#She even has a 3 eyed cat familiar

[thedragenda]

Slightly late birthday gift for @fuzzlepop with her very definetly not a magical girl DnD druid Velvet!

[oreharuuu]

A Glimpse of Mercy

Summary: The boy you once knew from your small town has changed. But has he really change from his past? Or did he hide everything from you since the beginning?

Pairing: yandere!san x reader

Warnings: yandere behaviour obvi, obsessive behavior, graphic description, dark themes, cursing

Word count: 10.8k

A/N: umm hi? pls forgive me for not updating in a WHILE. i didn't forget about this acc i promise, just had a lot of stuff going on and ofc i still love our boys <3 hope y'all like this long ass oneshot, pray for the hongjoong one to finish quickly as well :' thx u for everyone for the support and comments while im away

Tags: @starillusion13 @cqndiedcherries @wooyoungjpg @miriamxsworld (comment below if u want to be in the permanent tags!)

The cold gush of wind hits you like a ton of bricks as you exited your school, shivering as you tried to keep yourself warm by hugging yourself. You eyed the numerous students chattering away with their friends, making you look around to search for your friend in the midst of the unknown faces.

When you spotted your friend, Iseul, near the entrance gate, you slowly walked towards her before stopping yourself. You smirked when you noticed the tall boy she's been talking for the past few months, quickly snapping a photo before walking away, wanting to not disturb their moment.

You sighed when you walked quietly to where you parked your bike, buying bungeoppang near the market before eating it as you observe the quiet atmosphere. Your small town just outside of the city was nothing special nor exciting, that's why almost everyone moved out when they can. A few stayed as to live with their family, but only a few instances such as yourself, living with your mother and aunt.

Iseul wants to get out of this 'shit hole' as she deems when she graduates high school, already applying for a scholarship. You on the other hand, can't even imagine yourself in the future on what you could possibly do. Your mother never went to the city, only working as a farmer. Your aunt did go, going to university to get a degree yet she can't even get any work after graduating, getting paid as a bartender before she quits to help your mother.

Deep down, you're scared of failure. Your whole life you're only a mediocre student, good yet not astounding grades and not having a big social circle like Iseul. You can't imagine going to the city to actually live there for a few years just to be met with failure when you can't even get a job, thus making you move back to your old town.

That sounds like a nightmare.

Forcing yourself out of the bad thoughts, you jogged to where your bike is, before stopping yourself when you notice the broken chain. You groan loudly, looking around to find the culprit only to find no one standing near you.

You placed the half eaten bungeoppang inside your bag, assessing the broken chain as you tried to think on what to do. This bike was your only transportation. Sure, you could use the bus but you're already so low on money that you'd rather risk walking by foot to school everyday.

You sighed, perking up at the sound of the bus stopping near you, the temptation of going home and leaving the old bike here is already growing. But you squashed that feeling when you remembered that it's your mother's bike.

The sound of quiet footsteps reached your ears, you glancing back before making eye contact with a boy. He seems startled, quickly moving around before walking back the opposite of you. He's around your age, maybe he knows one or two things about how to fix the bike.

"Hey, school boy! Can you help me?"

The boy stopped in his tracks while you wait for him to do anything. Thankfully, he walks back to where you're crouching, eyes downcast as he moved the plastic bag containing...oranges? To his other hand.

The boy seems familiar, his uniform shows that he's another student from a school nearby yours. The red scarf hides almost half of his face, only his sharp cat like eyes showing to you.

"Can you help me?" You asked, noting how the boy's ears turned slightly red before shaking his head. You sighed, standing up as you looked at the bike with frustrated eyes. You glanced at boy once more, finding him staring the broken chain a bit too hard. You look away, hiding the amused smile growing on your face.

"—fix it."

"Eh?" You asked, not hearing what he said clearly. "What did you say?"

"I think I can fix it."

"Thank you for your help," You say as the both of you walked side by side, your bike now temporarily fixed. "I can't imagine leaving the bike there on its own. I mean, it's my mom's bike after all but still! It's really old and I think we should buy another one...maybe."

You secretly glanced at the boy, not sensing any noise of acknowledgement or any head nod towards what you've just said. You pursed your lips, softly nudging his shoulder with yours. "You don't want to talk to me, huh?"

The boy's eyes only widens slightly, before looking down. You huff playfully before you remembered you haven't even asked his name. "Hey, what's your name? My name is (name)!"

You waited for any response from him, sighing in disappointment when he didn't say anything back. You stopped when you've reached your house, the boy stopping as well as he nervously looks back and forth between you and the house.

You're yelling internally deep down, wanting the awkward moment to end. Maybe the boy's too shy, and you feel bad for forcing him to talk when you just met him a few hours ago.

"Soo, thanks again. I'll just...go home now," You say as you slowly walk with your bike in tow, closing your eyes in embarrassment at the interaction. Hurried footsteps stopped you in your tracks, eyes widening when the boy placed one of the oranges inside your hand.

"San," He utters gently. "My name is San."

You smile softly at him, but before you could say anything, San walks away with hurried steps. "Nice to meet you, San! Thank you for helping me!" You scream loudly, giggling when you see San glancing back and forth at you.

When San disappeared from your sight, you continued your walk towards your house, the slight dirt from the orange makes you question as to why San even had dirty oranges in the first place.

Entering your house, you notice how quiet it is, your mother's slippers nowhere in sight nor your aunt's running shoes. You shrug to yourself before entering the kitchen, placing the singular orange near the fruit basket your mother received from her friend. Noticing the small note on top of an old takeout your aunt probably ordered two days ago, you assume that's going to be your dinner.

A normal occurrence in your household is your mother staying with her friends if she's not working, probably to talk and gossip. Your aunt is a different story though, you never know what exactly she's doing on her free time, and she never really told you either. So you kept quiet and let her be. She's an adult after all.

Heating up the food and eating it alone in the living room whilst watching TV was also a normal occurrence for you. You're used to it because ever since you're young, your mother rarely ate dinner. She doesn't really like eating anyways, especially inside a house that holds a reminder of her past.

Your aunt sometimes joined in, asking you here and there about school or maybe reminiscing about her old life in the city. Either way, it usually ends up with her drinking away her regrets.

You shivered, clicking your tongue when the kitchen window was slightly open. It's already getting dark, the only lights you see are the ones from the nearby house or you could say mansion, by how big it is compared to the other houses in town.

You remembered San walking towards the mansion's direction. Maybe he lives there? You never really see anyone besides two men, but you did overheard your mother one day about a woman supposedly living there.

Placing down your food on the small foldable table, you turned on the prehistoric TV that's probably already there before you're born. You didn't find anything interesting though, so you picked a random news channel before eating your food.

A few hours into eating, a small knock came from your front door, making you pause from peeling the orange San gave. You glanced at the clock, too early for your mother and aunt to come home. Plus they never knock anyway.

"Coming!" You yelled, slowly walking towards the entrance before opening the door slowly. Surprise is probably written all over your face when you see San standing there, his gaze flickers down when he notices you staring at him.

"San?" You questions. "A bit of a surprise visit, don't you think?"

"Sorry, I—Uh, if you don't like me here—"

"Nonsense! What's up?"

His posture became tense, so you glanced down at the plastic bag he's holding tightly. A bit too tight in your opinion.

"I-I need a place to eat, my house..."

"Your house?"

"It's, um, not a good place to eat right now," San finishes, looking up towards where the big mansion is located.

Turns out you're right all along.

"Oh, you live there?"

"Yeah, but I can't stay there right now."

"Can I ask why? You don't have to answer me if you're not comfortable, of course," You gently added, not wanting San to feel pressured. He shrugs, shifting from one foot to another. "Just some stupid argument between my father and...my uncles."

You hum, glancing back at your house before finally deciding. "Yeah, sure, you could eat at my house." You hold back a smile when you notice San's slumped posture turned straight right away, as if he's not expecting you to say that. "R-Really? I can eat here?"

"Sure, but my house is a bit cramped because of junk. If you want, we could eat at the veranda. Not to brag or anything but the view is beautiful."

San lets out a small smile, tilting his head which made your heart squeeze at how cute he is. "Really? I never really notice."

"Meh, it's something," You shrug, opening the door wider, inviting San to follow you inside. "Come on, my food's getting cold."

San nods hesitantly, murmuring a small 'excuse me' before slipping out of his shoes before he just stands there, waiting for you to walk first. You giggle at him, showing him where the veranda is before excusing yourself to grab your food.

"Pretty, right?" You ask as you sat down besides him, looking out towards the view of the city. Your house is located a bit further than the city, your house shows the perfect view of the small number of lights the city shows. It's somewhat calming to you, mix that with the sounds of cicadas and you have the perfect night to just clear your mind.

"Yeah, it's calming."

You hum, glancing as San takes out a small container, pulling out a sandwich before eating it in silence. You followed suit, offering small bites of food to him when you notice he only brought his sandwich. "Did you make it yourself?"

"No, my...eomma made it."

Noticing the tense tone in his voice, you only hum in acknowledgement before continuing to eat. It's nice to have someone eating with you, the silence isn't uncomfortable, both of you appreciating each other's presence in silence. It's kinda funny to you that you're comfortable enough to invite a boy you just met a few hours ago. Then again, it's partially because your mother nor aunt is here to bother you.

"Thank you for letting me eat here," San quietly says, playing with his fingers nervously as he waits for your response.

"It's fine. I quiet like having someone here to eat with," You smile. "Plus, you're a good company. Well, better than my mother and aunt anyway."

"Really?" San sounds excited, before he coughs as he looks away, his cheeks red with embarrassment. "Sorry! That sounds rude of me—"

You laugh, patting his back in a friendly manner. "No, no, it's fine. I'm thinking the same thing as you."

You didn't notice how red his face is after you patted his back, but he did let out a small laugh, joining you before you both fell silent once again.

"Do you, uh, do you mind if I could eat here? Not always! Just when...home gets a bit too tiring," He asks, looking at you with hopeful eyes that it almost made you want to ask what exactly is going on in his house.

"Sure, but it's better if no one's here except me. My mother will deny any visitors this late at night while my aunt will just ask us about anything to annoy us."

San lets out a small laugh, which made you smile as you notice the dimple on his face. He really has a nice smile. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind."

"How 'bout this," You say. "We exchange phone numbers, you'll text me if you have a situation, and we'll agree on where to meet up to eat together. Maybe we could eat somewhere else if my mother and aunt are here."

San nods enthusiastically, shyly grabbing his phone before you enter your phone number. "So, we got a deal?" You offer your hand to shake hands with him.

"Deal," He smiles, grabbing your hand gently before shaking it. Inside your mind, you hope whatever relationship you have with San will last longer than whatever you had in the past. Deep down, you want to have someone else besides Iseul to hangout with. But you've never had the chance, until now.

Fast forward a few months, you and San are still going with the promise. It's nice to have someone to talk too, even though San usually just sits there and listens to you. You felt bad to be the only one talking, since you mostly tell stories about your family and Iseul. San tells you that it's fine, he didn't mind one bit that you're the only one talking.

You did ask him once about his family. Yet the tense posture and tone made you realize just how uncomfortable San is on about his family. So you never asked about it to him again.

Turns out, you and San are in the same year, but he's in another school that's considered by your school the 'enemy'. Probably because of the football feud both of the school has. But you didn't mind, the feud is mostly contained to the football team.

Iseul asked you about San one day, claiming that there's a boy from another school that's been hanging out around the school recently. And she's shocked to see you know about the boy.

"Choi San? He's in our year? He looks younger though!"

"Yeah, that's what I first thought as well. But he claims he's in our year," You shrugged, playing with one of the dolls Iseul has on her bed.

"Mystery solved! I was wondering why he's wandering around our school anyways."

"What do you mean?" You curiously asked Iseul. So far you've never encountered San around your school, only bumped into him once when you're buying groceries after school.

"Well, Jihwan told me that he's been seeing a boy from the other school a few times. He thought the boy was in the football team but he's never seen him before."

You hum, thinking back from the conversations you had with San. "No, I don't think he plays football. He likes drawing, so I guess it's not his style."

"Ooo, an artist," Iseul cooed.

"Oh, shut up!" You whine, playfully shoving Iseul before each of you grabbed a pillow before proceeding to hit each other with it. It felt nice hanging out with Iseul again. Although you did feel a bit weird after coming here, like there's someone staring at you.

You dodged the pillow Iseul throws when you catch a glimpse of black moving outside of her window. You frown before walking closely to the window, opening it slightly to see nothing outside.

"Why? What's wrong?"

You turned back to her, already sensing her panic rising when her tone wavered from your hard stare. You quickly masked it with a smirk, not wanting Iseul to hyperventilate just from a shadow. "Ha! Did I get you? You're so easy to scare."

"Asshole!" She screeched before pouncing on you, tickling your sides as you tried move away from her grasp. The squealing laughter from Iseul made you not realize the snapping of a branch outside, nor the figure running away into the darkness.

"San? Is that you, boy?"

San flinched, slowly looking towards the source of the voice, finding a man sitting in the darkness. San noticed the red stains covering his shirt right away, the man slowly wiping a bloody knife clean.

"Yeah. It's me, appa."

"Where were you, huh? You made Seokjin all worried," The man pointed towards a closed room. But from the screams emanating inside the room, it's obvious his other father is inside with his...mother.

"Sorry. I was out helping a friend."

"A friend?" The man, Taecyeon, whistled with a smirk. "Don't tell me you've found a girl to fuck?"

San felt annoyance rising inside his body at how his appa talked about you, but he composed himself as he shakes his head. "No, a friend wanted me to help them with their homework." He lied through his teeth.

Another man, Byungho, typing away in the darkness, chuckles lowly as he blew a puff of his cigarette. "Yeah, whatever you say, kid. Go wash up, you don't have school tomorrow. We need to train for your first mission! How exciting is that?"

San nods as the two men laughs, Taecyeon ushering San away so they could start training. San ignores as the screaming intensifies, throwing his school bag carelessly as he huffs. He glances at the lone picture hanging on his wall.

Five men. One woman. One boy.

His appa is Taecyeon, the so called leader of the assassin group. The others? San only calls them as his uncles, even though he knows they're all not really related. Seems like almost all of them owes something to his appa, but they stick together throughout the years for some reason.

His eomma is a mystery. San notices very early how different they are. He has no similarities to his eomma nor appa. But that really didn't matter, he loves his eomma nonetheless. Yet the abuse she suffers everyday makes him wonder why she hasn't run away when she's usually all alone in the house when they're all busy.

His eomma only smiles tight when he ask her about this, changing the topic swiftly that it made San feel guilty. So he tries to be the good son that his eomma always dreams off.

"Sannie?"

San whips his head towards the now open door, his eomma hiding half of her face with it. But he always notice the blood and bruises anyway.

Always.

"Appa's already waiting for you. Why don't you go wash up so he doesn't get mad at you? Hm?"

"Okay, eomma."

San watches as the door slowly closes, making him sigh as he cracked his neck to ease the tension. He needs to be careful after almost getting caught by you. He's training as an assasin like his appa for God's sake! He can't even walk quietly without you noticing.

What a loser.

Maybe he does need the extra training his appa suggested. Sure, it could be useful for missions in the future. But what's most important is so that he could always be with you without you noticing.

"Hey, did you hear the news?"

You hum, doodling away on your notebook as your teacher excused himself to the toilet. "What news exactly?"

"You know Mr. Huang? The one who lost his child a few years ago?"

"Yeah, I know him."

"He's dead," Iseul whispers. "Like...murdered. Not because of some natural death, literal murder!"

You frown, looking at Iseul with concerned eyes. "Iseul, how do you even know that?"

She shrugs. "I heard from the lady next door. Said that police from even outside of the city came here because of how gruesome it is."

"Wow, that bad?"

"Real bad," She mumbles. "My dad told me to stay away from the area since apparently the government is handling it."

"Wait, what about his wife? Is she—you know, dead?"

Iseul thinks silently for a few seconds, before shaking her head. "Not that I know of. The lady did told my mom that Mrs. Huang survived the whole ordeal, but she hasn't woken up yet."

"Poor woman. Already losing a son and now her own husband," You grimaced at the thought.

Rumor has it, both Mr. And Mrs. Huang's son was kidnapped in an apparent ransom act. But when they paid the money, their son never came back to them. Some say he's dead, even Mr. Huang. But a few still holds hope that the boy is still alive to this day, and Mrs. Huang apparently still believes that.

People gossip about how her son's room stayed untouched for the past few years. How Mrs. Huang once went mad at her own friend when they entered the room without permission. Soon after, her mental health started declining, making her stay at home most of the time.

"—from your lover boy?"

"Huh?" You snapped out of your head. "What did you say?"

"I said—have you heard from lover boy?"

"Shut up, Iseul. And no, I haven't heard from him for the past few days."

"You really should just visit his house," Iseul remarks softly as Mr. Kim entered the classroom again. "Didn't you say his house's near you?"

You never really say this to Iseul, not even San. But you did once visit his house to ask for his whereabouts. The result? Only a blank stare from the woman who answered the door. Her makeup barely covers the bruises marking her face, making you realize why San didn't want you to find out what's happening inside his house.

"Yeah, maybe I'll go after school," You replied back, knowing deep down you're hesitant to even step onto his family's land ever again.

Biting into the juicy meat, you hum happily as you munch on the braised beef your mother cooked a few hours ago. Your aunt is watching TV, laughing away on some random game show you haven't heard off. Your mother ate silently across you, her eyes empty as usual before she softly coughs to get your attention.

"(Name)? Have you ever stepped foot to the Choi's residence?"

You stopped chewing, looking towards your mother where she holds a grimace. "Um, no. I've never—"

"Answer me truthfully, girl."

Sheesh, she's really mad. Your mother rarely says that to you, only when she meant serious business only.

"I have. But only once! After that, I've never went there again."

Your mother hums, her grimace gone, changed into a more somber expression. "From now on I forbid you to go there, okay?"

"But—"

"No buts," She glares at you. "I don't care what's happening inside of that house, but what I do care is about your well-being."

You huff. "Why are you like this anyway?"

"Something happened. A few police came to the house this afternoon asking about the certain people living there. Turns out it's about the case of Mr. Huang, they suspect the killer—or killers— are living inside of that house right now."

Your eyes turned wide, mouth hanging open as your mother clicked her tongue before closing your mouth with her hand. "Don't do that. It's disgusting."

"Wait, hold on—what do you mean suspects? Are they suspecting everyone there?" You ask. Is this why San hadn't replied back to you?

She only shrugs. "As far as I know, the police are still investigating it. But...they have a strong evidence against the people living there."

"Strong evidence?"

"No clue. They didn't tell me anything again. What they did tell me though," Your mother paused her chewing as she thinks of her next words. "Is that whoever killed Mr. Huang was not only one person."

"A group then?"

Your mother shrugs. "Maybe. They're trying to find some of the stolen goods from his house, like jewelry and expensive items. And police started to search here when they got a tip from someone that one of Mr. Huang's expensive vases were found outside of the house."

God, this only made you more panicked as you tend to overthink about every little thing. San not replying to your texts, him disappearing for a few days. And apparently he's living with murderers? Then again, this should not surprise you ever since your first and last visit to the house.

"Go to sleep," Your mother tells you as she cleans the table. "You still have school tomorrow."

You can't even talk back to your mother, saying that tomorrow's Saturday, but you follow her order nonetheless. Too busy thinking about San in your head.

Entering your room, you softly closed the door only to be surprised by a hand covering your mouth. You scream loudly yet the person behind you shushed you gently. "Please, (name), be quiet."

San?

"San? What the fuck?" You whisper aggressively as he slowly drops the hand from your mouth. You gasp when you're met with the sight of him being bruised and bloody, his eyes tired as his posture turned from tense to weak.

"Oh my—what happened?!"

"Um, can I sit first? I don't think I can't stand much longer."

You quickly usher him to sit on a pillow you throw haphazardly on the floor, pointing at him with hard eyes as you open the door. "Wait here. Don't move. You need to answer questions first before you're off the hook."

He sheepishly smiles, giving you a thumbs up. "Sure, I'll wait here."

You exited your room quietly, walking slowly towards where your mother kept a small first aid kit near the bathroom. Placing it under your arm, you notice your mother and aunt are too busy doing their own thing. You took this advantage to walk quickly to your room, closing the door and locking it before you turn to San.

"First question, how did you get into my room?"

"Um, the window was opened and your mother's here. So I just—" San motions towards the open window, making you huff as you closed the window shut before covering it with the curtains.

"Second question, what the fuck happened to you?"

"It's...a long story."

"We've got time." You glare at him. "Tomorrow's Saturday, so talk."

San lets out a small laugh before he quiets down, nervously playing with his bruised hands as you sat down in front of him. "I'm very private on family matters. I don't want anyone to find out about it, but let's just say I reached a breaking point when I discovered some...new informations."

You pause, before dabbing one of his cuts with curious eyes. "New informations?"

He eyes you silently, the silence didn't really made you uncomfortable, but his gaze did things to you. You've never been this close to him, usually him keeping a distance whilst you respect the boundaries he put.

"I don't want to tell you any of it."

"Can I ask why?"

He hissed when you clean the cut near his eyebrow, apologizing quietly as you continue to work on his wounds. "Do you know what happened to Mr. Huang?"

You frown and eyed San with suspicion, dropping your hand towards your lap as you nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry what happened to him and his wife. I heard she's still alive."

San sighs, quickly rubbing his eyes as you notice the lone tear escaping. "Yeah, I'm sorry for him too."

"Why are you crying for a man you don't even know?"

He stayed quiet, looking away before he glances at you with hurt in his eyes.

"Why? What's wrong?" You whisper, hesitating to hold his hands.

"(Name), I'm a killer."

Your heart dropped, eyes wide as you tried to comprehend what he just said to you. "W-What? You're joking, right?"

San shakes his head silently, still eyeing you with his hard gaze. You laugh nervously, inching yourself away from him as he stayed in place.

"Choi San, this better be a joke. And if it is, it's not funny!"

He sighs, grabbing something out of his pocket before slowly sliding it towards you. "What do you see?"

It's a ring, and it looks pretty expensive from its appearance. "A ring?"

"Look closer."

You silently move closer towards it, eyeing it suspiciously as San snorts. "Why aren't you touching it?"

"Because I don't want to, San! Ever think of that?"

You huff, eyeing the ring on the floor before you noticed a hint of dark red on the ring. You bit your lip, glancing at him as you pointed towards it. "Is that—is that what I think it is?"

"You mean blood? Yeah, it is. But that's not what I want you to see. Look closer, inside of the ring."

His nonchalant response should've made you bolt the fuck out of your room, but you cast away the fear, moving closer again towards the ring.

And that's when you notice it.

A small carving inside of the ring. Initials.

'H.J'

It quickly clicks to you as to who owned the ring.

Huang Jeongcheol. The man who just got killed.

You stand upright quickly, already moving towards the door when San grabs you by the waist. Holding his hand towards your mouth, he shushed you gently as you scream and bite at his hand.

He placed you on your bed, pinning your hands with only one of his hands. You wonder to yourself, has San ever been this strong? From his appearance, you don't want to sound mean, but he looks like a normal school boy who doesn't like to workout nor doing sports.

"(Name), please listen to me. I know you're scared of me right now, but please listen to me. I'm begging you right now to please believe me because after this...I don't think we'll meet again for a long time."

You stare at San with distrust, but you can't help but feel a tad bit of sadness when he looks so dejected at you.

"The family that I know all my life—lied to me," He started. "They used me, trained me to be their apprentice, to kill people."

San looks away, closing his eyes for a moment before looking back at you. "They're not my real family. They never have. Especially after what they've pushed me through, to kill my own father."

You frantically move your head, allowing his hand to move away. "W-What? What do you mean?"

"I've always wondered why Mr. Huang cried at me when I stepped forwards to kill him. I just...did what the others did—kill them to get rid of the evidence," San whispers.

"But then, I started to get uneasy at seeing the house. How it all felt...familiar. And when I saw myself with them in pictures, when I was young—" San laughs wetly, tears running freely down his face. "—I knew, I instantly knew that I just killed my father. My own biological father! I thought I was hallucinating all of it but then I saw how the little boy is wearing my favorite jacket. The one that I own! I can't, I just—"

"Woah, San, calm down," You whisper as his breath became more erratic. You slowly raised his hand towards his chest, allowing the other one placed against your own. "Follow my breathing, good, that's it. Breathe in and out slowly."

"I can't stay here anymore," He whispers after his breathing became normal again, making you frown in confusion. "I killed one of them," He interrupts you. "I told him to tell me the truth, yet he persist that I'm better living with them. And that my father, my biological one, deserved to die."

You're lost for words, you don't even know what to say to him. You only hold his hand tighter as a sign of comfort. But you don't know if you're actually comforting him or yourself.

"I need to go, (name)," He slowly stands up, moving closer to your window to peek between the curtains. "It's not safe for me to be here after what I did. Especially for you."

"F-For me?"

"Yes," He stares at you with hard eyes, yet you can see how his eyes glisten with tears. "I can't let them hurt you. You—I care for you. I appreciate all of the nights we hung out, talk about stupid things and our dreams away from this small town. I want you to achieve your lifelong dream, but that can't happen when you're always the target of a group of killers."

"Why am I a target?" You ask with a quivering tone, fright creeping up on you as San looks on to you with pity. "Please, San. Tell me. Why am I the target?"

"Because they know I'm always here every night."

You can't stop the whimper coming out of your mouth, yet you remember your mother and aunt are still outside. You cry silently with your hand covering your mouth, kneeling to the ground as your breath became erratic.

"Am I going to die? I don't want to die, I can't die, San. I'm scared," You sob silently, crying even harder when he puts your face to his shoulder, his hands holding you tightly as you weep more and more.

"I know," He whispers, tucking your hair back as he hugs you tighter. "That's why I need to lure them away from this town. I don't need any of them in town."

"What? What about your mother?"

San pursed his lips, looking away as he sighs. "I was too late. I can't...protect her."

"Isn't she in the hospital?"

San shakes his head slowly, grasping your hand in his as he exhales a shaky breath. "I was too late, they reached her first."

You bit your lip as you imagined the only blood related family San has now is already dead. You flinched slightly at his hand brushing the tears away from your face, the hand slowly moving your face towards him as he pecks your mouth. A light one, but you've never kissed a boy—or really anyone—before.

You gasp in surprise, finding San smiling softly at you as he placed his forehead to yours. "I love you, (name). I don't know when or where, but I hope we'll meet again soon. Promise you'll wait for me?"

You closed your eyes, holding his hand tighter as a sign of promise. "I will. I'll wait for you."

The cold wind hits your body roughly, making you hug your thin coat tighter as you weave your way between people to get to your apartment. Readjusting the mask you open the building door as you nod towards the owner of the building, an old man who likes to smoke at late hours.

He nodded back before you walked slowly towards your designated floor. You avoid making eye contact with your neighbor, ignoring his staring as he waters his plants.

Such a weird habit. Who waters their plants at night?

Closing and locking the door, you sigh loudly as you pulled the mask from your face, brushing your hair away from your face as you lazily throw your shoes near the door.

So much has happened in the past five years.

Well, not that interesting to be honest in your life. Ever since he left.

San quickly left after the promise you've made to him, you staring at his back as he walks towards the darkness. Never to be seen again.

You've held on to the hope of him returning maybe for a year. Going about your day, ignoring the whispers from people around you about the murders and a missing boy. Paranoia started to slowly grow because of what he said to you, about being possibly killed.

Before you realized that it's all an empty promise and lies.

Then again, you were both young so you can't really blame younger you.

As for older you, or yourself currently, you're now living in the big city! Sure, you may be having a bit of a trouble handling money for university, having to work two part time jobs while studying, living in a small shitty apartment; but you're alive at least. And that's what matters.

Kicking what seems to be paper, you picked up two envelopes, one familiar and one you didn't recognize. You decided to shower first, grimacing at your sweaty skin as you quickly entered the bathroom.

Grabbing the convenient store bento on your way home, you smile as you open the first letter from your mother. Your relationship kinda got better when you left, feeling that deep down your mother missed you. She's just awkward on showing it to you.

Now, the other letter.

It's more high quality, more smaller than the one your mother sent. You looked for any names or address, but nothing. You chewed as you opened the letter, finding a small written letter.

Hello. You might not recognize me now, but I'm finally at a place where I feel I've accomplished enough to ensure your safety. I'll see you soon.

You frowned, looking at the back of the letter to see if there's anymore writing. When you see none, you folded the paper back to its envelope before chucking it towards the mess that is your desk.

A lone paper slips past you, probably from the envelope. You grabbed it only to get more confused and creeped out because it's a drawing.

Of you.

Tossing the drawing alongside the rest of the letter, you contemplated on what to do.

You don't know who it is, probably the letter was sent to a wrong address or it's someone messing with you. Then again, you don't really know whoever would waste their precious time on you anyways.

Cracking your neck with a sigh, you continued to eat before deciding to sleep in for the night. You're not that busy tomorrow, only a few classes and one part time schedule at the convenience store. You laid down, charged your phone, and closed your eyes as you waited for sleep to come by, waiting for tomorrow for you to repeat the same cycle.

"Hey, (name)," Your coworker, Chaemin, greeted with a tired smile as you nodded back in greeting. "I'll go change, wait here."

You hum, standing behind the cashier as you waited for him to finish. Nothing much happened today. Classes went by as normal, a few friends invited you to a party but you sadly declined as you're now working, and that's it.

Entering the staff's room as Chaemin exited, he bid you goodbye as you changed into your uniform. Grabbing your phone before exiting, you held back a yawn as you sat down behind the cash register, looking around the dead and empty convenience store. You don't expect much customers this late at night so you proceeded to play a new game on your phone.

