#and they keep bringing his old races as if he is incapable of growing up and maturing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whenisitenoughtrees · 4 years

Text

this cup of yours tastes holy (this lie is dead)

“I think you might have missed the part where I said that you almost died,” Logan says, and his voice is steady, but his hands are not, trembling where they have balled into fists on his lap.

He blinks, at a loss.

Janus attempts to save Logan from being poisoned. In the moment, switching out their glasses seems like a perfectly rational idea.

It is not, in fact, a perfectly rational idea.

Content Warnings: poisoning, mentioned blood, mentioned death (no actual death though), mentioned violence

Word Count: 5,772

Pairings: Loceit, background Prinxiety

Written for Whumptober2020 theme no 22. "Do these tacos taste funny to you?" with the more specific prompt: poisoned.

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

The banquet hall is bright, noisy, and crowded, full of laughter and music and talking, and Janus is almost certain that the ambassador from Halledrin has just slipped poison into Logan’s wine.

No one else seems to have noticed. Janus can’t say he’s surprised. The formal dinner is over; now is the time for mingling, and everyone is deeply involved in their own conversations, their own social circles. Roman knows how to throw a good celebration, if nothing else, and now that the pressure is off of him to preside over all the little details, Janus spots him off to one side, shamelessly chatting up Virgil, who seems… exasperated, if not entirely displeased. He spares them a glance before turning back to Logan, who seems to be doing his level best to escape the conversation, but the ambassador— and just what is his name? Janus has entirely forgotten— is persistent, and Janus would think it no more than an annoyance if he weren’t fairly certain that he saw the man brush one hand against Logan’s wine glass while gesturing broadly with the other.

Which, no. That is absolutely not permitted.

He makes his way across the floor, snagging a glass of his own on the way.

“If I might cut in?” he says, as soon as he’s close enough. “I’m afraid I have a pressing matter to discuss with our illustrious court sorcerer.”

Logan inclines his head toward him, and Janus doesn’t think he mistakes the relief that flashes in his eyes. The ambassador stammers a bit, trying to come up with an excuse to stay, but a pointed look takes care of that, and the man retreats sullenly. Janus smiles at him, thin and knife-sharp, and then takes Logan by the elbow, escorting him to the other side of the banquet hall.

“Was there actually something you needed to discuss, or was that a rescue?” Logan asks dryly, and Janus laughs.

“Oh, you seemed like you were having so much fun,” he replies. “Here, switch with me.” And he presses his wine into Logan’s hand, taking Logan’s for himself. Logan frowns at him, but Janus shakes his head. Not here, that means, and Logan can read him well enough to understand it, little though he likes being unable to ask for clarification. In any case, as soon as the potentially-poisoned glass leaves Logan’s grasp, Janus finds himself able to relax.

“I’ll admit, the man is… long-winded,” Logan says. Janus sniffs at the wine as surreptitiously as he can. He can’t smell anything, but there are plenty of odorless poisons out there. “And yes, I am aware of how that sounds coming from me.”

“You’re not that bad,” he says, trying to keep track of the ambassador out of the corner of his eye. He’s positioned himself at the edge of the room, now, and he is staring at Logan, not even bothering to hide it. “At least you actually know what you’re talking about.”

“I would hope so,” Logan says, and then narrows his eyes. “Just what is Roman doing over there?”

Janus turns his head in that direction, but he’s too preoccupied to pay much attention. The problem with this is that he’s only about eighty percent sure that the drink has been tampered with, and the remaining twenty percent is enough unsurety to prevent him from being able to confront the perpetrator brazenly. Not that that would be his style anyway, but it also means he can’t go to anyone else with it; if he told Roman his suspicions, for instance, his sword would be drawn in an instant. And on the off chance that the drink isn’t poisoned after all, that would irreparably damage relations with Halledrin, and they can’t afford that.

So, he’ll have to be careful with this. Keep hold of the cup for the rest of the night and have it tested for toxins as soon as he can. Take the results, and move from there.

