#also this fought me on the formatting so fuckin hard so sorry if it looks weird I had to copy it from google docs

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

After Each Midnight Begins A New Day

Extra #13c - Technically A Cutsleeve? (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

[Masterpost] [AO3]

Instead of a snippet for WIP Wednesday this week how about an entire chapter? I'd like to say it's one of the ones I've been working on here and there but....I wrote all of this a WHILE ago and thought I wanted to add more then decided I didn't so. OH WELL here it is anyway, new chapter of 'Technically A Cutsleeve?'

-/-

“Mo-gongzi, are you sure you’re ah…ready?” Zizhen asks, and though Jingyi heartily seconds that question he’s glad that someone else has asked it.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Mo Xuanyu asks breezily, like he isn’t standing across from Jingyi in the Jins’ training yard with a borrowed practice blade in his hand still dressed like he’s ready to go hold court with Jin-zongzhu at any moment. The multiple layers of his full skirts flutter ever so slightly in the breeze and the jewels in his hair and dangling from his ears catch the afternoon sunlight with little winks when he turns his head to smile at Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Zizhen standing far enough away to not be in danger.

“Well, it’s just -”

“Just let him do it,” Jin Ling interrupts to grumble. “He’s got robes to train in if he wants, but if he doesn’t want to then he doesn’t have to.” 

“Aw, thanks A-Ling! So considerate of your shushu,” Mo Xuanyu teases, and Jingyi doesn’t bother hiding his smirk when Jin Ling visibly flinches at the not-so-subtle reminder that he hasn’t been considerate so far. “He used to tell that to the rest of the disciples too, when we were kids.”

“If you’re sure then I’m ready to start when you are,” Jingyi says mostly so that Mo Xuanyu can’t say anything else to make him inclined to forgive Jin Ling any faster.

Sparring with Mo Xuanyu is, unsurprisingly, fun. Jingyi starts their first round with the easiest forms he knows, the ones he helps teach to the youngest of the juniors when they’re ready to graduate from working on their forms alone to sparring each other in preparation to start night hunts in a few years. He isn’t sure how far Mo Xuanyu got in his sword training before he’d decided not to pursue martial discipleship, but it’s clear very quickly that he at least knows how to do that much and so Jingyi ups the difficulty as they go.

Mo Xuanyu is by no means a natural swordsman – but Jingyi doesn’t think that he would ever claim to be one in the first place, and so their match becomes more of an exhibition than an outright match like he might be inclined to do with his friends. He looks gorgeous anyway, practically glowing in the afternoon light and ever so slightly disheveled around the edges, stray hairs sticking to his temples and at the nape of his neck by the time Jingyi whirls to a stop with him to a round of clapping from the other three off to the side.

The smile Mo Xuanyu gives him likely wouldn’t be considered blinding by anyone else - it’s small and maybe a little shy around the edges, rouged lips just barely tipped up at the corners until the little yedian marks at the corners of his mouth dip into proper dimples - but Jingyi feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to witness such a stunning thing at all. “Thank you, Lan-gongzi,” Mo Xuanyu says, his tone somehow even gentler than Sizhui’s. “That was fun.”

Jingyi feels as winded as if the relatively gentle bout had ended with him slammed flat down on his back. “No need,” he responds without thinking. “I’m happy to do it again anytime.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Who’s next?” That last is thankfully directed to the others and Jingyi exhales as quietly as he can manage to hide how much it shivers in his chest. The look Sizhui gives him as Jingyi trades places with Zizhen is far more knowing than he’d prefer, but with Jin Ling right there there’s no way for his friend to ask him about it discreetly, and so he’s mercifully safe for a little while longer at least.

His luck continues to hold, surprisingly enough, and he has to wonder after a couple of days if it isn’t actually luck but instead Sizhui respecting the fact that he clearly doesn’t feel ready to talk about it, which is actually sweet enough that he almost considers telling him. Almost. Honestly if he were to choose any of his friends to discuss romance with it would probably be Zizhen first, but even then the thought of saying anything about it out loud, the thought of bringing anybody else into something so personal like that makes him a bit…squirmy. Especially considering it’s not just some vague idea of romance but that it actively involves someone else. And not just any someone else, but the last single son of the wealthiest great cultivation family, who oh yes, that’s right, is also their best friend’s uncle.

Gods this is awkward!

Still. If he doesn’t say it out loud to anybody else then it’s only awkward to him, and he can take that no problem. He’s been awkward in one way or another for his entire life after all, whether that be in the way he hadn’t been able to effectively control himself at all as a child and had therefore wound up punished more often than any other disciple in his generation, or the way he fumbles through social situations that he very rarely has the ‘proper’ responses to as expected by the rest of the world when they catch sight of his obviously Lan robes and headband. He can be awkward about this too, a little awkwardness hasn’t killed him yet.

It’s a fact he has to remind himself of every single time he sees Mo Xuanyu going about his daily life in Jinlintai, looking absolutely devastating without even seeming to try. After the eighth time he stumbles over nothing because he caught a glimpse of rouged lips and fluttering skirts he has to accept the fact that he’s been similarly cursed with the Lan heart and resign himself to his pining fate.

A week after all of these revelations upended his entire life and understanding of himself, Jingyi is distinctly relieved to leave Jinlintai for a couple days on a nighthunt with his friends and Jin Fei, who’s apparently old enough now to be leading his own nighthunts if he wants and so is perfectly fine to tag along with the four of them. He’s good company, so much like Jin Ling but more relaxed than his brother in the way that Jingyi sort of thinks all second-born kids are allowed to be. After all, Jin Ling is the Sect Heir, it stands to reason that his younger brother would be more relaxed about life in general considering he probably isn’t being raised with so many expectations as a Sect Leader has. (Though, he supposes, the same absolutely can’t be said for Lan-xiansheng as the second brother, so maybe in the end it really does still come down to personality.)

They spend the first night tracking their prey through the forest surrounding a small farming village near the Lanling border, the next day preparing their tools for the hunt, and that night bagging their prey rather neatly, all things considered. Not that the yaoguai went down easily, of course, but there are five of them to one of it, and there hasn’t been anything particularly vicious even in border towns without large sects nearby since Lianfang-zun’s watchtower idea was implemented as a joint effort by the great sects some years back. Still, a hunt is a hunt and outside of his occasional bouts of restlessness he is still a Lan, and therefore accustomed to going to bed at hai shi if at all possible – by the time they’re finished and bedding down for what few hours of the night are left, Lan Jingyi is utterly exhausted, hollowed out in the way he knows means he’s pushed himself (and his golden core) just a bit too far to be safe.