Not long after, a ding was heard indicating a new customer, making you glance up, eyebrows raised in confusion as to who just entered.

A man, wearing a dark grey three piece suit, holding a briefcase as he slowly walks towards the drink isle. Who wears black gloves anyways?

Not something you would see this late at night, but it's better than some drunkards yelling profanities all around. You realized you're staring too hard on the man, flicking your gaze towards your phone once more as slow steps rang throughout the store.

"Excuse me?"

"Y-Yes?" You replied back with surprise, not expecting the man to talk. You noticed the man smiling as he holds the drink in his hand, smiling slightly making you notice the small dimple on his cheek.

He's pretty handsome, you'll give him that.

"Is this the 'buy one get one' drink promo?"

"Yes, but you can only buy the same flavour to get the promo, sir."

"Sir? Do I really look that old to you?" He chuckles softly, grabbing the drinks and continue to look around to grab snacks.

You scratched your head in embarrassment. "O-Oh, sorry. Just formalities and all for me, you know?"

The man hums, walking towards the you as he placed the small basket on the counter before smiling at you. "No worries, don't be scared. Just jokin' with you."

You smile politely, scanning the items before stating the price, accepting the cash as you tried to ignore his hard stare at you. Sure, he's handsome and all but he's just a passing customer that you'll soon forget in a few days. Besides, nothing exciting ever happens to you anyway.

You waited for the man to go away, surprise in your eyes as he slides one of the drinks to you. You looked up to him, pointing at the drink. "Um, what's this?"

"A treat."

"For?"

He shrugs with a smile, "Just something to make your day better."

"Alright...thank you?"

"You're welcome," He replies softly, grabbing the plastic bag that seemed so out of place with the rest of his outfit. As he exited the store, you squinted your eyes when you saw a flash of red splatter behind his suit.

You sighed heavily, rubbing your eyes in frustration and tiredness. You really do need to fix up your schedule or you'll pass out anytime soon.

Blood?

You thought that one encounter was going to be the last time you'll ever see the man. That's what you had in mind as you've worked through your other part-time jobs, just going with the flow.

It's a surprise when the man entered once more, greeting you with a smile. His suit is immaculate as ever, black with unopened buttons at the top, sleeves rolled as he walks around the store.

"Rough night?" He asks, sliding the drink to you as he finished paying.

You shrug, thanking him halfheartedly as you open the drink given to you. "Just tired."

"Well," He starts. "I hope tomorrow will be a better day for you. You never know what's going to happen, huh?"

You know those words were supposed to make you feel better, but somehow, it only does the opposite for you. You nod with an awkward smile. "Yeah, sure."

"Goodnight then—" He squints behind his glasses, reading your name tag. "—(name)."

"Goodnight."

You stare at his retreating back, noting no sights of red splatter on his back. That is, until you're eyes reached his shoes that you notice the red small imprint it left behind.

Yeah, you're definitely not going crazy from sleep.

"What?! You've never dated anyone in that big of a city?" Iseul hissed through the phone, making you scoff at her. "Uh, yeah? Too busy making money so I could live the next day is pretty important to me, you know?"

"Oh, I know. I didn't mean it that way."

"No," You held back a yawn behind your hand. "I kinda agree with you here. I just—I don't know, I don't have time? Sure, dating sounds like a dream for me. But I'm afraid I'm to busy to manage a relationship and I'll get dumped."

"That's why communication is important!" Iseul replied back with vigor. "Look, I'm not going to force you but my boyfriend has a friend there, coincidentally, that's also single."

"Is that why you called me?"

"No! Well...maybe," She laughs nervously. You smirk in amusement but told her to go on.

"Right! His name is Donghyun, goes to the same university if I'm not wrong. He's older around three years than you. Sounds good?"

"Uh, any other information that you know besides that?"

"Sorry, I don't really know the guy. But, my boyfriend says that he's really nice. If you're down, I'm gonna give your number to him."

You sigh, thinking about the dangers of meeting a stranger for a date. Then again, you really need something other than working your ass off in your spare time. You contemplated for a minute, before cutting off Iseul's rambling on the phone. "Hey, I'll go."

Iseul started to scream loudly, making you pull away from the phone in an instant. "My ears!"

"Sorry, sorry! I'm just so happy for you!"

You laugh lightly, "I haven't even met the guy, Iseul."

"Well, I hope he's good to you. If not, then I can go to you and find him to beat his ass up if he ever hurts you."

"Alright, I hope you protect me from whatever danger there is," You hum.

The conversation between you and Iseul goes on until the morning. Thankfully, you only had one class and no work since you covered one of your coworkers shifts and in return, now they're covering yours.

It's a surprise when an unknown phone number texted you, introducing himself as the man himself, Donghyun. He texted cutesy enough, adding cat stickers every now and then that made you laugh. He wanted to meet you today, which made you think about how he's really desperate but deep down you're desperate too.

You agreed to meet up after your class this afternoon, meeting at a cafe nearby so you assumed he also has classes today.

Wanting to make a good impression, you decided to dress up a bit more nicer with a dress. You kept your hairstyle simple yet pretty, using some light makeup before deciding to go to class after a big brunch.

You ignored the curious glances you received at class, quickly leaving when it finished. You texted Donghyun that you're walking to the cafe, surprised that he's already there and asked if you wanted any drinks or food.

When you arrived, you looked around before seeing someone waving their hand at you. You held back a noise of surprise at the sight of a familiar face. You've seen him before a few times at university, what a small world.

"Donghyun?"

"Yeah! You must be (name), it's nice meeting you," He smiles widely as he gestures towards the seat across him. "I already ordered the drinks and food here. So, uh, dig in!"

"Thanks," You smiled at him.

Donghyun really is a nice guy. Very attentive to your needs, a true gentleman. But a few times he sounds a bit...ignorant.

"Oh, wow! You work two part-time jobs and go to university? That's really admirable."

You nod along. "Yeah, it sucks and tiring. But I need the money, ya know?"

"Why can't your parents pay for it? It seems like a parents duty to pay for their child's education."

You held back a grimace, hiding it with a shrug of your shoulders. "Yeah, that's true. But they don't have much money to support me plus themselves. So I had to resort to working."

"No wonder you look tired all the time. No offense, but you look like a zombie every time I see you."

You laugh along with him, noticing how he opens his mouth once more probably to ask you the same questions. But you diverted the topic to him, asking what major he's in.

You learned Donghyun was a business major, following along his mother's footsteps to continue their oil tycoon. Everything suddenly clicks as Donghyun tells you his story.

He's old money and super rich. Whilst you're an ordinary country bumpkin.

Basically two different worlds.

But you really don't care about that now. He seems like a sweetheart, and you're tired of the same cycle you're going through every fucking day.

You need a breath of fresh air.

So you agreed to date him. Scheduling seems a bit hard because of your schedule, but Donghyun seems to be fine with it, asking you to message him if you have any spare time.

One date turns to two. Two turns into three more dates. Until you realized you've been dating Donghyun for the past three months.

He really is a sweet guy. But you know it's never going to last long from the expectations his parents had for him about his life, so you took everything lightly and just enjoyed the flow. Besides, he likes to spoil you with gifts. You're not going to decline that, especially if it's necessary needs like foods and clothes.

One thing that never changed though is the man that routinely visits the convenience store once a week. New suits, same old face, and the always changing positions for the blood. Because of this, you kept your distance from him. Always setting boundaries when he asks you personal questions, but never getting mad since you don't want to make him pissed off.

"New bracelet?"

"Huh?"

"Is that a new bracelet you bought? Looks cute," The man smiled, pointing towards the beaded bracelet you had on.

"Yeah, my boyfriend bought it for me," You replied back nonchalantly, scanning the items in front of you. Not noticing how the man posture snapped in an instant from relaxed to tense.

He hums, tracing letters on the counter. "Boyfriend, huh? Who's the lucky guy?"

"No one you know, of course. But it's someone from my university."

The man nodded once more, scoffing before he quickly replaced the frown with a smile. "How long you've been dating?"

"Not your business."

"Aw, I thought we were friends—"

"Uh, no? I don't even know your name. Why would I be friends with you?" You stared at the man with a confused gaze, quickly averting your eyes when he only blankly stared at you with no expression on his face.

"Of course, my apologies. Here, take the drink. You need it."

You hesitantly grabbed it. "Thanks, I guess."

He nods once, grabs his things, before walking out of the store. You let out a relieved sigh, pushing the drink out of your way. "Fucking creep."

You glanced into the empty streets outside, relieved the man was nowhere to be seen. You grabbed your phone just in case when you saw a text from Donghyun.

You: when?

Dodo: coffee date? <3

You contemplated for a while, knowing you have a shift tomorrow. But one of your coworkers could cover you for one day, it wouldn't hurt.

Dodo: hoping tmrw is ok?

You: sounds good :)

You ignored the sinking feeling growing inside you, wanting to have fun once in a while without overthinking it.

But maybe you should've listened to your gut this time.

"Wow, this place is really secluded," You commented at the small indie cafe. Donghyun shrugged, pulling out a chair for you. "I know, but the reviews are really good. And my friends told me it's worth it."

"Alright, did they recommend anything?"

"The croissant looks good, but they recommended we buy the red velvet slice."

You nodded, giving out your usual drink order to Donghyun as he walks up to order. You looked around and noticed how empty it is for a supposedly popular cafe. Yeah, two people are outside right now, drinking and smoking. But other than that, the place looks deserted.

"Here you go," Donghyun placed the drinks and food. "Pretty fast but they don't have any customers besides us right now."

"Yeah, doesn't it feel weird to you? A popular cafe this empty on a Friday?"

He shrugs, already drinking away. "Like you said, it's a secluded place. It's popular, yeah, but only a few people know."

"Really?"

"Not a lot things on social media, but maybe this cafe runs from word of mouth? You know, people talk to their friends who in return come here."

"Maybe," You answered, but there's still doubt lingerie in your head. You brushed it off as Donghyun started to talk, asking about you and telling stories about him and his friends.

The cake was honestly really good, you can't get enough of it. But you stopped eating when you notice Donghyun yawning for the fifth time in a row. "You alright?"

"Yeah, just—" He yawns widely before continuing. "I don't know why I feel really sleepy."

"Did you not sleep well last night?"

"I did! I just—I don't know why I'm suddenly so tired."

You opened your mouth to reply back but only met with your own yawn passing through. "Woah, that's a surprise."

Donghyun laughs. "Are you tired too? Damn, we're meant to be." His head slumps towards the table, no sounds from him other than soft breathing.

Your gaze started to get weird, looking around as your head started to get dizzy. Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw the barista talking to someone, someone in a suit. You tried to move away from the approaching figure, but felt your body too weak to even move.

In the next few seconds, your eyes started to get droopy before you succumb to the darkness.

You don't know how long you're out, but one thing for sure is you got a massive headache. And you're tied to a chair in a small room.

You groan at the light hitting your eyes as you open your eyes, grimacing at the painful headache growing rapidly.

"—Thank you again, for the help."

"Well, don't got much choices do I?"

"Yes, that's true. But thank you nonetheless."

"Hey," You spoke out loud. "Hey! Where the fuck am I?!"

"Sounds like your lover's awake," A gruff voice replied.

The door besides you opened slowly, making you glare at the familiar man smiling widely at you. "Hello, headache?"

"No shit!" You hissed at the man who only innocently smiles at you. "What did you do? Where's Donghyun?"

"Now, now, you don't have to worry about some other man," He gently replied, grabbing an extra chair out of nowhere. You glared at the man as he fixed his cuff links, clicking his tongue when he noticed a small patch of red staining his white clean button up.

"Who's blood is that?"

"No one you need to worry about," He laughs, fixing his glasses as he smiles at you. "I'm sorry we need to reunite like this, but you gave me no choice."

"What the—wait, reunite? What do you mean reunite?" You whispered in shock.

He laughs softly at you, brushing a piece of hair away from your face as you flinched away from him. "I don't blame you for not recognizing me. I have to...alter my appearance because of my job."

"Just tell me who you are!"

"I've killed my own biological family members, who's been searching for me every since a group of assassins kidnapped me for ransom," He starts, playing with the ring on his finger. "Huang Jeongcheol, the innocent man that I've killed without knowing. And Huang Hyorin, who I've failed because I was too late to save her."

Your head started to ache painfully, your breathing becomes more ragged as you stared at the man you once knew in your past, suddenly here with you.

Kidnapped you. And could possibly hurt you.

"S-San?"

"Hi, (name)," San smiles as he moves closer to you. He coos as he brushed away the tears that escapes your eyes. You didn't even notice you're crying, you didn't know why. Maybe because all this time you've let go of the past with him, finding it to be near impossible when he didn't even tried to contact you.

"Why are you crying, love?"

"Wha—I thought, I thought you're dead!"

"And why would I be?" He hums, continuing to brush your hair softly, a smile etched on his face as you tried to calm your breathing.

"You said people were after you! Tried to kill you!" You screamed loudly, glaring at him with wild eyes. "And you said they're also after me! How can I not conclude that you're dead when you didn't contacted me whatsoever!"

He sighs, sitting again in front of you whilst he holds your hands to his. "I know. And I've wanted to meet you after I've sent the letter—"

"You've sent that creepy letter?!"

"Yeah, I gotta admit it is creepy," He laughs. "But anyways, back to the story. I didn't contact you because I've been working."

"You got a job? Here?"

"Not necessarily here," He explains. "Let's just say I've become what I've been trained for since my younger years."

Dread grows inside your body, looking at San with weary eyes as you hoped whatever suspicions you had about him was wrong. "You kill people for a living? L-Like them?"

He nods once.

"Oh, San...why? Did anyone force you to work this—"

"No one forced me!" He yells, making you jump as you closed your mouth in an instant. His eyes now wild with fire, glaring incessantly at the wall as his hold on your hands turned tighter. He lets go of your hands as you yelped in pain, mumbling a small 'sorry'.

"No one forced me, (name)," He continues. "Yes, I've been living like hell just so I could live another day! Hiding in slums, stealing, begging to strangers for food, whatever I could do to hide from that bastards!"

"But I've had enough one day, I've just had it with them," He hissed, pacing back and forth in front of you as he crossed his arms. "So I become a hitman, for the people who need it. I need the money and the relations to get back at them, and I've become weak over the years because I didn't train enough. But one job turned into more and more, and suddenly people in the industry know my name. They respected me for my work ethic, cleanliness, and no bullshit attitude."

"A-And did you—"

"Yeah, I did it," He smirks in triumph. "I killed the last one just two years ago. Bastard didn't even put up a fight, fucking beheaded him. It felt so...euphoric to see the light slowly disappearing from his eyes."

You flinched when his gaze turns to you. "And you, (name), I've never forgotten you once in my life. I've prayed to whatever God is there to always be there for you when I'm not there. I've hold on to the promise we've made, and when I first saw you here—" He laughs happily. A lovesick look on his face as he sighs, "I couldn't believe my eyes. You look the same yet you look so angelic and beautiful when I first saw you. I thought about the future we could have together, just us together. Maybe we could get a pet. Besides, I'm respected now! I have money to spoil you and you don't have to even work. But..."

"But?"

"But you broke our promise," San hissed with venom. "You said you'll wait for me! You said you wanted to be with me. And I find you all of a sudden with a boyfriend!"

He looks at you with hurt and betrayal, hands clenched tightly as you tried to look away from his stare. "What was I supposed to do? Wait for you?!"

"Yes! You promised me, (name)!"

"We were young!" You bellowed out to him, chest heaving with anger as he looks at you with hard eyes. "We were young, San. It's stupid for me to just wait in that damn town. I was scared to move away, yes, but I wanted to get out of that small town since forever."

You looked at him desperately, ignoring the warning signs ringing inside your head from the look on San's face. "I have to think for myself and my family. I moved here to get better education, and I worked my ass off to get money so I could buy food and pay for my utilities! I was stressed out thinking people were out to get me, before I realized it's all bullshit!"

"It's not bullshit, (name)!"

"Oh, I know," You mumbled. "But I can't live my life just for some promise I made to them in the past. It's called moving on, San."

He's quiet as you cough lightly, now feeling how dried your throat is as you glanced around the room for any escape. You turned to look at him as he lets out a breathy laugh, hands wiping his face in an obvious attempt to hide his anger.

"So, the promise you made...it doesn't mean anything to you, huh?"

You looked away, closing your eyes before answering. "It used to mean something. But at one point, I just—I just let go of my worries. I got into a good university, I moved away, worked hard for money so I could sustain my life. I've met good friends here—"

"And a boyfriend."

"Yes," You glared at him. "A boyfriend. Whom I've choose to date because I wanted to. I know it's not a serious relationship, but I wanted to get out of the stress for just one moment. And you're mad at me for that?!"

San shakes his head, looking away from your gaze. "I'm not mad, just disappointed. I wanted for us to be together, and now you're protecting this asshole like you love him."

"I do love him," You answered. He scoffs loudly, laughing loudly as he shakes his head. "Like you've said, this relationship wasn't meant to last this long. And I think I should end this now."

You're eyes widen as he stood up, cracking his knuckles as he stretches. "S-San? What—What are you doing?"

He smiles, not in a loving way, but more sinister and mocking. "Don't worry," He pats your head, messing up your hair even more. "I just need to get rid of him. Then, we'll finally be together."

"What?! No, wait!"

You tried to move, tried to get help by screaming, only to stop when you hear a loud scream outside. You whimper when a thud was heard outside, trying to find anything to cut the ropes tying you up as the screams started to get even more desperate.

"No! San, please! Leave him be," You cried out.

Another scream.

"Please, please! Just let him go! He didn't do anything wrong!"

A groan from Donghyun before he pleads for his life.

"San! Please, don't kill him."

A final 'thud' was heard outside.

No sounds.

You cried and cried, tears running down freely from your eyes as you whimper. Donghyun is dead because of you.

You didn't look up when the door opened, too exhausted to even lift up your head as you continued to sob silently.

"Thanks again, Jongin."

You glanced up to see the barista standing near the doorway. "Whatever," He mumbles. "I need to clean up anyways. The usual?"

San hums happily, brushing away the strands of hair that has fallen down his perfectly styled hair. "Yeah. Make sure to cut him up, place him in different areas. I'll tip you even more money."

"You got it."

With one final look from the man, he closed the door.

Leaving you with this psychopath.

"Look at me, (name). I know you're tired, but please look at me," He cooed.

"No," You whispered, not able to see the blood stains on him.

He sighs, walking up to you to grab you by the hair. You yelled in pain, before shutting your mouth as his grip turned tighter.

"Here's a warning for you," He starts. His eyes crazed and face covered in blood. "Do stupid things that'll make me mad, and others will face the consequences."

He points towards the door. "That's warning number one."

"I don't want to hurt you anymore," He whispers, grip turning more loose as he lets go of your hair. He walks around you, eyes cold and emotionless. So different from the one before. "But, if I have to—I will kill others you love."

"No, please."

"And if you do something that steps over the boundaries I'll give you," He stops in front of you, cupping your chin so you'll look at him. "I will kill your mother."

"No!" You scream, desperation in your tone. "Please, not her! Don't kill anyone," You cried out to him.

San smiles, his expression turned more soft in a matter of seconds. He kneels before hugging you, kissing your lips deeply like he's a starved man. He bites your lip enough to make it bleed, making you whimper in pain. He sighs, happily, brushing your tears away with his thumb before smiling.

"Be mine, (name). All of your worries will go away, and no one will ever be hurt because of you."

From the things you only have, he really needs to spoil you more. He thinks about the new clothes he could buy, some nice accessories for you to wear, maybe even some naughty things for the both of you to enjoy—

San hums a happy tune as he moves the boxes from your small apartment. He can't believe you live in this dump when you could've lived with him in a nice apartment. Then again, you lived according to your budget so he can't really blame you.

Plus he had other things to work on, planning the apartment, making sure you're comfortable there. Maybe killing a few people to make sure nobody gets suspicious as to where you are. Families are usually the most bothersome people to handle with, that's why he needed to make your last remaining family member die. He's skilled enough anyways to make it seem like an accident.

Your mother, a heart attack.

Your aunt, car crash.

Your friend, Iseul, killed by her boyfriend.

You don't know of course. He'll make sure of that.

"Hey, who are you?"

San looks around before seeing an old man standing at the end of the hallway, voice gruff probably because of the cigarette he's smoking. He smiles in ease, knowing it's your landlord after the stalking he's done throughout the years.

"Oh! I'm (name)'s boyfriend, sir."

"And what exactly are you doing?"

"Just moving out some of her stuff," He shrugs. "We decided to live together now."

"And why isn't she here?"

His smile turned more tense, already feeling annoyed from questions. Can't this old fart just go away?

"She's sick, sadly. So I'm tasked with moving the rest of her stuff."

The old man only nods. "Good, take care of her. She's too coped up here, she's still young."

San laughs, "That's what I've said to her too!"

He eyes the old man, cocking his head to the side as he smirks in amusement. "Don't worry, I'll take real good care of her."

[morgandoesstuffsig]

Idk if ur requests are open, but hear me out XD. A creator!reader who descends on Teyvat meets all the Archons and such. Then up and leaves by changing their appearance in order to explore their creation and how it has changed. Every once in a while Creator will make themselves obvious by performing acts only the Creator could. Once they are found out they just up and leave again only to resurface after another Divine act. TLDR: Creator playing cat and mouse with Teyvat

oh my GOD creator is just TORTURING then atp

small ramble because i still have massive writers block [cries] also ignore how late this is pls ok mwamwa thnx

c.w // yan. chars

song : Best Friend - Rex Orange County

SAGAU INCOMING : YAN CHARS.

okay so you decided 'hey man, what if i wasn't worshipped the moment i stepped outside'

so you just said fuck it and shifted

(it's been a while since you've done so, it kind of felt weird and hurt a tiny bit)

walking around teyvat in an odd, different form. completely different hair, height, clothes, you get the gist

the only things you couldnt change however were three things:

your blood (still gold, but you didn't plan on bleeding infront of anyone)

your aura (still comforting, caring, and even alluring)

your voice (why? zero clue.)

escaping the throne room you've oh so sadly been bound to!! having fun while doing it!!

(the only real reason you managed to escape is bc you managed to get the archons out and actually tend to their nations, as per your request order)

messing around while escaping fr!! people passing by wondering why this random person they've never seen is (not very) sneakily running away from the creator's palace/temple

but eventually shrugging it off, albeit reluctantly

messing around in mondstat, playing with the npc children more than you could usually, giving them the time of their life!!

this is where you use your first creator powers >:3

some poor kid scraped his knee real hard on the bridge, let's say timmie (hes so sweet he just wants to defend his birds pls b nice to him!!)

you, being the belovent god you are, use your divine powers to heal him

whether you do it with the hc of having to use your own gold blood or just having special healing powers only creator has, you do it

however, your dumbass mind hadn't thought of the fact that Venti may have been watching this

new outlander person with a mysterious aura

and now he quickly learns its you :0!!

the archons had no clue you could shapeshift!! why wasnt this in the ancient scrolls??? did they just lose the ones that mentioned it???

venti immediately finds some weird wind way to tell the other archons

fucking loud mouth

speaking of which, ei is freaking. out.

she came back to just check on you in your throne room and youre just.

not there??

panics, almost goes to zhongli before she gets venti's message and calms down slightly

atp you've realize you've outed yourself

so after making sure timmie is find you quickly run off into the forest before venti can come after you and smother you (both physically and with questions)

forest reached, new mission : new form needed

this basically keeps happening, and it's a needed breath of fresh air for you

running to liyue looking like a normal person until you magically form a special medicine that was unheard of from your hand for an elder, sickly lady

running from liyue to sumeru and shifting into!! an animal!! a fox!! cat!! tiger!! dog!! bird!! any of the sort!!

only getting outed from sumeru after you accidentally spoke while in animal form and having to go over to inazuma as an unknown, traveling sailor!!

getting outed after that for your extremely familiar aura and voice (inazuma people are scarily observant towards strangers) and eventually getting shoved escorted back to your palace/temple

funny stories to tell

however, the archons wont be leaving your room for quite a while..

oh well, who says you don't have other stunts to pull?

[wavesgocrash]

✩°。Slow Down The Song⋆⸜ 🎧✮

Pairing: Abby Anderson X reader

Content: friendship w Dina content <3, (I love Dina). drinking/drugs, pushy douche man, mutual pining. SMUT! : spitting, spanking, degrading/praise, pictures are taken during, handcuffs(its a belt) head R!receiving, strap on sex r!receiving. LMK if I missed anything <33

A/N : first smut writing lmk how it goes :D kisses..

⋆⭒⋆˚。⋆˚。⋆⋆⭒˚。⋆✧·ﾟ: *⋆⭒˚。⋆⋆⭒˚。⋆⭒˚。⋆⋆✧·ﾟ: *⋆⭒˚。⋆⭒˚。⋆⭒˚。⋆⋆

You always saw abby, walking to classes, on her way to practice, the gym. She was in your liberal arts class. But you never interacted. She always had her headphones in. smug unapproachable face. She had this walk, like she owned every sidewalk she walked on. You always took a second to take in her outfit, pointedly checking her out, not like she'd noticed. when she passed you could smell her expensive cologne, admire her braided hairstyles. Sometimes you smiled and she didn’t even notice, sometimes shed look at you and try to give what looked like a smile, just a polite one.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“hey chica” a familiar voice singsonged as she let herself in your dorm. you turned your head to find Dina in your door with a large backpack in hand “whatcha doin?” you eyed her suspiciously.. “my chem work..”

she trounced over to you shutting your computer quickly. “well not anymore, we’re going out!!!” she squealed excitedly spinning in a circle and dropping her bag to the ground.

You’d never exactly been a party animal, but with the stress of college it was so nice to get out and have fun.

“fineeee” you’d pretended to concede. rolling your eyes and twirling around with Dina

shed connected to your speaker, poured you both drinks and begun on your makeup.

“any luck with your crush?” she bounced her eyebrows obnoxouisly, referring to abby.

“i haven’t talked to her yet..” you confessed

“Y/N come on! its just Abby Anderson” she rolled her eyes as if abby wasn’t incredibly intimidating

“Dina she’s like six foot tall and has the RBF of a monster.” you pleaded with her

she rolled her eyes at you, finishing your lipstick. “go get dressed sugar”she smacked your ass playfully and said “els and Jesse will be here soon to pregame”

“no cat?” you asked referring to ellies girlfriend.

Dina hissed.. and squinted “ouch, broke up again?” you confirmed. This was like the third time.

Dina laughed starting on her makeup, already in her blue sparkly mini dress.

you walked into your room opening the dresser, hmm a red velvet and lace mini dress or a bedazzled low back halter top and leather skirt? “DINA?? DRESS OR SKIRT?”

“WHAT DRESS?”

“MY RED ONE”

“WHAT TOP WITH THE SKIRT?”

“MY BEDAZZLED ONE”

“OOO DISCO BALL SHIRT!!!” Dina screeched. you laughed and slid into the shirt discarding the idea of a bra, slipping your skirt on and your shoes into some short red pumps you felt perfect, and just in time. ellie called “ladies? we’re here.

“hi guys!” you ran up giving them each a quick hug

Dina said nothing, she was touching up her eyeliner.

once she was finished she ran out giving Jesse a peck and ellie a hug.

You were decently intoxicate by the time you even got to the party, Dina drank like a horse. (this is cannon)

As the party heated up and the lights somehow got dimmer the music blasting, you found yourself drunk. looking for Dina to get you another drink you ran smack into a mans back.

“oops sorry!” you slurred slightly.

he spun around, you didn’t recognize him “thats okay baby” he slurred heavily groping your hips to “stablize you”

You stumbled back and tried to walk past him, he grabbed your hips again. “dance with me bbygirl” he gave you a drunk smile

“does that line ever work?” you narrow your eyes grabbing his wrists and pushing back.

“yes” he winked

“not this time buddy” you snapped, and pushed off of him.

“god you’re a bitch” he grabbed your wrist harshly

before you could even get agressive, a large hand wrapped around your waist and a voice said in you ear “whatcha doin love?” Abby.

The man backed off chuckling, “my bad Anderson. Gotcha self a fiesty one huh?”

she pretended to chuckle. “ha yea, go find lilly i’m sure she’s missing warming your lap” and with that she yanked you away. you made sure to glare at his back on your way away.

whoever that is

suddenly you found yourself face to face with Abby Anderson. that hardend face present “you alright?” she asked her exterior melting as she leaned down to talk over the music in your ear.

“yea yea I had it handled. but thank you anyways.”

she nods looking at you, a new song plays, you love this song.

finally you found your balls. “dance with me.” you demanded more than asked.

she let her eyebrows rise, finally she said “alright”

she grabbed your hips without hesitation and your hands found her shoulders picking up to the pace of the song. As the song picked up you , let yourself daringly grind on her. her hands tightened on your hips “watch it Y/N” she rasped. Her voice sending electric down your spin and her grip lighting your skin on fire. the song crecendoded and you put your head in the crook of her neck kissing a small kiss. “what if I don’t want to?” you whispered “fuck Y/N how drunk are you?” she was still raspy her hands gripping you “drunk enough to take what i want” she hummed at your words, slotting her knee between your thighs, letting you move your hips with her body.

“can i kiss you?” you murmured. “fuck yes” she rasped out again you kissed her raggedly and she gave you the passion back, working on you. Breaking the kiss she dropped her head to your shoulder breathing you in, fighting back her needs, keeping her restraint. She thought she might ruin you right here in that fucking mini skirt.

breathe me in

breathe me out

you danced together locked in the heat of passion for what felt like five minutes but was for more then a few songs, suddenly the asshole who had his grip on you walked past winking at abby and drawing his eyes over you. She grabbed your ass possessively , causing you to jump forward, grinding your clothed cunt on her knee, letting out a moan.