“Oh, dear Fates,” Logan groans, and Janus snaps his attention back to the present. It doesn’t take long to figure out what has Logan annoyed.

Roman’s climbed on the table. And as king, he can do what he wants, of course. But generally speaking, he’s supposed to keep the table-climbing to a minimum.

“My dear guests!” he calls out, his voice rich and booming. He doesn’t sound as drunk as Janus would expect from this kind of behavior. “If I may have your attention, I would like to propose a toast! To my dearest friend—”

“Oh my gods, Roman, stop,” Virgil groans.

“—Virgil of the Western Isles, who single-handedly—”

“Roman.”

“—rescued me from the clutches of the dread Dragon-Witch Alcara, thus saving this kingdom from utter disaster and ruin, and once again proving himself to be a man of the highest courage and determination, yes, courage, stop glaring at me like that, and also, did I mention he did this all by himself?” Roman raises his glass high, cheeks flushed red. Virgil has stopped protesting verbally in favor of trying to strike Roman down with his eyes alone, it appears. “So! To one of the best heroes this land has ever known! To Virgil!”

The crowd echoes the call, most of them smiling good-naturedly, a few laughing at the antics; if nothing else, Roman knows how to play to an audience.

“Not one of his best speeches,” Logan mutters.

Janus shrugs, and finally manages to catch Virgil’s gaze from across the room. He smirks, sardonically saluting him with his glass, and Virgil turns the full force of his glare onto him, mouthing something that is either I’m going to kill you or I’m rowing to mill two; really, Janus can’t tell which.

And then, he realizes that he has a problem.

It’s a toast. Everyone is bringing their drinks to his lips, taking sips, swallowing. Obviously, he can’t do any of this, as he rather likes being alive and unpoisoned. But the ambassador is still watching Logan intently, and Logan is sipping from Janus’ old glass; if the ambassador is expecting something to happen, and nothing does, he will turn his attention to the people around Logan, trying to figure out what went wrong. If that happens, there is a chance that he will notice if Janus doesn’t drink. From there, he will be able to suppose that Janus has caught onto his plans, has caught onto him, and from there, he will become more desperate.

Janus doesn’t want that. A desperate man becomes unpredictable, uncontrollable. A desperate man might act as though he has nothing to lose.

His mind racing, he brings the goblet up to his lips. It shouldn’t be too hard to feign a sip. He’s overthinking this.

He tilts the glass back, stopping just short of letting the wine touch his lips. He swallows a bit of his own saliva for realism. And then, it’s done, and he can relax again.

“Really, he should know better then to put Virgil in the limelight,” he says, keeping the ambassador in the corner of his vision. “He’s going to make him pay for that later.”

“If he would stop being so reckless, he wouldn’t be captured by his enemies so often, and Virgil wouldn’t have to hare off after him at all,” Logan sighs. “I will never understand their intricate courting rituals. Why don’t they just say they have feelings for each other and have done with it?”

The longer Logan goes without succumbing to some kind of terrible sickness, the paler the ambassador’s face grows. Janus is almost enjoying watching him.

“Some people are incapable of saying what they mean,” he says, and Logan looks at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Is that the case?” he says, pointed, and Janus grins.

“Why, my dear master sorcerer, you can’t possibly be implying that I—”

His left arm goes numb. Suddenly, all at once, and he cuts himself off, trying to shake feeling back into it. But it’s not like pins and needles, and as the seconds pass— only a few, surely, but the quick, rabbit-beating of his heart makes it seem otherwise— the sensation spreads, creeping toward his chest.

“Janus?” Logan asks. “Is something wrong?”

He sounds worried, very concerned, and Janus would be flattered, but he’s a bit busy being concerned himself.

“I don’t,” he starts, “I’m not—”

And then, his lungs are set on fire, and the rest of his sentence is lost to a wheezing scream as he doubles over, hands flying up to his chest, the wine glass clattering against the floor, half of it shattering and drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity, but he can’t care about that because he’s trying to force his lungs to inflate, but he’s burning up from the inside out and he can’t—

“Janus!”