He’s lying on his back in his little one-man tent a safe distance away from the fire when the sound of talking rouses him from the doze he’d just barely slipped into, the others not used to sleeping as early as him even after a tiring hunt.

“Xiao-shushu told me you came and apologized about asking him to hide,” Jin Fei murmurs after some quiet jostling for position, barely audible over the crackling fire even with Jingyi’s qi-enhanced hearing.

“Yeah. So what? You think I shouldn’t have?”

“I think you shouldn’t have done anything that needed apologizing for in the first place,” Jin Fei’s response is outwardly lazy but the barb hidden in it is unmistakable. “You know dad came and told the rest of us we had to make sure to be extra nice to him for a while to make sure he knows we respect him? You really messed with his head this time, ge.”

Jin Ling sighs heavily and Jingyi uses the noise of it to cover the sound of him shifting enough to sit up and peek through the opening of his tent to where the pair of them are sitting in front of the fire, nothing more than nearly identical orange-limned silhouettes against the flames.

“Alright, fine! So I’m the worst behaved out of all of us, is that it then?”

“You said it, not me.”

“A-Fei!”

“Don’t pinch me A-Ling, how old are we?” Jin Fei snaps and Jingyi rolls his eyes as the pair of them wrestle for a second, shoving and pinching until they’re both apparently satisfied with the amount of roughhousing and settle again. At least that explains why Jin Ling shows his affection with shouting most of the time, he supposes.

“What did the others think about..what dad said?” Jin Ling asks once they’ve settled again, and Jingyi finds himself holding his breath as he waits for the answer. The only thing that would hurt Mo Xuanyu worse than Jin Ling being embarrassed of him, he thinks, is if the rest of Jin Ling’s siblings are too. He’s seen firsthand now how much Mo Xuanyu treasures every single member of his family – and he knows exactly what it’s like to face criticisms and uncertainty about where he belongs amongst the people that are supposed to be the closest to him. He hopes that Mo Xuanyu won’t have to be subjected to the same sort of pain.

“About what you’d expect, I guess. Lulu said she’d ask him to sit with her for her next three etiquette lessons with mom so she can make extra sure to ask him for help since mom taught him the same things before. A-Zhuang didn’t say anything but he nodded a lot with that look on his face that he gets when Great-uncle Lan brings him a new score to learn. A-Yu and A-Yan wanted to come after you with their knives but dad said no.”

Jin Ling sighs long and slow and Jingyi gets the sense that he’s scrubbing at his face judging by the way his silhouette shifts.

“I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Think so.”

“Do you think mom’s going to tell anybody else?”

“Like who?”

Jin Ling huffs a sigh again and gestures expansively with a hand, sleeve trailing dramatically in the wake of it with a quiet swish.

“Oh I don’t know - any of the rest of our army of uncles, all of whom love jumping on any chance to scold me??”

“Ah come on, A-Ling, they’re not that bad! They’re hard on you because you’re the Heir, that’s all, and so many of them are Sect Leaders too. They can’t help it. But now that I’m old enough to go out hunting and everything they’re hard on me too, it isn’t just you. I swear I couldn’t shake da-jiu off the entire time I was in Cloud Recesses last summer, he wouldn’t quit pestering me to make sure I was working hard and getting along with all the other disciples…or fighting with the ones I didn’t and winning, even though I was getting along with everyone just fine. I didn’t mind too much though. They only want us to grow up well, you know? Xiao-shushu included.”

“I bet Uncle Nie wouldn’t scold me,” Jin Ling mutters as if he hadn’t heard a word his brother said.

“Which one? Pretty sure Uncle Jue would string you up by your toes.”

“I know that! Obviously I meant Uncle Sang. He never scolds anybody.”

“Mhm. Except he also acts just like da-jiu and xiao-shushu, so he’d probably be offended that you were embarrassed enough to ask xiao-shushu to hide like that and then scold you anyway. Or else er-jiu would do it on Uncle Sang’s behalf, and he’s great at scolding.”

Jingyi can’t tell if his head hurts from the sheer volume of uncles these two have to keep straight or if it’s from exerting too much spiritual energy on the nighthunt, but either way his temples are starting to feel tight.

“A-Fei…be honest with me.”

“About what?”

“You made friends at Cloud Recesses. You know how other people talk about people like xiao-shushu. Would you be eager for him to meet your friends, especially if they’ve never met someone like him before?”

Jin Fei is quiet for long enough that Jingyi wonders if he’s going to answer at all, that carefree attitude he typically sports apparently giving way for serious contemplation when needed. More surprising than that is that Jin Ling doesn’t rush him through the answer with his usual impatience, instead just letting him sit and think it through at his own pace.

“I think…people meet new types of people they’ve never seen before almost every day, especially as young as us, so it’s useless to worry about how they’ll react since it won’t change anything. If they meet him now or someone else like him later, it doesn’t really make much of a difference does it? I know that there are plenty of people who have said cruel things about xiao-shushu, especially when he first came to Jinlintai, and then again after he quit his cultivation training to start learning etiquette from mom and Su-gugu. Why should we add to it, or our friends? And if you’ve made friends with the kinds of people who would say those things about someone who’s just a little different than them then…maybe they aren’t the type of people you should be friends with in the first place. And yours have all accepted him anyway, haven’t they?”

“Yeah. They have.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I guess there isn’t one,” Jin Ling huffs, sounding very much like the admission pains him. Jingyi, rather uncharitably, hopes that it does (and promises the frowning Lan Qiren who lives in his head that he’ll assign himself lines for it when they get back to Jinlintai tomorrow).

“How much longer are your friends here for?”

“Another week.”

“Oh good - do you think Ouyang-gongzi has any more romance novels he can lend me? I’ve read through the ones he gave me last week-”

“Are you serious? That’s it?” Jin Ling demands.

“What?! I thought you said there isn’t a problem! What else is there to talk about??”

Jingyi rolls his eyes as the brothers go in for another scuffle. He’s too tired to care about sibling bonding or whatever now that they’ve finished talking about Mo Xuanyu, so he lays down as quietly as he can and settles in to try to go to sleep, his heart a little lighter than before to hear Jin Fei defending his uncle so…simply. And in doing so defending them too; honestly the thought of Jin Ling doubting their ability to be kind to someone who’s eccentric but ultimately harmless is a little insulting, though he’s going to be oh-so-kind and not force his friend to apologize for that on top of everything else he needs to make right.

The next morning when they wake and begin preparing to return to Jinlintai, Jin Ling seems a bit subdued but Jingyi doesn’t bother offering him comfort. He’s had to apologize to plenty of people in his life for thoughtless words and actions that hurt them, and he knows well that the only times it really stuck was when he was pushed to sit and deal with his guilt on his own.