“I need to get you out of here” abby hummed in your ear.

breathe me in

breathe me out

you nodded frantically ”just have to tell Dina”

She nodded and took your hand as you separated.

you found dina jessie and ellie out on the patio smoking a joint.

as if noticing your presence Dina passed it to you without looking up from her conversation. but when Jesse noticed the hickeys on your neck his brows furrowed, making the three of them looking you as you took a long drag off the joint. Passing it to ellie you started “guys i’m gonna um.. go home with someone” Dinas eyebrows shot up, ellie began taking you in, hickeys ,a hiked up skirt and a flushed face. “who?” she asked, ellie was this protective of everyone. you sidestepped to show none other then Abby fucking Anderson standing in the glass sliding door giving you guys some space to talk. “No fucking wayyyy-” Dina was cut off by ellie“is she sober, is she driving you?” ellie asked. you nodded. “okay cya.” Dina slapped your ass AGAIN as you trotted off. it was like her way of highfiving you.

The drive was mostly quiet. abby’s hand on your thigh, light music playing. The car stopped in front of her apartment building. “are you sure you’re okay with this”

“please abby.” you nodded. “if i didn’t see the way you looked at me every damn day I wouldn’t consider this. while you’re drunk.” your face flushed at her embarrassing statement.

the second you got in the door you were pushed against it locked in a heated kiss. kicking your shoes off. Abby all but dragged you to her room, unzipping your skirt “think i don’t see the way you give me fuck me eyes everyday huh? ” she growled in your ear. You whined.

“i have to hold myself back from this every fuckin’ day. lookin at me like that. like a slut who needs to be fucked” she chucked your skirt.

she ripped her own nice t shirt off showing her sports bra, then yours revealing your bare chest

“cant even wear a bra to the fuckin’ party. fuck your tits are perfect”

once soft spoken and quiet abby had flipped a switch. talking to you just the way you wanted, you’d imagined

“yours too” you slipped your hands under her sports bra and she helped you take it off, showing off her perfect tits.

she scooped you up only in your panties and brought your legs around her torso.

she attached her mouth to your perked nipple you let out a strained moan and she gripped your ass harder playing with your nipple with her tongue. switching to the other nd spending time on it. she walked over to the bed tossing you on it like you weighed nothing you gasped at the air being knocked out of your lungs, propping yourself up on your elbows. as she undid her belt setting it on the side table carefully, your eyes followed her hands and she undid her jeans sliding and kicking them off. she smiled at you, powerful body on full display abs flexing.

she lunged kissing you and kissing down your body, kissing over your clothed cunt.

“abby don’t tease. Please?”

“don’t tease? you’ve teased me for months staring at me, wearing cute little dresses, i should’ve been ripping them off of you the minute you got home. I should’ve been holding your hand to classes. ”

she began to lick your cunt through your thin satin panties as you canted your hips, whining.

finally she ripped them off. devouring you like she had been starved “abs.. making me feel so good.”

She looked up, smacking your slit and spitting on it after

you moaned out.

she sucked on your clit and entered a finger into you you moaned out your hole clenching.

“so fuckin tight. fuck.”

quickly she added another finger and you began grinding on her tounge. ‘Abs Abs im gonna!-”

“cum for me baby, cum on this face cmon. tell me who’s makin you feel this good”

her words sent you over the edge, a band in your belly snapping as you released on her face ”thats it thatta girl.” she slurped nastily on your pussy not even giving you a break.

she rose from the bed, your whining from loss of contact. ‘’i know baby” she pretended to pout, opening her drawer and pulling out a shiny box, and out of it she got a large baby pink strap on, maybe eight inches? your mouth watered at the sight of it. “bought this the day i saw you. wearin that lil top i couldn’t stand it.”

she latched it on over her boxers

‘ you whined at the tip sliding between your folds, she leaned up to you “ya alright with this love? she asked” “you nodded frantically kissing her, tasting yourself. she grabbed your face between her forefinger and thumb “open your mouth up” you did.

She was so nasty. she spit in your mouth and squeezed your cheeks to tell you not to close your mouth. she smiled at that sight. “so fuckin’ pretty.” she grabbed her polaroid off the nightstand “keep that mouth open wide baby” She snapped the picture. “oh thats going in my wallet.”

“Swallow” she commanded. and you did.

“fuck abs.. you’re perfect for me.”

“good baby” she chuckled

she used your slick to wet her cock and looked up at you, gripping your hips hard enough to leave bright brusises the next morning. slowly she slid in inch by inch, your eyes drooped as you moaned out whining at the size, all the way to the hilt. she checked on you, obviously enjoying it.

pulled out, and slammed back in. you screamed out at the feeling “A-Abby!”

“gunna fuckin’ split you in half”

relentlessly she pounded into you until she found that sweet spot that had your hips bucking. she abused it until your eyes started watering. using your hands you started to run away.

“ahh ahh ahh” she tsked.

flipping you over she grabbed the belt from her nightstand and skillfully used it to restrain your hands behind your back. your chest flush into her silk sheets.

she slammed into you at the hilt feeling your cervix. “gunna fuckin mold this pussy to my cock. you’re only gonna be mine.”

“Mhm i’m yours abs” you cried out

she went harder chasing her own orgasm as the hild of her cock bumped against her clit.

she smacked your ass causing you to jump forward and back, making her stroke that much deeper. “ass is perfect, this pussy’s fuckin’ perfect.” she growled out at you spitting down to where you connected. “abs- ABBY fuck. fuck. fuck.” you cried out

“yea baby tell the neighbors who owns you”

“Who owns this pussy?” she smacked your ass again and then she reached down messing with your clit

“ah! you abby. Abby does!”

‘m’ gonna cum abby.”

yea baby? go ahead cum for me she spat out.

she put her thumb on your asshole pressing just enough to feel how tight it was. spitting on it.

you feel your orgasm take over your body in waves, sending shock waves.

but she wasnt done

she kept going, no pace change. “m’ not fuckin’ done Y/N, gotta - fuckin’- make- you- mine-”

she slammed into you on each word making her point

you cried out, overstimulated, the orgasm you just had began to feel like a band that was going to snap again “abby pleas- is-its too much abby-”

“fuckin’ take it baby. fuckin’ take it like a good slut”

with your hands tied behind your back you had no choice to take it.

“Abs i’m gonna cum again. abs-”

“gunna fuckin’ cum too”

her strokes got sloppy, and she repeatedly smacked your ass alternating cheeks.

“Cum with me cmon fuckin’ cum with me, pretty”

“abs- ” the band snapped in your stomach, squirt covering both of your thighs.

“fuck Y/N, look so pretty doin it, fuck such a fuckin- good- girl-”

she accentuated her words with he lasts strokes her orgasm ripping out of her.. she rode it out in your whining, shiny wet cunt.

she un-lachted your arms and slid out of you.

giving you a kiss on the forehead

“did s’good for me baby, stay right here i’ll take care of you.”

she walked around the room putting the strap away you admired her strong back as she cleaned up, she took a warm wet rag to your puffy fucked out cunt cleaning you up and sliding a pair of her boxers on you, and her shirt over your head. she got dressed too and cralwed into bed with you, cuddling you into her arms.

[qvrcll]

hard hitter / slow kisser - Ellie Williams

-> synopsis: In which Ellie wishes things were different.

-> warnings: female ! reader, not fully nsfw but fondling is taken part in, b00bs are mentioned, FLUFF despite the synopsis, angst / comfort (minimal angst), mentions of explicit themes (ripping heart out, picking at skin), compulsions, slight obsession, religious imagery.

-> a/n: okay so i admit, this was kinda rushed but when i write for ellie, the words just flow with no stop. corny as hell but writing for her is just so delightful. i wanted to freeform a little and start writing differently but i love my adjectives and comparisons :P also wanted to go full nsfw but my heart is where fluff is <3

-> wc ~ 2.8K (kinda shorter, sorry)

Ellie doesn’t dream often.

She is a little bastardised in the way she takes in day dreams now, because they all remain fragments of blather she would very much like to abandon — she was certainly not the fifteen year old girl who stumbled amongst incoherent levels of moss and silver fish, mites all the same, to remain on the same altitude of the girl she once was, though she’d love to, to be frank. In her books, and her enemies and peers all the like, she was a monster. A liquidator. A crosshair between a butcher and diabolic salvation itself.

But that all comes down to how cheap she feels with her mercy on certain days; Jesse hands her a drink, free of charge, with just the remuneration of banter to commiserate the inky silences, and she has no qualms about it, really. She would drink, laugh, dance, kick, and asseverate that she was just a girl. But on days where her patience ran as thin as a line and framed herself along a thin wall with nothing but tailored tomahawks, pistols and penstocks to make up for all the time she has wasted not being a pharaonic machine, she would thrash, scream, hack and saw, swearing that it was just in her kindness to kill.

Blood.

Grime.

Sweat.

Puke.

It’s in her nature to be grim, to be the picker of cold meat, to be the irascible contour of death itself — even when she doesn’t like it. She wants to move about, she wants to plant the seeds of her amicable fortune to let grow for whatever time stood between her and delectation itself — and she knows she’s using big words, but it’s what she deserves, no? Something big, grand, something to blow her off her heels and toes, when the red on her hands feel too real.

Because that’s what it doubles back into.

She can feel the heat on her palm, can barely register that her eyes augment into psychedelic halos of never-ending zip wire: she is the cat but she is also the mouse. She is the forest and she is the tinder licking it to embers. She is the knife but, in direct proportion to just how debauched she just thinks she is, she is the carcass — she is what she kills.

She wishes it was different.

She wishes everything was less… cruel.

She wishes she can give you more than what she can offer, or more than what she can even begin to think to offer.

And you feel it hanging in the air in tightfisted stares she throws your way — it’s not irritation because she rubs her hands against the wiriness of her jeans, and she’s wide eyed. She’s shaking. And she is all but the pharaonic machine you’ve seen on harder days.

“Hey…”, she begins and you can’t tell if it’s you who is discredited by the rasp in her voice, or Ellie herself, but you’re soon reminded she’s the one shaking. She quickly corrects the shortcoming in her tone, and you start to, selfishly, miss it, “You busy?”.

You shake your head, because it’s all you can do. You, in all your respects and genuine annoying-ness, are an enforcer for greetings. In any form. An enabler. No one was a talker unless you were, back at camp, and when you did double the work with stable duty familiars, an affinity grew and soon, conviction did too. But now, with a cloth slotted awkwardly in your mouth and sweat sequinned along your chin in a way that made you seem effectual, for all your honour, it was hard to regard her in a way she learnt. From you. Around you.

Still, you’re stubborn. Crotchety. Petulant in a way that stung in the aftermath of it all, and if you couldn’t have a way you were familiar with, you would imbibe a way to etch your habits into your skin like blackwork.

“Heh Eys, nawt rhelly—“, you gabble against the soapy skin of the fabric, highly uncomfortable and effortless in a lowborn way, a plebeian. But Ellie wouldn’t begin to understand the adversity of your kindness against you if it just meant a polite wave towards her — she is made of crystal and mounted on kindling so chippy, a glance would score you a splinter. She’s Neptune, you’re blades of grass. She’s thunder, you’re shelter. She’s Ellie, and you’re everything she’s not. She wants that. To protect that. But she feels confused, dazed, and most of all, nice. To you. Now. She smiles, misguided in her attempt to slouch against the wall, which just ends in seeming like she’s trying too hard, but you don’t mind. You like her.

“What are you up to?”, her fingers splay against the soft of her jumper and you crawl against the arm of the couch to get a better look, of the tools, of the creation bending in your arms, of her.

You cling to the mellow part of the furniture, partly because Jacksonville froze you half to death here and there and partly because, from this angle, she looked heavenly. Though, you suppose, whatever angle she took, she still shines like foamy brine spat from the mouth of Aphrodite herself, “Shurprize”, you slur.

Ironically, she’s not surprised. Or doesn’t make herself to be. Ellie is a hard person to read, with intentions so murky and a hereafter even sootier, it’s harder. She’s hard to look through. If you’re a piece of see-through plastic, she’s a brick wall. But around you, she spares holes in the same wall for you to peer, because when you focus on the girl, she’s turning this way and that way the next, crossing across this hard, tuning in to you that way, so softly. And to make her break, you tear your plastic cover, nominally, to show skin.

“For yew”, and she’s surprised, because she bends forward to eat at your given curiosity — or to get a glance of the gift but you shoo her away, but not really, because you want her close. A tricky thing, you were. But she’s the fish and she is, funnily, the bait. And when you push, she pulls, drags, until there is only enough space to whisper — the couch gives way and she has netted a place on the bump of the it, and her upper half completely lays parallel to where you’re seated, criss-cross. Her lower half lays on the other side of the bump, almost lifelessly limp.

Fucking close, she thinks.

Holy shit, you harmonize.

“ELLIE!”, you throw the gift under overlays of rusty garments, old newspapers, day old cut-outs of magazines and Ellie cannot begin to make it out — but she never intended to. Instead, she’s too busy, too entailed in utopia to be taking your face in one at a time, because she’s right in front of it. And if she can’t be selfish, what can she be?

“Ellie”, a bit of you runs cold, when the space is so abysmally small that pulling away seems criminal. Looking away seems depraved. Leaving seems erring in an itchy distraction sort of way. And you are a good citizen, and you tend to abide by her laws, “What are we doing, Ellie?”.

“Something”, she’s closer, in some way.

“Something what?”

“Something we won’t… regret… hopefully…”, closer.

“Am I supposed to know what this ‘something’ is?”

“Oh, I think you know all about it”, upheaval. Silence. Hesitation. Inadequate idiots being ingested by douceur. Pieces in a puzzle laying torpid. Candy. Amber. Stock-still embarrassment means nothing if you don’t want it to, you think, but it turns to deaf ears when she’s impossibly closer and you are too and—

One second blurs into the next, flickers of time, and you can’t figure who swore against hesitation first, who decided she’s taking too long. Because you’re in a state of panic, as you are in a state of tranquility, intermingled as one, divided as two and still, you feel at your heart when her mouth tastes like bullion, zesty salt water on her lips, and you pray, Oh Aphrodite, don’t let me die now. Your heartless litanies are a pedestal for her to creep just more, closer to you, harden her mouth and bite more of what’s given; she licks your teeth, she teases your tongue, she ripples you with embarrassment. With inquisition. With thoughts of how on God’s good earth is she able to do this?

But there’s no room for these inquiries. There is no room for rogations. There is no room for embarrassment; she’s chewn me whole, you think. Pollute your mind with her. Try to think of her with your eyes closed when she mutilates your lips with demoralised desire, that she’s kept herself from, for so long — not that it’s any different for you, but there is nothing other than a screeching howl of her name in your brain.

“Ellie— Ellie, wait”, you choose to breathe, or croak? Or force shit out of your throat, because either way, you have her attention. Ellie looks at her creation, or rather, the editings of you in a play of more push, less pull. Bruised lips, cuttings of her greed on you. You know she’s drunk on you, your lips, barely processing the words out for hearing. You’re her crutch, when you balance her, lay her flat across the length of the couch and she’s painfully biddable, hushed into a silence — a minute ago, she was the artist and you, her clay, but right now, you’ve got the pestle.

“Don’t move”, you warn her, leching over her to further input the extent of your words — to make her feel more than what she lets on because, in short, you know she has a borne shapeliness on her side and it makes you stagger but not any less mechanical, though slightly apprehensive, but delirious. Push but still, pull, because this is your Ellie.

You don’t want mistakes.

You don’t want do-overs.

You don’t want crosses across your sky.

You want her.

You want the ground beneath her.

You want her skin, her sweat, her spit.

You want Ellie.

Ellie is full of hate. Ellie is full of love. And somewhere in the middle, convoluted and awkward and loud and incessant, with bits poking out, with ridges unkempt, with door handles shaking, there’s… you. You’re almost a deep-seated instinct in her, a set of cartilage she cannot break, and even if she does, she knows you will feel it. Feel the pain, the suffering, the deluge, the blight. And Ellie, in her vigour, her hate, her love, her ‘you’, her everything, won’t allow that. And if she does, it’s insanity, because she lays a padded thumb on your cheek, shaping stag circles one by one, until you’re seated directly on top of her. From here, she can see your lips lightly varicose and she melts in her pants.

“What’s wrong angel?”, she pouts, because she cannot smile, and she certainly cannot commiserate it with a friendly shove — this is real, you’re real. This is not an allegory for schizophrenic delusions to want to know how you taste, how you feel, how you look pliant under her, or over. This is the fruit of her heart, the skin of lust. This is real.

“Something stupid”, you say, laying two flat palms on either sides of her chest, directly below her chest, so she’s distracted by the perpetual itch of your fingers just millimetres from her breats — and, of course, it’s not where she needs you most. Her cunt doesn’t even flurry as much as her heart dares to rip right out to lather you in a crude chroma of her, but she will take you anyway. Anyhow. In any shape or form. But Ellie, strong and well, Ellie, has half her mind to know that something is wrong. Something is out of place, like a wire out of a circuit, and she feels helpless in the way you cup her ruthlessly through the fabric of her clothing, which bunches up in a not-so-delicious curve and hitch, wrinkles kissing every bit of it — she’s deluded and she doesn’t care. She wants you, she wants to feel you, your worries. She wants to eat them, swallow them whole and spit them back out or digest and cage them, where they won’t torment you again. So you won’t look so dettered, unmannered. Like you’re second guessing. Like you are stepping in territory you can’t claim and she flings her head to the side, half in pain at the possibility and half in twisted pleasure as you manipulate her hurt nipples through the dedevilling.

You’re her Eve.

She ought to be Adam.

But she’s scared she’s the snake.

“Ellie, please move your hands”, you half moan, half reprimand, as Ellie curves her torso into the cruel plush of the couch, incoherent and dumb. A docile lamb: a lamb that moves — or rather, throws, her hands above her head, where you cannot see them. For the better, you huff, threading her impatiently. Like a masterpiece, out for only you to see. You’re redefining her, giving her new meaning, rechristening her as a part of you so she will remember as she goes, even if you lose, because really, you don’t want to lose. Slowly, you inch a hand up her top, surprised to feel cool stone for skin, apart from the callousness of her fingers that prod and poke at your flesh on normal days. You can barely see them now. You slither on.

“Oh—Oh, fuck”, she cries, unbecoming of the proclaimed machinery she swears her innards have been replaced for, hardwear blathering into rounds of mush, not only was she melting from the outside, but from the inside, as your hands paint her chest, almost pleasing the skin but taking your hands further or lower from where she needs you — she’d almost swear you know better but you tear completely, when parts of your eyes reluctantly speak to her own, and she’s distraught. She wants to consume you whole and spit you back out with nothing, no sadness, in your head.

She pauses her clamours, chest still racketing with harsh breath. “What’s wrong? You can tell me…”, her voice urges and she slips your warm hands into hers and letting go after unruly seconds because she knows this is harder than it reads, though she assumes it’s hard either way. Her shirt just barely skidding back to her hips and suddenly, when you expect the air to clear of its past ponderosity, but it grows.

You pause briefly, checking for skin near your nails which you don’t find. You curse yourself. “I just… I don’t want this to be, you know, a one time thing…”, a melodic interlude— “I want to make you feel good. But I want you to remember me”.

There’s another suspension of thick silence, and you focus your attention to your toes— no skin here, none there, nothing anywhere. You want to settle for anything, to make her understand. Want yourself to understand, in order to understand her — but it’s static and you can’t bear it, thinking of just burying your fingers in your mouth and skin yourself completely.

“You—“, Ellie desists, and scrambles closer to you, and then away in fear when the look on your face misreads for disgust, words painted in your eyes that scream, in her mechanised brain, go away. But you pull her closer and she understands. Her mind—that has known so much fury, so much blood, so many shades of faces she cannot remember melding into one singular countenance: regret. But when she holds your hand, distracts you from your skin, your nails, she feels a lock of balminess, a sign of life. It’s so different to the hands she’s known since forever — her own — but she welcomes the warmth, “I also don’t want you to just be a memory”.

It doesn’t come to stun you but you can’t help but still lift your head, awaiting a response and getting it in the fullest forms of breath you have left for her — reciprocation.

She holds your stare.

She recounts your breath.

She wishes to three for you to react and then—

She feels the stick of something in her palm — and by the time she opens her eyes, the glint of metal is mechanical in the way she wrenched the little gift, the locket, open: a picture of you and her, guarded by trees and smiles just as bright, though the colours have faded. Then,

“We’re fucking stupid, you know that?”, you gleam so bright, so hard.

I want to kiss her again, she dreams.

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “Cat’s Cradle”, Part 5

Yup, finally did it.  Enjoy, lovelies.

“Cat’s Cradle”

Chapter Five: One String at a Time

History is, after all, just a repetition of turns in a game for keeps.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 fin

* * *

"To set in motion what needed setting."

Sansa mulls over Bran's words as she sits in her solar, a lone nail tapping along the desk in front of her. The shock of his return is still vibrant beneath her skin, the joy still lingering dully in the pit of her stomach, and yet, there's an unexplainable dread winding round and round the quiet of her mind.

They had all decided to keep up the pretense of Bran being Gilly's wounded and bedridden brother, sequestered in their guest quarters, with only Maester Wolkan being alerted to the situation, as Sansa had demanded Bran be seen by a healer. Jon and Arya could not calm her until Bran had relented to Wolkan's attentions. Later that same night, Bran had gone into more particulars about his absence these last few years, and it only served to unsettle Sansa further.

These cryptic lines of his, the way he speaks, the things he knows, it's not... it's not normal. This Three-Eyed Raven, and his tales of the Children of the Forest, everything is just... just too much.

She only wants her brother back. Her little brother.

Her chest tightens at her innocent need. She fears he will never fully return to them. Not as he once was.

(But have any of them returned as they once were?)

Sansa shakes her head, eyes shifting closed on an exhausted sigh.

What had he meant? What needed to be set in motion? Ever since word of Bran's 'assassination' had made it to them with Arya's return, Baelish had become more impatient, more reckless. As though he saw an end to his manipulations in the near future, all his plans coming to fruition, just within reach. Is this what Bran meant? That Baelish would hasten his plans, that he would slip, that he would be too blind to their machinations in his own desperation?

But then why keep her and Jon in the dark about his survival? Why have them experience such pain, when he must know how news of his death would devastate them?

It comes unbidden to her then, the memory of her and Jon in the godswood. A mess of strings in her hands, the grief lodged in her throat, and his warm hands along her face, his comforting words breathed into her skin, and his kiss – their kiss –

Sansa's hand ceases its tapping, a sharp breath sucked between her teeth. She lurches forward in her seat.

No.

No, Bran could not know. And even if he did, he would have no reason to... no disregard of the gods to...

It plays through her mind in instant, bewildering flashes – Jon's mouth pressed firmly to hers in the godswood, her confession in his chambers, his refusal of the lords' marriage proposals, the moment in her solar before Bran's arrival, when he was nearly hers and she was nearly his and nothing had ever felt more intoxicating in her life.

No.

This cannot be what Bran had meant to set in motion.

Even if she has made her peace with loving her own brother, Bran would have no reason to sanction such a union, or to encourage such feelings in either of them. It's senseless. Against the order of the world. Gods, she's said as much to herself before!

And yet...

She cannot find a reason for his deception. Not to them. Not to those who love him most.

What game is Bran playing?

A knock sounds at the door, startling Sansa from her thoughts.

"Come in," she calls, straightening in her seat.

Arya opens the door.

Sansa nods stiffly at her, her frustration with her sister still ripe and untouched.

Arya closes the door behind her, shoulders pulled back. She makes her way to stand before Sansa's desk, her hands wound behind her back. It's an image Sansa has grown familiar with these last several weeks, and yet, somehow detests. It's not that it's her sister, not that she seems strong and confident and fierce. Rather, it's that... that she seems so lonely.

Sansa realizes suddenly – acutely – that she misses the Arya that needed her.

Or perhaps more accurately, she misses being the Sansa that her sister needed.

"I saw Lord Royce's entourage earlier," Arya greets.

"Yes," Sansa says, "He arrived this morning."

Arya pulls a deep breath in. "So, tomorrow it is, then?"

Sansa looks carefully at her. "Yes. Tomorrow."

Arya cocks her head. "Are you nervous?"

"Should I be?"

Arya glances to her desk, a frown marring her face. "Baelish may have contingency plans we don't know about," she says uneasily.

"None that you may know about," she corrects.

Arya glances up at her.

Sansa leans back in her chair, hands coming together over her lap. "Believe me, I would not set this in motion if I wasn't absolutely sure of his escape routes. He has none. Not for this," she promises.

Arya gives her a concerned look, her hands tightening behind her back.

Sansa offers a reassuring smile. "Only when he trusts you fully will his fall be possible," she tells her, quoting Baelish's words from long ago. "This is what he believes. And for once, he is right."

"Baelish trusts you?" Arya asks warily, a single brow cocked. "Completely?"

"He trusts that I have no way of revealing his crimes without also implicating myself," she answers. "And he would be wrong."

Arya considers her a moment, nodding. Her gaze shifts over to the far wall, her throat flexing with her anxiety.

Sansa watches the expression curiously.

"Is Lord Royce prepared then?" Arya asks.

Sansa nods. "I've already spoken to him this morning. As well as Jeyne." Her voice softens at the end, the memory of her reunion with Jeyne still lingering in her mind. Their hesitant embrace, Sansa's sigh along Jeyne's hair, Jeyne's tightening arms around her waist, the way they each barely managed to hold back the tears, the way Jeyne's eyes shone determined and alive again, when Sansa cupped her cheeks in her hands and smiled at her.

Jeyne needs this as much as any of them do, she realizes. And she deserves it, probably more than any of them do.

If it means granting her friend peace – if it means granting her aunt, and her cousin, and her mother, and her father, and all of them peace, then there is nothing that can stop her now. Nothing that can save Petyr Baelish.

"When they've tried him for his crimes against our cousin, when Royce has stripped him of his status as Lord Protector, then I'll have Brienne bring you in as Gareth Stone, and we can level our own charges against him before the Northern court. Are you ready?"

Arya nods, remembering the plan they'd laid out the night before upon Bran's arrival. "Yes. I've already prepared a body," she tells her.

Another of Baelish's nameless spies. And perhaps Sansa should be worried at her sister's body count, but then, none of this would be possible otherwise. She swallows down her unease with a practiced sense of resignation.

"When you're finished interrogating me," Arya continues, "Brienne will take me out for the 'execution'. We'll make sure to burn the body we've prepared in place of Stone."

Sansa nods, her lips pursed tight. "Well, then. We're all set."

Arya chews on her lip. "Yes."

"I'll see you in the morning then," Sansa tells her, her dismissal clear.

Arya hesitates a moment, before she steps back, turning for the door.

Sansa's chest is still tight, her longing still acute.

Arya stops halfway to the door and Sansa's breath catches at the sight.

It's several moments, long and drawn-out, or perhaps only a second later, that Arya turns back to her, stalking up to the desk, her brows dipped into an anxious crease. "I'm..." She swallows it back, chest heaving with her sudden agitation. And then she bites down on her lip, a frustrated breath escaping her. "I'm sorry," she says.

Sansa blinks up at her.

Arya's shoulders slump with it, her whole form sagging beneath the weight of the admission. She looks desperately at Sansa. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Sansa. For keeping it from you. I didn't... I didn't want to. I didn't mean to, but then – but then what Bran said – and with Baelish – and all this trouble about who's claim is the right one, and not knowing where you or Jon stood, and... and..." She squeezes her eyes shut, breathes deep. "And not knowing what to do..." Her voice cracks at the end there.

Sansa's throat closes up, her little sister's desperation so keenly familiar, so painfully intimate. King's Landing is brilliant and golden and deadly in her mind once more, the memory hot at the base of her skull.

"I don't know what to do," she cries, terror-stricken, just a girl.

(I'm just a girl, she wants to wail.)

Sansa stares at her sister, chest throbbing, lungs aching. She stares at her.

(She almost reaches for her.)

Arya opens her eyes, meeting Sansa's gaze with a hung head. "I didn't know what to do," she says brokenly. "At first, I thought... I thought Bran did it because he didn't trust you." She stops, swallows, lets out a trembling sigh. "But now I know he did it precisely because he does trust you. Both of you."

Sansa looks off toward the far wall, licking her lips in her trepidation. She swallows it down quickly, hands clenching in her lap. "I still have questions," she tells her.

Arya takes an eager step toward her from the other side of the desk. "I'll answer them," she promises.

Sansa looks at her once more.

"I'll answer all your questions," Arya whispers, her eagerness waning slightly as she meets Sansa's gaze.

Sansa takes a moment, tries to quell the memory at the root, tries to hush the terror of remembrance that still visits her dreams sometimes.

Her father's head, tumbling down the muddy steps. Joffrey's sneering from his throne on high. A gauntleted slap across her face, cheekbone cracking beneath the force of it. Cersei's taunting whispers at her ear. News of Mother and Robb's gruesome deaths. An empty, golden room, but for her sometimes-husband, sometimes-captor. And the loneliness.

Gods, but the loneliness.

Sansa sucks back the unexpected sob along her tongue. She stands swiftly, hands stiff at her sides.

Arya opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes.

More than anything, she realizes, she wants to be Arya's Sansa again. She wants to be the Sansa she needs.

She only hesitates a moment, and then she gathers her skirts in her hands, striding gracefully over to the twin cushioned chairs settled before the hearth. "Come," she tells her.

Arya follows obediently, quiet and rigid.

