinning at you and his arms pull you in, wrapping you up and you return the embrace, pulling him close.

“I love you too.”

You nod against his shoulder and pull away, wanting to really look at him.

And in Javi’s eyes, you can see the reflection of thousands of stars, shining bright and big and far away, all contained within the beautiful dark you’ve looked into for what feels like your entire life, and you can now call it home. 

-o-o-o-o-

taglist; @pascalisthepunkest​ @turquiosenights @el-lizzie​ @sparrows-books​ @dxxkxx​ @opheliaelysia​ @trashbin2​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​ @letaliabane​ @awesomefandomsunited​

[shawtygonemad]

CRIMSON: Chapter 7

Daryl Dixon x OC

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WARNING ⚠️: LANGUAGE, ADULT THEMES, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, SEXUAL THEMES, ABUSE, GORE, ANGST, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS

My consciousness woke up, but I didn't want to open my eyes yet. My whole body was warm, and my head was gently being lifted up and down. Like someone breathing. Then it hit me as soon as I inhaled the intoxicating pheromones of my Angel. I was beyond weak and couldn't control the water works, so this poor man had to comfort me. God, I wonder what he thinks of me now.

I open my eyes to the most breathtaking sight. The sun was starting to rise over the horizon behind Daryl.

It made this man 10x more beautiful, if that was even possible. He looked so peaceful in his sleep. It made me think of how any person in this world could ever lay a hand on him. He was the kindest person I knew. Sure, he was gruff and a little rough around the edges, but that's just a protective wall he puts up. I would know, since I do the same thing. But there is one thing though - as long as I'm alive, I'll be living for: saving the human race and protecting Daryl Dixon at all costs.

I was too busy staring at the sunrise to notice a pair of blue eyes looking at me. It wasn't until I was being shifted onto my back did I realize. A small gasp left me as Daryl slightly hovered above me.

"Good morning," I greeted, trying to hide my nervousness.

"Mornin'," he grumbled deeply, sleep still in his voice. "How'd ya sleep?"

This question made me blush as I remembered that we just spent the night wrapped in each other's arms.

"Good," I quickly replied. "You?"

"Well... apart from you snoring..." he joked. "Tha' was actually the best damn sleep I've had in awhile."

He blushed, which of course made me blush harder. To be honest, that was also the best sleep I've gotten since my mom was alive. I could feel the situation start to turn awkward, so I started to joke and make the situation light again.

"I do not snore," I feigned being offended.

"Yeah, ya do," he laughed. "Like a damn chainsaw."

I playfully pushed him. "No, I don't!" I laughed.

"'M surprised ya didn't attract a whole herd of walkers," he grinned.

I don't think I've ever seen him genuinely smile before. I loved it. I should make it my new goal to get him to smile like this as often as I can.

"You're such a liar," I grinned at him.

"Am I?" He challenged as he completely hovered above me.

Whoa. That was not the reaction that I was expecting, but DAMN this was way better. As if the man couldn't get any hotter, this different dominate side of him made my body tingle. The daddy issues in me were practically moaning in pleasure, ready to be choked out by this man. However, the mommy issues in me were ready to flip him over and show him who's really the alpha here.

"Yup," I popped defiantly with a smirk.

He paused for a moment. His eyes flicked down to my lips before back to my eyes like he was silently asking for permission. I tilted my head up slightly to encourage him. Never in my life had I wanted to be kissed by someone so badly.

He slowly leaned down until he was just a breath away. I could tell he was nervous. I was too, but my excitement took over.

Our lips were about to brush when we were interrupted by Rick.

"Rosalynn! Daryl! Are ya out here?" My brother called as he walked closer.

The two of us stared at each other for a moment. It was like we were saying 'We'll finish this later'. Together, we sat up to fix ourselves to look presentable and not suspicious as Rick rounded the truck.

"Mornin'," he greeted as he took in the situation. 

The two of us were sitting next to each other while casually leaning back against the truck's cab.

"Morning," we greeted simultaneously.

Rick could tell something was fishy about the situation. He looked at us like he did the time Carl and I broke a glass cup, and our solution was to bury it in the yard so no one would know. I guess we looked suspicious, because Rick had given us the same look when he got home. However, no one ever did find out.

Rick decided not to touch on the situation quite yet. "Sun's up. We’re gatherin' everyone around and formin' search parties," his heavy southern drawl told us.

"Right behind you," I said as I catapulted myself over the side of the truck.

I wasn't entirely sure if Daryl liked me. What just happened could have been all in my head or just the heat of the moment. But those insecurities weren't going to stop me from looking like a badass to impress him. He already saw me at my weakest last night. Now, I wanted him to see me at my strongest.

We all gathered around near the RV to discuss. Andrea was already complaining about not carrying a gun. They decided that only Rick and Shane should carry the firearms. That made sense, considering they are professionally trained law enforcement officers. I had no problem with having my gun privileges revoked. I couldn't shoot one to save my life. Besides, guns have always been a trigger for me. It always brought me back to when I heard my parents deaths when I was little.

We were about to split off into our parties when Carl announced that he wanted to come with. His parents wanted him to stay with Dale, but the kid wanted to stretch his legs. I couldn't let him stay cooped up.

"He has all of us to look after him. I'd say he's in good hands," I piped up.

"We're all in this situation because you couldn't properly look after a child," Lori snipped.

I clenched my teeth in anger. This bitch is using up the last of my patience, and I might not be able to hold back next time. Lori looked at Rick when he remained silent.

"Your call," she shrugged. "I'm tired of being the bad guy."

This caused me to scoff. We were about to get into it when Rick cut in. "Enough," he warned before looking at his son. "Alright, you can come with. Just always stay in eye sight."

"I will," Carl reassured his parents as they walked on.

Carl turned to me with the biggest grin. I returned the favor before we both did a double high five, which turned into a hug.

This kid was getting so big. It's almost hard to believe! It felt like yesterday when he was only the size of a football. No matter what Lori says, Carl will always be like a nephew to me. Which means, as the role of the cool aunt, I will always have his back.

"It's you and me 'til the end, kid," I laughed as I placed my arm around his shoulders and followed the group.

We quietly continued through the woods. Daryl was leading the pack while Carl and I stayed semi behind the others with Shane tailing the end. Carl twirled the knife Rick let him hold, before lagging behind to talk to Shane. Unfortunately, I was still in earshot.

"Shane, look!" Carl showed to cop excitedly. "Dad said I could carry it and Mom said as long as I-"

"Keep it down! We're looking for Sophia," Shane growled at him.

This was the final straw to make me blow. No one talks to him like that! Especially, when he's just pissed that he can't be balls deep in his best friend's wife anymore.

Carl continued on, devastated, as Lori gestured to him. Once they were a little ways ahead, I rounded on Shane.

"Hey, Dickface! You better watch your tone," I warned him.

"This ain't your problem, so mind your damn business," he snapped.

"Excuse me?" I growled.

"You heard me," he spat.

"Fuck you! Don't think I don’t know why you've been in a mood lately," I told him. "If you need to get laid so bad, then find someone else. I'm sure angsty Andrea would gladly volunteer."

"Yeah?" He took a step towards me. "Or how about you, huh?"

"You stay the hell away from me," I warned as I stepped back. 

With every backward step he took one forward. My breath became labored as my vision blurred. The panic was rising in me and I could feel myself become triggered. Flashbacks of the streets flooded my mind. The horrible things those men had done to me... and it was happening again.

"Don't you remember I was the one called to the scene when you were being raped," he circled me like pray as malice filled his voice. "The things they were doing to you..."

"Stop," I shakily breathed as I tightly closed my eyes.

"I almost couldn't believe my eyes," venom dripped from his voice.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked as hot tears dripped down my cheeks.

"Stay out of my way," he growled. "And mind your fucking business!"

With that, he turned around to rejoin the group. I was left alone with my memories that forced my knees to collapse. I wrapped my arms around myself, for protection and comfort, as I cried. I haven't felt this slimy or disgusting since I was 14.

I sat there alone and crying for a long time. After awhile my shakes started to subside and tears dried up. I sniffed as I tried to open my puffy eyes. I felt like garbage, more so after realizing we were out here for Sophia. That was my fault too.

Once I felt my triggering episode pass, I got back to my feet. I wiped my nose before looking for any sign of the group. I sighed when I found none. I wasn't a tracker like Daryl. I wonder if he even noticed I was gone. Did any of them? That was a hard pill to try and swallow.

I kept marching blindly through the woods, now looking for both Sophia and the group. I heard some sticks breaking in the distance ahead of me. It could be anything, but I was willing to take the chance.

As I approached, I peered through the brush to see a gorgeous young buck. Much to my relief, I saw it was Carl approaching it while Rick and Shane stood back. The sight of Carl slowly approaching the deer gave me warm, fuzzy, and proud feelings. The deer stood still and allowed the child to get close. Almost like it sensed that Carl was someone good. 

Suddenly, I heard another noise coming from my left. I almost missed it at first, but I eventually noticed a hunter in camo. He approached the deer from behind with his gun raised. I don’t think he even saw Carl! I needed to stop him.

"No! Wait!" I yelled as I tried to run in front of both Carl and the deer.

I ended up tripping as a fire could be heard going off. A split second later I felt an excruciating burning pain through my shoulder. Warm liquid ran down my arm as my body collapsed to the ground.

***

Next Chapter

[silentmajesticfox]

Falling In Love With Chrollo Lucilfer

Part one:

Part two:

Panic Room



As Fred, Rose, and Daisy made it to the mansion. Rose looked at her surroundings, telling herself, I just have to hold him off til Chrollo's here. What a suicide mission this will come out to be, Daisy I hope you understand I can only save one of us this time.. Rose glanced at Daisy winking her eye and opening the door for her. Daisy would be an actress If she could. She giggled, "Yay!! We're finally home, I can wait to go to bed with my teddy bear!" She ran in, not unusually fast since every time they would get home, she would practically run to her bed. Before Rose could step out, she felt a tight grip on her left arm by her hand, and a few cracks emanating from there. Fred had already planned to confront her. A deadly gaze staring into her ice blue eyes. Rose held in a yelp, sure than the cracking was probably her bones.

"Who do you think you are? Talking to another man, showing him more affection and attention than you've givin me this past year, wish I knew I married a whore. I would like to have a word with you inside, Rosalie." Rose knew this couldn't be good, for he never used her real name, and for however long it took Chrollo to get here, she'd have to deal with it. She could feel his blood lust, and the fact he already had the advantage on her, her nerves kicked up. She just nodded her head, knowing soon this would be all over. She wished right then that she had her book, inevitably he would die if she did.... As she got out the door once he let go of her arm, with a fired up Fred behind her. She looked down the street they had came from. Please don't let me down Chrollo. She turned her head towards the mansion and walked through the doors. She felt his Nen get stronger, a hitch in her breath as she started to panic. He was a minute behind her, but she could make a run for it to her room and make sure Daisy was ready. The deadly aura making it hard to breath, she was going to do exactly that. Once she made it through the door, she turned around and latched the door closed. Soon a hard pounding was heard, but as Fred was a Enhancer, he was going to have no problem knocking that door down. With every hit, she started to feel a whoosh of power with every blow. Rose rushed up all the stairs, nearly tripping on her feet, turning the corner right before she heard a big boom, the door spiraling across the room and a manic laugh coming from Fred. "Aw... Rose, don't be like that. You know I'll find you. I told you I wanted to talk!" He screamed. She ran to her and Daisy's room they shared, busting it open and soon turning around to lock it and push the chair near by, under the door knob. Daisy was sitting on the bed with all her things in a backpack, and her favorite stuffed animal, her bear. Hearing Fred slowly stomp down the hall, busting open the doors as he went by, one by one. Rose realized she had less time than she calculated..