Instead, he spends the morning anxiously (but happily) thinking ahead to returning to Jinlintai. They’ll only be staying in Lanling for another week or so before their duties will pull them apart again, and though he knows he should probably be dreading separating from his friends (which he is!) he finds that what he’s dreading more is losing Mo Xuanyu’s company. It’s perfectly logical that it seems worse, really, since Jingyi isn’t sure when he’ll next make it to Jinlintai, but he could always arrange to meet up with the others anywhere their nighthunting may take them. Mo Xuanyu doesn’t ever really leave Lanling, but unless Jin Ling invites him to visit again Jingyi won’t have any solid excuses to see the Jin family in their home. He’ll just have to content himself with what he can manage this last week, and make the most of it.

They arrive back in Jinlintai a shichen or so after midday, the flight having taken a little longer than at the outset thanks to the extra energy they’d expended hunting down the yaoguai. By the time they’re landing in the front courtyard at the top of the steps Mo Xuanyu and Jin Zixuan are both waiting for them, Jin Lu on her father’s hip though none of the rest of Jin Ling’s siblings in sight.

“Dad,” Jin Ling greets as they touch down. “Yu-shushu.”

“Boys. Welcome back,” Jin Zixuan replies, warm and pleased. He jostles Jin Lu in his arms slightly and whispers something in her ear that makes her lift her head to glare at all five of them hard enough that they all raise their hands in immediate surrender.

“You’re late!! You better not be hurt!”

Jingyi just barely manages not to laugh at her vehemence and turns his attention to Mo Xuanyu as the others all rush forward to reassure her in a jostling pack, all of them clearly aiming to make her laugh. At his glance, Mo Xuanyu steps forward with something teasing in his posture, hands clasped behind his back and his steps long and lilting to match the smirk on his lips.

“Xuanyu,” Jingyi greets (quietly) when he’s close enough, through a genuine smile and around the desire to clear his throat of the attraction that threatens to choke him. 

“Jingyi.” Mo Xuanyu’s voice is honey sweet, pitched low and soothing — masculine. Confident. Jingyi’s knees nearly buckle. Two and a half days’ reprieve from Mo Xuanyu’s charms has apparently only made him weaker to them, rather than making him more immune as he’d foolishly hoped. “It’s good to see you back in one piece.”

“It was an easy hunt with the others there,” Jingyi deflects with practiced ease. “I barely even did anything-”

“Somehow I find that hard to believe,” Mo Xuanyu teases, eyes glittering. He brings his hands out from behind his back to reach out for Jingyi’s arm, a gesture that sets his heart racing even before Mo Xuanyu’s cool fingers wrap around his wrist and press in gently to check his pulse. “Mhm, just like I thought! Your qi is low, and your pulse is unsteady. Were you injured?”

“No, honestly, I’m fine-”

“You should still come see the healers with me,” Mo Xuanyu interrupts him again, still smiling slyly up at him. His fingers tighten ever so slightly around Jingyi’s wrist, no longer reading his pulse but just..holding onto him. Shameless. Jingyi’s neck burns under his high collar and he hopes it isn’t obvious how flustered just that single innocent touch is making him.

“Ge, I’m going to take Lan-gongzi to the infirmary,” Mo Xuanyu calls over his shoulder, their locked hands hidden from the others between their chests. “A-Ling, can you make sure the kitchens send over something nourishing for him to eat?”

“The infirmary?” Jin Ling barks over the sound of Jin Lu laughter for the others’ exuberant fussing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m-”

“Just a check-up, A-Ling, don’t worry!”

“I’m just a bit too tired after the hunt and the flight back,” Jingyi relents, because in the end he’s pretty sure Mo Xuanyu will get his way no matter what anyone else has to say about it. Jingyi wonders for a moment if it should bother him that he’s apparently so easy to boss around like that. But then Mo Xuanyu is smiling up at him sweetly enough to wipe his mind completely clean as meditation has never been able to accomplish, and suddenly he finds he doesn’t particularly care anymore.

“Be more careful then, idiot!”  Jin Ling huffs at him, so Jingyi sticks his tongue out at his friend over Mo Xuanyu’s head — because even though Jin Ling is probably right and he should be more careful it’s the principle of the thing — but allows himself to be led away before Jin Ling has finished his grumbling.

“Your qi really does feel pretty low, Jingyi, and I know you’ve usually got plenty of it to spare,” Mo Xuanyu tells him once they’re out of earshot of everyone else, heading deeper into the confusing maze of Jinlintai in the direction he assumes leads to the doctors. “What happened?”

“Overextended myself a bit, I suppose,” he shrugs. “It’s probably nothing worth bothering the healers about, you know. I’ll meditate and recover it this afternoon, it’s really fine -“

“Jingyi,” Mo Xuanyu interrupts him, low and serious. He lets the smaller man tug him to a halt to peer up at him again and Jingyi’s face immediately flushes warmer under such focused attention. “I know you’re right, and you could fix it on your own, I trust you. But is it alright if I worry about you and try to help?”

Jingyi manages to bite down on the tip of his tongue to keep from asking the first question that springs to his mind which is, of course, ‘why?’ With his tongue thus trapped, though, all he can do is nod (it doesn’t even cross his mind to deny Mo Xuanyu what he wants) and the smile he gets in return makes his heart thud hard enough in his chest that maybe, he thinks, he should go see the healers. Mo Xuanyu takes him by the arm, hand tucked neatly into his elbow like he’d done that very first night they’d met, and Jingyi lets himself be towed along more than happily, still flushed and off-kilter enough that he can’t stop smiling as they go.

[indianamoonshine]

scoundrel • ben solo x reader (part ii)

summary: (here’s a drabble that’s also formatted as headcanons? i’m not sure what i was doing but whatever.) you’re in a relationship with poe, but you’re not very happy with it. the history between you and ben solo comes back to slap you in the face when he returns to ajan kloss after a year. smuggler ben is a dick and you’re very into it.

time frame: post -tros

rating: this chapter is T.

☆ ben was rather intimidating. mostly because of his size and stature, but also because you couldn’t face the truth and that truth was...you still loved him.

☆ it’s a bitch. a real bitch. it’s a thought that hasn’t gone away in over a year. it’s a nagging itch that won’t fade from your skin. you were touch starved for him; for his hands, and the tangible way his eyes swept along your form. so when he saw you for the very first time in, oh so long, your breath evaporated from your lungs. you hoped it did from his too.

☆ you had an inkling that it did.