Sansa allows herself a small, contented smile when she catches sight of the bundle of string along the side table. She settles into one of the chairs, taking the strings with one hand and motioning beside her with the other. "If you're so apologetic, then repay me with a game. I'm in need of a partner as of late."

Arya watches hesitantly for a moment. "I'm a bit rusty," she offers as a paltry excuse.

Sansa pats the seat across from her. "Then I shall have to help you, won't I?"

Arya stares at her a moment, lip caught between her teeth, before she cautiously rounds the chair and settles into it.

Sansa leans over her knees toward Arya, stretching out the familiar web of strings between her fingers. She gives her sister an expectant look.

Arya stays perfectly still a while, just watching her, and then her gaze shifts to the strings, a tremble lighting along her chin, a sheen of wetness over her eyes, before she's blinking it back, reaching for the strings herself.

Sansa walks Arya gently through her stumbling, and so, quietly and slowly, they begin again the game from their childhood.

Turn after turn, Sansa's understanding grows. She misses this, she finally registers. Misses her little sister. Misses the person she is when she's with her little sister. Misses her home and her childhood and those that left her. Misses everything. Misses all of it. Misses even herself.

But she's tired of missing that which will never return. And tired of fearing that which now remains.

She will never be the person she was years ago. Neither will Arya. For that matter, neither will Bran, or Jon, or Jeyne. Bits of them may remain, in glimpses. Familiar smiles and familiar pains and familiar dreams. But there are things in each of them to be learned anew.

She could never have loved Jon when they were children, in the way she does now. Perhaps, then, it's alright to love Arya a little differently as well. Perhaps, this is how one sets aside their longing, their missing of the past.

Sansa looks at Arya, catches the sight of her brow creased in concentration at their game. She allows herself a soft smirk. "You were always much better at this game than you gave yourself credit for."

Arya snorts across from her, eyes never leaving their game.

Sansa piques a brow her way. "I mean it. You had the hands for it, you know. I could see it in your sewing."

"My sewing was shit and you know it."

Sansa allows herself a chuckle. "Only because you never truly tried." She takes the set of strings cleanly from Arya's hands.

Arya stares at the strings, gauging her next move in silence a while. "It wasn't me," she says finally, so low Sansa almost misses it.

"No, I suppose not," Sansa muses. More silence pervades the room as they take their turns. She peers at her, watching the way Arya focuses so intently on their game, her fingers deft and sure. "But you've more a touch for it than you know. You just wield a different sort of needle now, I suppose."

Arya glances up at her, and then continues her turn quietly, mouth tipped into a frown.

Sansa sighs softly. "I guess I never really understood that – why you were the way you were. I still don't, truth be told. These... skills of yours, now. This... profession." Sansa swallows thickly. "I may never understand it, or your need for it, but if it makes you happy – "

"I'm not happy," Arya interrupts swiftly, voice resigned, like a noose she's spent too many years carrying round her neck.

Sansa looks up at her, hands stilled over the net of strings.

Arya's gaze is resolutely downcast, strings held taut between her trembling fingers. "I'm not happy, Sansa," she gets out in a quaking voice, swallowing tightly. She looks up. "But I'm home," she says roughly, blinking furiously against the wetness dotting her eyes.

Like a noose cut open at the knot, frayed ends splaying wide.

Sansa watches her, silent and still.

Arya clenches her jaw, looking at her hands. "What I've learned – what I've done..." She shakes her head, voice wavering. "I can't say it's brought me happiness, but it has brought me home." She flicks her cautious gaze back up to meet Sansa's. "And I think that's as good a first step towards happiness as any," she whispers shakily, keeping her eyes fixed to Sansa's.

Sansa licks her lips, blinking away the sudden moistness at the edges of her eyes. She clears her throat, resuming the game with a gentle touch. "A very good step, I'd say." She takes the web of strings from her sister's hands with surety.

Arya peers up at her with a guarded gaze, hands settling limp along her knees.

Sansa sighs, the game halted between them. "And I'm proud of you for taking it – that first step."

Arya's eyes wet instantly, her mouth tightening with her waning control, lips trembling.

Sansa leans toward her, never letting her look away. "No matter what, I'm proud of you," she says fiercely, chest constricting with the words.

Arya's face crumples suddenly, a sob hitched in her throat, before she's sucking it back with a heavy inhale, a hand going to her face. She blinks furiously up at the ceiling, sniffling back the tears, looking back down again after a single, steadying breath, the heel of her palm dug into one eye, the heavy, lingering wake of a too-long second spilled out between them, and then she's leaning forward swiftly, taking the strings from Sansa, distracting her with another turn, still sniffling back her unspent tears.

Sansa almost laughs. Instead, she tucks the sound quietly between her ribs, lets the warmth nestle there. She bites her lip to hide her smirk, following Arya's cue and taking her next turn in silence.

Arya tries to discreetly cover her sniffles, and Sansa lets her.

Another turn passes in silence, before Sansa cocks her head, her smirk settled more firmly along her face. "I'm still going to win this one, though," she says confidently.

Arya barks a laugh, tear-laced, leaning back in her seat as she wipes her nose on her sleeve. "You always do," she says.

Sansa beams.

She finds that maybe, more than the girl she used to be, more than the girl she thought she should be, more than everything, more than all of it – she misses the woman she wanted to become.

"Your turn," she tells Arya.

Perhaps that realization is as good a first step toward happiness as any.

* * *

Bran stays resolutely quiet. Jon urges him to join the court, to let them announce his survival. It would mean Bran taking his crown, of course, but Jon's already made peace with that. He'd intended the crown to be Sansa's though, once news of Bran's death seemed indisputable. Yet, oddly enough, Bran only continues to repeat his first assurances of abdicating, and his need for secrecy about his presence in Winterfell until Baelish is disposed of.

"I must go South," he tells Jon when he visits his younger brother the day after his arrival, while Arya visits with Sansa in her solar following the meeting with Yohn Royce. "Once the throne of Winterfell is secured, once Baelish is dead, once the Others are dealt with – I must go South. There is much to do."

Jon stares at his bunched hands, sitting along the edge of Bran's bed. He can't deny the part of himself that feels relief at Bran's decision. The chance to remain Lord of Winterfell, King in the North. All he's ever wanted, really.

It feels wrong though. Far more wrong than it did before.

He thinks about the bundled scroll lying atop the bedside table – Robb's will.

He hasn't the heart to read it yet, though Bran has already shared its contents. Maybe because reading the words in Robb's own hand makes everything more real, more permanent. Maybe because it finally validates his desires. Maybe because it means another thing stolen from Sansa.

Jon sighs heavily, glancing up at Bran.

His brother is looking at him evenly, head canted, hands held limply over the blanket covering him. "You have a choice," he tells him.

Jon furrows his brows at him.

"I've given you the tool you need to cement your rule in the North. Will you take it? Or will you heed Sansa's claim instead?"

Later that same day, after he's made his way down to the crypts, that conversation plays over and over in Jon's head. He stands before the stone statue of his father, eyes fixed to it, taking in a lungful of needed air. Down here, there is a clarity he cannot find elsewhere.

"It's your choice, what you do with it," Bran had said, when he placed the worn scroll of Robb's will into Jon's open palm. "Though I hope you wait until Howland Reed arrives. There are things you should know before you make your choice."

Jon wipes a hand down his face, sighing, before he turns from the stone visages of his dead family and makes his way back toward the entrance of the crypts.

First, they deal with Baelish. Then they settle the succession of the Northern crown. One step at a time. There are enough battles to choose from, after all.

And Jon only wants to protect.

"Your Grace," Jon hears upon his exit from the crypts. He turns toward the greeting with a sneer, finding Baelish waiting for him past the stone markers.

Littlefinger nods at his notice, coming up beside him. "I pray you are not too troubled, Your Grace. I know the crypts of Winterfell have long provided solace to the Starks," he says pointedly, a nod sent behind them as he follows Jon in his trek away from the crypts.

Any other time, Jon might have lashed out at the man's audacity to approach him, but there's an even calmness blanketing him instead. He wonders if it's the presence of Robb's will at his breast, tucked beneath his tunic, beneath the weight of the cloak Sansa had sown for him herself.

(He would laugh at the irony of it, if it weren't so cruel.)

Or perhaps it is the certainty he feels about their meeting with the lords the next morning that pacifies him. The day they enact their plan against Baelish, just past the dawn. He thinks it should have him restless, uneasy, anticipatory. Rather, the knowledge of Littlefinger's impending downfall (though hardly assured) keeps him tranquil, at ease.

No more whispers in Sansa's ears, no more subtle touches, no more lingering shadows.

Sansa will be free, and so will the North. Free of his treachery.

Jon can endure another tiresome conversation with Baelish one last time, he figures. It may be the last the man ever speaks to him, after all, before his throat is slit.

A final mercy, if you will. The thought almost makes Jon compassionate. But not quite.

Jon continues to stalk down the halls toward his quarters, Baelish in tow. "You didn't come find me to inquire about my troubles, I'm sure," he scoffs, glancing at Littlefinger over his shoulder.

The man offers a perfunctory smile, tight at the edges. "No, Your Grace, you are correct there."

Night falls heavy around them, the fire in the sconces along the walls flickering orange slants of firelight across their forms as they walk.

Baelish clears his throat. "I wish to speak to you of the Lady Sansa."

Jon stops abruptly. The weasel is wearing Jon's mercy down already. With a thin frown, Jon turns fully back to him, a challenging brow lifted when he tells him, "I believe I already informed you not to speak of my sister to me ever again."

Baelish nods with acknowledgement, and Jon doesn't miss the way he swallows uneasily, a hand going to tug at his collar briefly, before smoothing his palms over his tunic, the memory of Jon's hand around his throat clearly fresh in his mind.

Jon can't help the dark smirk that tugs at his lips at the reminder.

"Again, you are correct."

Jon stares at him. "Then why are you still here?"

Baelish lifts his chin slightly. "It seems my concern for her well-being overrides even that for myself."

Jon wants to roll his eyes at the comment, his teeth grinding in his skull. But he won't give Baelish any ground the night before his trial. "Speak," he nearly barks. "And quickly. Before I change my mind." He flexes his hand at his side, a warning.

Baelish seems to notice, the slight curl of his lip signaling his distaste just half a second before he hides it behind a deferential smile. But Jon has grown to recognize the man's tells.

"I was surprised at the sudden arrival of Lord Royce," he begins.

Jon's shoulders tense at the words, but he says nothing.

"I had known of Lord Arryn's feebleness, of course, but I hardly expected him to decline so quickly. The news Lord Royce brought with him was disheartening to hear."

Jon eyes him cautiously, licking his lips. "Yes, we were all sorry to hear of the boy's sickness."

"Hardly warrants a journey to Winterfell, though. A raven would have sufficed, don't you think?"

Jon gives him a deadpan look. "What I think has never been of interest to you before, Lord Baelish."

Littlefinger smiles then. "No, I suppose not, if we're being honest."

Jon raises his brows at that. For a moment, a brief flicker of trepidation lights in his gut at Baelish's easy admission.

Baelish smacks his lips, straightening his shoulders as he takes a step toward the sconce along the stone wall beside them, eyes following the flame. "I do, however, suspect you have an inkling as to why Lord Royce made the journey himself. Not that I expect you to tell me." He raises a couple fingers to run along the ash-lined rim of the sconce's frame, frowning, and then flicking away the dust – disinterested.

"Then why bother asking me?" Jon gets out lowly, watching him with an eye of caution.

Baelish glances back to Jon, fingers rubbing together to clear the smudge of ash. "You were so adamantly against Lady's Sansa's marriage. I must wonder why."

Jon is momentarily thrown by the change of subject, but he doesn't let the surprise bleed into his voice. "I don't see how the two are connected."

That smile is back, sickly sweet. Baelish looks again to his dirtied fingers. "Lord Arryn is young. He has not an heir of his own, you see. The heir apparent – at the moment – is the Lord Harrold Hardyng." He lowers his hand finally, linking it behind his back with his other one, turning fully to Jon. "The man I represented when the court last spoke of Lady Sansa's marriage prospects. The man you refused without so much as an introduction."

"I've already given my reasons for delaying Sansa's marriage. I'll not repeat myself."

"Hmm, yes," he says. "'Delaying', as you say."

Jon takes a step toward him, face dark.

"But considering you usurped her rightful claim to the Northern crown, is it not only right that you secure her future for her? As Lady of the Eyrie?"

Jon barely restrains the snarl at the back of his teeth in response to his boldness. "You're very quick to discount your lord's possible recovery."

Baelish squares his jaw. "I'm not unfeeling, Your Grace. Simply practical."

Jon does scoff then, a rueful chuckle following the sound. "I beg to differ."

Baelish purses his lips. "Even still – "

"Even still, you want to secure your influence," Jon interrupts, a note of disgust lining his words. "If Sansa can't have my crown, then she will have another, is that it? A crown you can control."

"I only want what's best for her."

"Do not presume to think your greed has gone unnoticed, Lord Protector. You want what's best for yourself, and that's all. You care nothing for Sansa," he snarls, the heat rising in his chest, unbidden. He swallows thickly, trying to smother it.

Baelish's eyes flash at Jon's quiet outburst, a knowing smirk spreading slowly over his lips. He keeps his hands linked behind him, a tilt to his chin when he tells him, "I see the way you look at her."

Jon's chest constricts, that flicker of trepidation flaring brighter, harsher. His gut curls at the sensation. "And how is that?" he manages through grit teeth, eyes never leaving Baelish.

Littlefinger is quiet a moment, lips pursed in contemplation, an oily smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth. "Much the same way I look at her," he says lowly, a glint in his eye.

Jon's chest heaves at the words, his growl choked back when he takes a step forward, hands already fists at his side.

Baelish's smirk curls into another sickly sweet smile. "With devotion," he finishes reverently, before Jon can say anything in response.

Jon sucks a ragged breath though his clenched teeth, turning slightly to face down the hall, a hand wiped over his mouth in his ire. "My position is unmoved," he growls out, not even daring to meet Baelish's eyes, for fear of what he will do to the man. "There will be no more discussion of my sister's marriage. And considering recent events, I think it best you direct your devotion to your ailing master, instead, Lord Baelish." He sends a glare toward the man, eyes narrowed and unflinching. "You are the Lord Protector of the Vale, not my sister's keeper. Perhaps you should start acting like it."

"I daresay I'm not the only man playing your sister's keeper."

Jon stills, glare never leaving Baelish. "What?" he gets out tightly.

Littlefinger only smiles. "But then, I suppose you are simply just an... affectionate brother. Rather affectionate, wouldn't you say, Your Grace?"

Jon's nostrils flare at the insinuation, his skin thrumming with alarm. "I could have your head for such implications," he says on a deadly exhale.

Baelish gives him a baffled look. "I have implied nothing, Your Grace."

"You've really no care for your life, then, do you?"

"And you've no care for your allies, is that it? Because if the Lord Arryn should hear of such threats on my life..." He shakes his head with feigned concern, brows furrowed. "If your own lords heard such threats, just weeks before your Vale allies were needed most in this little war of yours?"

"This 'little war' is a concern for the entire realm, and I'll not have us splintered by your poisonous words," Jon seethes.

"Good," Baelish says. "Then we are agreed."

Jon is practically shaking with his fury. "Agreed?" he asks mockingly.

"That the Lady Sansa should wed Lord Hardyng, keep our ties strong, keep us from... splintering," he finishes meaningfully, with a cock of his head and an impish smile. He winds his hands together before him.

Jon lets out a bark of laughter, clipped and menacing. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the minute flinch of Baelish's hands at the sound, the subtle twitch along his jaw.

Good, he thinks. The man still fears him at least, even when he's grown adept at not showing it.

Jon thinks instantly of Sansa's caution.

"You're rather determined, aren't you?" he asks derisively, bottling his rage as best he can.

Baelish pulls his shoulders back. "I think my determination is one of my more positive traits, actually."

"Personally, I don't think you have any positive traits, Lord Baelish," Jon says evenly, no longer bothering to hide the look of distaste on his face.

Baelish clears his throat. "Be that as it may – "

"Be that as it may, I tire of your grating voice," Jon clips, taking one last step closer to the man, a deadly calm overtaking him, a dangerous stillness. "And I tire of your presence beside my sister. Rest assured, when I return from our venture North, yours will be the next head my blade sets to rolling."

Baelish swallows thickly, his smile wilting into a sneer, not even pretending any more. "Then I shall pray for your safe return, Your Grace," he quips.

Jon raises a hand, reveling in the wince Baelish tries to hold back in response, just before he lands his calloused palm along his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. He leans in. "Good man," Jon whispers, dark eyes shifting between his menacingly, a slow smirk forming along his lips, before he releases him, turning and stalking back down the hall toward his chambers.

He keeps his fury smothered in his chest, thrumming just beneath his skin. He never looks back.

When he finally makes it to the hallway holding his chambers, after long moments of trying to ease his breathing back to normal, to wash Baelish from his mind (for just one night, for just one night more he reminds himself), he finds Sansa standing before his door with her hand raised as though to knock.

She turns when she notices his presence, offering a smile.

Jon sighs heavily, resuming his infuriated stalk to his door and ignoring her look of concern when he grabs her by the elbow, though gently, and leads her into his rooms.

"Jon?" she asks, stumbling past him when he latches the door closed behind them.

He takes both hands to his face and scrubs, an exhausted sigh leaving him. "Baelish," he growls out, as though it is answer enough.

Sansa gives a soft 'oh' of understanding, before reaching for his wrists and dragging his hands from his face. She peers up at him. "What has he said?"

"Well," Jon begins, a tick at his jaw, "For one thing he threatened to tell the lords of an 'indecent' relationship between you and I."

Sansa frowns, her brows bunching together. "He said that?" she asks sharply.

"Not in so many words. But I can understand his meaning. He means to discredit me with the lords if I move against him."

"Against him on what?"

Jon's eyes flick between hers. "On your marriage to Harrold Hardyng,"

Sansa is quiet, her touch rescinding from around his wrists. He misses the warmth instantly.

"Sansa..."

She turns and paces across the floor of his solar, hands winding together, one thumb pressed into the opposite palm. "It is, of course, still on the table," she says carefully, glancing at him over her shoulder.

Jon only frowns at her.

She sighs, turning fully to face him once more. "Jon, you know it must be. At least... until we have dealt with Baelish, but even then, once you return from the war, there will still be talk of my marriage. It's not something we can ignore."

"I know!" he snaps, regretting the heat in his words instantly. He softens then, shoulders slumping. "I know," he says again, this time only in quiet resignation.

But he will not think of that now. He cannot. Not if he wants to last the night.

Day by day he must bear this burden. Day by day he must fight this need. He knows he hasn't the strength to think of the 'after'.

Releasing another sigh, Jon walks to his desk, dropping into the chair unceremoniously. "I just can't... I can't bear to hear him talking about you like you're a... a... "

"A pawn?" she supplies sadly.

He meets her eyes. "Aye."

She offers him a reassuring smile, small as it is. "That's exactly what I am. At least to him. And that's exactly how I need to remain in his eyes, for this to work."

Jon nods mutely, resting his elbows along his knees.

Sansa makes her way toward him, slipping into the space between him and the desk, leaning back along the edge of it. "Did he speak of anything else?"

"He believes the story we spun of your cousin's ailing health, though he suspects an ulterior motive to Royce's arrival."

"Of course he does."

"No mention of Jeyne though. We've hidden her well enough."

Sansa releases a breath of relief, a hand going to her chest. "Good. We need to keep her safe until morning."

"I have only my most trusted guards at her door," he tells her, reaching for her hand. He rubs a tender thumb along her knuckles in reassurance.

Sansa nods, looking down at where he holds her hand. She takes a steadying breath in.

Watching her, Jon feels his chest tighten, his eyes riveted to her face. He releases her hand swiftly, licking his lips as he looks away.

Sansa stays silent a moment longer, and then she's smiling again, looking up at him once more as she leans her hands back along the desk's edge. "Then we're almost there."

"Aye," he says on a disbelieving exhale.

"And once Baelish is disposed of, you can make Robb's will public, solidify your claim."

Jon snaps his gaze back to hers. "Sansa," he begins in resistance.

"Most of the lords supporting my claim are traditionalists," she reminds him. "The Stark name means everything to them, and with Robb's will, they'll finally see you as I do – as a Stark."

His mouth goes dry, his words sinking back into his gut as he stares at her.

"It's the way it's meant to be, Jon," she says softly, already knowing his mind, it seems. "It's okay."

"But it should be yours," he chokes out, straightening in his seat, remembering those late-night conversations when she'd finally admitted to her hurt and resentment of Robb when she was held hostage in King's Landing, when their brother hadn't thought her valuable enough for a trade. He remembers those nights, when she rubbed the tears from her cheeks and still – still, after everything– professed her love for Robb, sobbed over how much she missed him. He remembers being disappointed in his brother for the first time he could ever recall. Jon clears his throat, watching her with saddened eyes. "Robb only legitimized me to keep the North from falling into Lannister hands, or any hands that would use you. You've said it yourself." It doesn't make it hurt any less. And so, he shifts closer to her along the edge of his seat, stares imploringly up at her. "But I promise, Sansa, they cannot use you anymore. I promise. I would notlet them," he vows heatedly.

She sucks a shallow breath between her teeth at his fervency, a trembling smile touching her lips. "I know that," she says solemnly, one of her hands reaching for his jaw. She brushes a delicate thumb over his bearded cheek with a tenderness that nearly rends him. Her smile is something singular and sacred. It makes his heart clench uncontrollably. "But I also know you'll keep our people safe. They'll follow you anywhere, Jon." She takes a tremulous breath in, her hand hesitating at his cheek a moment, before she withdraws it. "As will I," she whispers breathlessly.

Jon opens his mouth, a ragged exhale leaving him. "Sansa," he sighs.

Her smile returns, that wisp-like, wonderous thing.

He stares at her, something filling him he hasn't a name for.

And then she clears her throat, rocks along the edge of the desk before him. "Bran will support it. I know he will. And you'll have Arya and I. We're a pack, now, remember? We protect each other." She levels him with a determined look, her ice-blue eyes glinting. "I promised, didn't I? That I would protect you."

He remembers, suddenly, that first night they retook Winterfell. He's there again, instantly, soot filling his lungs, grime beneath his fingernails, muscles raw and aching from the fight and then there –

There, beneath a once-white sheet –

Rickon's arrow-riddled body, taking up all the air in the room, all their words, all their fractured hopes.

They've won the battle, but the victory is a hollow one, when their brother lies dead before them.

In his memory, Sansa glances across the room to the body beneath the sheet. She swallows thickly, eyes glazed over. "Do you remember his face?" she asks, voice hollow and soft.

Jon looks up at her, elbows along his knees, hands clasped tightly between them. He doesn't answer. Doesn't even rightly know what she's looking for when she asks it.

Sansa tears her eyes away from their dead brother, meeting Jon's gaze. "I don't remember," she says in lieu of his non-answer.

The words linger in the air between them – an honest and unclean truth.

She turns away.

And the rub of it?

He doesn't remember either.

There's a vague image where the memory of Rickon should be. Auburn hair. Ruddy cheeks. Toothy smile. But it's just pieces. Nothing whole. Just parts of the boy they used to know. His face is still unclear, still out of reach.

Perhaps that's just what happens after so many years. Perhaps Rickon simply hadn't lived amongst them long enough to cement his permanence in their memory. Perhaps that's just what happens when you're apart from someone longer than they've even been alive.

Jon grits his teeth at the wrongness of it.

He wants to remember his little brother. He wants to remember.

Sansa sighs across from him, and the sound steals his attention so acutely, his breath nearly stills in his chest.

"I suppose that makes me a terrible sister," she says, voice cracking. She slumps back in her chair, both hands pressed to her face, a hitch in her breath signaling the first sob.

But it never comes.

It's a dreadful silence instead. One where Jon imagines he should go to her, stride over and kneel beside her, draw her hands from her face, tug her into his chest, hold her like the sister he'd missed, even when it hurt too much to think it. He imagines he should tell her she's not alone. That he doesn't remember either. That he misses Rickon even still.

That it's okay if she does as well.

He imagines he should brush her tears away with gentle thumbs, cradle her face in his calloused hands, stifle her sobs with soothing words. He imagines he should be her comfort, as she has so lately been his.

But he also imagines that he is not the brother that can give her this.

So instead, he simply watches her. He keeps his distance. He clears his throat. "I don't think you're a terrible sister," he finally manages, voice rough with disuse.

She peeks through her fingers at him, breath held tight in her chest.

He clears his throat again, licks his lips. "I think we just... missed our chance with him."

Sansa draws her hands down her face, watching him with red-rimmed eyes, the sheen of wetness over them evidence of her precarious control.

Jon sighs, hands releasing their white-knuckled grip as he leans back in his chair. He shoves the sudden guilt down, down, down. Tries to smother it with reason.

But there is no reason enough to excuse... this.

Their baby brother, dead beneath a sheet – the pristine white of it stained with blooms of red. The figure beneath it is far taller than Jon remembers, like that of a young man, and not the boy he knew instead. It only hurts worse at such a thought.

(It shouldn't have been Rickon.)

Sansa surges from her seat suddenly, sucking a tight breath between her teeth. She exhales roughly, hands wringing themselves as she starts to pace across the room, past Jon's seated figure, the body on the table at her back. She stills when she makes it to the far wall, turns back stiffly, eyes fixed to him. "I don't..." She takes a deep breath, one thumb pressing into the opposite palm. "I don't want us to be the last of the Starks," she says quietly, tears lining the edge of her words.

Jon blinks at her admission, at the seamless and instinctual way she says 'us'. He thinks back to just earlier that morning, atop the ramparts.

"I'm not a Stark."

"You are to me."

Sansa purses her mouth into a frown, taking a single, confident step toward him, her shoulders pulling back. "Like you said, we have to trust each other. We have to... we have to protect each other. And Bran and Arya, wherever they are. We'll find them. We'll protect them. And..." She bites her lip, taking another step toward him, her hands held tight before her, her back immeasurably straight, like the lady he's always known her to be, even all those years ago.

(Even just months ago, when she came through the gates of Castle Black snow-beaten and weary from the journey, a trail of Vale soldiers at her back.)

"And I'll protect you," she promises firmly, eyes never leaving his. "I swear on the memory of our father, I will protect you, Jon."

(It's strangely the safest he's felt in a long, long while.)

Looking at her now, many moons since that harrowing day, as she sits along the edge of his desk, a confident smile gracing her lips, her eyes only for him (for him, after everything) – he recognizes just how determinedly she has kept that promise.

It unlatches something within him – a door opened, perhaps never to be closed again.

His eyes wet instantly, a sound of longing caught in his throat, and he knows now – irrevocably and without warning – that he will never love anything so dearly as he loves her.

He reaches for her.

A short yelp of surprise breaks from her when he wraps a hand around her wrist and tugs her down to his lap, his other hand bracing along her thigh to hold her there, and she falls against his chest, knees hung over one side of his legs, tangled in her skirts, her free hand grasping for his shoulder to steady herself. She blinks wide eyes at him, stilling when her nose brushes his, his hot breath splashing across her cheeks.

Jon's chest rises and falls steadily against hers in the silence that blankets them, his mouth parted as his eyes rove her face, his grip over her wrist trembling.

"Jon," she manages breathlessly, hardly daring to say more.

His brows crease, his jaw tightening. It seems so suddenly and incredibly... easy, now – to give up the fight.

Everything comes spinning down into a clear, pinprick focus.

Just her.

Just Sansa.

The one who wants him unabashedly and unreservedly. For him. Just as he is. The one who protects him, even against terrors she has been fighting herself for years. The one who so easily names him a Stark, even when he wears her crown. The one who never stops fighting for him, sacrificing for him, embracing him.

The one, the one, the one.

The only.

Jon's chest aches, his heart thudding against his ribs.

He knows they don't have time – or the gods – on their side. They have only each other.

(But that is enough for him. He knows that now.

And he wants to believe that such a love could never be wrong.)

Jon releases her wrist, reaching for her cheek instead, a shaky thumb arching over her cheekbone as his eyes flick between hers. "Sansa," he exhales against her lips, like a surrender.

She swallows thickly, watching him, her chest heaving beneath anxious breaths.

His hand glides up her jaw, fingers slipping into the hair at the nape of her neck. She sucks a shallow breath between her lips in response, and he glances to her mouth, the hand still supporting her along her thigh gripping tighter, shifting her slightly atop his lap. She arches subtly into him, almost unconsciously.

Jon meets her gaze once more.

This time, it will not be grief. It will not be loneliness or confusion or fear.

This time, when he kisses her, it will be on purpose. It will be with meaning.

He leans in.

"What are you doing?" she asks tremulously, barely breathing, the warmth of her words felt at his lips when he pauses just a whisper away.

She's strung taut like a pulled bow, teetering on the edge, ready to crash against him with only the right words.

They come to him unbidden, a rueful smile in their wake.

"I'm redrawing the lines," he tells her, and she has only a moment to blink at him in surprise, before he takes her mouth with his own – firm and decided.

Sansa sags against him, her tear-laced sigh swallowed by his heady kiss, her arms slipping around his neck as he pulls her into him, slants his mouth over hers, his tongue pressing hot and fervent against her own. Her breath floods his mouth and his urgency only grows, his mouth moving desperately over hers, swallowing her delicious whimpers.

Jon presses harder, a groan of impatience escaping him when he drags her over his lap, needing her closer, needing her, needing her – the heavy tangle of guilt and self-control and exhaustion coming undone in his gut. It washes through him violently, like a release. Like a dam breaking beneath the surge – the floodgates blown wide.

He doesn't know how he ever stopped it before. Doesn't think he ever could again. Not when she's this warm, and this close, and this indisputably his.