There are arms, around him, steadying him. He looks up to meet Logan’s face, painted with fear and blurry, strangely blurry, and he doesn’t think that he’s crying so why is Logan blurry? But he is blurry, and the rest of Janus’ limbs have gone numb, and standing is becoming increasingly difficult, and the fire is there, growing hotter with each moment, and he opens his mouth to say something but all that escapes is a gasp, and then a strangled squeaking sound, as if the sounds are being wrung from him along with the last of his air.

“Shit, shit, shit—”

It’s almost funny, Logan swearing. He’s usually far too collected for that.

His center of gravity tips. Everything spins, and then, he feels himself being lowered to the ground. The floor is cold against his back, soothing, though it doesn’t help much after the momentary relief.

“What the fuck is wrong with him?”

Virgil, now, hovering over him, frantic.

“I don’t know,” Logan says, and he sounds scared, and that’s wrong. Logan is never scared. “I don’t know, poison, I’d imagine, but I don’t know what—”

“Well can you figure it out?”

Roman’s here too.

“I’m trying,” Logan snaps. “If you’ll give me a bit of room—”

The pain rises to a crescendo, like it’s eating his flesh away, and he lets out a whimper. An honest-to-gods whimper, and no. Absolutely not. He has more dignity than this. He has faced worse than this and come out alive, and he trusts Logan to do all that he can. So he breathes, shuddering breaths, breaths that twist and hurt and seem to move in places that they shouldn’t, and he wrests his mind back under control.

“The wine,” he gasps out, and his voice sounds absolutely wrecked. “I saw— the ambassador from Halledrin— he put it in the wine—”

“So you switched them,” Logan says, and scratch fear. This is fury. “How could you possibly have been so stupid?”

“I didn’t drink it!” he cries, and the exclamation is ripped from him, too harsh, and the exertion sends the pain flaring up, the flames licking at his heart, and he chokes on air. “I didn’t— I faked it, I didn’t drink, I don’t know—”

“Well, how the fuck did you get poisoned, then?” Virgil shrieks, and then, Logan fills his field of vision. He’s chanting something in the Old Tongue, and then slapping his hands on his chest, and just like that, the pain fades as magic rushes through him, warm and sparkling and steady and very, very Logan, and his head clears enough to think properly.

“The Halledrinian ambassador?” Roman snarls, and in that moment, he looks exactly like his brother. “I’ll be back.” And then he’s stalking through the crowd, and Janus wishes he didn’t feel so drained; he’d love to watch Roman make the man sweat, but he can barely muster up the energy to raise his head to look at Logan.

“I was going to keep it until I could get it looked at,” he says. His mouth is dry, painfully so. “I faked a sip, for the toast, but I didn’t take one. I didn’t touch it.”

The magic is still buzzing through him, lending him strength. He’ll ride it for what it’s worth.

Gods above and below, this is embarrassing.

“Are you sure it was the wine?” Logan asks. “It couldn’t have been anything else?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” he says. “I’m sorry, I probably should have—”

“Told me?” Logan cuts in. “I should think so. Honestly, why would you think keeping it from me was a good idea?”

The magic is still buzzing through him. It feels more intense now, almost uncomfortable.

“I didn’t want him to think that I knew anything,” he says. “I didn’t want to risk him trying something else.”

Logan shakes his head. “You’re too clever for your own good, do you know that?” he says, and he sounds completely exasperated, but the anger is fading, and Janus is glad of it. He doesn’t regret what he did, just how it turned out, and he never likes it when Logan is annoyed with him, because somehow, Logan has the ability to make him feel like a child, chastised for trying to sneak dessert out of the kitchen.

“I think I’m just clever enough,” he retorts, and then frowns. “Out of curiosity, what spell did you use?”

“A general cleansing incantation,” Logan tells him, “though at twice the power I would usually put into it. I’m just glad the poison wasn’t more specialized. Some toxins are resistant to magic, you know.”