☆ commander klein, head of systems, had asked you to deliver a few documents to ben as casually as he could muster up. everyone knew the history between you and solo. everyone. but you couldn’t deny a command from a head officer - you begrudgingly complied.

☆ ben’s (naturally) in the hangar. it’s been two days since he’s been home and the two of you hadn’t even crossed paths - a blessing from the gods, perhaps.

☆ he’s fixing up his ship. the amidala. rey had taken the falcon and ran with it to wherever the hell she stowed away to and, for some reason, ben let her. it put a sour taste in your mouth; rey seemed to take everything of ben’s.

☆ ben is covered in grease and the smell of ship fluid is thick in your nostrils. your head spins - you’d definitely blame it on the chemicals.

☆ you’d definitely not blame it on the way ben wipes his brow with the hem of his shirt. the toned muscles against his torso were likeable to a fuckin’ legend’s. damn him. he was a legend. is a legend.

☆ what a dangerous piece of shit. and that piece of shit was the most beautiful man you’d ever laid eyes on...and the most beautiful man who’d ever laid hands on you.

☆ oh gods. his forearms. the way his biceps tensed when he clenched the headboard every night while above you. every fuckin’ night. the tendons in his hands stretching as he grabbed a fistful of your breasts and squeezed hard but yet still so...

☆ your mouth was physically open, dissociation coming to self-realization when your jaw began to ache and your tongue darted out to lick your lips. you shook your head in an effort to sway the memory.

☆ when ben sees you he lights up, but tries not to make it too obvious. he throws the rag he’d been cleaning his hands with to the floor.

“hey,” he says, grinning. he walks towards you and the scent of his sweat makes your knees buckle.

his damn sweat.

☆ (someone once told you that you’d know you were in love when even their body odor was pleasant. you wish they were wrong.)

☆ the perspiration highlights the tautness of muscle in his arms. you look to the ground in an attempt to hide the blood spilling beneath your cheeks.

☆ “i was told to give you the flight manual on the new x-wings.” you feebly pass him a data pad.

☆ ben weighs the device in his hand. “aw, how kind of you...” he pauses. “but i don’t need it.”

he hands it back to you.

☆ your eyebrows thread together. stubborn bastard. “why not?”

“i can figure it out myself,” he tells you before turning back to his ship.

☆ ben lays upon a mechanic creeper and slides below the low end of the amidala. from underneath he calls out, “raymond!”

☆ “ben, i walked all the way across base to give you this. the least you can do is take it.”

he slides out from beneath the ship again. “you could’ve just sent it to me.”

“i can’t,” you say pointedly. “it’s encrypted.”

☆ ben takes a moment to watch you as though you’re a piece of art on display. he always made you feel that way; he always made you feel beautiful.

☆ “alright, petals.” he stands and crowds the space between you, palm upright so that you may give him the data pad.

☆ (the old wive’s tale...you know the one...about hands? it’s true. they’re massive. they dwarf yours.)

☆ you give it to him carefully as though not to touch his skin. if you did, it wouldn’t end well; it would end in fire.

☆ he places the data pad on a tool crate nearby and then asks, “do you still work in weapons?”

you cock an eyebrow. “why?”

he hesitates and turns his back. “i was just wondering how you met dameron.”

☆ here we go.

☆ “your mother introduced us, actually.”

it was true. leia had introduced you to poe, but it was doubtful she’d meant for him to ask you out. you wonder if she beats herself up for it.

“my mother?” he grimaces and mumbles under his breath. “ouch.”

you fold your arms across your chest. “why do you want to know?”

ben tosses a tool into the crate and it clatters loudly against durasteel.

“is that what you’ve been doing while i was gone?” he wonders, a cutting edge to his tone.

“it’s not his fault,” you recant.

ben chuckles a little; it’s sardonic. “what’s not his fault?”

you hesitate, watching as he takes a seat upon the creeper again. his eyes - dark and intense - stare into yours, awaiting an explanation.

“it’s not his fault that you left.”

☆ ben squares his jaw and is silent for a few moments before he mutters, “i didn’t leave.”

he turns back to the ship.

you scoff. “you were gone for a planetary year, ben.”

“i asked you to come with me!” his voice raises defensively. “we were still together when i went away.” he points his finger in your direction. “you were the one that left.”

ben rubs his hand against his face in exasperation. “for fuck’s sake, raymond! get chewie will ya?!” he calls again towards the ramp.

“chewie’s back?” you’re taken aback. you hadn’t heard that. “does that mean...she’s here?”

jealously. it licks at your insides.

ben says, “yeah” as nonchalantly as he can.

☆ you go to speak, lips parting and fists clenched, but he interrupts you.

“with that bullshit message you sent me...” he shakes his head, trying to busy his hands with gathering tools. “you didn’t even send me a holo-vid. you sent me a poor excuse of a message. i’m surprised you didn’t write it on fucking parchment.”

“maybe i should have!” you lash out. “would that have been romantic enough for you?!”

ben let’s out a brash “ha!”

“it was great timing, by the way,” he continues. “it’s like you have a sixth sense for that shit.”

you roll your eyes, shoulders tense. “what are you talking about?”

ben takes a moment to answer. he looks down at his hands. “i got shot that day. i almost didn’t make it.”

☆ oh.

☆ your eyes soften, all the rage that had been building up inside of you fizzling into steam.

suddenly none of what he said before mattered.

“why didn’t you tell me that?” you whisper.

ben avoids your eyes. “why would i want to cause myself more pain?” it doesn’t sound like a question - it sounds like a statement.

like something in his repertoire.

☆ you blink once or twice, unsure of what to say next. it’s been so long since the two of you fought. and it hadn’t gotten any less painful, either.

☆ there’s a natural instinct to go to him - you don’t fight it. you place a hand on his shoulder and hover over him almost protectively.

“ben, i’m sorry.”

he takes a deep breath and pretends like it doesn’t phase him. “yeah. it’s fine.”

there’s a beat.

“i’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty,” he mutters. “i’m sorry.”

you have to stop yourself from running your fingers through his hair. “no. it’s fine. i know.”

☆ later that night you receive a message on your datapad:

“meet me at our place.”

[rattlung]

i wanted to get this out for halloween but then it ended up getting (and taking) too long so i was like aight whatever i’ll split it and post the first bit so i know at least some of it will be in time for the spooky scary. not that it’s really spooky scary, but yknow

anyway the second i saw cowboy mirage and vampire crypto i knew i had to write a wild west au with them. if any of you knew me from my glory ovw days, you know wth im talkin about. 

so anyway, slooow burn, animal death, blood, blood drinking, and possible ooc-ness because i couldn’t decide on whether i wanted mirage to have a very thick southern accent or not so his dialogue may be a bit whack. also with it being an au, characterization probably got skewed to shit. sorry about that :^(

cross posting fucks up formatting, so to be safe here’s the ao3 link but if that’s not the jam for your bread, it’s all under the read more

=======

The sun had set hours ago, but Elliott remained at his post.