Not when he knows how she tastes now. How she tastes when he isn't fighting it, when he isn't fighting her.

And yet –

Jon rears back from her, panting, chest heaving, his hands fumbling for her waist, and then he's hoisting her up with a grunt as he stands, dropping her back atop the desk and stumbling into her. Sansa manages to keep one arm around his neck through the jostle, her other hand hitching up her skirts a bit at one knee to accommodate him when he settles between her legs.

And then he stops, one hand braced against the desk beside her, the other settled at her waist, just at the curve of her hip, and he hangs his head at her shoulder, a delirious pant of disbelief escaping him, every muscle in his body coiled tight, and he squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head, begs her –

"Tell me again."

Sansa stills with her hand at the nape of his neck, fingers sunk into his curls. Her swollen mouth parts silently in confusion.

Jon opens his eyes, lets the dam break further. "Tell me I'm a good man," he asks of her, voice finally cracking.

Sansa doesn't even hesitate. She pulls her hand from his hair, cradles his face with both palms now, raising his head so that he meets her gaze – that ice-cut, ardent blue. "You are a good man, Jon," she tells him, eyes wet, yet unblinking. "The best I know," she gets out breathlessly, a shaky smile branching across her lips.

Jon's eyes slip shut once more, his chin trembling with his control, his throat tight. "I'm in love with you, Sansa," he tells her. He gasps a needed breath at the end of the words, his tongue heavy with them. He shakes his head, his voice breaking as it leaves him. "I'm in love with you."

"Jon," she urges, her thumbs brushing his cheeks.

He opens his eyes, meets her unhindered gaze. "But you deserve – "

"I deserve a love returned in kind," she says firmly, her hands still gentle over his cheeks. "So," she begins, eyes softening on his, "Will you love me? As I love you?"

Jon takes a sharp breath in, and then he grabs for her face, kisses her with a fierceness he has never known, his whole body aching for her, for her nearness, for her words. He presses closer, his chest braced against hers, so needful and so forceful and so finally unrestrained that he pushes her back along the tabletop, his weight settled atop her, panting against her mouth as his hips pin her to the desk, that heat between her legs, that heat, cradling his growing hardness, one of her heels steadying herself along the back of his thigh as she kisses him back with abandon, her hands dug into his curls. He breaks from her with a heated breath, a sob hooked along the end of it, one hand trailing along her jaw, the other gripping frantically at the skirts at her thigh, fingers flexing with barely held control. "I will love you more," he gasps out, a fervent promise, this madness like a fever running through him. He presses his forehead to hers. Breathes her in. Breathes her out. Feels her pulse beating steadily beneath his touch.

She smiles.

(He swears he can feel the warmth of it against his mouth.)

"Then I was right," she says. "I can never regret loving you." She kisses him then. Kisses him, and kisses him, and holds him. Her touch is a revelation. Like spring sprouting beneath every graze of her fingertips, like a garden blooming beneath his skin.

The frost of winter slips away.

And she is the one, the one, the one.

His only dream of spring.

* * *

She's imagined this for many moons now. She barely hears Davos' updates on the war preparations, or the interjections of the lords. She barely acknowledges the slow waning of morning light through the windows lining their Great Hall.

"If that is all, then, Your Grace," Baelish says in request for a dismissal of their gathering.

It isn't until these words are spoken that Sansa comes back to herself. She stands gracefully, swallowing her trepidations behind a cool mask. "That will not be all, in fact, Lord Baelish."

The lords grant her an audience of silence, waiting for her to continue. Littlefinger raises an attentive brow her way.

Sansa takes a deep breath, stems the urge to reach for Jon's hand beside her. She feels his presence though, knows he's there, watching her, backing her. She knows he's there.

It is all the strength she needs.

"As some of you may know," she begins, voice ringing out in the silent hall, "Lord Royce of the Vale has recently made the journey to Winterfell. He brings urgent news, and I've asked him to take the floor in addressing the court this morning." She nods at Yohn Royce where he sits along the edge of the gathered lords with his retinue, ignoring Baelish's curious eyes.

Clearing his throat, Royce stands with a raised chin, a disdainful look sent Baelish's way. Littlefinger glances toward Sansa, his jaw tight, eyes narrowed a moment, before looking back to Royce.

"Many thanks, my lady," Royce begins with a sonorous voice. "You are as gracious as ever, and my lord sends his regards, as well as his gratitude for granting us the stage to unmask this serpent."

Mumbles of confusion blanket the hall. Sansa keeps her gaze determinedly away from Baelish.

"In short, there has been an attempt on my lord's life," Royce continues to the crowd.

Cries of outrage sprout from the gathered lords, demands for further explanation.

Baelish steps further into the open space between the head table and the seated lords. "Lord Royce, you did not mention this when we spoke upon your arrival yesterday," he says urgently. "Is this true?" His eyes are searching upon the other man's, his posture still carefully unperturbed.

Royce gives him a look of derision. "Yes, Lord Baelish." He puffs his chest out, hands resting along his belt. "Though you knew that already, didn't you?" Murmurs sound through the hall at the accusation.

Baelish blinks at him, the minute quirk of his lip revealing his confusion, and his dread. His eyes flick toward Sansa briefly.

She does not reward him with a look in return.

Baelish clears his throat and steps further onto the floor, his attention returning to Royce. "I'm afraid I don't understand your meaning," he says tightly.

"You understand my meaning precisely, Lord Baelish, as you were the one to order his poisoning."

Shouts echo through the hall at Royce's words, Lord Cerwyn standing from his seat with a fist pounded into the tabletop. "This is an outrage."

Baelish narrows his eyes on Royce, a sharp breath leaving him. "That is a heavy allegation, my lord. Be careful who you accuse of what," he warns.

"Then I suppose it's good I carry the proof of it," Royce answers back with a lifted chin, his face reddening in his indignation.

Baelish swings wide eyes to Sansa then, and she is ready for it, even as the chaos in the hall grows. She keeps his gaze with a steady look of calm, knowing he cannot condemn her without also condemning himself. She watches the way he bites his tongue in frustration, the way his throat flexes with his control, his breathing growing unsteady. She offers him the slightest lift of her lips in acknowledgement, watching his eyes grow wider, before she turns to Royce. "You may continue, my lord."

Baelish's head snaps toward Royce, watching as he gives Sansa a grateful nod. Littlefinger licks his lips, his hands flexing as he steps closer to Royce, head bowed somewhat. "My lord, if we could talk elsewhere, perhaps I ca – "

"Perhaps you can explain your treachery, is that it?" He keeps his voice booming for all to hear.

Baelish's mouth snaps shut, his breaths coming heavy now. "This is... this is...preposterous."

"It's treason, is what it is!" Royce bellows.

Baelish's face screws up in poorly veiled anger. "Mind your tongue, Lord Royce," he bites out, eyes flickering to the crowd behind them.

"Lord Royce, you spoke of proof," Sansa interjects.

"My lady," Baelish pleads, his head whipping to her. When she only gives him a raised brow, Baelish swings his frantic eyes toward Jon. "Your Grace, please, this slander is unworthy of your court."

"I believe my sister has the floor, Lord Baelish," Jon says cooly from his seat beside Sansa, leaning back in his chair. "So, you'll submit to any of her questions, should you truly respect the 'worth' of this court," he quips nonchalantly.

Baelish's mouth dips open, only for him to clamp it shut. His wide eyes swing back to Royce.

The Vale lord gives a great huff at Littlefinger before standing aside to usher Jeyne Poole to stand beside him. She rises from her seat unsurely, the hood pulled back from her straw-like hair, fingers trembling as she settles the material around her neck. She never meets Baelish's eyes.

He's too stunned to react, regardless, but Sansa won't let herself feel any satisfaction at the reaction just yet. There's still work to be done, after all.

Over murmurs at the young girl's appearance, Sansa's voice rings out steadily over the hall. "Identify yourself for the lords, my dear."

She swallows tightly, nodding at Sansa. "My name is Jeyne Bolton, formerly Jeyne Poole. My father was Vayon Poole, Lord Eddard Stark's steward."

More murmurs spread through the crowd.

"And how did you come to be Jeyne Bolton?" Sansa asks gently, her throat flexing with her control. She keeps the tears at bay.

Jeyne raises a shaking arm, a slender, accusatory finger pointed at Baelish, eyes flashing in pain and hatred. "That man sold me to the Boltons after forcing me to impersonate Lady Arya."

"I did no such thing," he denies vehemently, stalking toward her.

"You will restrain yourself, Lord Baelish," Sansa snaps, and he halts instantly, glancing up at her. She motions toward the guards along the wall. "Or I will have you restrained."

In unison, the guards all brace their pikes to their chests, a clang of armor resounding in the hall.

Baelish takes a cautious step back in place, swallowing thickly as he watches.

A guffaw sounds behind them from the crowd, another's holler, another's rebuke.

Jon raises a hand to silence the crowd. He glances at Jeyne from his seat. "Is there anyone to corroborate your story, Miss Poole?"

Sansa smiles to herself at how Jon addresses her friend, remembering their agreed decision to annul her disgusting marriage to the Bolton bastard.

"Aye," she says, her hand settling back to her side. She nods toward Barbery Dustin, seated amongst the other lords. "Lady Dustin was present for the course of my imprisonment, before I fled Winterfell and shed the false name."

Dustin shifts in her seat uncomfortably, but she gives a silent nod of acknowledgement, her mouth a thin frown.

"Then Lord Baelish is the one to blame for your treatment after Ned Stark's execution?" Sansa asks her, bringing the attention of the lords back to the accusations at hand.

Baelish scoffs. "That is hardly – "

"Yes, my lady, he is," Jeyne answers swiftly, hands wringing themselves, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "He brought me into dishonor, attempted to smear Lady Arya's name, and aided the Boltons when he sold me into cruelty beyond imagination."

Baelish wipes a hand along his sweat-slicked brow. "These are baseless lies, my lady," he pleads, looking at Sansa. "And regardless, I don't see how any of this slander has to do with Lord Arryn's poisoning." He gives a meaningful tilt of the head, a warning flashing through his eyes.

But Sansa is well past caring for any of his warnings.

"Because when I finally escaped to the Vale, when I finally thought I was safe," Jeyne continues, voice shaking but urgent over the mutterings of the seated crowd, "I found I'd only fallen back into his clutches. He threatened me, hurt me. He knew Lady Sansa had asked me to care for her cousin, Lord Arryn, so Littlefinger knew I had access to him, and that's when he gave me the poison. Threatened to kill me if I didn't follow his instructions, or worse – throw me back into the hell he'd first dragged me into." She was trembling at this point, her whole body shuddering in her fear, her eyes riveted to Baelish's, her lip held tight between her teeth.

Sansa wants to pull Jeyne into her embrace once more, to hold her dear friend like she used to, to wrap her arms around her and comfort her, the way Jeyne used to do for her.

Her hatred of Baelish only boils hotter beneath her skin.

"I never gave you any such orders, girl," Baelish snaps, "Nor any poison."

"Then explain why Maester Colemon says that's exactly what's been happening to our Lord?" Royce demands.

"What are you talking about?" Baelish snaps, flexing a hand nervously at his side.

Royce raises a sealed scroll in his hand for the gathered lords to see. "I have here the sworn statement of Maester Colemon attesting to Lord Arryn's poisoning, after inspecting his blood and his symptoms. Explain this, Lord Baelish. If you didn't give the poison to the girl, as she freely admits, then how do you explain Lord Arryn's condition?"

Littlefinger bites his tongue, a dangerous glare sent Sansa's way. He heaves a single, frustrated breath, his trembling hands smoothing over his tunic in a measure of control. "I cannot," he bites out, eyes slipping back toward Lord Royce.

Sansa lets the first breath of relief rattle from her lungs, cautious in its release.

"But this reeks of falsity, my lords," Baelish beseeches the crowd, turning to take them in. "I have been nothing but loyal to the Vale. And this girl admits to the poisoning herself," he says, a hand motioning back to Jeyne. "This is simply an attempt to escape punishment, by throwing the blame elsewhere. She has falsely named me as the arbiter of her fate since the honorable Ned Stark's execution, and so she must continue the farce! Where better to place the blame, than at my feet?"

"I admit to my part in the plan," Jeyne interrupts, grabbing Baelish's attention back, "But only because I could not do it any longer. I could not harm Lady Sansa's kin, not after everything her family has done for me, not after everything they have been through." She swings imploring eyes on Sansa. "Please, forgive me, my lady. I was at threat of death. But I just... I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't let that man hurt you or your family again."

"You lying whore," Baelish seethes between his clenched teeth, a step taken toward Jeyne, but Sansa's voice stops him once more.

"Lord Baelish, you will stay where you are," she snaps. "I will not repeat myself."

Baelish twists his neck in his ire, his jaw working. "My lady," he grinds out in acknowledgement.

Sansa turns her attention back to Jeyne. "We thank you for your service, Jeyne. I know it wasn't an easy decision, and I know what you must have risked to confess to Lord Royce. I promise, you have my protection, as the Lady of Winterfell. Is this agreeable to you, Lord Royce?"

Royce nods, stuffing the sealed scroll of Colemon's testimony back into his tunic. "It is, my lady, now that the true culprit is revealed."

"And have you any other instructions from my cousin?"

"I do," he answers with a growing smirk. He tugs his tunic into place with an air of satisfaction, turning to face the fuming Baelish once more. "By the decree of Lord Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, and Warden of the East, Petyr Baelish, you are hereby stripped of your status as Lord Protector of the Vale and named a traitor to House Arryn. Any lands and titles in your possession are revoked, and now property of House Arryn."

Baelish's face goes red with his rage. "You can't do that, you fat, incompetent oaf!"

Royce huffs his indignation at Baelish, a hand waved to his guards, and instantly, they rush toward the floor, two of them grabbing for Littlefinger's arms as he splutters his denials, tearing his arms away. "You can't – you can't do that, you – unhand me! Unhand me, you fools!" He struggles in their grasp, his arms yanked behind his back as he's forced to his knees. "My lady," he pleads, eyes wide as they fly toward Sansa. "My lady, please, you know I did not do this. You know. Please, my lady. Sansa! Sansa, please!"

She raises a hand to halt the commotion.

Everyone stills, the two guards on either side of Baelish still holding his arms behind him as they glance toward Lord Royce. He nods silently at them, lips pursed. They remain in their place as Sansa turns to address Royce.

"Before you haul him off to face these charges, Lord Royce," Sansa begins calmly, a sideways glance sent Baelish's way, "I have some things to say."

Baelish's shoulders slump in his relief, a heavy sigh escaping him as he shuts his eyes, the cautious hint of a grin etching at the corners of his lips.

It does not last long.

Sansa turns back to face Baelish. "I have some charges of my own," she finishes, watching in barely concealed delight as Baelish's eyes snap back open, his body going rigid.

"My... my lady?" he asks hoarsely, mouth parting anxiously.

"Of course, my lady," Royce answers, taking his seat, a hand along Jeyne's shoulders to usher her back to her chair as well. He doesn't bother to hide his satisfied smirk now.

Sansa settles the tips of her fingers along the table's edge before her, like an anchor. She taps one fine-boned finger along the wood tremulously.

Beside her, Jon shifts in his seat, a soft rustle of furs signaling the motion, and then he's trailing two fingers down the length of her cloak, slow and steady, obscured to the crowd before them by the table and the closeness of their chairs. It's a measure of comfort, of constancy.

It quiets the noise in her head, the pulse pounding in her ears. It sets her spine to rigidity, eases the heaviness of her tongue.

Just the lightest of his touches, even through their layers –

(She was undone by his touches just the night before, and yet now – now she is the steady, grey stone of Winterfell. Now, she is the surety of a coming winter. Now, she is the unbending North.)

Just a touch – but it's all she needs.

Sansa lets the hint of a smile tug at her lips.

"Sansa, what is this?" Baelish asks, all sense of false propriety leaving him.

She levels him with an even stare. "I have a witness claiming you tried to assassinate my siblings, and Ned Stark's trueborn heirs, Bran and Arya Stark."

Glover upends his chair with the vehemence with which he stands, face blotted red as he bellows his rage. "Treason!" He reaches for his sword instantly.

"What is this?" Manderly shouts from the next table, standing as well, roars of fury and indignation sounding in the hall around them.

"Quiet, all of you quiet!" Jon barks, standing as well, motioning for Glover to sheath his sword. "Lady Sansa is speaking,"

The crowd grumbles their acquiescence, Glover and Manderly slowly lowering back to their seats with murderous glares sent Baelish's way.

Littlefinger is sweating, for his part. It stirs a dark satisfaction in Sansa, watching him. He's still held on his knees, his eyes shifting frantically between her and Jon, Royce and his men against the wall, and the Northern lords howling for justice at his back.

"I don't – I don't understand," he mutters, looking up at her.

"I believe you know Gareth Stone," she continues, motioning for a guard to open the door at the far end of the hall where Brienne enters, dragging her sister behind her while she wears the false face of a half-beaten Gareth Stone. The lords along the benches and tables all stand to get a better look, talking amongst themselves, and Baelish shifts along his knees to watch their entrance, eyes narrowing in confusion, mouthing like a fish on a hook.

"He's the one you assigned to lead the party of assassins sent after my siblings," Sansa accuses smoothly.

Baelish shakes his head vehemently, his breaths coming heavy now. "I've no idea what this man has told you but he hasn't been in my employ in months. Whatever he's done was never at my behest," he defends, chest heaving.

"Lies!" the false Gareth cries as he and Brienne make their way to the open center of the hall before the head table, stopping beside Baelish. He wipes a hand over his bloody nose, tossing his head in Baelish's direction. "The lord here told me to make sure I was the one to gut the little runts personally. 'Make it bloody', he said. 'Make it hurt'."

"I never told you that!" Baelish denies on a shout, trying to rise, only to be shoved back to his knees, and he grunts beneath the force of it, hands going out to the floor to brace himself as the guards finally relinquish their hold of him. "This is ridiculous," he spits, looking up to Sansa from his hands and knees. "You know I never... you know I only ever meant to help you." He licks his lips nervously, fingers curling along the stone floor. "I sent men out to find Bran, not to kill him. You know that, my lady."

"I know you were concerned you would find him alive," she snaps, eyes heated suddenly, a hate so violent and gut-wrenching she cannot keep it contained any longer. "That's what I know," she seethes dangerously.

Baelish blinks at her, understanding slowly inking into formation behind his eyes.

She drags her hands from their precarious perch along the tabletop, clenching them into fists at her sides, her shoulders pulling back as she straightens. "We have his confession," she continues after a breath, a practiced iciness to her voice.

"He's... he's lying," Baelish begs, his head snapping toward Gareth suddenly, a venomous look overtaking his features. "Tell them, you idiot. Or I swear I'll – "

"And if the orders are in your own hand?" Brienne interrupts suddenly, the hand not holding Arya by the arm rising to show a crumpled missive between her fingers.

Baelish's face goes white, his shoulders slumping as he eyes the thin slip of parchment.

"We've read its contents already, Lord Baelish," Jon says from his seat with poorly veiled smugness. "It confirms your underling's confession."

Baelish balks at them, speechless, while the lords continue their shouts for justice behind him. Jon motions half-heartedly for them to quiet.

"I have your treason by your own hand, Lord Baelish," Sansa says tightly, the words suddenly catching in her throat. It all comes frothing to the surface. "And now every man here knows what you are." Her throat flexes with her control, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, salt-tinged and fierce. "You cannot whisper your filth to me anymore."

(Like the first breath after drowning. This is how it comes to her.)

Baelish slumps back on his haunches, his hands hanging limp in his lap as he stares up at her, mouth opening, and then closing. The confidence seeps from him instantly, his shoulders slumping. A quiet, slack-jawed disbelief settles over him.

"Let me see that," Manderly demands, moving toward Brienne. She hands him the missive, and the hall is quiet as he reads it, face reddening as the seconds pass. Glover leaves his seat as well, stalking over to them, grabbing the missive for his own eyes when Manderly is done with it. The other lords crane their necks around to witness the confirmation. A tense quiet overtakes the room as the missive is then passed round and round, Cerwyn reaching for it next, before Dustin takes her turn.

Sansa stays staring at Baelish from her place at the head table while the murmurs of the court grow, murderous curses stewing in the air.

Baelish nearly shrinks in on himself, his breaths coming shallow and quick now, eyes blinking furiously.

"Take him away," Sansa says to Brienne, motioning toward Stone. "You know my will," she says simply.

Arya makes a show of terrified pleading in Gareth Stone's skin. "Please, no! M'lady! M'lady, please! I've told you all I know. Please! Mercy, I beg you, mercy!" The shallow cries grow faint as Brienne drags her back through the door they first entered, a growing eddy of voices gathering around them.

Baelish watches their exit with dread, eyes never leaving their retreating forms. He stays still as glass, fingers curling into his palms with a fierce tremble. "Where is your sister?" he asks Sansa on a hoarse whisper. He clears his throat, shifts his gaze back to hers. "I'd like to hear the account from her." There's a note of defeat to his voice.

But Sansa will not let it make her careless.

"Don't worry, Lord Baelish. She's tending to a very special guest of ours, though I'm afraid you won't get the chance to meet him," she promises.

Littlefinger narrows his eyes in confusion.

Jon smirks proudly beside her.

"Lord Royce," Sansa calls out, turning once more to face the stout man.

He stands at the address. "Yes, my lady?"

"Lord Arryn gave you full authority on the matter of Petyr Baelish, did he not?"

"He did."

"Then, considering the attempts on the lives of both our liege lords, and considering my familial ties to each of them, have I your trust in the sentencing of this traitor? Will you honor my decrees?"

"I shall," he affirms. "Let it be known that the Vale cedes to the North's decision concerning the fate of Petry Baelish," he booms, turning to address the entire court. He looks back to Sansa, a short, reserved bow sent her way. "We know you will give us satisfaction," he adds, before taking his seat once more.

Sansa raises a brow at Baelish following Royce's words.

He only breathes deeply, his head still held high, though his chin trembles, words held tight behind his teeth.

"Have you anything to say in your defense, Lord Baelish?" Sansa asks primly.

He works his jaw, eyes glancing around the members of the court. He looks back up to her. "Only that it wasn't that fool Jeyne who poisoned young Robert."

She keeps her features schooled into passivity when he continues, knowing his coming words, recognizing his last attempts to lash out, to take her down with him.

"It was you," he spits.

Cerwyn stands swiftly. "You will swallow your slander, lord, or I'll have you swallow your tongue," he threatens on a bellow.

A resounding answer of support echoes throughout the hall, with fists on tabletops, several hands on swords, a few chairs upended when many of the lords stand in their indignation.

Baelish sneers up at Sansa, eyes never leaving hers.

She keeps her steady stance, keeps her face impassive. It is not an unexpected attack, after all.

"You're saying I poisoned my cousin?" she asks incredulously.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." He gives her a hateful look, his lip curled back, even as he swallows thickly, trepidation flooding his body. "You were so weak, so alone. You only needed a little goading. Only a little attention. And then you were mine. You listened to every direction. You trusted my word, never questioned my intentions. You were a doting, scared little girl, and you did everything I asked," he says darkly, a knowing look passing over his features, before he glances furtively toward Jon. The curl of his lip slips into full disgust. "And I see now just how closely you followed my instruction," he bites out.

But even now, he cannot touch this.

What lies between she and Jon.

He can never touch this.

At that moment, Brienne enters the hall once more, striding toward the head table to stand behind Sansa. She gives her lady a nod, and Sansa dips her head in acknowledgement.

Jon takes that moment to stand, the scrape of his chair along the stone silencing the angry lords in the crowd. He sets a hand to the small of Sansa's back. "Is this how you would defend yourself?" he asks Littlefinger incredulously. "By besmirching my sister? The one who's supported you all this time? All while you plotted treason behind her back?"

"I wasn't the one plotting behind people's backs, it seems. Or doing worse," he says meaningfully.

Sansa sucks a shallow breath through her teeth, bracing for it.

Baelish spreads his arms wide, taking in the court from where he kneels. "Shouldn't they be told, my lady?" he asks with a hint of delirium, voice rising. "Shouldn't they know where this sudden self-righteousness of yours comes from, hmm? This swift change of loyalty?" His eyes darken on hers, an unhinged laugh escaping him. "Shouldn't they know that it's because you've fallen into bed with your own brother?"

"That is enough!" Lady Mormont shouts from her seat. Several lords echo her sentiment. An uproar begins in the hall.

Sansa simply watches as the chaos ensues, the cries for Baelish' head, the way Glover steps out fully into the open space before the head table now, brandishing his sword at Baelish, the way Mormont shouts her derision at the accusations, how Cerwyn spits at Baelish's feet, the two Vale guards behind Littlefinger barely holding the fuming lord back from their charge.

She knows he wouldn't be believed. She knows he couldn't expect to have been either. And yet, that coil of unease still curls hot in her gut.

Because it's the truth.

Because she had fallen into bed with Jon. And because she'd fallen into so much deeper.

"Enough of your poison!" Manderly bellows amidst the crowd.

"Yes, enough of this madness," Mormont agrees. "Do not give him a stage to speak any longer!" A chorus of assent sounds around the room.

"Even with all the evidence against you," Jon begins, eyes narrowed on Littlefinger, "Even now, you spin your tales. You spew your treacherous lies."

Baelish laughs, his eyes wet. It's a crazed, yet saccharine sound. The kind of laugh that sees the end coming.

"It doesn't matter," he whispers harshly, licking his lips. "Nothing matters anymore." He hangs his head, hands curling into fists in his lap. Another coarse laugh escapes him. "Not without you, Sansa." It could be the promise of a lover with how ardently he says it.

Instead, it scrapes at the underside of her skin, stirs a sickness in her gut. She blinks at the sudden wetness along her eyes, her breath hitching in her chest.

She never wants to hear her name on his lips again.

(Never again, such repulsiveness.)

"Did you think you could share such vile confidence with me and I wouldn't reveal it?" she says disbelievingly, taking in a long, indignant breath, before exhaling it carefully. "Did you think I would let you plot treason against my family, against my kingdom? Did you think I would sit idly by and let you manipulate this court? Let you threaten my brother's rule, let you divide us? Did you think I would gladly swallow your poison?" The words snap from her on a heated breath. She's near shouting at the end of it, her chest heaving, the tears hot at the corners of her eyes, and it's only Jon's hand pressing firmly at the small of her back that calms her, his palm spreading warmth throughout her even through her cloak.

That anchor.

That steadiness.

Like their embrace that fist snow-lit afternoon, when she came through the gates of Castle Black – his arms around her winter-weakened form, his disbelieving breath hot against her cheek, her fingers curling in the rough leather of his tunic, at the nape of his neck, her feet lifted up, up, up off the ground, braced tight to his chest, and rocking, like a song, like a song she used to know, held there against him with all the force of ages-long yearning, and his choked-off laugh at her ear, her name expelled in his tremulous breath across her neck when he presses his nose to her shoulder and she is lifted and steady and spinning, all at once – all at once whole again.

His hand braced to the back of her head. Her tears warming her cheeks.

She'd found her home again well before she ever found Winterfell.

Now, she means to keep it.

There's a knock at the door nearest the head table, before Arya, now rid of her earlier disguise, opens the door and enters the hall, meeting Sansa's eyes when she turns at the noise.

Sansa swallows back the fervency of her recent outburst, nodding to her sister. "Arya, join us, please."

The raucous crowd dims slightly at Arya's entrance, watching her stalk across the stone floor, halting at the edge of the crowd in a ring around Baelish. She stares at him impassively, her hands held behind her back, shoulders pulled taut. "Brienne informed me of the progress of his trial," she says by way of greeting, her head canted toward Baelish.

A scoff escapes the disgraced lord. "Trial," he mocks, glancing up at her. "You shouldn't even be here," he grits out, eyes flashing.

Arya grins smugly in response. "You got sloppy, Baelish." She piques a brow at him. "Perhaps you should work on that. Though, it doesn't look like you'll be getting that chance now."

Baelish closes his eyes, a heavy breath rattling from him when he braces his head in his hands. "How is this... how is this even..."

"You'll forgive me, my lords," Arya addresses the court, "For not coming forward concerning Bran and I's attack earlier, but I was following King Jon and Lady Sansa's orders.."

"We could not risk her safety by revealing the attempt without evidence," Jon explains.

Grunts of acknowledgement sound about the room.

"And now that we have that evidence," Sansa continues, "I believe a judgement is in order."

The lords answer with shouts of support, a slow but thunderous rhythm of fists along the tables taking form.

Sansa lets the growing hum of bloodlust go uninterrupted for a moment, simply staring down at Baelish, watching as he drops his hands from his head, looking up at her in desperation, his mouth opening and closing like a gut fish.

Like something bloodied.

Gasping.

The thrill of his life in her hands is not something she thinks she may ever forget.

Sansa clears her throat, lifting her chin. She looks to her sister at the end of the head table. "Lady Arya, if you will."

Arya steps forward, striding slowly to the center of the floor, a hush gradually descending the riled crowd as she unsheathes the Valyrian dagger at her belt, holding it ready. Baelish watches the blade with widened eyes, a flicker of recognition lighting his face.

"This is the knife you sent with your man, is it not?" Sansa asks. "The one you ordered him to 'gut the little runts' with, yes? "

A cool, even quiet settles over the now still hall.

Baelish's eyes slip toward Sansa's with a distressed shake of his head. "Please..."

Sansa swallows tightly, unblinking. "Fitting that it be used now to gut you."

"Sansa," he rasps out, one hand reaching toward her.

Reaching.

And empty.

"It was your throat he aimed this blade at, Arya," Sansa clips out, eyes shifting toward her sister between them. "I do believe you should return the favor."