Janus does know, and under any other circumstance, he would be more than willing to listen to Logan going on about the subject for days. But the buzzing of the magic in his system, Logan’s magic, has graduated from relieving to uncomfortable to something approaching pain, and it’s been a long time since he had to be healed with a spell, but he doesn’t think this is right.

He opens his mouth to tell Logan about it, about the way it feels as though there are ants crawling under his skin, but then—

then—

his body—

seizes—

and rational thought flies out the window as his muscles lock and pain tears through him, biting and sharp and ripping and buzzing, and his limbs jerk and this is a seizure, he’s having a seizure, and his head slams against the ground hard and white lights flash across his vision and he can hear shouting, and something soft is shoved underneath his head to soften the impact as it hits against the floor again and again and again and he can’t speak, can’t breath, and there is blood bubbling in the back of his throat, so much that he fears he’ll choke on it, and all the while there is the buzzing, curling in him and forcing his bones from their sockets, it feels like, scrambling his innards, and it feels like there is something inside of him, something eating him, and perhaps he’s eating himself, has turned into the serpent that consumes its own tail—

He doesn’t know.

There are still voices, panicked and loud, and he should know them, too, but he can’t. Not now.

He just knows that it hurts, in waves, each one worst than the last, and it won’t stop. A strangled scream is ripped from his throat, high and thick, forcing its way past the blood that’s gathered in his mouth, and someone is cursing, swearing up a blue streak, and the people around him sound scared, and he thinks that he is too.

Each wave worse than the last. Once he screams once, he can’t stop.

Unconsciousness, when it comes, is a blessing.

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

Awareness comes and goes in flashes.

He wakes, his body thrashing, trying to escape. Pain like red hot pokers pressing up against him and into him. He wheezes, and there is someone holding him, trying to restrain him, and he’s too weak to push them away.

“Please,” he tries to say, but the word comes out garbled and mangled beyond all recognition.

“Remus,” the person growls, and it must be Virgil, but he can’t pry his eyes open to see, “knock him out.”

“On it,” says someone else, and there is a hand on his forehead, blessedly cool, and then nothing.

Then, again: his entire body on fire, but lacking the energy to so much as lift a finger. He gasps for breath, each inhalation a struggle, and past the white noise in his ears, he thinks he hears someone speaking. Muttering. Praying? He wrests his eyes open, and his surroundings are a blur, but it is Patton sitting at his bedside. Holding his hand, too, he thinks, but he can’t feel it.

He didn’t even know Patton had returned to the castle.

He tries to say something, anything, but he doesn’t have the air to spend on speech. So he lies there, panting, and finally, Patton looks up, and Janus can’t make out his face but he hears his gasp.

“Oh, gods,” Patton says, and leans in closer. “Jan, can you hear me?”

He can’t respond. Can’t so much as nod.

“You hold on,” Patton says, and he sounds like he’s fighting tears. “You hear me? You don’t die from this. You hang in there, and everything’s gonna be a-okay. You got it?”

It’s a sweet lie, a pretty lie, and Janus can’t begrudge him for it.

Darkness again.

And then:

“—cking be giving up!”

“Of course I’m not giving up!”

Logan’s voice, sharp and angry and lined with despair, and his heart skips a beat. Or perhaps it’s not the sound of his voice that does it at all, but the poison, wrapping around his heart and squeezing. He still hurts, every inch of him, but it’s distant, far away, and it should worry him, he thinks, because that probably means that he’s far past the point of pain that his body can actually handle. But his mind is too fuzzy, everything indistinct.

“I’m not going to give up. I would rather die. But without knowing what the poison was, or better yet, having a sample of it, I’m left to flounder, and attempting to use magic has done more harm than good.”

Gods. He sounds so broken.

“Roman said he was gonna try and get answers out of the shithead.” That’s Remus, uncharacteristically serious. “No luck so far, apparently.” A bang, like a fist against a table. “He should let me at him. I’d rip it right out of him, reach my hand down his throat and pull out his fucking vocal chords—”

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to shut up right the fuck now—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is that too much for your delicate sensibilities—”

“Enough, both of you!”