Crickets and grass were his only companions on his porch, not even a candle was lit to keep him company. He didn’t want anyone to know he was out there and the little flame would have given him away. Besides, the moon was high that night and the stars glittered from behind it thanks to the cloudless sky. His eyes had adjusted well enough, and the open fields of the farm didn’t provide enough shadows to cause much concern.

No, Elliott was confident he’d catch who he wanted tonight, it was only a matter of whether or not the little bastard would show up.

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair to rest his crossed arms on the railing of the porch, then placed his chin on them. He hoped whoever it was would show. He couldn’t afford another big hit to the stock again. In the last week, he’d lost three chickens - one of them was the hen he’d sank three dollars into earlier in the month. It’d been a good one, too, healthy eggs up until she went missing with two of her sisters.

It was like nothing Elliott had ever seen before. There were never any carcasses left in the coop or on the land, no blood and maybe only a few stripped feathers. Coyotes were never that clean - not in Elliott’s experience anyway. And to take so many at a time?

Then the marks started showing up on the cattle. Two clean little holes at their shoulders that Elliott would have missed had it not been for the blood that oozed out of them, staining their fur a rusted brownish red.

That changed things. The body-less crimes started making sense, because they weren’t being killed - they were being stolen. Chickens were easy to make off with. Just toss a few in a bag and be on your way. Cows, though, they were marking those. Maybe one man was sent to scope out the pens to pick out the healthiest ones, then send off a crew to look for the marks and round them up to bring them home.

Elliott fought off a yawn and the on coming sense of second guessing himself. They would be coming with a group. He hadn’t thought of that before. If they did show up tonight and they were armed, there would be very little he could do with his mother’s old rifle. Quickly he decided he wouldn’t leave the porch if he saw anything. Just fire off a few shots and hopefully scare them off.

All of the Witts had met unfortunate ends. Two Witt sons died in the war, one to the flu soon after his third birthday, their mother to the plague - and the last Witt, dead to a bullet wound received while defending the cow that sneezed on him that very morning?

Yeah, no thank you, he’d stay right there on the porch, yes, ma’am.

So sit he did, scanning the horizon, the treeline, the pens, and tried not to fall asleep. He wondered if Ms. Williams had any hounds she’d be willing to part with to do this kind of stuff for him. Growing up, he’d always wanted a farm dog and Anita Williams trained some of the best he’d ever seen. Elliott would be able to leave it outside to patrol the land, sleep out on the porch, and chase off any predators or thieves that might be lurking while Elliott was in bed. That would be better than suffering through the brutality of waiting for the sun to rise himself.

Elliott didn’t notice his eyes had closed until they snapped open at the sound of sudden rattling in the hen house. He waited a moment, wondering if he imagined it, but soon there was a murmur of cluckings and Elliott got to his feet. He picked up the hat he’d hung on the back of his chair and placed it on top of his head before grabbing the rifle, standing at the very edge of his porch.

Surely they wouldn’t be going for more chickens, would they? When the cows they had marked were out roaming?

Elliott stepped off the stairs and onto the dirt pathway. If it was chickens being targeted tonight, that means there was likely only one of them. He checked the chamber of his gun before heading off, getting onto the grass as soon as he could in order to dampen the sound of his approaching footsteps. By the time he’s at the fence, the clucking had shifted and grew into something louder, the few hens he had left squawking at whatever was in there with them.

And maybe it was because their din was too loud, but Elliott couldn’t hear anything else. Nothing but feathered ruffling and the scrape of chicken feet.

A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck but he crept forward anyway. He wiped the palm of his hand off on his jeans and pushed open the gate, wincing hard when one of the hens in the coop got louder. The rest were a bit hysterical in their noise making, but this one’s panic was visceral. This wasn’t just someone walking through their nests and aggravating them out of sleep - these chickens were scared for their lives.

Elliott crept up to the wired entrance of the shed and peeked around. Small shadows flicked back an forth on the hay-filled floor in a frenzy. Hoarse, creaking noises spilled from their beaks and wings fluttered as they battled each other in their panic to press to the corners of the shed, close to the walls to get away from -

Now, Elliott wasn’t a religious man - which was an odd thing, when one lived in a small town like he did, where the person he bought canned goods from was the pastor’s brother, and the biggest building was the church which was always filled on Sunday. He never went to mass, not even for the holidays, and the Witt Family’s bible had been left in the bedside table’s drawer since he was a boy.

But he didn’t have to crack apart the thin pages of God’s Word to determine that whatever the thing was in front of him was bad.

Especially when it turned, a chicken limp and unmoving in its hands, and stared Elliott down with eyes that burned like indigo flames.

This isn’t a coyote, his mind helpfully informed him just as his mouth spit out, “Oh, fuck.”

The creature stood up fully and despite all its human-like qualities, there was still that electric energy that was just not right, uncanny and out of place. It showed off a human face, but its skin was so white it almost glinted blue when it passed through the moonlight that bled through the shed’s wooden panels.

Which is how Elliott noticed it was moving toward him. He raised the rifle up and pointed it square at the thing’s chest. If froze in its step, still as stone in half a second, but above the crying of his birds Elliott could hear the trill of something moving in its throat.

“Dro - Drop the chicken,” Elliott ordered, the stillness in his limbs compensating for his trembling voice.

To his surprise the creature listened to him. Its trill from before burst from its throat and its frown opened to let out a hiss, pitched low and piercing. The teeth it bared to him had a pink sheen, wet with blood, and its canines ended in vicious points - points Elliott was sure would match with the ones marking his cattle out on the fields.

“Oh, shit, okay - “ Elliott muttered, too panicked to remember that the creature could hear him.

It hunched down suddenly, dropping into a stance that made Elliott think it was going to lunge for him. Before he could really process that information, could even think to fire a shot at it to knock it down, to kill it, the creature spun around and crashed through the other side of the coop. Elliott blinked at the wire it split through like paper then hurried around the house. It was fast, already having leaped over the fence, a black shape that moved without sound, whispering over the grass in one, two seconds before it disappeared into the trees.

“That’s not a fuckin’ coyote,” Elliott said over the thundering of his heartbeat and the screaming of his chickens.