Baelish's hand drops back to his lap, a choked off sob escaping his lips, barely discernible.

Sansa turns to Jon beside her. "Is that fitting, Your Grace?"

Jon's hand slips from the small of her back. "Quite fair, I'd say," he answers darkly, gaze heavy on Littlefinger.

Baelish glances between them frantically, a hand pressed to his sweat-licked brow. "Sansa, wait, please – "

"In fact," Sansa interrupts, a raw lash of anguish catching in her throat, "This is the very blade you set against Bran's life the first time, isn't it? All those years ago, while he was lying comatose in his bed after the fall?" She grinds her teeth, her jaw quaking beneath the force of her control.

Swallow it back. Keep it closed. Don't let it to air.

(He can never hurt them again, she promises.)

It flares hot in her gut, the remembrance like a torch beneath her skin, her body trembling with it.

(Her father's head tumbling down the muddied steps. Her shriek lighting the air, all the dreams of her youth severed at the root, at the neck. Her world caving into muted darkness.)

Sansa sets her jaw, her nostrils flaring.

Swallow it back. Keep it closed. Don't let it to air.

(She hasn't let the light in since.)

"Pity you didn't also have it when you put a blade to our father's throat as you were betraying him," she bites out, voice as thin as ice.

Baelish goes still.

A beat of silence pervades the room.

He blinks at her, mouth parting. "What – "

"I did warn you."

The world tilts on its axis, teetering on a breathless edge, a great upheaval happening within her. Everything is loud and blaring and crashing inside her. But outside, she is –

Still.

Still as his breath.

Breaths that come out of him quickly now. Once. Twice. And then swallowed back. His chin trembles, his eyes watering. He shakes his head. "No," he groans out. He shakes his head harder. "No."

She sees the moment he makes the connection.

"I did warn you not to trust me," Baelish had said as he held his dagger to Ned Stark's throat in the throne room of the Red Keep, those many years ago.

(All the dreams of her youth severed at the root, at the neck.)

Baelish mouths at the air, eyes blinking furiously in his disbelief. "How... how do you know that?" he whispers out.

Sansa thinks of her conversation alone with Bran when he first arrived. "He chose power over truth," he'd told her, revealing the details of Baelish's betrayal concerning their father's arrest – details he had no way of knowing, like the many things he had no way of knowing and yet, does.

She thinks of the time she first showed Baelish her little game of cat's cradle. "I did warn you, my lord," she'd said, the mess of strings undone in his hands.

And then she thinks of Jon. She thinks of the night just before.

(She thinks of a love they deserve.)

They lay stretched out together before the fire, her bare shoulders peeking out from the furs covering their sweat-slicked and sated forms, his fingers running a path up and down her back as he holds her to his chest.

Sansa presses her mouth to the juncture of his shoulder and neck, inhaling deeply. She sighs into his skin when his hand trails down the length of her spine, settling at the small of her back. She tightens her arm slung around his waist, pressing into him.

He moans softly in contentment, his hum at her temple, against her hair.

"Jon," she says.

He pulls back just enough to watch her face, his hand curving over her hip. "Hmm?"

"Are you ready? For tomorrow?" she asks cautiously, her lip caught between her teeth.

Jon sighs, rolling onto his back fully, his hand still fixed to her hip. "Are you?"

Her gaze shifts down to his bared chest, eyes alighting on his scars. She brushes a gentle hand along the one above his heart.

Jon stays watching her quietly.

She lets out a slow breath. "I have to be," she answers finally, glancing up at him.

Jon's gaze shifts between hers, a furrow to his brow. "What are you afraid of?" he asks on a whisper. It isn't a judgement. It isn't said with any derision. It's warm, and caressing.

As if the words were open arms.

I'm here, they say.

Sansa sighs, pressing her face into his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.

"Hey," he says, his hand rising from her hip to settle in her hair, brushing it from her cheek carefully. "Hey," he eases.

She pulls her face back, meets his gaze. And then she's sitting up on a heavy exhale, the furs falling from her bare form. She looks down at him. "I just... need to know that they'll be safe. That Bran and Arya will be safe."

Jon rises as well, shifting as the furs settle over their laps. He braces one hand to the floor beneath him, leaning on it as he cocks his head at her, watching her. His other hand lifts to cup her cheek. "We do this, and they will be. Baelish can't touch them again."

Sansa leans into his touch, eyes slipping closed. "And after? When he's dead? What then?" Her eyes shift open to catch his, a flicker of uncertainty stretching across her brow. "We still have a war to fight. And a crown to secure."

"Aye, we do," he gets out hoarsely, swallowing thickly.

Sansa simply watches him a moment, eyes wetting. And then she blinks it away, glances to the fireplace before them. "You'll leave me."

"Sansa," he says instantly, both hands cupping her face now, turning her gaze to him as he leans toward her.

She meets his gaze reluctantly.

But then his mouth is on hers – so urgent, so warm. She whimpers at the unexpectedness of it, her hands going for his wrists, anchoring there. She gasps at the heat of his mouth when he pulls away, his lips still close enough to brush hers.

"Sansa," he pants at her mouth, fingers curling along her jaw.

(But she thinks that neither of them could ever truly leave – not now. Not after knowing what they know. Not after loving what they love. Not ever. Not anymore.)

She doesn't let her sob escape her. "What are we supposed to do?" she asks brokenly, her forehead braced to his. "What are we... what can we possibly do?"

"We ensure your safety," he says confidently, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks as he leans back to meet her eyes. "And we make sure the North continues under the Stark name."

"But Bran – "

"He's told you his wishes."

Sansa quiets, her gaze drifting down. "He's father's last trueborn son," she says, unable to hide the resentment that blooms just behind her ribs.

Because it should be Jon's, even if that means she cannot be Jon's.

Robb's will can only make certain of that.

"And he doesn't want the throne," Jon tells her.

Sansa gives him a baleful look, shaking her head, and his hands slip from her cheeks at the motion. "He should," she says. "And if he doesn't, then it's you. It's you, Jon, and that's the way it should be."

"But it's not the way I can live with," he says with a surety that stills her. He reaches for a strand of her hair, brushing it past her bare shoulder, his eyes drifting down over her naked form. "And maybe... maybe part of it is because I don't want to be your brother for true."

She can't help the breath that she sucks between her teeth, a slow heat gathering in her gut at the look he gives her. She knows he must see the marks he's left along her neck, along her breasts. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, every previous thought banished at the lingering gaze he rakes over her now.

"Not after everything," Jon gets out breathlessly, his hand trailing down past her collar bone, just barely brushing the valley between her breasts before he draws his hand away. His other hand grips at the furs in his lap, his eyes rising to meet hers when he takes in a heavy breath. "I'd be lying if I said this wasn't part of it, even though I know it doesn't matter, not truly. But I'll take being your bastard brother over being your legitimate one, if it means you and I can – " He stops, swallows the words with a shake of his head.

"Jon," she whispers achingly.

"That's not how this works, I know that," he says, jaw squaring. "Just makes the guilt easier I guess." He heaves a sigh. "Even when it shouldn't."

She knows exactly what he means though, since there's a part of her that's always rationalized her feelings because they were ever only half-siblings.

It doesn't erase the sin. She understands that. Always has. But somewhere along the way, that 'sin' became her refuge, her guiding star. Somewhere along the way he just became... Jon.

Confirming that Robb actually legitimized him would pull the smokescreen back. It would make the truth undeniable.

Not simply that she was in love with her brother, but that nothing could ever truly come of that love.

(It's the only thing that haunts her anymore, even when she knows he deserves it – even when she urges him to claim it.

Because she knows he deserves it.)

Jon sighs, a hand raked through his curls. "Doesn't make a difference, in the end."

Sansa peers up at him with consoling eyes, one brow raised in question.

He watches her face when he tells her, "I made my decision long ago."

His words narrow her focus instantly, her brow furrowing. "What do you mean?"

He watches her a moment longer, mouth parting, and then he turns away, pushes himself from the floor. He walks to the desk beside his bed, and Sansa follows the naked lines of him, muscles taut beneath the flickering corners of firelight. She gathers the furs around her chest and stands to follow him. He takes a deep breath, his broad back rising with the motion, and then falling, his hand clenched around a rolled parchment.

Around Robb's will.

Sansa stops just behind him, a hand at his shoulder, eyes fixed to the scroll in his grasp. "Jon," she says carefully.

He turns to her.

Her gaze flits between his own dark eyes and the scroll in his fist. "Jon, what are you saying?"

"Once Baelish is dealt with, once Bran can safely reveal his presence to the lords, he's going to renounce his claim. And then I plan to do the same."

Sansa's eyes go wide, her breath hitching in her throat. She mouths a word, silent. And then she clears her throat, shakes her head. "Jon, wait – "

"I know what I'm doing, Sansa."

"But why?"

"Because it always should have been yours. I never meant to keep it any longer than it took to rid you of Baelish, to guarantee your safety. That's been the goal from the start."

Sansa licks her lips, glancing back to the will, and then to Jon. "But Robb legitimized you. We have the proof now. The lords will fall in line and there won't be any division anymore."

Jon grits his teeth, his dark eyes shifting to the will in his hand. He takes a deep breath, jaw working. "Then maybe such proof should never have been found," he says evenly, before he stalks back toward the hearth.

Sansa sees what he means to do just moments before he does it, and she flies toward him, the furs falling from her grip when she reaches for him, stops his hand just before he can toss the bound scroll into the fireplace. "What are you doing?" she cries, stumbling against him with the momentum, looking up into his face frantically.

Jon catches her with his free arm around her waist, his other hand halted in her grip. "I'm making sure your claim can never be contested."

"Jon, no, wait," she gasps, tears beading in the corners of her eyes. She sags against him, her chest heaving. "Wait, you can't – " Her voice breaks, and she swallows it back, wraps a hand around the back of his neck, anchoring there. "Jon, being a Stark is what you've always wanted," she says on a pleading cry, peering up into his face desperately.

Because she's always wanted it for him.

For him, for him, for him.

(Even when it means he'd be her brother for true. Even when it draws a line between them she could never redraw, not ever.

Even when it means there's no going back.)

Jon softens at her cry, his shoulders slumping. His wide hand spreads over her waist, the hint of a resilient grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He dips his head to hers, meets her eyes unblinkingly. "Being wanted is what I've always wanted," he tells her, nose brushing hers. His hot breath fans her cheeks and her hand slips from his wrist unconsciously, the breath winded from her. Her eyes shift between his, blinking furiously.

"Jon," she whispers in the space between their lips.

His grin grows wider, a tenderness to it. "I have that now – because of you. And I didn't need to be a Stark to get it."

Her tears are hot along her lids now, threatening to fall. Her chest aches, her breaths coming short and shaky. "Are you certain?" she gulps out, words barely making it to air.

Because if he does this – if he does this –

"You may never get a second chance," she sobs out, her face falling, everything spinning, spinning – crashing.

Jon presses his cheek to hers, sighing heavily, his hand curling tighter around her waist, holding her to him, their naked forms a single, pressed line – seamless. "You are my second chance, Sansa." He presses his nose into her shoulder, the breath shuddering from him. "I don't intend to waste it," he promises into her skin, and then he tosses the will into the fire.

She doesn't have a chance to stop him, her intake of breath cut short by his own hot mouth, and then she's bundled in his arms, stumbling back beneath the force of him, pressed up against the sudden wall behind her, her sob caught on his tongue, and her gasp of his name is lost somewhere between their mouths, between his low groan, between her breathless whine, between the frantic, helpless way they reach for each other – limbs entangled like a mess of strings.

Between skin to skin. Between heart to heart. Between hope to hope.

She finds her own second chance – somewhere between his love and hers.

(She finds it, and doesn't ever plan to let it go.)

Sansa pulls a single, measured breath in as she cocks her head at Baelish now, that spinning, spinning, spinning from the night before finally settling into a slow rock, a smooth hum in the back of her mind.

A rhythm as fixed as the repetition of turns in this game for keeps.

The touch of a smirk lights upon Sansa's lips. "Would you like to play a game, Lord Baelish?" she asks, voice lilting girlishly.

Littlefinger goes pale, recognition blooming behind his eyes, the silent fall of his mouth a darkly satisfying thing to Sansa.

(She imagines the web of strings, the cat's cradle, pulling taut – threads bowing just before they give, coming undone in her hands.)

She glances to Arya with a graceful tilt of her head. Arya gives an acknowledging nod in return, starting to stalk a circle around their kneeling captive, dagger steady in her palm.

Baelish pants with a sudden terror, taking in Arya's gait frantically. "My lady," he stutters out, mouth trembling as he glances back up to Sansa.

"It's a game of foresight," she continues, ignoring his breathless plea.

Arya comes back around the other side of Baelish, boots halting along the cool stone just in front of him. A gurgled sound of desperation leaves his throat.

"A game of precision," Sansa clips out, eyes never leaving his. "Of control."

"Sansa, please," he begs, tears hot along his blotchy cheeks now, his hands wringing in his lap.

Arya raises the dagger, a single brow cocked his way.

Baelish shifts frantic eyes from Arya and the blade back to Sansa, and then to Jon, back to Arya, Sansa again. "Sansa," he gurgles out – small and worthless and writhing.

Sansa's lips press into a thin line. "A game of follow-through," she finishes.

Arya's wrist flicks out instantly, the blade catching smoothly along his throat, a wide arc of red spraying the stones at his feet. He cries out – or tries to, a hand jerking out toward her, reaching, grasping at air, and then he's falling, his other hand pressed to his slit throat as he topples forward, blood gushing over his knuckles, his wrist. He flails against the stones, coughing, eyes squeezed shut, legs kicking out.

It's a game of strings - one misplaced line, one slip of the hand, and it all comes undone.

Sansa watches with unblinking eyes, the warmth of Jon's hand returning along her back, the hush of the still crowd blanketing the hall.

Arya wipes the blood from her blade in one smooth, clean motion.

Baelish claws at his own throat, choking grotesquely, a pool of blood slowly spreading beneath his twitching form.

Sansa breathes deep, exhales slowly. She looks up at the rafters, at the long stretch of the hall's ceiling, the wooden beams crossing and webbing out.

She lets the first bloom of long-awaited relief flood her lungs.

"My turn," she whispers to herself.

(One string at a time.)

[aarcanechaoss]

Hey :)

Ty soo much for the part 2.If your still up for it..then a part 3?

The ada and pm are on a mission together..Suddenly Mai comes running up(aparently there was a field trip that day abd she got seperated from her clasz).They recognize her as higuchi's daughter and bring her back to her class.Higuchi appears and scolds her but hugs her.

Some of the members get touched seeing such a motherly display and some feel kinda conflicted wondering if they'll ever be able to have a family

(Can you zoom in on kunikida,chuya,louisa,atsushi,hirotsu(people who wish to have a family someday) )

Eyy back for more ha-ha- you should def write some of your own Fics too these ideas are great. I didn't add Louisa since she's a Guild member and had no clue how to put her in this lol and I changed up how Higuchi finds her LOL.

Higuchi in mama bear mode

Atsushi had expected a few things while he was out and about with a select group of ADA and PM members.

He expected arguments, to want to pull out his hair and even a few complaints. What he hadn't expected was the young teary-eyed girl who had slammed into his legs.

Atsushi was quick to crouch down, hands gentle as he grabbed her shoulders and moved her out of the walkway.

"Hi are you okay?" He'd asked, focused solely on the young girl.

She sniffled and shook her head. "Lost."

"Alright, I can help you I'm a-"

"'You a 'tective." The girl looked up at him and suddenly it was like he'd been struck with vague familiarity. "Kitty."

He's certain his face just turned bright red.

"Mai." Hirotsu appeared behind him, now crouching alongside the weretiger. "Hello Mai, I'm a friend of your mother's."

"Mum?" Her brown eyes widened in surprise before she tucked herself against Atsushi's side- yes, he absolutely was confused. "Hir'tsu?"

Hirotsu laughed, pulling out his mobile. "Yes, I'm Hirotsu shall I call your mother?"

Mai just nodded before turning back to Atsushi. Her little arms raised up, gripping Atsushi by the neck as she looked at the people behind him and so he craned his neck around too. Kunikida, Chuuya and Dazai were just watching them while Hirotsu stepped away to call Mai's mother.

"Up." And so he did.

"He knows her mother?" Chuuya asked, looking at Mai as if trying to figure out who she could belong to.

"Oh!" Dazai exclaimed, purposefully elbowing Kunikida as he did. "Higuchi's daughter."

Oh, that's why she looked familiar.

"Dazai!" Kunikida growled.

"Na'hara!" Mai grinned at the Chuuya, her little arm reaching out to him.

"How do you know me.... wait Higuchi?" The executive was confused. Atsushi's eyes widened a bit- oh he hadn't been there at the park that day.

"Mum keeps pictures of safe people in case of 'mergen 'emegen... bad things." Mai pouted. "Auntie knows too."

"What about me?" Dazai waved at the little girl who's nose scrunched up.

"She don't like you Zai."

Dazai stumbled back, mouth agape.

"You're so smart." Atsushi cooed and his mind wandered for a second- would his future kids be this cute or smart? He hopes so.

"Mai!" A blonde woman rushes around the corner chest heaving as she makes her way to the group. Higuchi.

"Mum!" The girl wiggles from Atsushi's arms- who is quick to place her on the ground- to run to Ichiyo.

"Thank you for finding her- and calling me." Higuchi says, hugging the young girl tight. "Never do that again Mai."

"How'd you lose her?" Dazai said, still pouting.

"We were on an excursion and she just vanished..." Higuchi states still holding Mai tight. "You nearly gave me a heart attack sweetie."

"Sorry mum. Didn't mean to." Mai sniffled again. "I ran into Kitty and stayed like you said 'n look Mr Na'hara is here too."

Atsushi's face flushed again and seemingly so did Higuchi's.

"She likes cats." Is what she offered, before spotting her superior. "Hello sir."

"Higuchi." Chuuya greeted. "How old?"

"Four!" The girl giggled.

"Cute." He replied. "Guess I know who to look to whenever I have kids huh?"

Higuchi's face turned a vibrant shade of red.

"Yes, you do seem to be a loving mother any suggestions would be wonderful." Kunikida already had his notebook in hand as he stared down the Commander.

"Oh please... some days I don't even know what I'm doing just doing what I can."

"You're doing great. I wish I had settled down and had my own children." Hirotsu admitted. "In our line of work it's hard."

She just nods.

"Thank you again. For keeping her safe." She lifts the girl up so her arms are under her little legs. "Best be off and back to the school trip."

"Okay. Bye Kitty bye Mr Na'hara, bye Hir'tsu." She waved, Higuchi following suit before hurrying back down the street.

"Why were none of you surprised she had a kid?" Chuuya grumbled.

"We saw them a few weeks ago on that bonding trip." Atsushi supplies. Nakahara just grunts before turning on his heel.

"C'mon let's get back to the mission."

[rosella-writes]

me and Tas were using this poem for a lil writing exercise but i want to see what you'll do with it. Something fluffy, based on the poem: I Went Out to Hear by Leila Chatti. Here's just one line: "My God. How lucky to have lived / a life I would die for." (Perhaps for Vir, or even Cass <3 or anyone you want)