"Daisy, are you ready?" She asked her baby sister, her sister nodded and as about to say something, Rose could tell she had been crying. Rose put her finger up to her sisters mouth, shaking her head and mouthing no. "Here's my phone. You need to leave. Now Daisy.." she grabbed her sisters arm gently after daisy put the phone in her backpack pocket, leading them to the only window In the room. Rose unlocked it, and quietly lifted it open. "Don't let him see you through the window, ok? I love you." She hugged her sister very tight, before hearing a roaring pound at the door now. More tears fell from Daisy's eyes, as she nodded staring at Rose, quickly exiting the room from the window, waving to Rose. Rose waved back and blew a kiss to her, then signalling her hand for her to sit on the specific part of the roof as discussed.

Glancing at the street below, she turned around when the door was buses open. She was thinking quick on what to say and what to do, Fred huffing as he walked up to her. He walked up closer, how hands going to her throat and holding her against the wall. Her hands went to his forearms as she struggled to breath. "Stop.. please.." she pleaded. She had only one option. If she wanted to live, and as her consciousness faded in and out. Memories flashing all the way from when she was little. Chrollo was always by her side. In a way, she knew Chrollo would never love her the way she loved him..

Chrollo and Rose were sitting on top of the garbage pile, the highest one they could find. Holding each other closely watching the sunrise together. "Now wait. Soon the sun will make it look like a city of diamonds and jewels. This is what I've been telling you about, I know you'll love it.." Chrollo's words were happier than normal when he spoke about this so Rose was convinced it was something great if he loved it. She set her head on his shoulder, grabbing his hand. "Chrollo, do you think when we're older, we can be together?" Rose slipped those words out. In the heat of the moment. Chrollo tensed up a little bit, but that went away as soon as the sun rose. Before her eyes, what he said was true, who knew a city so bad, could have such a beautiful view. "You were right Chrollo, thank you for showing me this.." she said lifting her head from his shoulder. He turned around to face her, grabbed her chin, and kissed her with passion. Once they parted, chrollo spoke. "Maybe one day... I know you can find someone better than me when you make it out of here.. realistically I can't see it, us being together. I like you, but who knows how we'll feel years later, you know?" Rose would have cried, but Chrollo stood up, taking her hand and pulling her up. "But there's nothing wrong with having what we have now.." He kissed her again, she wrapped her arms around his neck and he wrapped his arms around her waist, and maybe that's when she fell in love with him.

When Rose came back to reality, she knew she still had things she needed to be here for. She had to fight. She released her hands from Fred's arms, and went for his face. Poking as hard as she could towards his eyes. Kicking as hard as she could. He dropped her and she gasped for air. "please stop Fred.." she quickly came to her feet, cornered and not sure what to do. Glancing around, she looked at the lamp. She quickly darted, fred attempting to grasp her, hot on her tail. She picked up the lamp and threw it at Fred, it stattering at he deflected it with his arms. Just enough time to run. And that she did.

"You're funny Rose.. you think you can out smart me? Take me for my money? You really are stupider than I thought.." she heard him, she ran out the room, running down the hall and going to the staircase, running up all the steps which felt like a million years. She heard Fred's foot steps and felt them rattle the staircase. Rose was now wheezing, but couldn't let herself get tired, not yet. Soon she was on the third and last level. She sprinted as soon as she saw the big doors, in which was the safe where her book was. Rose backed up, and ran into the door to break it open. Yet it did not open. She started to panic, and kept ramming herself. The wood started to splinter, and after four times of brute force, it broke opened. By then, she had seen Fred come around the corner, so she ran over to the vault. She starting pushing in the code, getting denied every time. Fred was walking up to her at this point, a low laugh coming from his chest, gasping she turned around. "I changed it. Unfortunately you won't be getting it back ever. Why do you hurt me Rose?.." He was calmer, but his blood lust was rising.

"Because you wanted to be with her instead of me, you wanted me to give you this so it'd be equal, yet you feel it's okay to hit me when your in the wrong, and you have your nen?" She was trying to hit him on a personal level so he could apologize and maybe this would pass. Not this time.

He walked up to her, "because I fell out of love with you. The instant I saw you never stopped writing him... " She couldn't believe Fred at this moment. This was a new thing he had brought up. "So why should I care to fix this? when every woman I've been with, has been so much better? Fills all my needs, and actually wants me. Also, I could make alot of money for your book." Rose was letting her anger get the best of her, tears started streaming and she went for it. She got a few punches in, before he grabbed her arm.

"Then end it. Since i am nothing to you and this world, take me out of this miserable life!!"  And with that, Fred hit her and she had went flying into the wall. Laying in the debris, she was gasping. Fred had walked up to her, and picked her up by her hair. If she could, she'd scream. But the impact before had broken ribs, so she just stared at him, before being thrown to the wall again. Blood started coming from her mouth, she was ready for this. Daisy crossed her mind and she smiled, knowing she was in good hands.. her life fading and things went black, she heard alot of booms and yelling going on, and someone picking her up.

"Please hang on Rose.. stay with me..." She heard Chrollo say to her softly touching her face. She drifted off into a peacefulness of black, knowing Daisy was alright, and she could finally let go of this life for good.

--

A/N: sorry it's short and kind of meh, I had a major writers block and this is definitely getting edited. Lucky not alot of people have read this- but if you do thank you for supporting me!! Much love. If you feel open to request something for the story or pitch ideas I'm all ears!! This is the last part I have on wattpad. Might be a minute til I can write the next chapter, of course when it gets a little intense. 💀

[writingtoforgetreality]

I thought he could help us (Dean Winchester x Reader)

[Supernatural-Masterlist]

Summary: You were sure that you guys will never be able to beat Chuck, or better said, God. After literally trying everything, an idea popped into your head. Of course you would not tell anyone, knowing the guys, especially Dean, would freak out. So you did what you thought was right: sneaking out one night to go & talk to Chuck.

Words: 2,872

Warnings: angst, language, Chuck being Chuck, protective Dean, mentions of cheating, fluffy ending bc I can´t write a heartbreaking story

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

You should all be happy right now. Everything you had ever wanted was right in front of you. Dean, the best boyfriend you could have ever imagined. Sam, who was like a big brother to you. Cas, the awkward friend you had never wanted but also somehow craved. Last but not least, Jack, who you would die for in a heartbeat. Being hunters had never been easy. The supernatural beings that lived in the dark corners always haunting you but you learned to fight them. They were scared of your badass team, not the other way round. So why, why the hell did Chuck have to make life so much harder for you? A few years ago, you all got together to fight Amara only to find out now that he had everything planned out for you guys. How fucked up could one being be? And how fucked up was it that this being was the God out of everyone?

“This is useless!” you breathed out.

The entire team was seated in the library, desperate to find something, anything slightly helpful. This was how your days looked like if you did not have a case. Just sitting around the big ass table, reading lore & hoping you would find a clue how to defeat God. Defeat God...was that even possible? Right now, you were not so sure but you could not stop now. Not after everything you had been through. This should be easy, right?

“(Y/N)…“ Sam sighed. “We´ve been through this, haven´t we?“ he tried reasoning.

“Well, apparently this entire thing doesn´t help one bit. I don´t understand how you guys can just sit there & do the same shit over & over again. We´re fucked, okay? The sooner we realize this, the better.“ you started growing frustrated.

“Sweetheart…” Dean started speaking up.

“No, Dean! I´m tired. Clearly, reading books for days is not the answer. We need to start thinking outta the box, y´know?” you were hinting your idea but not daring to speak it out loud. They would kill you, for sure. Or ask if you were insane. How could you not in this situation.

“Out of the box...Means what exactly?” Dean looked at you in confusion, obviously not knowing what you were truly saying.

“Look, (Y/N), we have three hunters, a nephilim who is stronger than everything I´ve ever seen & an angel.” this was Cas´ voice that made you look up to him.

“We can do this together, (Y/N), I´m sure!” the confidence in Jack´s voice made you smile slightly. He sure was a little naive but he just wanted to keep the team positive which was cute, really.

“You know what, guys? I need a little break. You do, too. Let´s just stop for today, clear our heads & start again tomorrow. Now, how does that sound?” you faked a smile, unaware to the others. You had become quite trained in faking emotions. That came with being a hunter, you guessed.

The others nodded at you, closed their books & made their way out of the library.

It was 10 pm when you checked the time. As far as you could tell, the entire bunker was asleep, which was good considering the thing you were about to do. Looking over your shoulder, you saw Dean sleeping soundly. Ever since the two of you had started sleeping in one bed, the nightmares were not as frequent anymore. You silently made your way out of your shared room, only taking your phone with you. A few hours prior, you had already prepared an outfit & placed it in the garage. This way, you would not wake anybody. Still, while walking down the halls, you tried to be as quiet as possible, making sure nobody was up & wandering in the bunker. Arriving at the garage, you let out a breath you did not know you were holding. You started thinking now. Was this really the right decision? Everyone else would have said that you were about to commit suicide. On the other hand, you did not really have a choice. If you did not do this, you would die anyway. There was nothing left to lose. Stripping out of your oversized t-shirt you once stole from Dean, you imagined to conversation you were about to have. Then you stopped for a second. What if he decided not to show up at all? He was not able to track you guys, thanks to Cas who burned some sort of marks into your ribs. Throwing on your outfit, you knew you had to give it a try. Just telling him your coordinates, in a prayer, of course. He had to show up. Before the overthinking got the best of you, you tucked your phone in one of your pockets & made your way outside in the chilly air. Due to the adrenaline you felt, you could barely feel the coldness hitting your skin.

After a while of walking, a park bench came into your view. Right at a crossroad. You had never been there but that was what you wanted to achieve. Being as far away from your family as possible. There was not a single car which somehow comforted & scared you at the same time. Seating yourself onto one side of the bench, you fiddled with your hands in your lap. A few deep breaths steadied you & after a couple of minutes, you were sure that you were ready. It was now or never.

“Um...hi, God...Chuck, I mean. Here´s (Y/N), you know, the one who´s with the Winchesters & stuff. I know you can hear me & you´re probably asking yourself why the hell I decided to pray to you. Funny enough, I´m sorta lost. We are, actually. I know you could kill me if I give you my location now but honestly, I don´t really care right now. Look, I just wanna talk, okay? I´m alone here, it´s just me & I hope you are open to talk to me here, Collar Road 16. I´ll be here until the sun starts to rise. If you don´t show up, okay, that´s fine but I would really appreciate it if you decide to come. I´ll be here.” your voice was low, scared that someone would hear you even though you were completely alone. Checking your phone, you had no new notifications. Perfect, you managed to sneak out. It was Chuck´s turn now. The sunrise was hours away so you hoped he would come & talk to you (& not kill you, that would be nice).