----=----

For a whole entire day, Elliott allowed himself to think that it was over. He let himself think that that was the last he’d see of the thing, that he’d scared it enough to retreat just from pointing a gun at it. Maybe the fear of Elliott actually using it would keep it away, whatever it was.

Truth be told, he didn’t really want to find out what it was. From the look he got out of it from the shadows, it looked human enough. A man as tall as him, dressed to the nines in black and red silks, slim with features Elliott might have tipped a hat at had he not been terrified the time he saw them. Human features. It looked human.

And yet, the bloodless chicken he’d been forced to get rid of proved otherwise. Once he’d been able to move, he’d wandered back in to examine it and found that it was little more than a husk, dried out and useless. It’s carcass was clean, feathers mostly untouched with no red soaked into them. On its breast were two, neat puncture holes.

The next day, one he’d used to catch up on sleep, he started feeling watched.

As he left the stables after shoveling out the floors, a familiar chill walked along his shoulders like icy fingers, eliciting a shiver from him. It lingered for a moment and slowly dissipated when he searched his surroundings, forcing himself to outwardly appear calm when he found nothing.

It would happen again - and often - in the following weeks. When he left the stables after milking, he’d feel it then. When he fed the chickens, when he lead the two horses out onto the pasture, checked on the hogs - someone was watching him. Waiting. And yet, as each night passed and he’d wake up, Elliott would set out to work and find that none of the livestock had been touched. The hens didn’t go missing. The puncture marks on the cows had scabbed over, and no new ones appeared.

Worriedly, Elliott wondered if he were next, that he was the one being stalked - but why wait so long? He lived alone on the Witt farm, and no one had visited him in the time between then and the encounter.

The idea of a peace offering came to him when he had to put one of the roosters down. It was the older one of the three, the one that was always more aggressive and tried to start fights with the others. Apparently, it had to learn the hard way that all fights it started were not always ones it could win. Elliott should have separated it sooner, or maybe had done something, but his mind had been in other places as of late. He’d felt terrible - for the cockerel, for himself. For his family. The only thing they’d left behind was this farm, and he was making a mess of it.

So, out he marched at the first sign of dusk, right to the edge of the trees where he’d seen the creature dart off all those days ago. He planned on calling out to it until it showed, dropping the rooster at its feet and declaring, There, see? I’m doing just fine on ruining everything on my own, so why don’t you just take the damn bird and go?

He didn’t do any such thing. He just stood there for a long moment, listened to the robins in the woods and the huffing of cattle behind him, and stared down at the rooster in his hands. Eventually, the watched feeling came. Elliott was so used to it that the chill hardly even registered. It was just eyes on him, now, no longer threatening or frightening.

For a moment, neither of them did anything. Nothing jumped out to attack him, and Elliott didn’t say a word. He never actually did. Eventually, he dropped the rooster onto the grass and turned back to the house, not even waiting to see if the creature would show itself.

The sun was finally wishing the horizon a farewell, sinking just under the trees as he’s finishing up the last of his rounds. Elliott tested the locks on the doors of the stalls to make sure they wouldn’t swing open and cast a long look at a cow sitting on the other side of one. She stared back at him. The scabs on her shoulders were just about gone, now, and her fur had grown over the little pink marks that’d been left behind. The rest of the cattle’s marks were just about the same. Nothing fresh.

Inside the Witt home, it was dark. There was still washing up he had to do in the big metal basin sat underneath the kitchen’s window. He probably wouldn’t get to until the next morning, so he pointedly kept his gaze away from there. He moved passed the old dining table that hadn’t seen use in years - mostly it was just full of tools he hadn’t moved back into the shed yet - and made his way toward the fireplace. Soon, the cold blue glow of the darkening sky was warmed by the slow starting flame. Elliott poked at it until he was thoroughly bored of watching sticks crumble into ash and was sure it wouldn’t smother itself.

With a heaving sigh he got back to his feet but didn’t go far, falling onto a wooden bench close to the fireplace. There were bigger and more comfortable places to sit, like the large wicker chair right beside him or the stool that had a pillow sewn onto it haphazardly, but Elliott had always sat on the bench. Maybe tomorrow, after he was done the cleaning, he’d move all the extra furniture out into the shed along with the tools on the dining room table. No use in having so many if he wasn’t using it. He didn’t get much company - none at all, really.

Elliott found himself staring at the book left on the seat of the wicker chair and doubted he’d even get around to doing the washing up.

Over the crackle of the fire, something thumped right outside the front door. Elliott straightened, twisted around to look toward the noise, and thought how weird it was to be thinking about never getting any visitors only to have one stop by. Or maybe the word was ironic.

But then he remembered the time and he held his breath to listen. There was no shuffling of someone on his porch and no knocking on his door. If someone rode all the way out to the Witt’s Farm after sundown it’d be for an emergency, so there was no real good reason for the stranger to be quiet.

Slowly, Elliott stood. Avoiding the floorboards that creaked, he crossed the room toward the door and picked up the rifle he’d left there. The silence was deafening and ringing with the dreadful thought of how he might actually be going crazy. Then, the idea of Elliott opening the door and finding nothing at all was almost as terrifying as opening it and revealing the shadow from the hen house. Had he actually heard something? Was there really something in his woods? What if he went outside to the coop and all of the lost chickens would be accounted for? What if the marks on the cows had healed so fast because they’d never been marked in the first place?

Elliott put his hand on the doorknob, sucked in a breath, held it, then twisted it and pulled it open. The door’s creak seemed like a wail in the empty night - because that’s what it was. Empty. No one standing at his stoop, no shadow perched on his railing ready to strike.

Nothing but the rooster he’d left at the trees, untouched and dropped carelessly at his door.

And for reasons he couldn’t explain, Elliott narrowed his eyes down at it and felt angry. Maybe it was the sleep he was losing, the constant worrying, the loneliness - or maybe he actually was losing his mind. Whatever it was, it was enough to have him bend over, snatch up the bird, and stomp down onto the path toward the trees. When he got there, he still said nothing, but that time he didn’t even wait around. Elliott just tossed the bird back onto the grass where he’d left it the first time and turned to storm away, ignoring the petulant feeling that rose at the display.

He made it about four yards before something hit the dirt behind him. He froze without looking back and grit his teeth.

“Alright, you sumbitch.”

Annoyed, he faced the trees again, passing the bird on the road. That chill was back. Instead of stopping him, have him think twice, it only achieved in making the anger thrumming around in his chest burn defiantly brighter.

Two indigo flames held his gaze when Elliott noticed them, dimmer than the last time he saw them. They regarded him with disinterest and that alone had him nearly seething.