Logan again, desperate and exhausted, and with a labored, stuttering breath, Janus pries his eyes open. A wave of dizziness assaults him, and the light is far too bright, but he holds out, turning his head to the side in a motion that takes more effort than it should.

His vision is swimming, coming in and out of focus. But it’s Virgil, Remus, and Logan, all standing and arguing with each other.

And it hits him, then: Oh. I’m dying.

“The fact remains that we’re all in the dark here. I’m in the dark. Without knowing what the poison was or how he ingested it, I can’t deconstruct it to find a cure. All efforts to use a spell to detect the toxin have failed, and all efforts to use a spell to heal him have only aggravated his condition.” Logan makes a sharp motion; Janus isn’t sure, but he thinks he’s scrubbing his hand down his face. “It makes sense,” he continues, more subdued. “I was the original target. So of course the poison would be undetectable by magic. Of course it would—”

He breaks off, and Virgil reaches out to him.

“This isn’t your fault,” he says lowly. “Janus made his dumb fucking decision himself.”

“He wasn’t trying to get poisoned,” Remus interjects, sharp. “So how about you take your dumb fucking decision and shove it up your—”

His mind is whirling. Something about the description of the poison, the fact that magic cannot be used to combat it, seems familiar, but his mind refuses to dredge up any memory that he might have of a poison that fits those qualities.

He doesn’t know. Or, worse, he might know, but the poison that is killing him is preventing him from coming up with the information that could save him.

But there’s something else. Something just beyond his reach, something that flits from his grasp when he tries to think about it.

“And there was nothing in the wine,” Virgil says. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing that the chemists could find.”

“And I checked it for good measure!” Remus says. “Nadda. Zip. Fucking nothing. So how we got here is beyond me.”

That’s it.

He didn’t drink the wine. It wouldn’t have mattered if the wine was poisoned. He didn’t have any.

But he remembers swallowing. His own saliva, just to make it realistic.

There’s only one place the poison could have been.

He tries to speak. But his throat feels full of razor wire, and the effort is enough to bring the rest of the pain back into focus. What starts out as something that might, possibly, be a word devolves into a high, keening whimper, and he can’t muster up the energy to be embarrassed about it, because gods. His back arches, and his fists clench into the bedsheets as he tries to ride it out, but there is no riding it out, because it just won’t stop.

“Janus!”

Suddenly, they’re all very close.

“Shit, shit, you’re gonna be okay, just give us a second,” Virgil says. “Remus, you—”

“Right—”

And no, because Remus is going to knock him out again, but he can’t, not before he tells them what he just figured out, because if he goes under again he’s scared that he won’t get another chance.

“No,” he gasps, and his voice is absolutely wrecked, and speaking hurts, but— “No, don’t. I need—”

He breaks off with a ragged gasp, his throat refusing to cooperate with him, and he could scream with frustration, really would scream, if his voice was working. But then, Logan is there, his face close to his and his eyes very blue.

“What do you need, Janus?” he asks, his voice low and urgent, and Janus gathers his breath, and try again.

“Test the rim,” he says. “It wasn’t— wasn’t in the wine, and it wasn’t a spell. But I—” His words strangle themselves, but he can see the light dawning in Logan’s eyes.

“You put your lips to the rim of the glass,” he finished. “It was on the—” He turns to Virgil, the motion whipcord sharp. “Virgil, go find the glass and have it sent to my— no, actually, bring it here. Time is of the essence.”

Virgil is off like a shot almost before Logan is finished speaking.

“And Remus,” he continues, “I’ll need—”

“You’ve got it, specs,” Remus says. “Whatever support I can give.”

Logan nods, and meets Janus’ eyes again. At least, he thinks he does. His vision is growing dark, shadows curling around the edges like fire-blackened paper, eating away everything he can see. The pain is distant again, and even his own heartbeat seems to be slowing. Logan’s voice sounds as if it’s coming to him through deep water.

“You can rest now, Janus,” he says. “You’ve done well. I’m going to cure you, I swear. This will all be over soon.”