Seconds turned into minutes & minutes into hours. You started losing hope. How dumb were you to think God wanted to talk to you when you were literally trying to find a way to kill him?

“Kinda dangerous for you to be here alone, without your boyfriend to protect you, don´t you think?” Chuck´s voice startled you & you looked at him in surprise. Not wanting him to sense your nervousness, you cleared your throat & straightened your posture.

“I can handle myself, thanks for your concern.” smirking at him, his eyes bored into you which sent a shiver down your spine. You felt so uncomfortable under his presence that you almost forgot the reason you two were here.

“Attitude, I see.” he chuckled.

“You were busy, huh? Letting me wait for so long.”

“Actually, no. Just wanted to test your patience.” Chuck had so much fun & your anger started to rise. You knew though, that one wrong word could have you killed so you took a deep breath.

“I wanna talk to you.” you stated the obvious.

“I figured that much. So? Go ahead.” Chuck turned so his body was facing you, signaling you that he was paying attention to what you wanted to get off your chest.

“I´m pretty sure you know about our little...plan to, well, you know...stop you?” the last part came more out as a question, not wanting to cross any lines. He was God after all. He raised his eyebrows, motioning for you to continue.

“I´m not gonna lie, we didn´t find shit, okay? Like, we´re stuck. And I hate the fact that we´re at a point where almost everyone thinks the only solution is to fight each other. Yeah, I don´t agree with everything you did but that doesn´t mean that I´d like to kill you. You´re God, after all, you created this beautiful place which does have flaws, I´m not gonna deny that.” Chuck let out a laugh at that & you kept going.

“I´m tired of keeping this fight up. Hunting the supernatural, I´m fine with, I can deal with that but fighting against you? That´s something I really don´t wanna do.” you rambled. Even tears started forming, you did not want to cry in front of him but you could not hold back any longer.

“Who knows you´re here, talking to me?” he completely ignored everything you just said & earned a confused look from you.

“Really? That´s what matters? Nobody, okay? I didn´t tell anyone because I knew they would try to stop me somehow. Could you, like, give me any reaction to what I told you?” the frustration was audible & the tears now were forming because of his ignorance.

“(Y/N).” he started. “I hope you know that, out of all of them, I like you the most. That´s why I came here, that´s why I let you talk. Would Sam or Dean sit here, I´d kill them, well, obviously making it look like an accident, I´m not dumb. You´re special, (Y/N), you should be grateful you´re still alive. I´ll give you a choice. Either, you start working with me & you´ll see why I act that way or...you´re going back to your boys & we´re officially at war. Just know, if you walk away now, I won´t be as kind. Your decision, darling.” he shot you a smile but stopped when he saw the rage inside your eyes. He thought you would join him, he really did. You knew your answer, though.

“Fuck. You. You. Asshole.” your voice sounded monotone. You could not look at him anymore, all you did was getting up & running away as fast as possible, scared that he might follow you. Obviously, he did not. You made your choice & even though he was mad at you, he knew preparing for the fight was a better idea.

While you were running, the tears streamed down your face. Why were you so upset with Chuck´s answer? It was not like you did not know him & his intentions. You just truly thought you could change him. The sun had already started rising & you just hoped you were not too late. You were not in the mood to come up with a lie when someone of the guys asked you where you were. Forgetting you should enter through the garage because it was way more quiet, you opened the main door, flinching when it squeaked. But before you could even process that, you could hear a rather mad voice from downstairs.

“Look who decided to show up.” Dean sounded so cold, you could barely recognize his voice. Looking down, you saw Sam, Dean, Cas & Jack all seated around the big table in the main room. Shit, you were gone too long. Of course, your day could get worse, amazing.

“Guys, I can explain, I swear.” honestly, you just wanted to win time to think of a lie to tell them.

“Cut the crap, (Y/N)!” Dean almost screamed. “Get down. Now.” his voice was demanding. To be honest, you were never scared of Dean but right now, you could feel yourself shaking.

“Dean, calm down, okay? Let´s talk about it like matures.” Sam always made sure you felt comfortable & right now, he could tell you were frightened.

“Calm down?! Sure, everyone would be completely calm if their girlfriend sneaks out at night & screws another man.”

“Dean? Are you saying I´m cheating on you? Are you serious? After everything you still don´t trust me?” you were full on sobbing, trying to keep yourself together but failing miserably.

“I wish I could say I trust you but it makes sense, really. You being so distant lately & now, sneaking out in the middle of the night, hoping none of us realizes. You´ve got to be a bit smarter, though.” Dean was hurting but he did not dare to show it, wanting you to feel bad.

“(Y/N)? You do owe us an explanation.” Cas´ voice was calm & made you feel a bit more at ease.

“Maybe she should just go back to whoever she was fucking, that´s better for all of us.” Dean said these hurtful words without even looking at you. He hated seeing you break down like that. You were taken aback. Dean, your Dean, wanted you to leave. This was all a big misunderstanding. As much as you hated it, you knew you had to clear things up. If you were about to leave, then at least with making sure Dean knew you were not cheating on him.

“Please...let me explain, please.” pleading, you looked over to Jack but he would not meet your gaze. Your eyes wandered off to Sam´s & he was the most understanding in this situation which you were thankful for.

“Sit down, yeah?” Sam pulled a chair out for you to sit. The others took the chairs opposite of you so you were facing them all. Well, not all, Dean´s eyes were glued to the floor & you could not even be mad at him. You were aware of his trust issues, of course.

“I´ve been distant because we were continuing a work that brought us nowhere. I tried figuring out what we could do to...to keep this upcoming fight away. I knew the only way was to talk to…um, you know, to talk to God.” that made Dean snap his eyes towards you. No, you did not. You looked into his eyes, seeing the disappointment & that hurt you like crazy.

“Um, anyway, I waited until you guys were asleep to go out & talk to him. Obviously far, far away from the bunker, I didn´t wanna bring you guys in danger.” while you said that you made sure to look rigt at Dean so he knew you were mainly talking about him.

“He showed up after I prayed to him. We talked, well, more like I tried to convince him to stop this stupid fight. All he said was that I could join him & work with him or I go back to you guys & the next time he sees us...he´ll kill me, us. Then I started running back home, he didn´t follow me if you´re concerned about that.” you hated how your voice shook trough your words. You were met with a silence but not a bad silence, the faces of Sam, Cas & Jack were full of relief. Mainly because you were alright but also because they knew you just wanted to help. Dean´s expression, on the other hand, you could not quite read.

“We´ll leave you two alone for now.” & with that Sam got up & rubbed your back. He motioned for Cas & Jack to follow him. Now, you were left with Dean only. Not knowing what to do, you decided to speak up.

“I´m sorry, De-.” but you were cut off by his voice, now much softer as earlier.

“He could´ve killed you, sweetheart. He could´ve killed you & I wouldn´t even have had a chance to say goodbye. The thought of losing you scares the shit out of me, okay?” Dean´s eyes were glistening & you felt bad that you were the reason why he felt that way.

“I´m so so sorry. I shouldn´t have done this, I know. I just...I didn´t know another way. I thought we had a chance if I go talk to him. I was wrong & I´m sorry I scared you. And I´m even more sorry that you thought I´d be cheating on you. I love you, Dean. Only you. Forever, I promise.” a few tears rolled down your cheeks & Dean got up, walked over to you & took you in for a long hug. You cried into his shirt, just glad he was with you.

“I know why you did it, I do. You always want to make it easier for us & I appreciate it. Just, next time you have such an idea, promise me you tell us, me at least. Then we can work something out, together, something way safer, okay? Just promise me.” he whispered into your ear, his words carefully chosen, wanting to make sure you knew how much he felt for you.

“I promise, Dean.” you looked up at him only to find his eyes already focused on you.

“I love you, (Y/N).” & with that, he pulled you in for a kiss that showed you how much he cared for you. Maybe you could not convince God but you had the best people & you were sure you would figure something out sooner or later.

Published (06/24/2020) by Cathy

[purple-martin111]

The Sacrifices We Make

Read on Archive of Our Own

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Fallout 4 Rating: Mature Warnings: The Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor Characters: Paladin Danse, Female Sole Survivor, Arthur Maxson, Scribe Haylen Additional Tags: Post-Blind Betrayal, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, Guilt, Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Heavy Angst, Abuse, Mental Health Issues

Chapter 3 - The Road to Righteousness

"Well hold on, my darling This mess was yours, Now your mess is mine" -Mess is Mine, Vance Joy-

“I’ll see you on the other side…”

BANG!

Darkness exploded around her and Jackie shot up from her bedroll.

“Danse?!” She cried, feverishly groping for her rifle or her Pip-Boy, anything to help fend off whatever had jolted her awake.

“Soldier?”  It came out forceful and frantic as Danse clanked through the room, “What is it? What’s the matter?” 

“I-I don’t know... I can’t breathe!”  Jackie panted, her pounding heart threatening to strangle her. “Something’s wrong!” 

Unable to control her racing thoughts, Jackie trembled and clung to her bedroll. She was convinced she’d perish in a fit of hysteria or at the very least, die of embarrassment. In an attempt to conceal her shameful state and regain some semblance of control, she pressed her face into her hands,

“You’re alright.”  

She nearly leapt out of her skin at Danse’s hand on her shoulder and his voice in her ear. So consumed by her irrational fear, she hadn’t even heard him exit his power armor. It stood looming at the edge of the room and Danse... Danse was so near that Jackie was suddenly overwhelmed by all the emotions she’d been trying so hard to bury since leaving the vault. All the pain and heartache, her insurmountable grief, leaked from the little box she’d haphazardly stuffed them away in. 

“It’s not real, you’re safe. It’ll pass, just breathe.” 

Danse had taken a knee beside her and his grip, firm on her shoulder, moored her to reality. At least until she met his gaze and those heartbreakingly familiar brown eyes shattered her sanity. It took everything in her not to clamber into his arms and weep away her troubles. Instead Jackie clutched at his uniform and squeezed her eyes shut to block out the haunting reminder and hold back the tears caught just behind her lids. 

Nate, she missed him so goddamn much it hurt. But Danse...right now, Danse would have to do. She let his soft, calming words sooth her aching heart and slowly the panic subsided. Left with only an echo, Jackie’s hands fall into her lap. Broken and hollow, she grasped at the ghosts of her former life splintering in the parallels of her mind. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and pawed at her face, wiping at tears or the flush of shame she didn’t know. 

“This is common among soldiers.” His hand lingered on her shoulder, a gentle reminder that despite her madness, Danse still had her back. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Jackie just stared at her hands. There was sadness in Danse’s voice, a resonance of understanding that made her wonder about his own mental state. She wasn’t blind. She’d seen how he struggled. How he kept himself endlessly busy, avoiding sleep or rest so he didn’t have to confront his own demons. Danse carried the weight of the wasteland on his shoulders and clearly he cared about her. He was a tough nut to crack, but underneath it all he was kind and a good man. 