oh this is beautifuuuuul 🥺thank you beloved

For @dadrunkwriting Virelan Lavellan x Solas Rated G 757 words Based on this beautiful gift: Virelan and Solas in their old age.

~~~

Solas does not know how long they rest here, in the gardens of what had been at once a military fortress, a sanctuary, a home. Time slips, and it is because they both allow it to — Virelan, in his arms, is a languid symbol of the acceptance of age. 

The sun warms their skin, just as it does the wild exuberance of this garden that their son planted and studied in his burgeoning curiosity. The morning glories, lilies, datura, belladonna, and more than Solas could identify have made this place their home in a half-cultivated, half-wild wealth of colour. But most beautiful of all, to his eye, is the woman who stretches her tired body atop his folded legs, like an old cat sprawling in the sun. Her long, tapered ears twitch, flicking away the white locs that tangle behind them. She does not seem to care that his knees press to her spine, or that she has no left hand to stretch — what stump she has extends, and her scarred, tattooed face twists in a yawn. 

He pushes contentment, comfort, into her remaining hand, clutched as it is in his own long fingers. Her deep umber skin is wrinkled and thin beneath the press of his fingertips, and he gazes upon it as if scrying the future. There is little of it now, but what remains is warm.

Solas absorbs her, as he does this sunlight. He clasps her shoulder tight when she looks up at him with a one-eyed smile and tugs him close — he slips his grasp to her wrist, reluctant to let her go. He steals this chance to count the fluttering pulses of her heart, echoed in the veins beneath his thumb. 

Whether Virelan pulling him nearer was a request, or a command, it matters not — he presses a kiss into the downy hair of her scalp. His own falls from behind his ear and veils them in white. 

“You’re doing it again,” she mutters, “looking at me like I’m a fragile bit of blown glass in your hands. Breathe, ara lath.”

He hums, then leans forward to brush his nose against hers. She crinkles it in protest, but she cannot suppress the chuckle that shakes her shoulders. 

“I shall not,” he tells her, “I am counting them.”

“Why?”

He does not tell her — his only answer is a brief, deep kiss upon her mouth, which she takes as her due. There is no wonder in this kiss, but there is familiarity. There is trust. There is acceptance.

“Do you ache?” he asks her.

She crinkles her nose again. “Only a little, in my chest. But I breathe deep and it eases. I’m fine.”

Solas knows that is as close to a lie as she tells him anymore. They both know it for what it is — I do not hurt now, I am glad with you, if I must hurt, I am where I am loved. He knows her past as a reaver takes its payment from her flesh. She changed herself, deeply and irrevocably, with every draught of the dragons’ magic, and what once made her strong now makes her bones brittle, her muscles overwrought — her scars shine with faint scales, her teeth are sharp, her eye opens and closes with the double-snicking sounds of two sets of lids, and her very cells divide, divide, and divide again. The magic that once healed her has become confused with time, and it unravels her, slowly. 

But together, they chose. Together, they allow this time to slip. 

He buries his hand into the locs at the nape of her neck and holds her close, forehead to forehead. He remembers what she told him, at the start of their new beginning:

Solas. Give me the gift of time.

Her eye flicks open, and it’s bleary, half-lidded from its inside corner, and fond. His thumb passes over her cheekbone in slow, methodical swipes. 

“Solas,” she says, as quietly and as devotedly as she once said Creators, or the beginning of a well-known prayer. “How lucky I am, to live a life I would die for.” She blinks suddenly, and he feels heat behind his own lids. “Thank you for living it with me.”

He aches, with sadness, with joy, with age, with love. He folds every winding thread of emotion around her, here in this garden where the Beyond and Waking are one, among the beautiful, blooming flowers that bring deadly sleep, until he is able to speak. 

“Var lath vir suledin,” he says, “vhenan.”

[blossom-hwa]

(IM GOING TO EAT MY TOES THIS IS MY THIRD ATTEMPT TO SEND AN ASK PLS DISREGARD THE FRUSTRATION)

anw 5 years of slaying and EVEN JOINING A WRITING CAMP IM SO HAPPY AND PROUD FOR YOU YOU ABSOLUTE DEVIL (teary-eyed emoji but the one with a fond smile) !!!!!!

i'm gonna have to ask for some skater san and writer mc shenanigans please :'))) preferably with their cat please please love u lina please never stop giving me excuses to enable you 💖

CHAIIIIIIIIII FIRST OF ALL PLEASE DON’T EAT YOUR TOES IT WILL ALL BE OKAY SKDJH BUT ALSO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS LIKE LEGITIMATELY HALF THE SHIT ON THIS BLOG WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT YOU BEING MY ENABLER/RUBBER-DUCK-THAT-I-SCREAM-ABOUT-IDEAS-WITH SO. I ADORE YOU I LOVE YOU THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

5 year anniversary drabble game: send me a Stray Kids/TXT/Golden Child/Ateez/The Boyz member + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and I’ll write a drabble for you!

(not as much cat antics as I’d like in here chai I'm so sorry but it came out like this and... well. I’ll leave you to read it for yourself :D)

REQUESTS OPEN!!

~

Title: Words For You

Pairing: San x gender neutral!reader

Word count: 1.3k

Warnings: n/a

~

One of San’s favorite things to do is watch you read. Not the whole time, because it can get quite boring (akin to the time he watched paint dry on a wall for over an hour), but the air seems to... shift, somehow, when you get to a climax or a twist. If he’s awake in the room, he’ll automatically turn to find you fixated on the book in your hand, eyes burning wide with a ferocious intensity that both scares him, slightly, and lures him in. 

He doesn’t interrupt you, of course. That would be signing his death warrant. But when he starts to pick up on it, he starts reading your books himself, trying to figure out what exactly has captured your attention so readily. Sometimes he finds what he’s looking for. Other times he has no idea what the fuck he’s reading. But as he flips page after page of the many volumes on your crowded bookshelves, he finds he doesn’t mind all that much. Because these books are a window, of sorts, into your beautiful mind. 

Three nights after the fight, two nights after you made up, you’re dishing up dinner in the kitchen while San sets two places at the table (”No, San, the cats don’t count as kids, you shouldn’t let them around when we eat, and you absolutely should not set places for them either -”). He helps you bring over the few plates and bowls, and when they’re safely settled on the table, you begin to eat. 

There’s silence for a while, but it’s comfortable. Unstrained, devoid of tension. San busies himself with the noodles in his bowl - he’s hungry - until he looks up to see you staring at him. 

Suddenly self-conscious, he swallows a last noodle. “Do I have something on my face?”

You shake your head. “No.”

San blinks. “Then... what?”

For a moment, uncertainty passes through your eyes. A thin line of tension threads through the silence as San waits for you to say something, anything to explain your stare and the reason you, usually so confident and bright and bold in your language, now look so unsure of your words. 

Then Trash Bag hops onto one of the unused chairs. She noses at the table, coming dangerously close to one of the dishes, and you snap out of whatever daze you were in to put her back down. When you come back up, your eyes look warm again. Certain. Or at the very least determined.

“I didn’t know you liked Anne Carson.”

Anne Carson? San furrows his eyebrows. The name sounds familiar, but he’s not quite sure where he remembers it from...

“I’ll take care of you,” you quote quietly.

Oh. Oh. 

“It’s rotten work,” he replies, just as quiet. 

Your eyes don’t leave his as you complete the line. 

“Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

He remembers, now. The translations of the Greek poems and plays that sat on your shelves, books you held with such care despite their well-worn covers, pages you marked with script-like annotations and coded with multicolored tabs. He remembers picking up If Not, Winter a month or so ago and feeling so transfixed by the softness Caron injected into Sappho’s poetry that when he was finished, he pulled Euripides from your shelf to read on the flight to his next skating competition, where he found your quote. 

The same quote he finished for you when you were a crying, laughing haze on the couch two nights ago, the quote that dispersed the smoke clouding your eyes and made you whole in his arms once more. 

“I saw you reading If Not, Winter a while back,” he admits, pushing his empty bowl away. “The title was interesting and you looked so transfixed by it that I thought I should try it. I liked it, so I read Euripides next.”

You lean forward, eyes shining. “How did you like that?”

“Not as much as Sappho,” he admits, which makes you laugh. “But one or two quotes stuck with me.”

You’re both finished eating so you push the dishes away, letting Byeol climb onto your lap. A short silence follows his words as you idly scratch between her ears. 

“I don’t care much for Greek plays,” you eventually say. “For a long time, I only liked Sappho. But one of my mentors in college recommended that I come back to them at some point and see if I could find something new.” You shrug. “And I did. I found that.”

San watches you put Byeol carefully down on the floor, then walk around the table towards him. He knows you well enough to stand, to hold open his arms just before you crash into him, your own arms wrapping around his waist. 

“Thank you,” you murmur into his shirt. “Thank you for dealing with me.”

His hand automatically finds its way to your head, patting softly as you breathe into his chest. “It’s not dealing with you,” he murmurs. “It’s loving you for your strengths and your flaws, for the human being you are to me.”

(When San’s birthday rolls around, after the requisite party where Wooyoung sets of three confetti poppers and San bemoans the mess he’ll have to clean up afterwards, you present him with a small rectangular package. 

He looks at the cheerful wrapping paper printed with smiling cats. “You already gave me a gift.” He’s wearing it now, a designer shirt he’d been eyeing for months but could never find an excuse to actually buy. 

“It’s another one.” You take a deep breath, almost like you’re nervous, but your eyes sparkle. “If anything, it’s like a gift for both you and me.”

Slowly, he unwraps the paper, taking care not to tear it as he picks apart the tape. Two books emerge from the wrappings. The top one he recognizes immediately. The cover is the same as one on your shelf, though this one looks brand new. 

Well, almost brand new. San frowns. A small pencil mark has smudged the corner of the white cover, and the pages...

San sneaks a glance at you. Well, there must be a reason you decided to gift him another copy of If Not, Winter, if you already own one. 

He leafs through the book, and immediately it becomes clear that it is not, in fact, brand new. 

Because - you’ve annotated it. Filled the margins with your crisp handwriting, underlined phrases in light pencil. Things you already loved, things you just noticed, things that reminded you of him...

He looks at the next book before he can start to cry. This is one he doesn’t recognize - Plainwater: Essays and Poetry. But he does recognize the author. 

Anne Carson. 

“I haven’t read it yet,” you say quietly. San looks up to see you holding out a second copy of the very same book. “Sappho was... it was for you. I know she loved women, but I love you, and some of the things she writes... I wanted you to know that they made me think of you.” You swallow. “But I thought we could read Plainwater together, since I haven’t read it and I don’t think you have either, and you said before you wanted to read some more so -”

San hugs you to him, cutting off your rambling speech. Your copy of Plainwater is stuck between you and his books are probably pressing into your back, but he can’t find it in him to let go.

“... San?”

This time, he can’t stop the tears. But he doesn’t try, really, just as he doesn’t try to slow the smile curving across his lips. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, feeling you finally melt into his touch. “Thank you so, so much.”)

[spoofymcgee]

classes and a cat (a qcard ficlet for trektober day 3: cottagecore)

( a/n: well. the cat is mentioned, at least.  a fic exploring the differences between captaining starfleet cadets and teaching them. there’s always something else left to learn, and when q’s involved you might even get to do it with fireworks.)

The class is not going well. Picard has been teaching for five years now, and every new wave of cadets shows up bright-eyed and full of an enthusiasm for learning that always dissolves into apathy and disappointment right before his eyes.

He surveys the sea of glazed eyes and holds back a sigh. They will acclimate, given enough time, and it’s not as though the drier details of the early branches of Starfleet’s involvement in the Earth-Romulan war are of any particular interest to him either. Considering the relatively small percentage of Earth Human students in this class–fifteen percent–it’s likely that the students are even less interested by the material than he is. Given enough time, he knows, the situation will improve. He inhales deeply, intending to get back to his lecture, and then promptly spends all of his air on a rather undignified squawk as a familiar and dearly annoying face appears out of thin air, quite close to his own. Luckily, the students appear to be similarly distracted by the spontaneous arrival of an entire floating person midair in the lecture hall. “Hello, dearest,” Q says, grinning. “You look lovely today.” “Good lord, Q!” Picard exclaims, a hand pressed above his heart, which he can feel beating in his throat. “I told you, you can’t just scare me like that!” “Mm, have you?” he asks, turning lazily in the air and peering at Picard upside-down. “I don’t seem to recall.” “Of course you don’t,” Picard grumbles, standing. “Students, this is my partner, Q. Apologies for the interruption, they’re here to…” he trails off, raising a pointed brow at Q. They consider the question for a moment and then shrugs, flipping up to sit cross-legged midair just above Picard’s shoulder. “Not for anything in particular that I can recall, but I’ve been known to forget thoughts every now and then when I have to wrap myself around Jupiter’s rings. It’s the meteoroids, I think.” Picard sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, if you don’t need anything in particular–yes, Mme Tala?” “Are they the same Q from your mission reports from your time served captaining the Enterprise?” she asks, dropping her hand to tug nervously at the end of her braid. “We read a few of them in Applications of General Order 1 yesterday.” Picard smiles, ever-so-slightly. “Indeed. It has been many years since our first encounter, though, and Q and I have resolved several of the differences described in those accounts.” “Yeah, I’ve discovered I have a rather significant affection for humanity after all, if you catch my meaning,” Q tells her, bouncing his eyebrows meaningfully. There’s a smattering of choked back giggles from around the classroom and they bask in it, flipping back upside-down. “Q!” Picard protests, scandalized. “If all you’re here for is to embarrass the both of us in front of my students, I’d much rather you leave!” Q pouts, dropping to face him in a standing position, several inches above the floor. “Aw, darling, don’t be like that. You know how much I love to watch you in your element. I’ll reel in the licentiousness, I promise.” “You’ll distract the students,” Picard points out. “Between your airborne antics and unrestrained commentary, I’d hardly blame them!” “You find me distracting, dearest?” Q asks, batting his eyelashes. Picard narrows his eyes and they bite their lip sulkily, crossing their arms. “Um, professor?” one of the students interrupts. “I don’t think we’d mind that much, actually, or at least I wouldn’t.” They look around and receive a wave of assent throughout the classroom before turning back to Picard. “It might add something to the learning experience, to get a fresh perspective, especially one from an ancient, omniscient being.”

Picard frowns, surveying the students, who seem to have perked up quite a bit in Q’s presence. “Mm. Well, I suppose, assuming Q doesn’t mind…” “You know, actually, I think I napped through most of that,” Q says shiftily, floating toward the ceiling, prepared to bolt now that they’re being threatened with work. “That is a lie, and we both know it,” Picard shoots back. The class snickers. “Last week at brunch you regaled Beverly with several stories of questionable appropriateness from the week you spent in Captain Jonathan Archer’s company in 2153.” Q’s face twists up grumpily, coming back down now that their excuse has been thwarted. “Oh, Beverly. Fine, well, what do you want to know, children?” Every single hand in the classroom shoots up. Picard feels vaguely jealous for a moment, but the amusement Q’s horrified expression brings him drowns out any other emotion.

Two days later, they pop out of thin air as Picard is hunched over his desk drawer, hunting for the lesson prop he’s sure he left there yesterday. ‘Pops’ in a literal sense as well as a metaphorical one: there are tiny, sparking fireworks that crackle out across the classroom in a wave to announce Q’s arrival. Then, Picard’s back crepitates in protest as he startles, straightening far too quickly for his age. “Q!” he exclaims. “Must you scare the daylights out of me every time you visit me at work?” “And if I must?” he asks loftily, lounging in the airspace of Picard’s desk. Then he grins, producing a detailed weapon recreation from his pocket. “You left this at home, mon capitaine.” Picard sighs, aggravated at his faulty memory. “Thank you, Q. And, you know, that really isn’t the correct phrase anymore.” Q leans down to whisper in his ear. “That wasn’t what you said last night. In fact, I seem to recall there being a great deal more of–” Picard claps a hand over their mouth, pushing their face away. “That’s quite enough of that, thank you,” he says, feeling his ears burn scarlet. There’s a smattering of badly repressed laughter throughout the classroom. “I don’t suppose you’re staying for class today? We’re covering the start of the Federation-Klingon war, and I believe you told me–” “Nope!” Q interrupts hastily, producing a paper bag from the intricate folds of their robe. “Just came to bring you that and lunch, and I really must go now, there are tomatoes to be harvested and a cat to be pet. You know how it is,” he tells the students, who mostly giggle and nod. “See you later, sweetums, I’ll make sure to give Bella your love.” With that, he disappears, leaving behind another wave of tiny fireworks to fizzle out slowly over the classroom In the sparking wake, one of the students raises xer hand. “You have a cat, professor?” “Unfortunately,” Picard sighs. “Chickens, too, though you wouldn’t think they would get along, would you? On that note, this,” he clicks the holographic display to the next 3d diagram, “Was a farming planet called Phrythia…” Two weeks pass, with Q putting in sporadic appearances of varying lengths in all of Picard’s classes. As a professor of history, he teaches nearly all the first year cadets, with only more specialized classes of students who have a genuine interest in the subject beyond that. 

The change in their behavior towards him is drastic in the younger students, but it’s the older ones that shock him the most. As far as he’d been aware until this point, most of the cadets in the advanced classes more than tolerated him at the least and quite enjoyed their classes at the most. Yet in the past two weeks nearly every student had been markedly warmer towards him, as well as more attentive even in the classes that Q didn’t attend. He’s curled up on the plush sofa, contemplating the change over a cup of tea when Q arrives home, dropping directly from space into their living room, if the lingering scent of acrid smoke and dust is anything to go off of. “Ugh, I can’t believe Q,” he says, kicking out of his knee-high boots and starting to shimmy his starry robe off. “They started off the discussions today with bringing up humans again. As though Starfleet didn’t just resolve three major extraterrestrial conflicts in the past month. What’s it gonna take for them to realize that you all use your power for the good, and won’t let each other do anything else?” Picard hums, setting his mug on the side table and digging fingers into Q’s ankles when they drop them in his lap. “Well, we haven’t always done that. They have a decent bit of rather monumental history on their side.” Q sniffs. “Monumental to you,” he says, and then, catching sight of Picard’s expression, “to us. Not to the Continuum, I assure you. No, she’s just being an asshole for no reason.” He flaps a hand, as though brushing the whole affair away. “Never mind that, darlingest. How was your day?” Picard sighs, dropping his gaze to Q’s calves, which have started to go hazy and smoky beneath his fingers. Infinite space, clouded through with stardust and solar systems–a reflection of Q’s true form, most of which is currently wrapped around the planets nearest Earth. “Have I really been such a terrible teacher all these years?” “Oh, mon capitaine, no,” Q says, pulling his legs away to tuck his toes beneath Picard’s thigh. “It’s simply that my presence has caused them to see the emotional side of you that is your motivation, rather than just the professional face you put on to interact with them. They feel they can relate to you more now, that’s all. Your teaching style is not the problem.” Picard frowns, unconvinced. “Is that not a flaw as well, then?” “Hm. No, I don’t think so,” Q disagrees, sitting up fully. “Emotional displays have never come naturally to you–you’re a very reserved person. There’s nothing wrong with that. It allows your students to focus more on the material and cover more in each class session instead of socializing. That in turn allows them more time to review at the end of the term, which improves their grades. A slightly more friendly relationship wouldn’t impact that disproportionately though, and it might encourage a deeper understanding of the material.” Picard mulls over this, picking up his tea cup and sipping from it. “That makes sense, I suppose. How did you come to such a conclusion?” Q puffs their chest out. “I am a god, Jean-Luc. I have a complete and comprehensive knowledge of human beings. Such rudimentary behavior patterns are easy to understand.” Picard snorts. “You mean you got lucky, mon cœur.”

Q gasps in offense. “How dare you insinuate that I have any dealings with luck? I am hurt, I am offended, I am–” the pillow smacks him square in the nose and knocks him clean off the plush sofa and onto the soft crocheted rug Worf had made for them years ago. Q stares up at him bewilderedly, sprawled on the floor. “I think I may have forgotten to remember to have weight.” That’s the last straw: Picard nearly doubles over with laughter, trying to placate his spouse between snorts.

“You don’t need to laugh so,” Q complains. “It was an honest mistake, you know.”

 “I know, darling. I don’t mind; it means I can do this,” Picard says, wiping the tears from his eyes and standing to scoop Q off the ground and carry him off down the hall. “Oh, I do love it when you carry me,” Q sighs, bringing a hand to his brow like a fainting damsel. “Take me to my boudoir, mon capitaine.”

[writeblrfantasy]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAX

today is my dear friend @magic-is-something-we-create 's birthday, and i wanted do something extra special to celebrate it!! so, a couple months ago i got together a bunch of our mutuals so we could each create something special for #pax's birthday bash!

my creation is a piece of fanfiction from pax's legendary, incredible, showstopping series the millennium saga!! i highly, highly recommend you check it out if you don't know it, as pax is one of the greatest writers i've ever had the pleasure of reading (not even saying that cuz he's my friend, it's genuinely true!) and one of the greatest artists i've ever had the pleasure of seeing!

his worldbuilding is unique, detailed like nothing ive ever read before, and his creativity is inspirational. so many times has he helped me and others with our work, jogged our brains, been the best rubber duck imaginable.

besides what he creates, pax is one of my favorite humans, always so kind and supportive and positive and encouraging. go show him some love today, and pax, thank u for all you have done for writeblr and your friends <3 love ya buddy

the moodboard is both a tribute to the wonderful city of aree and a gathering of vibes from my fanfiction piece, which takes place in aree. it features an air mage oc i made for this named mouse, a starry eyed young teenager who has perhaps been sheltered from much of the international violence that takes place in the ms.

i would like to imagine this takes place during a certain time in echoseers when the main cast return to aree.

without further adieu, please enjoy <3

~

Mouse rests atop a wall overlooking a dim Aree street, squatting on their heels like a perched cat. They sit as still as the night air, as silent as a forbidden lover’s whisper in the dark. They wait, as they do every night. Tonight, the activity on the street has been quiet, but that’s okay. Many professions have their slow nights, but many professions do not rely so fiercely on their day to day clientele to get by.

The sound of voices makes them tense up and ready themself. Below in the street, a parade of people walk by, all of them ehlves but one, from what Mouse can tell. They stare curiously at the human, wondering why he looks vaguely familiar, blond hair and a tired look in his eye. Tired yet hopeful, with some life in him yet, by the way he looks at the blue haired ehlf walking beside him.

The party is chattering with a mix of excitement and exhaustion about the evening they’ve just left behind—an eclectic mix of food out at a fine eatery, a relaxing day surrounding the birthday of one of the people in the crowd. That person stands at the front of the group, smothered in hugs wherever they go, their violet-indigo hair catching the dim city streetlights.

Mouse’s eyes drift toward the middle of the group, where a woman with green hair leans on her cane, smiling with an ease that gives hints of how friendly she must be in everyday life. Mouse’s cheeks heat at the sight of her pretty smile, her shining eyes. By the goddesses, she’s pretty, almost as pretty as the girl working in a knife shop right now who Mouse will meet at their apartment tonight…

Absently, with their Air powers, Mouse dampens the sound of their breathing, the shuffling of their feet as they adjust their position on the wall. Silent as a mouse, as it were, this is a familiar motion to them as they prepare for this grim duty every night. It’s not like Mouse wishes they had to steal to get by, to gather money for their overseas move.

But even with the free housing in Aree and the minimum wage, the money from their job at the book shop is not enough for their savings. They shudder to remember the days beforehand of struggling to make rent each month, glad that they hadn’t met their beloved yet, hadn’t gotten lofty dreams of moving somewhere easier. A new life, a new start, away from the bad memories and the difficulty and the trauma that lies for Mouse in these dark alleys, the visions of what they’ve had to do to survive. The blood and darkness of Aree at night haunts them, and their love is certainly not free of demons, either.

They and their beloved both want somewhere brighter, fresher. They haven’t quite worked out where yet, but until they pool their savings together, they won’t be going anywhere at all.

As the party approaches, Mouse braces themself, readying to hop down from the wall and slip into the shadows below in the street. They’ll sneak up behind the back of the party and slip their hand into the easiest pocket, and then pray.

Mouse feels a tap on their shoulder, and the culprit should fiercely thank their patron goddess that Mouse doesn’t have a knife on them right now. They whirl around, breathing heavily, heart hammering as they take in the one so bold as to tap the shoulder of a night thief.

They’re faced with a green haired ehlf standing on the wall beside them. Not the pretty lady from down below, this is a different one with a heavier energy, who’s—who’s smiling, of all things, with a distinct amusement and hint of mocking. What kind of creature would smile at a night thief who’s been doing a poor job hiding their profession? Mouse stares at them a moment, wondering what to do. This has never happened, ever.

Are they an Air Mage, too? Is that how they masked their footsteps, however the hell they managed to sneak up on Mouse so quietly? No, they conjure a bit of Flame to light up the night air, allowing Mouse to see their face. So how—

Doesn’t matter. Mouse braces for a fight, holding their fists in front of their face, calling forth their Air powers should they need them.

The green haired stranger smiles and waves that off, saying, “I mean you no harm. At ease.”

Slowly, Mouse lowers their fists, though not their guard.

The stranger, who Mouse now recognizes as one of the ones from the party down below, is holding out a few marks in their hand. Mouse’s eyes widen—it’s more money than they’ve ever held at one time in their life, more than enough to cover this month’s expenses and a general addition to the savings jar. They look up at the stranger, wide eyed and a bit fearful.

The mysterious individual smiles and holds out their hand farther. “Take it. No questions asked. I was like you, once. I know what it’s like, and I know how difficult it can be.”

Mouse glances down over the wall and notices the entire traveling party standing silent and still, watching them. None of them look angry either. Some look amused, some tired, and the one in the front, the blue haired ehlf that looks so vaguely familiar, wears an expression of utter confliction. Remorse, is that? Sorrow? Sympathy? Whatever it is, it pulls on the expression of the man beside him, the human, returning the pain and regret in kind. Mouse has never even seen a human up close. They wish they had time to study him more. There’s something familiar about him too, like seeing a book character brought to life.

The ehlf is still holding out their hand insistently. Slowly, Mouse complies and takes the money. They breathe out when the ehlf doesn’t snatch their hand back.

Mouse looks at their hand, the marks in it, and when they look up again the individual is gone. All of the party is moving on down the street, all but one—a tall one with silver hair and a soft, twinkling smile. That one waves toward Mouse with long artist’s fingers like they’re sharing a secret, enchanting. They mouth good luck, and slip off into the night with but a shadow.

Mouse stares down the road until the party departs and the silence goes with them, until they are alone again in the night. As if the strange ehlf and their party were never there at all.

Mouse shakes their head and pockets the marks, watching their back as they hop down the wall and dart away from the light. They blend seamlessly into the night, but even as they crawl and clamber back to their heart, the kind stranger’s face sticks in their mind.

if you made it this far, thank you for reading! go wish pax a happy birthday!! pax, i hope you enjoyed this!

[themculibrary]

First Meeting Masterlist

5 minutes (ao3) - qaradeservesrights shuri/riri T, 1k

Summary: "What the hell are you doing here?" She asked urgently, forgetting formality entirely. "Oh shit, am I getting recruited?" That would make sense. Okay, not a lot of sense, but Wakanda was all about Black Empowerment, right? Black Girl Magic and whatnot? Maybe she hadn't been as under the radar as she'd thought with her tech.

A (gayer) alternative to Shuri and Riri's first meeting

all great and precious things are lonely (ao3) - punyparker peter/gwen T, 5k

Summary: reader request: " I bet there's a lot Peter doesn't realize or think about when it comes to living in his own... Gwen to the rescue!"

OR

Eighteen months after the events of NWH, Peter meets Gwen.

OR

Post-NWH 3+1

Alpine's Accidental Allure (ao3) - SmutConnoisseur bucky/steve E, 6k

Summary: He looked around again, hoping to see its owner. Because someone was definitely going to be missing this little kitten. He scratched under her chin to appraise the animal when his fingers found a small charm. Curious, he lifted her up and felt the object, a small heavy gold-looking crown. Steve ran his fingers over the emblem, and the tiny black beads on the front of the collar started to vibrate–he jerked his hand back, staring wide-eyed at the creature. “What the fuck….”

Perhaps the noise of the festivities below scared her– Below. Steve walked to the edge of his balcony and looked down into the dark fenced patio. He swallowed and looked at the cat cuddling in his arms. “Please don’t be, please, anyone but him….”

-

Day in and day out, Steve is restless with his work and can’t catch a break in his personal life.

Finally, on Halloween night, he takes a breather on his porch; he finds a little fur baby nesting in one of his pumpkins. But low and behold, only one person might be her owner. The hot neighbor downstairs stairs, who Steve has creeped on and has no idea Steve exists.

Fucking perfect.

Art Imitating Strife (ao3) - MissMoochy matt/foggy T, 5k

Summary: Written for Mattfoggy Week 2022. Prompt: [Fire]

Foggy enjoys Hell's Kitchen tradition of placing a new statue outside the church every month. But one month, he is shocked to discover the statue is of none other than his favourite vigilante hero, Daredevil. His fixation takes hold of him. It's not as good as having the real Daredevil with him but it's as close as he'll get.

Fair Play (ao3) - woodelf loki/sif, frigga/odin G, 11k

Summary: He'd never had Thor's gift of making friends easily. But perhaps moving to a new town had changed Loki's luck. For once, things are going his way.

heart like hunger / heart like thunder (ao3) - Anonymous layla/marc T, 1k

Summary: Before Layla ever exchanged words with Marc, he’d taken a bullet for her.

Pawprints on Your Heart (ao3) - seepingout maria/natasha                                                                                                      G, 2k

Summary: A cat adopts Natasha and then disappears.

Life in Between Fighting (ao3) - Crematosis, holistic_alcoholic steve/sam T, 7k

Summary: “Did you see that guy?” Steve asks, still a little dazed, and turns to Bucky, who stops parrying the guards’ blows to look at Steve’s face with more attention. After a second of consideration, Bucky changes his expression to a more familiar exasperation. “Fuck my life,” he says, stabbing the guard who was attacking him from behind in the belly as an afterthought.  “Was he even hot?  ”There’s really no need to be that apprehensive about anyone Steve likes.  “He kicked the hangman in the guts,” Steve says with emotion.   “And then he flew away.”

never could get the hang of thursdays (ao3) - Merideath darcy/steve G, 1k

Summary: An ordinary Thursday morning in Westview.

One Bad Pumpkin (Don’t Spoil the Whole Bunch) (ao3) - jemgirl bucky/sam N/R, 3k

Summary: “Sam,” the stranger repeated, smiling. “I always liked that name.”

“I bet,” Sam mumbled, but he had to bite back a smile of his own.

“I’m Bucky, by the way.”

“Really?”

“Well, not legally, but socially, sure.” He shrugged, then gave Sam a wink while stepping forward just enough that Sam had no doubt it was a come on. “So, what’s the problem Sam?”

“The problem is my daughter, Aisha, and I came here to find some pumpkins, and it looks like all the good ones are gone.”

Or: While out with his daughter, Sam meets a hot guy. That’s it. That’s the plot.

Out of Place (With You) (ao3) - cdybedahl natasha/jennifer T, 1k

Summary: Bruce takes Jen to an Avengers party. It does not go how she expects.

Single? Taken? Waiting for Captain America? (ao3) - britbrit99, hkandi bucky/steve G, 7k

Summary: Bucky owns and runs a bookstore that sells a mix of books and fun other items, including a lot of pop culture merch. Steve comes in after the battle of New York and is charmed by the books, but surprised by the merch sold of the Avengers.

But Bucky is nice to him and it becomes a safe haven for Steve, who quickly develops a crush. Steve asks Bucky out and it goes well except for the fact that Steve knows he's been lying about his identity to Bucky the entire time. What's the good Captain going to do about it, and how will Bucky react?

Art by britbrit99, story by hkandi

the third day in january (ao3) - sparkagrace bucky/steve T, 4k

Summary: Bucky pauses. “Then how do you know my sister?”

“I know your sister?”

“Yeah, Becca’s the one who set this up. You're an orthopedic surgeon, you saw me visiting her a couple of times and asked about me… and I’ve just realized you’re not my blind date. Oh god.”

“No, I’m not,” Steve confirms with a grin, “but I kinda wish I were.”

— Steve accidentally crashes Bucky's blind date. Prequel to last train home and can be read as a standalone.

time, mystical time (ao3) - TaraLy gilgamesh/thena G, 3k

Summary: look at me, romanticizing buses as if i never get car sick every time i step on one.

You’re brew-ti-ful (ao3) - Anonymous bucky/steve G, 1k

Summary: “Hi, hot shot, the usual?” James greeted him with a smile as he asked.

[wxldchxld]

Familiar Profile: Angrboda

This is part of a series I’m doing on my witches and their familiars, starting with Beck, in hopes to update my pages and enrich the backstory of other characters. We will, of course, be starting with Beck and her familiars.

This will be going under my essential hcs page once I have everything properly linked, so I ask you give it a read even if you already know Beck and her familiars.

Species: Feline Breed: Maine Coon (Magically altered) Height: 2″3′ at the withers Weight: Aprox 60 lbs Fur color: Pitch black Eye color: vibrant green Age: Verse dependent. Generally her technical age is only about five years old in modern verses. However, she is a piece of Beck, and mentally has not only her own lived experiences, but Beck’s entire lived experience as well. So in reality, her mental age is however old Beck is. Temperament: Critical, hot-tempered, distrusting, conniving, curious, protective, observant. Talents: Reading, potion making, and minor spell craft.

Beck “found” Angrboda as a kitten. Named Barbie at the time, she was the prized and pampered pet of the unfortunate millionaire whose house Beck happened to be robbing. She hadn’t exactly intended to steal someone’s cat, that’s a bit low even for Beck’s taste, but the little kitten followed her out of the house three separate times. The final time she saw her curled up on the dashboard, patiently waiting for her to start the car, Beck figured it was meant to be.

Even still, her intentions weren’t to make her a familiar. She had Habrok, and the memory of Dawnbreaker still haunting the dark corners of her mind warned her against letting anything too close to her. The transformation happened unconsciously at first, but the closer they got, the less either of them were inclined to stop it. 

Boda was always a strange familiar. Unlike Habrok who was quiet and stand-offish, Angrboda was unabashedly demanding and often violent. She grew like a wildfire, faster and larger than any creature ought to, but magic could have bizarre effects on individuals. It didn’t matter how big she grew, or how much of a terror she became to others, in Beck’s eyes she was still that big-eyed, wobbly kitten trotting at her heel. 