One way or another, he agrees, but doesn’t say it out loud. Even if he could, he thinks it would upset Logan to say something like that. Would upset him to remind him of the very real possibility that this will not end well, that it is already too late. Because his vision is blackening and his heartbeat is slowing, and everything feels so very, very far away, and he doesn’t want to die but he might not have a choice in the matter.

Logan’s face is still hovering above his, and he thinks that if this is the last sight he will ever have, it’s the best one he could have asked for.

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

He wakes to a pressure against his side and a bone-deep exhaustion, and he takes a moment to simply breathe, staring at the ceiling and reveling in the ease of it. He is so very tired, but his lungs inflate and deflate without pain, without anything catching and setting him to coughing, without having to fight his own body to get the air he needs.

Then, he turns his head.

Logan is asleep on a chair next to his bed, slumped forward so that his head is resting against his side, effectively trapping one arm. He is pale and drawn, his brows furrowed and hair sticking out in all directions, as if he’s been running his fingers through it repeatedly. His glasses are still on his face, terribly askew, and on instinct, Janus reaches across his body, trying to correct them, perhaps, or to take them off entirely. But at the movement, slight though it is, Logan startles awake, eyes blinking wide open, lips parted as if to call out.

Then, his eyes meet Janus’.

“You’re awake,” he breathes, and it sounds uncomfortably like a revelation, like the answer to every prayer Logan has ever offered— and Logan isn’t religious, Janus knows, has never seen much point in worshiping distant gods. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he offers, wincing at the sandpaper-quality of his own voice. It’s the truth, though; he feels drained, mentally and physically, and he aches terribly, but the pain is nothing compared to what it was. “I assume you figured it out.”

Logan pushes his glasses back into position on his face, a little more aggressively than the motion should require. “Barely,” he says. “If you had consumed any more than you did, or if I had been even ten minutes slower, you would have died.”

He hums. “I certainly felt like it,” he murmurs, glancing away. “Thank you for saving me.”

For once, he means exactly what he says, but Logan’s expression darkens. “I shouldn’t have had to,” he says, sharp. “That poison—” He breaks off, sucking in a breath, looking away. He vigorously jabs at his glasses, pushing them even farther up his nose. “That poison was meant to target magic in a person’s system, and because you don’t have magic inherently, it turned to attacking your internal organs instead. Every attempt to heal you only fueled its effects. Do you know how I—”

He breaks off again, but Janus is stuck on something else, is stuck on targeting magic, and he has always been good at reading between the lines, so he knows exactly what Logan isn’t saying. Logan lives off magic, breathes it, practically is magic in every sense of the word. Had Logan taken a poison that destroyed magic, it would have destroyed him.

The Halledrinian ambassador chose his toxin well.

“In that case,” he says, “I suppose that this turned out as well as it could have. Obviously, getting poisoned myself was far from ideal, but better me than you, in this scenario.”

He knows immediately that this is the wrong thing to say; usually, he would have realized that before the words left his mouth at all, but his mind is still sluggish, his mouth looser. Logan’s face twists, becomes something thunderous and angry, and the warm candlelight that fills the room— his room, he notices, though he’s fairly certain he was in Remus’ infirmary before— flickers and dances as the air stirs, a slight wind buffeting the bedsheets.

“I think you might have missed the part where I said that you almost died,” Logan says, and his voice is steady, but his hands are not, trembling where they have balled into fists on his lap.

He blinks, at a loss. Were he in better form, he would know what to say here, how to soothe Logan’s worry and wash the past few— well. He has no idea how long it’s been. But he would be able to turn it all around, put the event behind them, if the words would only come, but they don’t, so here he lies, feeling powerless and a bit stupid.

“I didn’t,” he points out, and knows that the rebuttal is weak, that this won’t help. “Clearly.”

“The point is that you could have!”