All Jackie had done since enlisting was repay his kindness in cruelty. She had been insubordinate at best and nothing short of a cold-hearted bitch at worst. 

“I haven’t treated you fairly,” she admitted, “I’ve been angry and so caught up in myself. You...” she nervously wrung her hands together as she trailed off, “you were an easy target.” 

Danse shifted to lean his elbow on his knee. “Sometimes trauma makes us do things we aren’t proud of.” 

“Doesn’t give me the right to be nasty.” She glanced over at him and was met with the faintest of smiles. 

“Is that an apology I hear, soldier?”  

“I-ah…,” she tittered to herself, “yeah, I suppose it is.” 

Danse continued grinning and knocked his shoulder against hers, "I appreciate the sentiment.” 

She leaned into him, wishing he could give her so much more than just fleeting touches. “Thanks,” she muttered and pulled away before her emotions got the better of her again, “I can take watch if you want.” 

“Negative,” his fingers brushed against her shoulder as he stood to retreat back to his armor, waiting until he was safely encased inside before continuing, “but you can sit with me if you’d like.” 

Just breathe.

Jackie’s chest ached at the recollection of that moment. Danse…he was the only thing worth fighting for in this world, the only thing keeping her breathing. He was her lifeblood and if he died at the hands of the Brotherhood for her mistakes, they might as well kill her too. 

This was her fault. She should have done more, fought harder, told Maxson where he could shove it and walked away. Should have run and never looked back and taken Danse somewhere far away. Somewhere near the sea where they could watch the sunrise and hear the waves crashing upon the sand in the evening. Leave it all behind and allow the Commonwealth to fall to its own demises. Jackie, however, had been selfish and naive in thinking that she and Danse could live in peace without retribution.

Despite her shaking hands and pounding pulse, she refused to be consumed by panic. It rattled her bones, scratching at her skull like the parasite it was, but Jackie pushed herself forward. She forced her feet to carry her across the room to where she had dumped her duffle bag the night before. Hastily, she stripped of her night clothes and plucked a clean uniform from her pack, dressing with little regard to her personal appearance. 

Unkempt and unhinged, her hair was a rat’s nest of wheat colored straw and her face a dirty, tear stained mess, but it would have to do. She would have to do.

With a sigh and a final glance around the room, she jabbed the elevator call button. As she waited for its descent she paced, attempting to formulate a plan. A plan that didn’t involve her solo assault on the Brotherhood stronghold or the very real possibility that she would be forced to murder their Elder. 

Shit. 

Staggered by the consequences of Danse’s actions, she stumbled to a halt. If she intended to survive this, she was going to have to bring down the Brotherhood--alone. If by some stroke of dumb luck she was successful, then what? The Commonwealth would crumble at the sudden power vacuum. 

Dammit Danse! 

Jackie slammed her fist against the elevator door just as it clanged open and she was left standing there, messaging her forehead between her fingers. She didn’t know what the hell she was going to do but she slung her duffle bag over her shoulder and snatched up her rifle nonetheless.  She would make it up as she went and wished to whatever gods were still listening that they didn’t end up dead. 

The elevator made an agonizingly slow ascent to the surface and Jackie prayed that she was wrong. She prayed that Danse had just gone to patrol the perimeter or ventured to a nearby settlement for supplies and he would be waiting for her in the vestibule of the bunker. But, when the elevator finally rattled to the surface, Jackie was greeted with darkness and the stark absence of Danse. 

The bunker entrance was empty, and quiet midsummer twilight greeted her as she stepped out into the wasteland. Her heart skipped a stuttering beat at the sight. Perhaps luck was still on her side because in the cover of night and concealed in her armor, Danse might still be alive.

In the distance, the sun peeked over the horizon, painting the skyline in faint wisps of pink and orange. The sunrise lazily eclipsed the deep blues and black of night while she headed east to the unofficial extraction point. As she walked on, she rooted around in her bag, searching for the signal grenade she’d stashed away in case of emergency. 

It didn’t take long to reach the designated location, a vacant stretch of broken road behind the old ironworks factory. She threw down the signal grenade and watched as the plume of smoke circled up into the heavens. Not so patiently she waited for the distant hum of the vertibird’s engines to break the silence.

Minutes crept by and before long the sun breached the horizon. With it, came the feeling of failure. Not once had she bothered to check in with Danse last night to assess his own mental state. His deteriorating physical health had been an obvious sign of his instability, yet Jackie had failed to acknowledge it. Instead, she burdened him with her insignificant troubles and neglected to reciprocate his kindness. Perhaps if she had, she wouldn’t be in this situation.

She had promised to be there for him, help him heal, and secretly she had vowed to love him. Then in the face of hardship, she’d abandoned him. Jackie couldn’t breathe and before she could stop it, tears were tumbling down her cheeks. She had betrayed him when he had needed her the most. 

The crippling intensity of her guilt sliced at her ribs, threatening to tear her apart. It would have been better, easier for them both, if she had just endured the pain of letting Danse go. Allowed him to move on and live out his days in peace. After everything he’d been through, he at least deserved that much.

The ground groaned beneath her feet as she paced in an attempt to occupy her mind and halt the hemorrhaging of her spiraling thoughts. Her gut churned, bile rising in her throat and she commanded her body to be still. Her urge to vomit quelled just in time to hear the familiar whirl of a vertibird’s engines approaching. Earth and grass whipped about and dirt was violently kicked up with the aircraft’s impending landing. Jackie covered her face with her arms, attempting to shield herself from the dust storm. As soon as the vertibird’s landing gear made contact with the ground she hoisted herself up into the troop load, despite the sickening feeling that still lingered.

A familiar face, clad in aviators and arrogance, greeted her when she clambered inside. It was always the same Lancer who retrieved her. The same pilot who had run transport for Danse and his team and who had taken Maxson to the bunker. He was the only one authorized for extraction from this location and even though words had never been exchanged, Jackie knew he knew and she wondered what price he had paid to keep their secret. 

He handed her a headset as she scooted by to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, the roar of the engines drowned out when she slipped it on. 

“Paladin,” His voice crackled through the earpiece, followed by a terse nod and salute. 

“Geers.” Jackie returned the gesture out of habit. 

For a moment Geers watched her, taking in her obviously disheveled state, but chose not to comment, “Ma’am, you’ve got orders to report to the Command Deck immediately upon arrival.” 

“Wonderful,” she scowled, “who did I piss on this time to be owed the pleasure?” 

A knowing look passed between them before he spoke, “The Elder knows where you go when you disappear.” 

Jackie said nothing and stared at her feet, the knots in her stomach twisting tighter. 

Geers allowed the void of conversation to stretch on before he added, “Maxson thought you weren’t coming back this time.” 

And there it was, the painful reminder of her violation. 

“Yeah, that was the plan, but...” She could feel his eyes on her, pitying her, questioning her. 

“...but what?” he dared to ask.

None of your goddamn business. 

Jackie wanted to snap at him. Put him in his place and maintain the distance held within the chain of command, but she bit her tongue because it was rude and Geers was one of the few people trusted. 

She twisted her hands together and mused her bottom lip. Should she tell him the truth? The truth would likely get him killed so Jackie decided on a half-truth. “There's been a recent development that requires my immediate attention back on the Prydwen.”  

Static hissed in the coms while Geers watched her with a frown hovering upon his brow. “You told him about Maxson...didn’t you?” he pressed her with the demand and sharp angel of his eyes when she didn’t immediately respond. “Jackie--” 

“Just take me back,” she snapped. It wasn’t a request, she was done playing games. Every second she spent dicking around with Geers put Danse at risk, they needed to leave--now.  

Geers cursed under his breath and Jackie could hear the eyeroll as he turned back to jab at the instrumentation panel. 

“Whiskey, golf, echo, seven, this is Lancer-Knight Geers en route to the Prywden.” 

Static droned in her ears, her stomach lurching when he abruptly jerked the stick to get them in the air. 

“Acknowledged, what’s your status Lancer?” the voice on the other end asked. 

“All’s quiet here.” Geers glanced over at Jackie, looking more smug than was appropriate for the situation. “But mission objective delta juliette is a go. Standby and I’ll brief you on our arrival.” 

More static and then finally air traffic control came back, “Roger that. You’ve been cleared for landing in bay two upon your arrival.”

“Roger out,” Geers responded and flipped a switch, cutting out the static.

Jackie regarded him with cinched brows, Geers wasn’t one for formalities. “What was that about?”

“Just…” he shrugged and peered over his sunglasses, “maybe you don’t have to do everything on your own.”

She shifted in her seat to fix him a hard glare. “I don’t think you comprehend the gravity of the situation.”

“And I think you underestimate my power of persuasion.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffed.

“You’ll just have to trust me,” he smirked and turned his attention back to the horizon, “that maybe you--and Danse--still have some friends in the Brotherhood.”

God, she wanted to smack that stupid little grin right off his face. Somehow though, she managed to restrain herself and not feed his ego with the dignity of a response. Instead, she closed her eyes and hoped that whatever half-baked plan Geers had cooked up didn’t get them all killed.

[athingthatwantsvirginia]

linger like a tattoo kiss

chapter two of the peter losing wendy series

*inspired by Taylor Swift’s Folklore*

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Original Character (Liz Walker)

Warnings: mentions of suicide, PLEASE proceed with caution, drinking/partying, smoking, mentions of emotional abuse, does not follow the plot of the canon material

Word Count: 5.4K

Summary: Liz has a run-in with a Kook at a party. JJ, strangely, shows up late.

May 4, 2019

With a headache, Liz awoke, scrunching up her nose at the sound of the rooster out in the chicken coop. The sky was just barely alight with the rising sun, and a chilly morning breeze blew through the screens in the windows. Early May, and summer had still yet to set in. Not a problem to Liz, though. She was always glad to go a few extra weeks without the thick blanket of humidity which began to suffocate the Outer Banks every year by June. Debating whether or not to move, she stared up at the ceiling with tired eyes. There were cracks on the white surface, and a couple brownish water stains from the last tropical storm.

Despite the open windows, John B’s house still smelled stale after a night of debauchery. Empty bags of chips, green glass bottles, and rolling papers littered the rickety dining table. After the party at the Boneyard, the Pogues had migrated back to the Chateau and continued into the darkest hours of the night. Judging from the orangey hue of the sky, they couldn’t have gone to bed more than a couple hours prior. Of course, Kie and Pope had gone back to the Carrera residence, claiming to want to sleep in a ‘real’ bed. Kie could never stand the uncomfortable springs sticking out of the pullout couch mattress, or the mattress in the spare bedroom.