In reality, familiars often latch on to certain aspects of a witch, things they value or aspire to, but sometimes, things they’ve tried to bury. As her transformation occurred, Angrboda lived every moment of cruelty, every memory of betrayal and violence. She saw every fearful look, every sneer, every dismissive glace. She heard the muffled cries of an injured child, cradling her injured hand and felt her gnawing hunger. And she watched as humans and witches alike turned their heads and did nothing to stop it. 

And she hated them.

All the rage her witch had been forced to crush, all the pain she’d been made to ignore, she felt its full force, and she fed off of it, growing bigger and meaner each day. Unlike Habrok, who chose to avoid humans out of an inherit wildness and distrust, Angrboda loathed them from the moment her eyes were opened. 

For the most part, this hasn’t changed. Angrboda is aggressive and snobbish. When Beck’s softer side threatens to make her do something risky, it’s Boda who reels her in. Where Beck might open her heart quickly, Angrboda is always there laying at the entrance, a looming threat to anyone thinking of stabbing her in the back. And Beck is blind to all of this. She can’t honestly see Angrboda’s anger for what it is without addressing it for what it is: a response to years of her own senseless trauma at the hands of cruel or indifferent people.

Boda does calm down as Beck finds her place with certain people, but its slow work, that will usually involve several claw marks and a lot of biting. 

Beck keeps a golden chain with an amethyst crystal pendant around Angrboda’s neck. The crystal is charged with a spell that keeps people from paying too-much attention to Boda or noticing her at all. Of course, if you’re getting attacked by her or having a direct conversation with Beck, the spell is weakened or nullified entirely. It simply enables her to take Angrboda with her wherever she goes without drawing too much attention because of her abnormal size.

**Note** Certain verses may have Angrboda coming into existence through other means, currently the only two that come to mind are my verses within the 100: The Diligence verse and the Eden (aka post s4 verse). But regardless of origin, Boda’s personality, size, and abilities, remain largely unchanged.

[talesofealdancynedom]

King Fredrick Cynedom, depicted with the things he loved; Minus the cats.

37. The Second Chance (chapter 3 - Me and Fredrick 3/5 ) part 8. Stories of Dreams.

none

From over the windowsill, Merriam saw a young man through the fogged glass. He had eyes of jade, and strawberry waved hair. Merriam found herself unable to look away, and in fact, drawn to open the window. The fellow shrank while Merriam reached to unlatch the window. Which was fused shut. Against all logic, Merriam was compelled to greet him, and dropped her anguish for what felt like a familiar face; To the point of forgetting she knew magic. Instead of going through the walls, or stopping time, Merriam shot out the kitchen, and down to the back door. She turned the corner, and tripped over her observer. Their eyes met for a forever.

“Merry? You look like the day we met. I saw our daughter, and she was like a swan. Am I dreaming?”

“Fredrick?! You also look as young as me. Though these are the colours magic gave you, after crossing the ether with me… To think I didn’t believe our princess could do this. You died so long ago, but all evidence indicates this is real.” Merriam said, getting nearer, touching his cheek. “My words are taken.”

“So, Odette is forgiven for this foolish deed? She begged me to convince you this is an act of love. She seemed filled with guilt. Odette healed me just in time, tossed me in enchanted waters, and took me here; I’m not sure if I should applaud her.”

“Unsure?! We both lived fulfilling long lives, with Happily Ever Afters, and all the garnishes. Loved ones near, in a lap of luxury; More then many of our time could ask. I had concluded my journey with acceptance, and asked her not to heal me. She kept me in a coffin for centuries, Fredrick. She’s waving magic around without thought of consequences; She should feel bad.” Merriam rambled.

“That may be true, but I get to hug my lost daughter, and live a little longer with my wife. Should I be so angry? There is always more to live for.”

“Using too much magic at once can kill a mage! I’m worried sick!” Merriam started. She noticed Fredrick had zoned out.

“As a boy, I always thought if I wasn’t King, that I’d like to foster cats with a common lady, in the countryside.” He said vacantly. A tabby with a jeweled collar walked by. He tried to lure it. Merriam gently put his arm down.

“Dear, that’s a fencing cat; It even has cute little boots.” She sighed. Fredrick smiled, and then tried asking it nicely, since that sometimes works on fey.

Fredrick and Merriam held hands at a small desk. They were in the study center, waiting for Odysseus to gather the records. Instead, he was writing letters. Merriam had to explain that if no one believed them, they’d be without a future. Time manipulation can get hard to grasp, even among magic users. It would be difficult to live anew, without a legal identity. While Odysseus wrote, Merriam and Fredrick nudged closer and closer by the minute; Unable to resist the other’s affection. Their True Love anklets had reappeared; thus, the spell had been recast. Fredrick admired Merriam’s fairy robes. There was nothing she couldn’t pull off. He asked if she’d like him to cut her hair again. Merriam leant closer and asked for a good kiss instead. Odysseus looked up, and told them to be quieter. After rolling her eys, Merriam got up and took Fredrick around ranch; She wanted to show him how their nephew Eatheltwein retired.

“This reminds me of when we went to Eastlands of Vietica.” Fredrick said looking about in complete calmness. “Remember that old man who made jade tools? The top of the golden butte was a meditative path. I nearly died in the ether getting there, but you finally knew healing potions. After he gave us wisdom, you finally cried for all you’d lost in my arms. A nice dream together. A moment without politics.” Fredrick reminisced, falling into a rose bush. Merriam jumped over it to heal him on the other side.

“My roses! No!” A sharp voice cried. They peered over the foliage. The Gardner had long caramel hair, grass green eyes, and a slight frame spackled with freckles. Her coveralls were patched and dirty, as where her gloves and hat.

“I’m sorry. I tripped. Can I make amends?” Fredrick asked. The Gardner looked up in tears. She nodded and reached out her hand. Both Merriam and Fredrick shook it.

“I’m Icthya. I’m just really attached to the plants… Gardening reminds me of my late father, and I planted these myself. I even tend the Tree Fey.” Icthya sniffed. Fredrick felt guiltier by the moment.

“Wait, you two; Have you seen my husband? He’s not feeding the goats and chickens like normal. I had to make a knight do it. He’s been out of it lately. Our son is returning this autumn.”

“What does your husband look like? My familiar Nihten can search from the sky.” Merriam inquired. She was a sucker for helping people on a tangent. Icthya smiled at Nihten.

“My son has a bird familiar too. Are you a mage?”

“Stop for a second.” Fredrick interjected. “The Gardner is commanding knights?”

“I’m ‘Queen’.” Icthya snorted, she started fixing the bushes.

“Well, in that case, ‘King’ Odysseus is in the library passionately writing a letter.”

“Oh, wedding planning for our son! He must be getting along with my brother Cetus.” Icthya smiled. Merriam tilted her head,

“I’ve met him; He knitted me socks in two hours. Full circle then. Well, would you by any chance help us prove our identities, so we can live anew? We’re Odette’s parents. As Queen you must h-.”

“I’m not sure about queenly stuff, but I do know the records better then Oddie. I had to put away all of Morgan’s books when he was little. I bet I can find proof you existed Merry and-” Icthya looked at Fredrick. She recognized him from the art. “King Fredrick?!” She gasped. He nodded cautiously.

“Well then, I think you’ll have no problem! Everyone learns about him, and many know magic. If you say ‘time magic’, and gesture to Fredrick, the right person could help you.” Icthya shrugged. “But if I may, why do you want to get government ID first? Wouldn’t it be worth your time to adjust to modern times? What about Odette? I think she needs her parents, given she’s misusing her magic for them. She might be struggling. Same thing happened with Morgan; Scares me silly.” Icthya continued. Fredrick was clicking at a real cat this time, and ruffling behind its ears. Merriam softened; it was her turn to fell regret.

“I guess that’s true Icthya. It would be a shame to hate a child for bringing back their parents. She left us at twelve, and we never got to know her as an adult. Though I wish I had died, I can’t go back; I can’t dishonour her. Not after her effort, and spending so many years wishing she had stayed.” Merriam looked at her feet; She felt unable to embrace the opportunity quite yet. Seeing her wilt, Fredrick handed her the cat.

“If we get to be a family again, and have youth, we can make choices. Merriam, before we ever got wed, what did you dream of doing? I always wondered what choice you lost, that made you so resentful.” Fredrick asked. Merriam grimaced. She’d buried that dream long ago. She was too old and bitter for such things. Her ambiance became a consuming blackness.

“Dream big Merry! You have a new life, and little to lose! I’m so curious; What did a Mage Queen really want as a girl?” Icthya encouraged. Merriam stared into middle-distance; She now wanted Fredrick and Odette in her dream, but that’s not what they were asking. They wanted to know her first wish. Merriam inhaled deeply.

“I wanted to become an old hag, living in a thicket of whimsical wonders, without a husband, or children. Starving in Francia with my father and milk-sister. Spending my days tending fey, observing my gate, and aiding wanderers. Adorned in kohl, rouge, and black. Peaceful solitude, surrounded by nature.” She confessed firmly. There was a pause. Fredrick began to uncontrollably laugh.

“Well, I’ll be damned if your father didn’t make a good choice sending you to my side! That sounds the opposite of the loving, and adventurous, woman I love. Your favourite colour is periwinkle, for wonders’ sake!” He chuckled. “How young did we make you a bride, for you to want something so miserable?” He went on. Merriam cringed with embarrassment. She had to agree.

They had lunch in the main hall, with Odysseus, Icthya, the five modern knights. Yesterday’s duck, peas, and radish, with today’s bread. They also had fresh butter, and bowls of pommes. The room was lit by the opened roof panels, providing a dusty glow. The walls were tall and red, the tables long. Every inch carved with pears and horses. Merriam loved how tacky and cozy this hall was. Fredrick however, thought the ponies a bit much.

In the afternoon, they offered services to earn their boarding, as they had no money. Everyone seemed calm, and accepted who they were. They had already seen Odette restore the acreage; It was not a far streach, to assume she’d bring back loved ones. Merriam and Fredrick spent the night in the Prince’s Cabin, where they bathed and put on sleeping gowns. They began reading Eatheltwein’s journals. Fredrick died before his nephew had a family. It tugged his heart to once more read the poor grammar, and excited tone. All the illustrations were in yellow. Fredrick wanted to be mad people read his diaries, but in their defence, he was dead. It made Fredrick sad to read how people felt after losing him, and reading about the milestones he missed. Merriam brought him tea.

“I now understand Merry. I see why you told our daughter to let you go. I was happier in my last moments, being optimistic about my recovery, then reading these accounts. Having my last thoughts be of love, instead of knowing the woe of my kin and the memories I never made. It makes me feel distant. If there is anything else I missed, don’t tell me. I’m unsure my heart can bear it. I wish I’d never known this. Was it better to pass in ignorant bliss, then live on? This changes things.” Fredrick cried. Merriam hugged him, as it got dark.

“I know. I’m so lost. It fells empty. I never planned for this. How does I live again? Wanting more from each moment, and resenting the past’s charm.”

NEXT --->

<---PREVIOUS

[another-fantasy-world]

The Idol’s Inspiration

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Title: The Idol’s Inspiration

Pairing: Valkyrae || Rachell x Fem! Reader

Summary: In which the international singer find’s her inspiration in a certain brown eyed-often screaming- streamer

Warnings: None? Fluff. Awkward Crushing. Top Rae? (Oh Gosh)

Word Count: 2,905 Words

@short-kid27​ helped me with this one. Go check her out she’s actually great

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-

You scoffed when you saw what your bandmate tweeted out, tweeting as if he wasn’t using his phone either. Deciding to throw something at him, you spot a plastic perfume bottle, reaching out for it, only for Luna, your other bandmate to slap your hands of her perfume bottle.

“Don’t you dare.” She playfully glares before turning back to her original position, with her hair stylist tending to her long reddish-brown hair.

“Sebastian, you are so lucky you’re on the other side of the room right now or I swear to God, you would have a concussion.” You frowned, before turning back to your phone, further proving Sebastian’s point.

“See?! What are you even doing?” He loudly asks, you barely hearing him from the noise of blowdryers.

“Writing.” You answered, annoyed. It wasn’t a lie tho, You were now writing a new song, since your management once again are rushing you to write at least 12 songs for your new album.

“We wrote 3 songs yesterday. Calm down.” Your bassist, Luna reassured you, who just finished her glams.

“We’re supposed to be finished with this by the end of the month. How am I supposed to calm down?” You complained.

Ever since your band, Coldify, got enough attention, your management barely gave you enough time to just breathe and write like you used to, How were you supposed to produce quality music?

“Choco Milk?” Jace, your drummer offers you his second cup

“No thank you. Hot sweet things stress my throat. Maybe later though.” You stood up, thanking your stylists, before changing into your casual clothes, since you would be doing a Q and A session first as a soundcheck and also for extra fan service before the concert proper.

Once you finished changing, you walked out of your dressing room, only to find that your bandmates are now all set up, all except you.

Jace is fiddling with his drum sticks

Luna is tuning her bass guitar

And Sebastian is playing a random tune on his electric guitar.

You rolled your eyes at them, before slinging your own acoustic guitar over your shoulder, the familiar weight and pressure of it’s strap makes you smile.

“Are we ready guys? We can start now, there’s only 5 minutes left.” You asked them, plugging in your “in-ears”

They all nodded at you and you guys started to do your signature intro, you playing a few notes on your acoustic, followed by Sebastian and Luna, then you all run out, hearing the screams of your fans intensify, before Jace started banging on his drums, ending your intro with all of you guys harmonizing your band name and lifting your right arms up, showing the compass tattooed into the insides of your wrists, symbolizing your band and the friendship that will never grow old.

“What is up LA!?” You loudly said into the mic, chuckling when they screamed louder than your own mic.

“Well, we certainly need to up the mic volume later.” Luna giggled, sitting on one of the chairs positioned in the middle of the stage.

“Mhhmmn. Let’s all calm down first yes? You guys save your energy for later.” Sebastian winked into the crowd, also sitting on one of the chairs, with his mic in his hand.

“Great, great. We’re all settled in, Please sit down and let’s start this 1 and a half hour Q and A? Soundcheck? Fan service? Whatever you want to call this whole shebang.” You joked, thanking the staff that gave you your own water bottle.

“You know the drill, if you don’t that’s fine. My name is Luna and I am the one who plays the amazing silver-gray bass back there.” Luna introduces herself

“That amazing silver-gray bass that you would marry someday. I swear you are inlove with that thing.” Sebastian teased, earning him a loud smack to the shoulder.

“That is animal abuse. Stop it.” You hold in your laugh, but bursted out laughing anyways when you saw the appalled look on his face.

“My name is Jace. And I bang my sticks into a hallow cylindrical thing for a living. I heard they’re called drums but whatever. I also live with these idiots and I, unfortunately, am the one who holds their leashes.” Jace introduces himself, smiling into the crowd

“Okay, Father. My Name is Sebastian. aka the most attractive one in this group. I play the guitarrrrrr. You guys can call me Seb, Sebastian or Daddy. Your choice.” He winked.

“Ew.” All three of you pretended to gagged, before laughing at Sebastian’s pouting face, your audience also laughing at your antics.

“Okay- Okay, Stop. We need to be serious. Gosh. My name’s Y/N! And I’m your local sapphic lead singer. Yes, I need to say that everyday because people still debate that I’m straight. It’s annoying” You introduce, taking a sip of your water

“Right. So this is how it’s gonna work. There are multiple Coldify interrogators, as we call them, roaming around, all you have to do, is raise your hand, first one they see wins the first question. And the cycle continues until we run out of time.” You explained

“HmmHmmn. So are you guys ready?” Luna asks, earning a few “Yes!” and “WHOOOOO” making all you guys chuckle.

“Okaaaay! on 3. 1,2,3! OH! That redhead with the all black attire. I like that.” Sebastian calls, waiting for the guy in the uniform to hand the girl the mic.

“What’s your name love?” Jace asked the now blushing girl

“Ah. Kadie. I just wanna say that I am such a big fan and I wanted to know if, besides the tattoo you guys have right now, the compass, are you guys still planning on getting a matching tattoo?”

“Ooooh. Tattooes. Hmm. I personally would love to have another tattoo. But you see, Sebastian here cried when we first tattoed. And I am not looking forward to that at all.” Luna answered, laughing when Sebastian whined.

“Oh yeah. No. Not again.” Jace agreed, while you just smiled and nodded.

“Next Question Please.” Sebastian interjected before you could even talk

“Hi my name’s Catherine-” You guys interrupted her to say hi

“Hehe. Hi. Uhm, I wanted to know if you guys have like, favourite youtubers or streamers?” She asks shyly, which made you smile.

“Oooooo. Okay, now you guys get to know why I tweeted that earlier.” Sebastian chuckles

“Okay Mr. Snitch. But uhm. I would have to say... Sykkuno. His voice is just the best-”

“Excuse me? Corpse?! Hello? Corpse has the best voice don’t even. He’s my favourite, what you said was just Corpse slander” Sebastian interrupts Luna, to which Luna answered with a glare.

“Uh-huh. Okay. As I was saying, Corpse’s voice is good, but Syk’s is just this wholesome anime type voice that just melt’s your heart you know? He should be a voice actor for like, an anime protagonist. AND HIS PERSONALITY IS SO GOOD AND WHOLESOME LIKE WHAT THE FUCK?” Luna gushes, nodding to Jace before she goes on a full rant

“I’m sure you won’t match with him, expecially since he’s quiet and you’re loud and abnoxious.” Sebastian casually says

“You know what?”

“Pokimane...” Jace speaks into the mic, interrupting the siblings from fighting. “...Because she’s actually a really good gamer, and she also has a cat called called “Mimi” and that’s major points in my book.” Jace says, smiling.

“Hmm. That’s actually a tough choice... I would have to say-” You were interrupted when your phone let out a noise, letting you know you forgot to silent it.

“BABUSHKA!” Your face felt hot as you desperately tried to put your phone in silent, but it was too late.

“My phone just outed me what the hell?” You mumbled into the mic, hiding your face as you hear your fans laugh and coo at your cuteness and embarrassment.

“Anyways, if that didn’t answer your question, I don’t know what will. But uhm, Valkyrae. 100 percent. She’s just really skilled in video games and has probably played more games than me. Also, she’s absolutely fucking gorgeous and I just love her personality and all.” You smiled, still feeling a little bit embarrassed

“I just love her personality- Please, last night you fell asleep to her playing a horror game. She screams alot in that video, I’m just saying. How could you sleep to literally her screaming in your ear?” Sebastian shrugs, ignoring the glares you sent him

“Just this morning, you were frowning because there was another viper on the team Rae was fighting against in Valorant, and you accused that viper of being a copycat.” Jace added

“Or the fact that you always flinch, or dodge and curse whenever someone shoots at Rae-” Luna finishes making you cover her mouth before she says something more

“Okay. I think it’s pretty obvious that I have a crush on Valkyrae but please- Stop.” You grumbled, frowning playfully at your fans when they awed at your band’s interaction.

“Next Fucking Question Please.” You huffed, closing your eyes and leaning back into your seat, trying to settle your beating heart

Rae will for sure see that. Oh my god. Thoughts of Rae seeing your clip of literally simping for her has your heart running marathons.

“Hi! Uhm, this question is for Y/N”

You hear the gasps of your bandmates, but you pay no attention to it since you were still gay panicking inside

“What will you do if you ever met Valkyrae in person?” a familiar voice echoed in your ears, you of course can’t figure out who it is.

“I honestly don’t know how I would react. Maybe faint? But then probably hug her? I dunno? Kiss her cheek maybe? I mean, how would you react if you meet your long time crush?” You answered mindlessly, chuckling silently knowing that you probably faint and be knocked out for God knows how long. Or maybe you’d fumble and embarrass yourself.

You hear your bandmates join in the laughter with the audience, and that made you open your eyes, throwing a confused glace to Luna who just patted your back and made eye contact with who, you presume, asked the question.

You followed her gaze, eyes widening when you saw the brown-eyed brunette beauty holding the mic. Your brain lagged, trying to comprehend the situation.

“Uhm, I mean- Unless, You know? She’s uncomfortable about it. I don’t wanna make her uncomfy, you get me? First impressions are a thing. I mean- I’m just gonna shut up.” You just spat words out before your brain could even comprehend it.

Come on Y/N keep it together. She gotta think that you’re cool. Not an awkward gay mess.

“Pfft- Little too late for the first impressions that included you being cool.” Jace threw his empty water bottle at you

“...I said that aloud didn’t I?” You asked, now trying to hide your face behind Luna’s back, who’s doubling over from laughter

“Please, someone tag me when you decide to upload this very moment. I wanna blackmail Y/N with it.” Sebastian wheezed out.

“I think we can do something with the hugging thing. Just don’t faint on me.” Your eyes snapped to Rae’s as you see the smirk etched on her face, her hands still holding the microphone

Your eyes widen as your fans, screamed and a series of “OOOOOOHHHH” and “Get it Y/N!” erupted, making your embarrassment amplify even more.

“Is it embarrass Y/N day today? God, please- Next Question please. Oh Jesus.” You put your face in your hands, trying to hide.

Thankfully, they didn’t pry anymore, your embarrassment slowly subsiding as they asked about your daily life, career, albums and upcoming awards. After finishing a couple more questions, you guys sang a couple cover songs, and that’s what concluded your soundcheck. (Sebastian managed to sneak in Janet’s PETTY song, which you rolled your eyes on but sang nonetheless.)

You walked out and to the backstage as you shoved Sebastian playfully for making kissy faces.

“Y/N and Rachell sitting on a tree-” He was suddenly cut off by someone

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G” Your gaze wonders to Pokimane, or Imane who just interrupted Sebastian

“Kissing?! Isn’t it a bit too early for that? Why would they kiss-” Sykkuno says glancing between Rae and I

You wondered if they said anything else because you’re going to be honest to yourself, you were only looking at Rae’s eyes. The deep brown orbs you only ever saw through your screen, was now staring right back at you, her brunette hair tied up in a bun- She’s staring back at you.

Quickly averting your eyes, you felt yourself grow shy, you now also find your shoes very attractive.

“Keep your head up or else you would faint on me and I don’t want that. I prefer to hug a conscious person, Thank you very much.” you lifted your head so fast you could’ve given yourself a whiplash. Darting your eyes around Rae, you quickly find that your friends + Imane and Sykkuno have left the both of you alone.

“Sorry. You just caught me off guard there. Hi! Uhm. I really don’t know what to say to you- Uhm.” You rub the back of your neck, nervously smiling at Rae you in turn smirked at you, raising her brow in the process.

She quietly chuckles before opening her arms, signaling for a hug, to which you launched yourself in, trying not to breathe because that would be so weird.

“Okay so now can you take out your knife and stab me just to make sure that this is real.” You stated, looking directly into her eyes

“...But I’m not the Impostor?”

“...Okay that’s clever-” You laughed, taking a sip out of your water bottle, leading her to your dressing room

“Speaking of, do you mind if I play with you guys sometimes? I’ll find time, I promise.” You say, watching the time considering you only have half an hour to change and get ready, not to mention your crush is right in front of you as well.

“Wait really? Yeah! Just DM me on twitter! I’ll organize a lobby just for you.” She replies, plopping herself on the sofa you have.

“Awe, I feel so... special” You smiled, finally composing yourself, emerging from behind the curtains, already in your performance outfit

“The almighty Creator of the Year, creating a lobby? For lil ol m-” You were greeted with a facefull of pillows thrown at you, just for that statement. Which made you laugh.

“Shut up.” She grinned

“I’m sorry, m’lady” You curtsied playfully, expecting her to start smacking your shoulders, instead when you lifted your head up, she was just sitting there with a soft smile on her face.

“You’re wearing my merch.” She stated

You widened your eyes then looked down, the hoodie that you just randomly picked up was her merch.

“I’m sorry, do you want it back?” You spit the words out before your mind could comprehend how idiotic that sounded

Rae bursted out laughing at your statement, putting her hand over her mouth while doubling over. You rolled your eyes at her and plopped down on the sofa, crossing your arms.

“Yeah, Yeah. Go on. Laugh. At least I can spell broccoli right.” You teased, poking her side

“OKAY! LISTEN HERE HOTSHOT! I-”  she was interrupted by a series of knocks on the door.

“Y/N! PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE DECENT AND IS NOT SEDUCING RAE BECAUSE THAT’S JUST WRONG” Sebastian loudly asked through the door

“Oh My God. Please just kill me.” You rubbed your face with your hands

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one doing the seducing but okay.” You hear her mumble under her breath, making you look at her with a scandalized look on your face

“DOOR’S UNLOCKED SEBASTIAN. DON’T BE AN IDIOT..” You replied

“Don’t mind him Y/N We’re just coming in to say that you have 5 minutes until we have to go onstage.” Luna softly replies, shoving Sebastian out your field of view.

“I’ll be right there Lune.” You stood up, smiling at Rae

“I guess that’s it. I’ll talk to you later? I think? Just check your DM’s soon yeah?” She pulls you into a hug, kissing your cheek as she pulls away.

“Good Luck out there. I know you’ll do great.” She smiles, walking out, leaving you to your thoughts

“Huh?” You touched your cheek, a smile slowly paints itself upon your face

"Come on, lovergirl we're running late." Jace drapes his arm around your shoulder

"She kissed my cheek." You say, still shocked

"Lucky You." Jace says, his ears reddening.

...lucky bastard

"POKI KISSED YOU TOO DIDN'T SHE?!" You screeched

'Hush!" His cheeks are also red now.

"Huh. I guess today's our lucky day." You grinned, now extremely happy and hyped

"Oh, check your e-mail now by the way. Manager says she sent our line up there." he pats your back, getting into his position, as best as he can considering the stage is now pitch black

"Huh. Okay." You pulled out your phone, sending a piece of paper flying. Bending down to pick it up, you feel your heart soften into mush and then it decides to run another marathon.

Just incase my Twitter DM's don't work, or if I'm streaming. xx 09-xxx-xxx-xxx

"Be still, my beating heart." You sighed out

Valkyrae just gave you her phone number

[ur-favorite-queer-queen]

Protect

For Maribat March day 18 theme protect 

Master List 

“DEAREST BIG BROTHER! I’M HOME!” A female shout came from the foyer of the manor. 

Dick, Jason, Tim, Babs, Steph, and Cass were hanging out in one of the many rooms the manor held. Alfred had just walked in with a tray of drinks but froze at the sound of the voice.

“THE HECK!” Was shouted by the same voice followed by Damian’s voice shouting, 

“WHO ARE YOU!?!?! HOW DID YOU GET IN!?!?!” 

Alfred was out of the room in an instant. He was not sprinting but he might as well be with how fast he was walking. The batkids immediately followed after him. 

They walked in on a sight none of them will ever forget. Literally, Jason had taken a picture. A strange woman who looked like a female, miniature version of Bruce had Damian’s precious katana and seemed to be taunting him with it. 

“Miss Marinette!” Alfred called and got both the woman’s and Damian’s attention. 

“Alfred!” The woman replied, running over and giving him a hug, katana still in her hand. 

“Wait, Aunt Nettie?” Dick spoke up, walking over to the pair. 

“Little Wing! Wow, you got so much bigger since the last time I saw you.” She responded, giving him a hug. 

“Wait, wait, your Aunt Nettie?” Jason asked, crossing his arms. 

“Aww, Little Blue Jay, you don’t remember me?” She shot back, crossing her arms as well. 

“Blue Jay, why is that familiar?” Jason muttered to himself, not quietly enough since everyone heard him. 

“Aunt Nettie, you only visited once when he was here.” Dick reminded her. 

“Oh, well that will explain that. Also how many more kids did Bruce adopt? I thought it was only the 2 of you, the Drake kid, and his bio kid.” She questioned, motioning to each child she remembered. 

“The only other kid he adopted is Cass, Steph and Babs are family friends.” Dick clarified. 

“Babs, the first Batgirl correct?” She asked, turning to the girl in question. Everyone froze at that, this girl who was apparently Bruce’s sister knew who they were.

“It’s fine guys, she’s known since the beginning of his time as Batman.” Dick assured. 

“Yep, speaking of my big brother, where is he?” 

“Master Bruce is currently at a WE meeting, but he will be back in time for dinner.” Alfred answered for her. 

“How come father never told us about you?” Damian voiced, glaring at her and looking like he wanted to attack her again. Probably because she still had his katana. 

“I rarely visit nowadays and he’s probably still upset after last time.” Marinette smirked, like she had won some sort of battle. Noticing she still had his katana, she handed the blade back to Damian. 

“Last time?” Tim hesitantly echoed. 

“How about Miss Marinette shares the story in the living room? I can bring snacks.” Alfred offered, Marinette looked like she was about to say something but Alfred beat her to it, “You bond with your nieces and nephews, I will be fine.” 

“Come on Marinette! You can tell them about how you helped train Bruce! Oh did you bring any kwamis with you?” Dick rambled, pulling Marinette with him into the room they were hanging out in before her appearance. 

Once they were all seated Tim started the conversation, “So I’m not hallucinating, you are actually Bruce’s sister.” 

“Yes, Bruce is 3 years older than me. I know that he is Batman and you guys are the bats and the birds.” She calmly responded. 

“What did Dick mean by you helped train Bruce? And what is a Kwami?” Babs continued. 

“Kwami are basically magical beings, kinda like gods, that are bound to jewels called miraculous. Since I’m the guardian I protect these jewels. I trained Bruce by helping my old mentor from Tibet train him.” Marinette explained. 

“What happened last time? And why don’t you visit often?” Damian asked, carefully hidden curiosity in his eyes. 

“Back in my first year of highschool, Bruce was very protective of me. Like very protective. No boy he didn’t approve of, which meant I could never talk to a single boy, could get within 10 feet of me without him present. Asking me out, out of the question. Pretty sure this one guy, Adam, wanted to ask me out but Bruce interrupted before he could. I never talked to him again after that. I got pretty tired of it so I signed up for the foreign exchange program and went to school in Paris.” 

“Wait,” Steph interrupted, “Bruce was an overprotective brother?” 

“One of the worst kinds. I’m sure if our parents were still alive he might’ve been worse than my dad.”

“What importance does this have to the questions?” Damian sneered, annoyed that he wasn’t getting any answers. 

“Hold on I’m getting there. So anyways it was in my sophomore year of highschool at Paris that a supervillain attacked. He called himself Hawkmoth, he used the butterfly miraculous to transform people into his puppets by using their emotions against them. I didn’t think much of it since it didn’t concern me, my host family agreed thinking it wouldn’t last long. But when I got to my room there was a little box sitting on my desk and that’s where I found the ladybug miraculous. The most powerful miraculous besides the cat miraculous. I told Bruce, he wasn’t too happy about it, but there wasn’t much he could do. So much happened in that amount of time that I don’t think I could summarize it all before Bruce gets back but just know that in that span of time I met the current guardian. Hawkmoth gained an ally who used the peacock miraculous, Mayura. Also a miraculous that could manipulate emotions. 

After I and my partner had defeated Hawkmoth and Mayura, sometime during my senior year, we revealed our identities, dated for a few months before I ended things. Then I went back home and Bruce was getting ready to go on his soul-searching journey to be trained by masters or whatever and I suggested he be trained by my mentor who was in Tibet. I went with him, we trained for a couple of months before he left. I decided to stay in Tibet to train to become the next guardian. Eventually my mentor died and gave me guardianship. 

Then I returned to Gotham and Bruce had adopted Little Wing over there. So I stayed here for a while before I decided to go around the world doing guardian things. Bruce didn’t like the idea but there wasn’t much he could do. I ended up catching up with an old friend of mine on one of my travels and we started dating before I came back here. That’s when I met Little Blue Jay for the first and last time.

Before you guys had gone on patrol I tried to ask Bruce to give my boyfriend a chance but he didn’t agree. I’ve always been his little sister in his eyes, I think he couldn’t handle the fact I had grown up. Nasty words were exchanged between us and I haven’t returned since. In the end me and him didn’t work out but I couldn’t bring myself to return, until now at least.” 

“Why now?” Damian immediately pressed once she finished her explanation. 

“Dusuu was missing Alfred. It has been like a decade or something.” She remarked, pulling out a peacock shaped brooch. 

“Didn’t you say that the peacock miraculous was evil?” Cass signed, raising an eyebrow at the brooch. 

“No, I said it was used for evil. The miraculous are technically neutral, can be used for good or evil. Depends on who is wielding them.” Marinette bit back, as a flash of light emitted from the brooch. Suddenly a small floating peacock creature stood in front of Marinette. 

“Is that a kwami?” Steph asked. 

“Yes, this is Dusuu, the peacock kwami of emotions.”

“Hello! It’s so nice to meet you!” Dusuu chirped, “Where’s Alfred?” 

“I am right here Dusuu. It is lovely to see you again.” Alfred spoke from the doorway, holding a tray of snacks and drinks. 

“Alfred!” Dusuu cheered before flying over and hugging the older man. 

“In all honesty Bruce doesn’t sound like the best brother.” Jason pointed out. 

“I know it may seem like he’s a shitty brother, and at the time I totally thought he was and still is, but I know where he’s coming from. Bruce was always the more reserved and protective out of the 2 of us even before what happened to our parents. I think our parents' death solidified his need to protect me from anything and anyone. And we all know how horrible Bruce is at showing his emotions so I know his heart was in the right place. Plus, we’ve had years to cool off, I’m sure we can have a mature conversation now.” Marinette explained, a fond smile gracing her lips. 

Faintly in the distance they heard Alfred say, “Welcome home, Master Bruce.” 

“That’s my cue!” Marinette said before bolting off in the direction of the foyer. 

“Alfred something’s off, what are you not telling me?” The second those words left his mouth a weight connected with his back, arms wrapped around his neck and a familiar, 

“HEY BIG BRO!” Was registered by his ears. 

The weight slipped off his back and as he turned around he was met with the familiar sight of his little sister. “Marinette.” 

“Bruce.”

“You’re here.” 

“I am.” 

“I thought-”

“That I was mad at you.”

“You didn’t visit for 10 years.” 

“Life got busy.” 

They stood in silence for a minute. 

“I missed you.” Marinette whispered, so much different from the girl that was telling them a brief summary of her life. She seemed so much more vulnerable uttering those words than when she had revealed why she hadn’t come back in the first place. 

Turns out that was the straw that broke the camel’s back as Bruce wrapped Marinette in a hug as tears slipped from his eyes. They could hear him whispering over and over again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did all those years ago.” 

It was weird for them all to see, including Dick who knew how much Marinette meant to Bruce. Bruce kept his emotions so closed up, master of the stoic face, but here he was breaking down in front of the all. Here he was crying and apologizing. 

“I believe we should leave them alone for now.” Alfred spoke up heading for the dining room. They followed. Later Bruce and Marinette would join them, a little red-eyed with their cheeks tear-stained, but small smiles on their faces. 

It was then that all the batkids knew that they would be seeing this ‘Aunt Nettie’ much more often. 

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Look at that, I’m super late again! Nothing new, I think day 14 was a one time thing unfortunately. 

I’ve seen a ton of fics where Marinette was Bruce’s older sister but what about where she’s his younger sister? Bruce would so be an overprotective older brother. 

I hoped you enjoyed this! I’m planning on making a part 2 of this for ‘contest’. So stay tuned!

@maribatmarch-2k21