“I’m tired of playing this game you’re havin’ with me,” he snapped. The shadow might have raised a brow at him, but with how dark it was Elliott couldn’t be sure. It didn’t say anything, so the question - the one he’d been wondering since that night - burst out of him. “Why haven’t you just killed me yet?”

Now the eyes moved, turning in a way that told Elliott that the creature had tilted its head. But still, the silence. Slowly, it looked down at the rifle Elliott had nearly forgotten about, pointedly, then back up at him. Elliott heard it hit the ground in the next second, which is how he learned that he himself tossed it aside.

Something that was smothered by the heat of the moment whispered to him, You sleep deprived idiot, just what in the hell are you doing?

What he said out loud was, “Do it, then. Nothin’s stopping you, so do it.”

The shadow did nothing; not a sound, not a movement.

Elliott heard his own breathing over the gentle breeze and wondered why it was so slow. He’d seen the speed the creature had moved at and his only protection was too many paces away. If it wasn’t planning on killing him, the anticipation should have been. But he was calm, staring demise dead in its lightning blue eyes, fists clenched at his sides.

The thought of it being incapable of speech occurred to him, but with the way it watched him, Elliott didn’t find it likely. Despite how inhuman they were, there was sentience behind the shadow’s gaze. Maybe too much for something that fed on blood. It looked at Elliott and he felt that it was capable of telling him exactly what it wanted to with a stare alone - all that and more. It was a heavy kind of thing to know. Elliott realized he had a hard time looking away, so when he managed it he didn’t dare look again.

“Just, get - get out of here.” He started making his way back - and didn’t look at the damned rooster again, either. “Leave me alone and terrorize some other poor bastard’s chickens.”

Coward, he thought, but didn’t know who it was directed to.

----=----

The next morning, Elliott woke up to one less crowing and his rifle propped up on the porch railing outside.

Something in the woods still watched him.

----=----

A few days passed until he saw the shadow again. Elliott was leaving the hen house and had thrown a look up at the sky to gauge the time, sighed at the moon, and turned to shut the wired gate behind him. When he turned around, a figure that definitely had not been there before stood in the path in front of him.

He gasped and sent himself back in a fit of shock, back slamming up against the shed. He scowled once he realized what - or, rather, who it was, but that was gone in the next second, too. The shadow’s posture was still one of casual disinterest; hands in pockets, shoulders relaxed, and expression blank if not aloof. But it was different, Elliott was sure. The skin, while always having been pallid, took a different tone, now, one that was qualmish and almost sickly. And the eyes - the eyes hardly even glowed.

It looked more like a ghost than a shadow.

“What’s wrong?” He asked - and why was he even concerned? It hadn’t tried to kill him yet, sure, but it was responsible for taking out almost a quarter of his chickens.

True to a pattern, the creature said nothing, however, it did give a meaningful look into the shed behind Elliott. When its gaze returned, he could see how its throat worked around a swallow.

“Are - “ Elliott looked back at the hen house as if to check to make sure that was what the shadow had looked at. “Are you asking me to - “ He cut himself off again, but pointed into the house.

It narrowed its eyes at the incredulous inflection in Elliott’s voice but did not say no.

The whistling of grass is the only sound for a long moment as a cool night’s breeze moved over the fields, Elliott at a loss for words. As the wind washed over him, chilling him that much further, he could see the creature’s nostrils flare minutely, and this time when its throat moved it was around a rumbling noise. From the base of its chest it traveled up and out as that familiar trill. It filled Elliott with a sense of urgency, one he couldn’t really explain.

He was torn. It was strange to be asked such a thing, but he supposed he should be grateful of the fact that it was asking at all. But how was he even supposed to answer? As far as Elliott knew, none of his chickens survived. He’d never found markings on them, they would just disappear. With the colder seasons approaching, he really couldn’t afford to lose any more of his livestock.

The cows, though, they’d apparently survived a few run-ins with the shadow.

Elliott looked over to the stables and felt shameful the second he did. Was he really considering it? Other than the fast healing punctures on their necks or shoulders, there had been no real changes in their behavior or health. The morning he’d find the marks on them, they’d appear nonplussed. But what if it hurt them? What if the experience was traumatic in a way Elliott couldn’t see?

Then again, could he really afford to deliberate on this? In that moment, with the shadow looking at him expectantly, it seemed to be between Elliott and the cows. Really, the choice was an easy one, but he was still allowed to feel guilty.

“Follow me,” he told the shadow.

As the temperature steadily declined throughout the days, Elliott had started rounding the cows up into the stables more often. It got too cold at night , and he didn’t want to give the cows a chance to catch an illness. It meant waking up earlier to give them more time to graze but it was safer. While he was unlocking the paneled door to the stables Elliott thought that maybe that was the reason he was losing more chickens. It was harder to get through a locked door without raising suspicion than it was kidnapping a few birds and letting the farmer’s blame fall onto coyotes.

The shadow didn’t make a noise but when Elliott turned, it was standing right behind him, nose wrinkled a little at the intense smell of animal and dirt. He didn’t jump that time. He picked up the unlit lantern he’d left behind on the stacked bales of hay, lighting it fast and hung it on the rung in between two of the stall doors. Inside one of them, the dull eyes of a cow shimmered and regarded him blankly. Elliott drug the door open and stepped inside next to her, touching at the glittering wet nose and felt her hot breath huff against his hand in recognition.

“It doesn’t - there’s no - it - it’s not gonna hurt her too much, is it?” Elliott couldn’t help but ask. Now, he expected a nonverbal answer so he looked back to shadow for it, finding more whites in its eyes and the stoic expression looking cheaper. It wasn’t watching him anymore, purely focused on the cow Elliott was petting at nervously.

It stepped closer, into the stall, and Elliott watched as the cow’s head tipped up apprehensively. The huffing of her breathing got a little bit faster and Elliott heard himself shushing her lowly, scratching around the longer scruff by her ears. He couldn’t imagine he was helping too much, but the only thing she did when he saw the shadow disappear around her other side was let out a small grunt of displeasure.

Time passed; the only sound came from his and the cow’s breathing and the brisk wind rattling the wood of the barn. Elliott kept up his attempt at comfort, watching her face intently, and was surprised to find her calm once again. Slowly, he stepped away, gauging her reaction at the movement but didn’t get one.

He moved back into the base of the barn and heaved up one of the metal buckets he’d filled with grain. It was a favor he’d done for himself that night to save himself some time when he woke up to feed them, but he figured that the cow deserved some special treatment. Elliot brought it over to her front and held it right under her nose for her to sniff out, knocking the handle out of her way and hugging it to his stomach due to the weight of it.