JJ usually got the spare, but both he and Liz had ended up sprawled out on the pullout instead. She would have worried about John B suspecting something fishy going on, but she could hear his faint snores coming from the direction of his bedroom. Not that he would’ve ever raised an eyebrow at seeing them share a bed. Liz was just a textbook worrywart. Besides, the living room was empty save for the two of them after everyone else had gone to bed, when they’d stayed up talking and sharing a final blunt to take the edge off and kissing softly. No; they’d had the whole world to themselves, it had seemed, in the living room of the Chateau in the wee hours of the new spring day. Though she felt silly, Liz couldn’t help letting a small smirk ghost over her lips at the memory of only hours earlier.

After a moment more indecision, she found herself doing her best to rise from the bed without waking JJ. It took more than a few seconds to pluck his arm from where it was draped over her stomach. Drool leaked from the corner of his mouth where his face was smashed up against the pillow. Liz’s smile widened just a bit at the sight. Noticing the goosebumps which rose on her arms at the lack of JJ’s body heat, she grabbed the crumpled gray cardigan from under the pullout mattress. She’d noticed it under there the night before as JJ was sucking on her neck.

Grimacing at the light from the back windows, Liz went up to the kitchen sink and got herself a glass of tap water. There was simply no way she was getting back to sleep with the hangover throbbing behind her eyes. But she didn’t particularly mind with such a beautiful sunrise. She had seen it so many times over the course of her life, on daybreak fishing trips and in the aftermath of long nights, but it always felt like the first time. Through the windows above the sink, she could see the reflection of the warmly painted sky against the water in the marsh. It glistened in small, glowing pearls on the dewy blades of tall grass in John B’s backyard.

As she was setting the emptied glass down in the sink, she felt a pair of arms snake around her waist. She startled, but relaxed into JJ’s touch after a moment. He had barely made any noise at all while padding over to her in his socked feet.

“Fuck, JJ!” she exclaimed quietly, letting out an anxious, breathy chuckle. “Announce yourself, sunshine.”

Not quite yet awake, JJ leaned against her. His head was on her shoulder, eyes closed as he spoke in drowsy slurs.

“Jesus, what time is it?” he asked.

“My name’s Liz, not Jesus. But, hey, we’ve only known each other since we were seven, after all,” she quipped, teasing.

He fought the urge to roll his eyes, eager to lay back down. The flashes across his memory of all the alcohol he’d downed the night before made him a little nauseous. “Gimme a break, Lizzie.”

She snickered, but relented, looking over at the clock on the microwave. “Half past five.”

He groaned in response, shaking his head a bit. “I have to leave for work in like twenty minutes.”

“Shit. Why?”

“Early bird breakfast,” he grumbled.

“That sucks ass,” Liz said. “There’s some aspirin left in the medicine cabinet, I think. If you want to take some before you leave.”

He hummed in acknowledgement. The tank top Liz wore slipped down over her right arm just a bit. JJ pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of her shoulder, on which her small, black and white tattoo of a betta fish peeked out from the neckline of the cardigan. She’d gotten it the day after turning sixteen, with a forged signature on the parental release form. It was the only tattoo she had. Since JJ had begun kissing her, it had become one of his favorite spots. Hers, too. The feather-light pressure of his lips reminded her of the night before, when she’d touched him just as gingerly.

.   .   .

Rarely did Liz arrive at a party before JJ. He was usually the first to run down the beach, leading the way as he helped carry the keg. As he shouted in excitement, she could normally only manage a nervous half-grimace. But JJ was still nowhere to be found fifteen minutes after they’d finished setting up shop. Even the bonfire was lit. The past few days had been dry, and Liz hadn’t encountered too much trouble getting the logs to ignite. She was a former girl scout, and had slowly become the honorary firestarter of the group. She stood next to her creation, a red solo cup in her hand. John B had gone all out, supplying not just a keg but also the materials for mixed drinks. Liz was nursing a vodka-cranberry, taking slow, small sips. She was being careful to pace herself after the sloppy table dance she’d performed a few weeks back.

The late afternoon had just begun bleeding into evening, and the sky had darkened to a strange mixture of pinks and blues. A chilly breeze blew past her as the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and she took a couple more steps towards the heat of the bonfire. Still, she kept a careful distance from the main crowd. Kie had gotten into a conversation with Pope about use of fracking on the mainland as they sat next to each other in the circle around the fire. Liz could see how completely engrossed Pope was in Kie’s words, and if JJ had been there, she would have faked a gag at how cute they were. John B and Sarah, too, were lost in their own world, sharing flirty touches and lingering looks as they manned the keg. Though it had been months since the two had started dating, Liz still wasn’t sure how she felt about Sarah. The ice had melted between the Kook princess and the rest of the Pogues, but Liz just couldn’t bring herself to feel comfortable. Not around a girl who wore necklaces made of solid gold and got her highlights professionally done. The most Liz could afford was a seven-dollar box of dye, but years of practice had served her well. She’d started dying her auburn hair a fiery shade of copper during freshman year, just after her father died, and never looked back.

While she’d been getting ready for the party, she’d decided to channel Halloween, even though it was May. John B and Pope had watched curiously as she donned her black lipstick and smudged eyeliner. Sarah had extended the offer for Liz to come and get ready with her and Kie. But Liz brushed it off. Most of her makeup was at John B’s house, anyway, considering how often she stayed there. Why bring it all the way to the Figure Eight? Liz couldn’t imagine stepping into Sarah Cameron’s room, seeing the closet filled to the brim with designer dresses; velvet and silk and tulle. Especially not when the best Liz could do for a party outfit was an ancient Jimi Hendrix t-shirt and a semi-clean polka dot skirt.

Before she could spiral deeper into the bitter storm in her mind, Liz was pulled from her reverie when someone bumped hard into her shoulder. Liz barely registered what had happened until she felt the lukewarm drink spill down the front of her shirt. The gray fabric on which Jimi Hendrix’s face was printed was splashed right down the front with a deep, pinkish-red stain. Furrowing her brows, Liz looked up to see the Kook girl who had walked into her retreating, barely casting Liz a glance. The girl, who Liz recognized eventually as being called Ally, was struggling to walk on her high heels in the sand, while also typing away on her brand new phone, adorned with a sequined case. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. Maybe it didn’t matter that Ally hadn’t said a word, hadn’t looked Liz’s way, hadn’t apologized. But Liz looked around and found almost no one had seen what happened. John B and Sarah were all the way across the beach, and Liz could see Pope and Kie in a lively debate. JJ had still yet to arrive, it seemed. The t-shirt had been Liz’s father’s, vintage from his youth. And Liz knew it was unlikely such a stain would come out. She saw a flash of red and gripped the plastic cup so hard in her hand that it crumpled.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, as her stomach swirled with nerves and her hands began to shake. She knew she should have just let it go, as she always did. The idea of starting something with a Kook had her heart in her throat. But it was her father’s shirt. Sometimes, she thought she could still smell him when she wore it.

Ally didn’t turn around until Liz called out to her a couple more times. She spun around slowly on her heel, just barely looking up from her phone. Confusion painted her face as she realized who was addressing her. “Yeah?”

“Do you see what you just did to my shirt?” Liz asked, gesturing down at herself, voice raised over the blaring music and the chatter of fellow partygoers. A few people at the edges of the bonfire circle, where Ally had been headed, began to look up at the commotion.

Ally stared blankly at Liz’s shirt for a moment and then shrugged in disinterest. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

Scoffing, Liz let an angry, sardonic smirk cross her face. “Damn, someone should give you an Oscar for that acting.”

“What’s your problem?” Ally asked, finally giving Liz her full attention as her face twisted in disgust.

“My problem is my shirt is ruined,” Liz continued, not knowing exactly what she wanted to get out of the exchange. She only knew that she was pissed, and she hadn’t felt quite so pissed in a long time. It confused her, but the few sips of vodka she’d downed were apparently making her more courageous already.

Ally looked at Liz’s shirt for another moment. “I don’t know. I’d say I did you a favor.”

Liz narrowed her eyes at Ally, who appeared to think the exchange was over and began turning away again. But before she could disappear into the small crowd of onlookers which had formed, Liz grabbed the drink from Ally’s left hand and tossed the mixture onto the girl’s white crop top and mini skirt set. The color was even more vivid against such a light fabric, and it looked like a scene out of a horror movie. A chorus of cliché gasps erupted from the voyeurs standing around, and Pope and Kie had finally gotten wind of the situation. They had yet to intervene, standing with hesitation. It wasn’t like Liz to start fights. Usually, she was the one who ended them. Pope always called her the dependent variable, but she was certainly deviating from the norm tonight.

“Pogue bitch!” Ally shrieked, looking down at her ruined outfit.

Liz only smirked, feigning innocence and shrugging in a mock imitation. She couldn’t help but feel instant satisfaction. “You could always buy new, right?”

Ally’s face grew red with anger at the sound of Liz’s aloof tone. “This was two hundred dollars in New York, you cunt!”

“Tragic,” Liz replied coolly. “You poor baby.”

Ally took a couple threatening steps forward and Liz let out a bark of laughter. She threw the cups in her hands to the side (which she would be picking up as soon as she could, knowing how upset Kie would be if she didn’t). She advanced to Ally and met her eyes. Without the heels, Ally would have been significantly shorter than Liz. With them, she was almost as tall. But it didn’t matter. Liz stared her down like she was a bug about to be squashed.

“You gonna fight me, princess?” Liz asked huskily, feeling the lively fire in her stomach rising in her throat. Her smirk was ever-present, joyless. “Do it. Fight the Pogue cunt. See how that works out for you.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Ally said. She wasn’t quite scared, only surprised. Her brow was crinkled analytically. All this over a t-shirt.

“Oh, am I?” Liz asked, eyes wide in askance and mocking.

“Yeah. Just like your daddy,” Ally replied viciously, letting a smugness come over her face. She had recognized Liz only a few moments prior. On such a small island, word of tragedy got around. Most everyone knew about the girl whose father was found dangling from a beam in the attic. The audience made a sound of shock and awe.

Feeling her stomach do another flip, Liz clenched her hands into tight fists at her sides. Her nails began to cut into her palms. Just as she was launching herself forward, ready to hit someone for the first time in many years, she felt herself being pulled clumsily away by the shoulders and the waist. She struggled in the hold for only a moment, before she saw Ally retreating back to her friends and heard Kie yelling in her ear to calm the hell down. Sarah and John B were running over, the entire beach now aware something was going on.

“Let me go, Pope! I’m fine!” Liz yelled, tearing his arms from her sides and feeling freer at the release. Even though it was Pope, she still couldn’t help the panic which bubbled up within her from being restrained.

“What the hell was that?” John B asked as he came over, Sarah trailing behind.

“Why do you care? Why don’t you go fuck your girlfriend?” Liz snapped coldly.

A pit of regret immediately sank in her stomach. Her entire body was flushed and adrenaline pulsed through her. Even if John B was pretty much her brother, she couldn’t help but let all her negative feelings about everyone mix into an indecipherable rage. Not her father’s shirt. Not some lousy Kook calling her father crazy. She simply couldn’t handle it. Sure, she knew people whispered comments to each other when she walked down the street. She knew the Kooks talked shit about her behind her back. But to her face was something else entirely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John B said, taken aback by the outburst.

“Just forget it, alright?” Liz sighed, breathing harshly. “I’m sorry...I’m just...my fucking shirt!”

Kie tilted her head at Liz in confusion, bringing a gentle hand to her shoulder. “Why-“

Liz shrugged her off. “I said forget it! Can someone please just get me a new drink?!”

Recoiling, Kie stepped away and plucked the cups from where Liz had tossed them in the sand. Liz wanted so badly to make a full apology. She really did. And she would, once they got back to the Chateau. But she felt almost incapable at the moment, stewing with such uncharacteristic rage.

Silence and doubtful looks were exchanged, but eventually Sarah volunteered to go get Liz the drink and John B followed, tossing concerned glances over his shoulder at Liz as they went. She thanked them quietly, embarrassed, but then yelled after them, requesting they keep the cranberry juice to a minimum. Not much more than a chaser.

“Are you sure-” Pope began, but he stopped immediately when Liz locked eyes with him. She meant business. No more fun and games.

“Not tonight, okay, Pope?” she asked, a pleading, tired crack in her voice. It made Pope want to say more, but Liz cut him off again with another exclamation as she began walking away. “Where the fuck is JJ?!”

.   .   .

Down the beach from the party, Liz could barely see the orange glow of the fire past the crowd. She was still nursing her vodka-cranberry, a bit buzzed but not nearly enough to forget what had happened. Her eyes were burning with tears, but whenever she felt herself truly welling up, she would stop it. She’d sniff and look up at the sky until her eyes were dry. It was clear, and she could see the swirl of the stars so vividly against the pitch-black sky. Humming a Nirvana song under her breath, she sat with her arms on her knees, one hand clasped around the opposite wrist. The drink on her shirt had long since dried, but she was still chilly in the ocean wind. She’d thought about going back to the Chateau, but decided she didn’t have the energy to make the walk alone. Instead, she’d gone a good distance down the shore, and sat a few inches up from where the tide was coming in. The moon shone silver on the waves, and the sight of it almost made her feel better. But it didn’t.

She was only sad and tipsy. In her solitude, her mind wandered to her mother and father. To her siblings. She wondered what her mother was doing, probably already asleep. A bottle of Jack somewhere near the bed. It made Liz feel guilty for getting buzzed, but she only downed more of the drink in an effort to get the feeling to disappear. Her sisters, too, she wondered about. They didn’t call much, and she didn’t blame them. The oldest two were off at college on the mainland, living separate lives with their scholarships. The other, Nicole, checked in even less reilably. Last Liz heard, she was somewhere in New Mexico finding herself. And Liz was where she had always been, spending her nights at home cleaning up after her mother, sitting through tearful diatribes about what a saint her father had been. Biting her tongue through her mother’s lies. She was glad the Chateau had become the place to rest her head since her father’s death. Had she been forced to stay at home every night, she imagined she would have run off long ago.

JJ strode up to her with his hands in his pockets, hat backwards on his head as usual. He sat down next to her without a word, carrying his own cup. Liz didn’t startle at his presence. Instead, she only breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but he was more than late.

“Contemplating the mysteries of the universe?” he asked, a small smile on his face.

She chuckled humorlessly, clearing her throat and sniffing. “Not quite. Just thinking about Kurt Cobain.”

“Well, no wonder you’re down here all angsty and alone, hot stuff,” he teased, but when he spoke again his voice was more solemn. “JB said you got in a fight with a Kook.”

“He’s a drama queen. I didn’t fight her,” Liz said, staring out at the ocean still. The breeze was cold but welcome, clarifying, and she took in a deep breath through her nose. “Ally spilled her drink on me. And then she said some shit about my dad...it was nothing.”

“Sure doesn’t look like nothing,” JJ said, eyeing the stain across Jimi Hendrix’s face in the dimness.

She snorted a laugh, looking down at herself. “Maybe not. But I was going for a Patrick Bateman thing tonight, anyway.”

JJ sighed, licking at his lips. He debated arguing, maybe even getting fired up enough to go find some random Kook in retaliation. But he didn’t. He knew how she hated when he fought. Instead, he only took off his hat, pulled his sweatshirt over his head and went to hand it to her.

“You’re cold,” he said insistently, watching her shiver in the nighttime wind. She still hadn’t looked over at him, only staring out blankly at the waves. “And your shirt looks like you just went all Mrs. Crain on someone.”

After a long moment, she nodded, taking a final sip of her drink and then placing the cup down on the sand beside her. She still didn’t look over at him as she put it on. It warmed her up instantly.  The smell of JJ, Old Spice and weed and smoke, mixed with the ocean breeze. The wind blew past her again, the tips of her red hair just brushing her shoulders. She would have to cut it again soon. Since she was little, she could never handle her hair getting longer than her collarbones. It was just too much effort.

With JJ’s sweatshirt on, she wasn’t nearly as freezing.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, red,” he replied easily, taking another sip of his drink.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked quietly, trying her best not to sound needy. “We got here, like, three hours ago.”

“Oh, you know. Just robbing a bank or two,” he quipped.

She rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. Her face fell, though, when she finally ventured a full glance at him. In the moonlight and the distant glow of the bonfire, she could see the cut on his cheek which was still oozing blood.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, placing gingerly fingers on his jaw so he would face her. But his eyes didn’t quite meet hers.

“I’m fine, Lizzie,” he muttered, swatting her hand away.

“Who did that to you?” she asked softly, tilting her head at him.

JJ shrugged. “Just ran into Rafe on the way over. I would’ve called, but I figured I should clean up a little so you wouldn’t freak out when you saw me. I guess that was a waste.”

She shook her head a little. “That motherfucker.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. You should see the other guy,” JJ continued, smirking though it didn’t reach his eyes.

Liz breathed out a sigh and thought about asking more, but didn’t. Instead, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss on the apple of his cheek, the skin around the cut already bruising a deep purple. Her black lipstick had long since been wiped off, after her scuffle with Ally. Before JJ had arrived, she’d used the inside of her shirt to rub furiously at her face. Her lips were sore and pinkish, but soft against JJ’s skin.

Fighting to keep the shine of tears from his blue eyes, JJ let a small giggle slip. If his father’s fist had been a scream, her kiss was a whisper. It was so gentle he could barely contain himself, his heart skipping a beat. “Feels better already.”

“Does it?” she asked, pulling away with a tiny smile.

He hummed in confirmation. Tossing a glance over his shoulder at the party, he shifted closer to her. The kiss that followed was heated and hungry, both tasting vodka on each other’s tongues. Liz wasn’t surprised JJ was a bit buzzed as well. If she knew John B, he had shoved a drink in JJ’s hand as soon as he saw his eye. JJ was hard to read at times, but alcohol or weed were always surefire ways to cheer him up. And John B always made himself the captain of the party and the guests’ happiness.

Liz was out of breath, but she still smiled against JJ’s  lips. As fishy as his late arrival was, she was just happy to see him. Simple as that. In the weeks since they’d gone from friends to something more, she’d found herself thinking of him always. What he was doing, how he was feeling, whether he was thinking of her too. Usually, he was.

Away from the party, she could kiss him like she meant to, nowhere near the lingering eyes of her friends. No one else in the world knew but the two of them, not even the other Pogues. While the inter-group macking rule had long since been broken, there were other reasons to keep the secret. Sure, everyone had always said they belonged together. But neither of them were ready to let it be known to the world. Truthfully, Liz feared the pit of dread in her stomach, worrying over what would happen to their friendship if whatever they were doing fizzled out, would only grow heavier if everyone knew. JJ’s hand slipped beneath the soft sweatshirt and the stained t-shirt as they kissed, though. And, for the moment, Liz forgot all of her worries.

.   .   .

Despite everything, Liz found herself laughing wildly in the back of Twinkie, the rear doors opened. As she sat on the edge of the car’s floor, the carpeting plush against the backs of her thighs, she watched JJ dancing beneath the streetlight. They’d decided to head back to the Chateau, not particularly in the mood to deal with the Kooks who had ventured over to the other side of the island for the rest of the night. John B had thrown JJ the keys while they were still on the beach, instructing his friend to head to the car while he gathered Sarah, Kie, and Pope up. Liz looked more freezing by the minute, and while Twinkie’s heating wasn’t optimal, it was better than braving the ocean wind. John B was partial to being the designated driver, especially on the night of such a big bash. And, of course, especially when they already had supplies for an after party set out on his kitchen table.

Instead of huddling down in the trunk with Liz though, JJ took advantage of the pleasant, alcohol-induced flush warming his skin. He danced along to the Elvis tune playing from the radio in his cutoff Levis. The keys were in the ignition while the car sat in park, the heat blasting and the engine whirring quietly. Liz had heard the song many times on her father’s records. JJ gyrated his hips, ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to create a sloppy pompadour. He wasn’t very drunk, still coordinated enough to make a real show of it.

“Just take a walk down lonely street, to the heartbreak hotel,” JJ sang along, curling his lip in a decent imitation.

Liz snorted and rolled her eyes at his theatrics, but giggled along. Ever since they were little, JJ was always performing, mostly for her. A strange sense of nostalgia washed over her as he watched him, under the makeshift spotlight in the inky blue midnight. Down below, the party raged on, but neither Liz nor JJ took notice any longer. For the moment, it was just the two of them. Eventually, the song faded away and JJ finished his impression. Liz clapped a few times, slow and almost mocking. Pouting at the lackluster response, JJ sat down heavily next to her and put his head on her shoulder. The laughter would suffice to please him; he’d only done the dance to cheer her up, after all, guilty he hadn’t been at the party earlier, when she’d needed him. But he whined playfully, nonetheless.

“Tough fucking crowd.”

“I’m just kidding, sunshine. You were just like the king, alright?” she said, starting to sober up but still focusing on the tingling of her skin at the drinks and his touch. Slinging an arm around his shoulders, she brought him closer and kissed the crown of his head affectionately.

.   .   .

Rolling to a stop, Liz leaned her bike against the oak tree and ran her hands through her hair. It was greasy, and she decided she needed to shower before her lunchtime shift at the Wreck. It was a double, but she’d be back at John B’s by nine, with plans for a chill movie night. Kie and Pope probably wouldn’t make it, more eager for alone time in recent months. But there would still be the four of them. After they all went to bed, Liz could pad over from the pullout couch in the living room to JJ’s bed, as she’d made a habit of doing in the past few weeks. Though she was always annoyed with such a long shift, especially when the damn Tourons were starting their vacation season, it was good to know there was something to look forward to at the end of the day.

The sun was high in the sky, having risen fully, as she ascended the creaky porch steps into her house. The wind chimes near the door jingled quietly in the slight breeze. Doing her best to shut the rusty screen door silently behind her, Liz jumped when she saw her mother already up and having her coffee at the kitchen table. Usually, she was still out cold.

“Hey, mom,” Liz said, forcing a weak smile on her lips. She slipped her backpack from her shoulders and set it down next to the door. Then, she tugged her shoes off and went towards the kitchen.

“Oh, hi,” her mother muttered, yawning, looking up from her paper and over the reading glasses on her nose at her daughter.