The cow’s ears twitched back and forth in contentment, dipping her snout into the grain and eating it by the mouthful. Relief coursed through him like the blood in his veins and Elliott felt himself smiling a little.

“Good girl,” he told her, to which he got very little in the way of a response.

The shadow straightened in a fluid movement, one Elliott watched with rapt attention. Even in just the few short minutes, there was an excruciatingly apparent change in the creature. The intensity of its eyes returned, their brightness amplifying its now fuller features and adding more color to the porcelain-looking skin - it was the most human Elliott had seen him.

“You were starving,” Elliott muttered with a voice awed in his realization. He thought back to the look the shadow had given the cow before and identified it now as a pained and feral sort of hunger. “Why didn’t you just take the damned rooster?”

The creature wiped the cow blood off of wet lips and had the audacity to look at Elliott like he was the disgusting one. Before he could remark on that, prove to the other how backwards that was, the shadow’s mouth opened and for the first time, he spoke. In a voice that was low and smooth, with layers upon layers of something deep and new to Elliott threading through the syllables, he simply stated, “It was dead.”

Elliott sputtered, a little dumbstruck. “So?”

The shadow’s eyes narrowed into a disbelieving glare. “It was dead for a long time.”

“You’re gettin’ partipu - pertil - picky about what blood you’re drinking, now?”

If he were being frank, Elliott wasn’t sure why he was antagonizing the shadow. He’d been merciful so far in not maiming him. And Elliott couldn’t exactly say that if he’d left something out for the hours the rooster had been sitting, he would drink it, either.

But surely drinking blood wasn’t enjoyable in any sense.

Elliott pulled the bucket out from under the cow. Some feed stuck to the wetness of her nose which she cleaned off with a few swipes of her tongue. “I guess we’re done here,” Elliott said to her, but mostly to the shadow.

The shadow that had since disappeared from the stables.

Sighing, Elliott replaced the now three quarters filled bucket with the others as he shook his head. “Guess we are.”

----=----

They weren’t, but Elliott had expected that much.

Every other night, now, when Elliott was finishing his rounds he caught sight of the shadow leaning against the barn doors like it was an arrangement they’d agreed on. He’d finish locking up and meet him there where he’d open the doors and wave the shadow inside, direct him to one of the seven cows, and pretended it wasn’t abnormal. Every farmer had an odd case; a pair of horses that only fed at a specific time of day, cattle that grazed exclusively on the left side of the pasture, a herding dog that befriended and mothered ill lambs.

Elliott’s odd case was a vampire, but it was fine. Every farmer had an odd case. Some odder than others.

Things started to change on the evening Elliott had just left the stables unlocked. One of the pen’s posts had crumbled from age and the fences around it sagged too close to the dirt. It was a reminder that he’d have to put work into replacing them before the winter, or else he’d have a lot more work come spring. Like the dishes in the basin and the extra furniture still in the front of his house, that was a problem for tomorrow’s Elliott. He’d just repair the broken one for now.

He was just testing out the sturdiness of the new post when he noticed that the shadow was standing behind him. By then he was so used to the minor jump scares that he only just barely lost the hammer in his grip. It thumped onto the old, rotten fence post he’d left laying there and landed quietly in the grass.

“Lord - Jesus - Chri - you gotta stop doing that,” he told the shadow, hand over his heart.

Silence from the shadow. He’d gone back to his quiet pledge, not having spoken since their very short conversation in the stables.

Elliott was used to that, too, so shook his head and leaned down to pick up the hammer and the post. He could leave it to dry out on his porch, break it apart further and use it for tinder later. “I left the barn open,” he said when he saw that the shadow was still standing there.

“I know,” the shadow responded. Something flashed in his eyes, probably on account of how fast Elliott snapped up to look at him, not having expected an answer. It was some kind of struggle, Elliott imagined, because his mouth opened a second before he said anything. “Thank you.”

Elliott’s eyes widened. “I - uh. Y-yeah, you’re welcome. It’s fine. It’s - y’know, it’s better than you killing my chickens.”

That flash of something struck again. Elliott wanted to apologize. He genuinely didn’t want to offend the shadow, and he might have actually done it if he didn’t speak before him. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”

And that would have been smart, wouldn’t it? Letting the town know about the blood drinker in their woods. They could have helped Elliott a few dead birds earlier, rounded up enough of them for a search party - if they even believed him in the first place. But that would have involved killing the shadow, or running him off, and Elliott didn’t really enjoy the idea of that. In some kind of morbid way, through all of the heart-pounding meetings and stress-induced nightmares, he kind of liked the company. He’d probably miss it if it were gone.

Besides, the nightmares were really nothing new.

Still, he decided he wasn’t going to tell the other that. He just grinned, leaned up against the freshly repaired fence - very sturdy -  and said, “I think I’ve got you handled.”

The shadow’s brow rose and he looked Elliott up and down, then finally back up again. “No,” is all he said.

The smile dropped from Elliott’s face but he didn’t say anything more on that, because, unfortunately, the shadow was being very fair. “Right, well,” he muttered, pushing off the fence. He was ready for bed. “Have a good night, then.”

“Are you Witt?” He was asked after a few paces.

Elliott paused, turned around slowly. “How’d you know about that?”

“I listen,” the shadow stated simply.

Looking around acres of empty land, Elliott wondered, to who? “Yeah, I - well, I’m one of them. Witt’s my last name, so there’s… Well, there’s been a few Witts.”

The other’s head cocked to one side. “Which Witt are you?”

The only one, really. “I’m Elliott.”

The shadow nodded, looking him over once more. “Good night, Elliott.”

All he did was stand there for a moment, blinking, too caught up on how his name sounded in the smooth whisper of the other’s voice. He’d never heard it be said like that before.

Then, finally, his brain caught up.

“Hey, wait,” he called, despite the shadow not having moved an inch. “That’s not very fair, now is it? I don’t get to know your name?”

He wouldn’t exactly say that the shadow was the teasing sort, but it did take numerous weeks to get a decent two-sided conversation out of him. Mostly, Elliott expected the same response from before. Another ‘no’ before he disappeared for a few nights again.

“Tae Joon,” was what he got, though.

Elliott tried it out for himself. “Tae Joon.”

The shadow’s head tilted further.

Elliott smiled, tipped his hat. “You have a good night, Tae Joon.”

He shifted the wooden post around for easier carrying and put his back to the shadow, knowing that if he turned around now he probably would find empty air. It was fine. Elliott knew he’d see him soon.

=====

yyyyeaahh this is what i’ve been putting off prompts for BIG oof :^(((( 

not sure when i’ll finish the rest of it tbh but here’s this for now i guess