Ruth Walker was lately a quiet woman, but still remained every bit as incisive as she had been before her husband died. She watched as Liz poured herself a mug of black coffee, dressed in her cardigan and one of JJ’s t-shirts. Only her skirt was the same from the night before. Liz had been careful to make sure she left her ruined t-shirt at John B’s. The sight of it might have been enough to make her mother burst into tears. Liz’s hair was back in a low ponytail, and Ruth immediately noticed the dark mark peeking out from the neckline of the t-shirt.

“Guess it was a fun party,” Ruth said, eyebrows raised but voice mostly disinterested.

Liz furrowed her brows at her mother’s tone, taking a sip of the coffee and turning to face her. “Hm?”

“That love bite on your neck,” Ruth explained, staring at the hickey.

Immediately, Liz flushed scarlet. She was glad she had left just after JJ, as the rest of the Pogues were still snoring. Certainly, someone would have noticed. They were usually careful, but as high as she and JJ were, she wasn’t entirely surprised they had gotten a bit carried away. She didn’t have time to stutter out a response before her mother continued.

“Just make sure he’s clean. And please don’t get pregnant,” Ruth said, sighing slightly. “Girls your age know nothing about nothing. We can’t add another mouth to feed into the mix. I don’t need that right now.”

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Liz looked down into her coffee and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I won’t. You know I won’t.”

Shrugging, Ruth went back to her paper. From her spot leaning against the sink, Liz couldn’t quite make out what her mother was reading, but she knew what it was anyway. Especially since her mother held a red pen in her left hand. She was circling real estate listings from the Figure Eight. Houses they could never even dream of living in. Swallowing harshly, Liz tried not to think too hard about what her mother was doing and instead straightened her back, about to head to the bathroom.

“So, mom, I’m gonna shower and then head to work. I’m probably gonna stay at John B’s again tonight. And maybe a few more nights after, since John has-”

“Fine,” Ruth said flippantly, not bothering to listen to her daughter’s rambled reasonings. “Make good choices.”

Ruth didn’t look up from her paper as she spoke. Liz waited a minute for more, then finally made her way towards the small hallway when her mother kept silent.

[olliethealright]

Three Steps From Home: Update 4

Hey everyone! Long time, no see! Basically, I’ve been unmotivated for the past month or so, and as a result I’ve barely touched my socials. Good news, I’ve written the next eleven or so chapters of my WIP, and it’s almost doubled in word count lol. I don’t want to do a full sized update on every chapter because that would take a stupidly long amount of time, so I’m just gonna summarize and then give a little excerpt (this ended up being chapters 11-16) Not every quote has a picture because I am a tad lazy lol. Enjoy! 

Trigger Warnings: Emotional abuse, toxic relationships, homophobia, self harm, suicide, mental health, drug use, religious content

Disclaimer: Please don’t steal my words, ideas, characters, etc.

chapter eleven - problem child - 2118 words

theme song - if i get high - nothing but thieves

summary: Jude and Aaron have one last dinner with Jude’s mother before moving to Seattle. Shit goes down, Jude’s father is addressed, Jude’s mom has an anti-religious experience, everyone is upset. 

except - Jude thinking about his family before his dad left

I was two months from finishing my Junior year as a top student, six from applying to every out of state school I could think of, fourteen from leaving everything and never coming back. From the outside, the Alvarez-Carter family was a model of the American dream; we took family photos everywhere we went and cooked each other dinners on alternating days of the week. We  attended every house party, where my mother exchanged gossip like trading cards and my dad sipped Bud Light from a bottle and played cornhole. At those same parties, I flirted shamelessly with every girl in the vicinity, then cited my religion as the reason I wouldn’t do more than exchange pretty words.

The night dad left wasn’t the first time my parents fought in front of me, but it was the night they shattered the already paper thin barrier they had held between me and their issues. I never knew who started it, never knew who threw the first punch, but I knew who delivered the killing blow.

chapter twelve - golden days - 854 words

theme song - ribs - lorde,  also chelsea - phoebe bridgers 

summary: Aaron and Jude move into their new apartment, very light airy vibes, Jude idealizing everything, Aaron and Jude being adorable (yeah can you tell nothing actually happens in this one lmao). 

excerpt - Aaron and Jude leaving Montana

A taxi dropped us off at the Amtrak station the next morning. Our breath rose in front of us on the platform, I tiled my head back and tasted the sunlight; sweet and overflowing with new beginnings. Maybe, I’d be lucky enough to catch one for both of us. 

chapter thirteen - unholy creation - 900 words

theme song - reflections - the neighborhood

summary: Aaron’s mental health takes a turn, Jude is worried but has no idea what to do, Jude and Aaron fight for no good reason

excerpt - a description of Aaron falling off several wagons 

You were a shell of fragile bones and sharp edges when I wrapped an arm around you during a scary movie or curled against your chest late at night. You started wearing a flannel or a sweatshirt over every outfit, an extra layer to hide your ribs and hip bones and elbows, so sharp they could cut through glass. I stopped holding you so tight, afraid of the snap of calcium or cartilage or spirit.

okay one more because I like this chapter haha - Aaron getting mad when Jude asks about his parents

“It’s not about them, alright? I’m not going to talk about them because they’re not part of my life, they don’t control anything. Stop asking about them because they don’t matter, and I wouldn’t tell you if they did.”

You said the words like a chant, a litany, like you were the one who needed convincing. I pictured my mother in her dark dining room, palms up to God, praying for a miracle. You looked like her then, all the fear and anger coming out in one jumble of meaningless words. I flinched away when I should have stood my ground.

chapter fourteen - (has a title but I hate it) - 674 words

theme song - fear of falling asleep - TENDER  

summary - Jude has a mental breakdown, Aaron buys him sleeping pills and then takes them himself, they (kind of) fight, everything is toxic

excerpt - Jude watching Aaron sleep (it’s a weird chapter)

You took my meds that night, I cheeked them until you turned your back, then spit them into the dishwater and washed them down with green suds and scraps of tofu and rice. An hour later, you were passed out in our bed, skeletal limbs stretching out like the fragile branches of a birch tree. I watched as your chest rose and fell, dappled in moonlight and the neon buzz of constant electricity. For a few moments at a time, I convinced myself that your steady rhythm of in-and-out had stopped, I watched as you left this world and then came back. I couldn’t tell how much time was in between.

chapter fifteen - forest, electric (aka my favorite chapter in the book?) - 1279 words

theme song - are you bored yet - wallows 

summary - in an attempt to renew their relationship, Aaron takes Jude on a hike to a construction site in the middle of the night. The two sit on the roof and watch the sunrise. 

excerpt - starting the adventure

We walked four blocks south to meet our Uber, then set off down the winding streets of the city. It was one in the morning and if I looked close enough, I could convince myself I had woken up in a ghost town. Or maybe I was stuck in dreamland, where my boyfriend was perfect and everything I saw was real and I didn’t have to negotiate with myself when I needed an hour or two of rest.

excerpt - the end of the chapter that I just really like

We didn’t talk about our problems that night; we pretended I wasn’t sick and you weren’t hooked. That night, my mother didn’t hate you, we visited your parents once a year during glamorous Scottish vacations, we weren’t runaways. We dangled our feet over the edge of the roof, neither of us thought about jumping, about how our stomachs would drop faster than our bodies, about the inevitable crush of bones and life that awaited at the bottom.

That night, we leaned into each other and locked our hands and whispered ‘I love yous’ until a band of pink and orange lit the horizon and we realized we would get caught if we stayed much longer. We walked the two miles home and fell asleep curled in each other’s arms an hour before your 7:00AM alarm, two before you would leave the apartment again, eight before you would return home just before your high wore off.

I knew all these realities to be true at once, so I breathed in cologne and coffee grounds, took a picture in my head so that image of you, asleep and unaddicted and bathed in the sunrise, would stay with me forever.

chapter sixteen - gods and monsters - 1378 words

theme song - freakin out on the interstate - briston maroney 

summary - Aaron and Jude’s friends come over for the Fourth of July, Aaron comes home drunk and makes his friends leave, Jude’s friend tells Jude to break up with Aaron, Jude refuses 

excerpt - Jude convincing himself that everything is fine when it is clearly not fine (aka the theme of the book and also should probably be the title)

You were sallow and gaunt, your hair was greasy, your breath smelled of vomit and alcohol and whatever else you had taken. You were a monster in our bed, but I could feel that lazy half smile against my skin. I could close my eyes and see you sitting in that tea shop, long limbs sprawled over the pillows, the sun on your skin making you glow like a god.

That image of you couldn’t lie, not when I had lived that moment, not when it had been so beautiful. I wouldn’t leave you because you would be alright and this would pass. You convinced me everything would look better in the morning, all our problems would fade with the rising sun.

You were wrong. They didn’t.

Okay, this is getting way too long so I’m gonna end it here! Thank you so much if you actually read all that! If you want more information on any chapter, just message me and I will do that. The update on the last few chapters of the first draft should be out somewhat soon, and I may or may not have a new WIP coming up :)

ALSO, it has come to my attention that most people have these things called taglists? And I don’t have one? If you wanna be on mine for this project, or any future projects, message me or repost this and I will make one. Thank you for reading!

-Ollie

[prince--thomas]

BDRPwrimo -- Day 10

Write a one-shot about your character’s family.

Red Sky in the Morning

[tw: death, suicide, hanging, thoughts of death/suicide, murder, mention of blood]

Da -- 2007

The day his father dies, the sunrise is bloody red. Tom sits at his window and watches it rise, having not slept the night before. Summer storms had crashed against the shore and sent the wind whistling through the castle corridors. Eloise tells him it's a banshee before cackling as she leaves his room and skips down the hallway. Tom is too old to sleep in his parents room, so he sits in bed all night with the covers pulled up to his chin, telling himself that he would have to protect them all, if it is a banshee. 

He's the man of the house while his father is away, but Tom hates it. It’s too much responsibility for his skinny shoulders. 

“Tommy,” says his mother when she appears in his doorway. She’s still in her nightgown. She looks as pale as a ghost, her red hair falling out of its messy bun. Her feet are bare on the cold stone floor. Tom can’t stop staring at her feet, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen them before. His ma is always dressed elegantly and its too cold in the castle not to wear your shoes.

“Where are your shoes, ma?” Tom asks as he turns from his window fully. She walks further into the room and pulls Tom into her lap. He’s still small enough that he fits, but too big to want to be there. Something tells him, though, not to fight her. Instead, he wraps his arms around her shoulder and tucks his chin over her shoulder. 

“Your father was killed last night,” his mother’s voice says in his ear. “It was a banshee on the moors. I’m so sorry, macushla.”

Tom feels his mother shudder with a sob and he clings to her more tightly. Out his window he can see the sunrise painting the ocean in a swath of blood.  

Rosie -- 2009

It’s early in the morning, the sun cracking like an egg over the horizon when Peter texts Tom to tell him that Primrose is dead. For years after this, Tom resented Peter for those three words, delivered cold and factual, but once he gets older, and it's his tongue that has to do the telling, he understands why. That morning, though, Tom doesn’t understand. He grips his phone tight in his fist and then, calls Phil. 

Phil doesn’t answer, so he calls John.

The line is busy, but as soon as he hangs up it rings again--John calling him back. They sit on the phone in silence and feel too old for their small bodies. Tom can drive. Not legally mind you, but grow up on a farm without your father and you learn quickly. He’s been driving tractors and trailers since he was tall enough to reach the pedals. 

It takes him three hours to get to John’s and another two after that to get to Phil’s. By the time they get there, the sun is high in the sky, but it’s too late for either of them to do anything. Tom decides that is the worst part of death: forever feeling as if you are late to something that has already happened. 

Clemens -- 2011

Olivia calls Tom first. Before his mother. Before Eloise. Before Clemens’ family.

When she finds him, hanging from the rafters in their bedroom, she calls Tom. 

This is the first time that Tom is the first to know when someone has died. There have been other announcements through the Order that Tom has received first: births and successful hunts. As the only living male in his household, he is the point of contact for all important decisions. His mother has taught him how to handle all manner of news, but the suicide of your brother-in-law is not something you can ever be taught to handle. 

The Order does not commit suicide. 

Tom’s first thought is that his sister’s reputation is ruined. The second is for her children. The third is for Clemens himself. 

Later, when he thinks back on this moment, he thinks about that first thought and wonders if it should have been different. If he should have been more concerned about something else. If he had reacted differently--better--maybe his sister would not have changed. The far off look in her eye would have stayed away and the echo of her sobs over the phone, her shaking voice (what do I do, Tom? What do I do?) would not haunt him.

Tom doesn’t know what to do, but he knows that’s not what he’s supposed to say. He sits up straighter in bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Don’t worry, Liv, he tells her, I’ll take care of it. 

Tom looks out the window after hours of making the necessary phone calls across the Order. The sun rises; the color of poppies.

Eric -- 2019

It’s a week before Christmas the morning that the sky rises the color of mistletoe. 

The phone rings and Tom knows what it is before he answers. He doesn’t know who, but he knows why. By the time Tom is in his twenties, he’s dealt with more death than most. It’s a hazard of the job, everyone says. It’s an honor to die protecting others. 

This time, though, it doesn’t make any sense. Eric wasn’t even twenty, yet. Not even a Prince. And now he’s lost at sea. Dead, at sea. 

Tom breaks tradition. Instead of gathering his family (which wouldn’t be hard, everyone is home for the holidays; he can hear his nieces squealing with laughter, the sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen, the sweet smell of oatmeal drifting through to the hallway, where Tom has stepped to take the call), he slips out of the castle and trudges down to the shoreline. The waves are crashing against the shore with a temper. Teeth bared and mouth foaming. Tom stares out over the horizon as the salt water stings at his eyes. 

He wonders if he can keep this to himself, so he doesn’t have to watch his family’s faces fall once more, as if Tom is letting them down. 

Cole -- 2019

It’s three days after Christmas, the morning that the sky rises the color of mulled wine. Tom wipes blood from the blade of his father’s sword alone, in the shadow of the castle, on the same stool he uses to milk the cows. He hasn’t slept all night. His finger reaches out to touch the clean steel. It barely touches before he’s sliced it open, but he’s not surprised.

Tom found out how easily the sword cut through human flesh last night. 

He presses the wound against his thumb and feels his heartbeat there. Tom wonders: if he dies, who would take the call? Who would shoulder the burden? 

[seducetheimagines]

You Will Not Go Astray (Trigger Warning!)

Ship: Damien/Reader

Warning: Self-harm, suicidal thoughts

Notes: This is based on my experiences! If you feel like hurting yourself and you are in need of serious help, call your emergency number! Crisis text line: Home to 741-741 Suicide Hotlines Around The World: http://suicide.org/suicide-hotlines.html Suicide Survivor Support Groups: http://suicide.org/suicide-support-groups.html

You were known to the incubi brothers as the toughest person in the world. They would describe you as tough and understanding but four out of the five brothers didn’t know that you suffer greatly from depression. It was challenging for you to even focus in school because you barely had enough energy to even pay attention. You didn’t have the energy to even care.

Hiding in the stall in the school’s bathroom, you stared at the blade in your hand. You just wanted to feel something. You pulled up your sleeve and stared at the scars that littered your arm. Well, it was time to add more. Gliding the blade against your skin multiple times, you watched as blood trickled along your arm and you were careful not to get blood on the floor. Getting some toilet paper, you carefully cleaned the blood up and threw the toilet paper into the toilet and flushed it. You then pulled out a gauze pad and some bandages and bandaged your arm up before rolling down your sleeve.

The day went like usual after that. You almost fell asleep in your anatomy class because you are up during the night, crying. Things were complicated and you didn’t know what to do. Soon, the end of the day came along and you put your books in your locker, grabbing your bag and shut your locker before leaving. You didn’t want the incubi brothers to know what you do to yourself but you didn’t know that Damien knew already.

Walking inside the mansion, you gave Matthew a faint smile as he greeted you but as soon as your back was to him, you dropped the smile and went upstairs to your room. Matthew frowned at this. You normally hung out with them on the first floor but now you were always hiding away in your room.’What’s going on with her?’ Matthew wondered as he walked into the dining room to inform the others.

Fear not this night

You will not go astray

Though shadows fall

Still, the stars find their way

Awaken from a quiet sleep

Hear the whispering of the wind

Awaken as the silence grows

In the solitude of the night

“Well, maybe she just wants alone time?” James suggested from the kitchen.

 “We all need time to ourselves once in a while,” Matthew added to James’ statement with a shrug.

“If someone’s fucking with her, I’m gonna blow their brains out,” Sam grumbled.

“I believe I know what’s going on,” Damien piped up softly. “But I think it’s best to not interfere. (Y/n) is a victim of self-harm and depression. I think we should all show her that we’re here for her no matter what.”

“I agree!” Matthew chimed in with a grin. “What I’ve learned from being up here for so long is that self-harm can lead to hospitalization or death.”

“No shit, Matthew,” Sam grumbled again and James gave him a look.

“We should probably make her some food and some tea,” Erik suggested.

“Damien, can you go check up on (Y/n)? Sam, Matthew, Erik, and I will prepare dinner and some tea for Miss (Y/n).” James requested and Damien nodded quietly before getting up and heading upstairs. 

Darkness spreads through all the land

And your weary eyes open silently

Sunsets have forsaken all

The most far off horizons

Nightmares come when shadows grow

Eyes close and heartbeats slow

You didn’t know what to do. You were failing and the whole school, minus Suzu and Naomi, hated you. Your journal in your lap and a pen in your hand, you were scribbling something down, scars and fresh cuts from earlier showing, when there came a soft knock on your door. You quickly threw a jacket on and closed your journal before hiding it.

“Uh - come in!” You called out, straightening out your shirt. A faint click came from the door and it opened, revealing that the knock came from Damien.

“D-Damien!” You put on a smile. “What’s up?” The saddened look in his eyes made the smile on your face drop. “W-What’s the matter?” You asked softly as Damien approached you and grabbed your hands, causing you to jump at how warm his hands were compared to yours. Damien sat down on the bed across from you and looked you dead in the eye with a comforting gaze as you then looked down, ashamed. “You know, don’t you…?”

Damien sighed as he let go of your hands and lightly reached over, lightly starting to pull your jacket down your arms. You looked away with a look of shame in your eyes as he removed your jacket, revealing both new and old scars. Seeing these scars saddened him and you couldn’t help but break down into tears.

“I’m sorry, Damien!” You cried out between sobs. “I don’t know what else to do besides hurting myself! I can’t stop!” Hearing this made him sigh sadly and pull you into his arms, which made you wrap your arms around him and sob into his shirt.

Fear not this night

You will not go astray

Though shadows fall

Still, the stars find their way

And you can always be strong

Lift your voice with the first light of dawn

Dawn's just a heartbeat away

Hope's just a sunrise away

As you sobbed, Damien rubbed your back and let you cry it all out. “You will not go astray, (Y/n).” His gentle voice broke your thoughts. Right. You forgot that he could read minds. “You will be found if you ever do. Wherever you are, we are sure to follow. We’ll come running to find you. You are never alone. We’re all here for you.” He spoke softly, your grip tightening on the back of his shirt.

Distant sounds of melodies

Darting through the night to your heart

Auroras, mists, and echoes dance

In the solitude of our life

Pleading, sighing arias

Gently grieving in captive misery

Darkness sings a forlorn song

Yet our hope can still rise up

Nightmares come when shadows grow

Lift your voice, lift your hope

Damien spent the time to comfort you. Although it was a while since he was downstairs, the other men understood. They knew it was tough to deal with this sort of thing and it was draining. They couldn’t stand by and watch you fall victim to your demons. They were hurt to see you hurt yourself. Damien was willing to stay as long as you needed him. He cared about you too much to stand by and let you suffer.

Soon, you settled down and relaxed in his arms as you closed your eyes, tired from what felt like hours of crying into Damien’s arms. Something about him made you feel calm and collected. Feeling you relax in his arms made Damien smile a little bit. He was glad you trusted him, along with the others. He decided to stay with you until you fell asleep, which only took a couple of minutes. He then got up carefully and let you sleep, creeping back down the stairs to meet back up with the others. 

Fear not this night

You will not go astray

Though shadows fall

Still, the stars find their way

And though the night sky's filled with blackness

Fear not, rise up, call out and take my hand

Fear not this night

You will not go astray

Though shadows fall

(Still, the stars find their way)

“How is she?” Matthew asked as soon as he spotted his brother, worry in his tone and expression. Damien let out a sigh in return.

“She’s so exhausted. It breaks me to see that she’s in so much pain.” Damien responded softly and shook his head. “How’s everything going?” He asked, peeking into the kitchen. James and Erik were making the food and tea like they said they would. Although everyone was more worried about you, they knew they would take care of you.

Hours pass and you were awoken by a faint shake. Letting out a groan and taking a deep breath, you rubbed your eyes and slowly opened them to find Matthew laying on his stomach, his arm on your side and his legs hanging off the bed. This made you smile as you tucked some of the man’s hair behind his ear. 

“Hey, Matt.” You croaked out softly. All that crying strained your voice. Matthew grinned at the greeting and got up, gently grabbing your hand as you sat up. 

“C’mon, (Y/n)! We have a surprise for you!” He peeped softly as to not startle you as you stretched before getting up. You followed him down the stairs and into the kitchen to where you were greeted by an amazing array of food and the calming smell of your favorite tea. This kind of action almost made you cry.

“Awe….you guys!” You smiled softly.

“We realized how down you have been and we wanted to let you know that we are forever here for you but we were not sure how to express it,” James started with a small smile.

“So, we made this!” Matthew chirped with a grin. 

Fear not this night

You will not go astray

Though shadows fall

(Still, the stars find their way)

And you can always be strong

Lift your voice with the first light of dawn

Dawn's just a heartbeat away

Hope's just a sunrise away

“We love you, (Y/n). Please don’t leave us alone.”