It’s a shout, and Logan pauses, seemingly surprised at his own volume. He deflates, then, his shoulders slumping, all the fight flowing from him like water from a sieve. He hunches in on himself just slightly, his expression fading from fury to something much more tired, much more worn.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Janus can only watch as he scrubs at his eyes, almost viciously, and then stares at his hands. “I just— you nearly died. From poison that was meant for me.”

He sounds wrecked, as if that is the worst possibility he could imagine, and— oh.

“I would have died,” Logan murmurs. “It would have decimated my magic before I could do a thing about it, and me along with it.” He looks up, and his eyes are shining with unshed tears, and Janus wants nothing more than to wipe them away. He would try, he thinks, if he felt as though he could move enough to do so, if he thought Logan would allow him the liberty. “But instead of me, it was you. And I had to watch as you died in my place. If you hadn’t been able to communicate how you’d ingested it, I would have been helpless. I would have—” He breaks off suddenly, closing his eyes. “I would have lost you.”

Oh.

He wrenches himself into a sitting position, ignoring the way his muscles scream in protest, ignoring Logan’s startled exclamation. He pushes himself up, reaches out, and snags Logan’s hands in one of his. Too late, he realizes that somewhere along the line, he was divested of his gloves, and his bare skin makes contact with Logan’s. It’s like a bolt of lightning shooting up his arm, and he struggles not to show his shock on his face; he is no stranger to touch, but not like this, never like this, with his bare hand. And from the way Logan is staring, from the way Logan’s lips have parted, just slightly, he knows it too.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, as fierce, as vehement as he can manage. “And call me selfish, but I am infinitely glad that I didn’t have to lose you.”

He meets Logan’s eyes. As difficult as this level of honesty, this level of vulnerability is for him, it needs to be said. He needs Logan to know, needs him to understand, needs him to realize that he cannot possibly regret this, if the alternative was watching Logan choke on his own blood.

Logan makes a sound, soft and wounded, and turns his hand so that he’s grasping at Janus’ just as tightly as Janus is grasping him. And then, he leans in close, bumping their foreheads together and then staying there, and Janus doesn’t dare to move. He can feel Logan’s breath on his skin, ghosting across his lips; an inch or two closer, and they would be kissing.

With one hand, Logan continues to hold his. The other curls around the back of his neck, keeping him in place.

“Never,” Logan says, “do that to me again.”

“I assure you,” he replies, “I don’t plan on it.”

For a moment they stay like that, foreheads touching, breathing together, and Janus’ eyes slip closed. Like this, he can almost forget that anything happened, can forget the pain, can forget how weak he feels. He’s here, and Logan’s here, and nothing else matters.

And then, the door slams open. He jerks back, startled, and Logan’s hand slips away from his neck.

Remus is standing there, gaping.

“Holy shit,” he says. “You’re awake.” He turns to call to someone down the hall— “He’s awake!—” and then, he’s rushing into the room, and Janus doesn’t have any time to prepare before he’s jumped onto the bed, wrapping his arms around him like a particularly clingy octopus, and he’s chanting a litany of words under his breath, things like, “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay holy shit,” and other words that he can’t quite make out, and the hug is a bit too tight to be comfortable, but he accepts it anyway. He’s still holding one of Logan’s hands, and he is loathe to let go, but he wraps his free arm around Remus’ back.

“Everyone’s been very worried about you,” Logan says quietly. “Patton returned from the coast in the middle of it all, and he was quite distraught. And that’s not to mention how… irate Roman has been, and Virgil—”

“Speak for yourself,” Virgil says, leaning in the doorway. He crosses his arms, but the relief on his face is poorly disguised, and he must have truly been in a bad way if Virgil was that concerned. “Roman and Patton are on their way up, I think. They were talking to the asshole. The ambassador,” he adds when Janus tilts his head in a silent question. “Piece of shit admitted to everything. He’s not even the real ambassador; he killed the real one and took his clothes, tried to go after Logan to spark war between us and Halledrin.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Remus says. “Roman said I could, if I wanted to. He was real mad so I dunno if he meant it, but he said it, so it counts. I’m gonna stick a knife in his guts and pull out his intestines and feed them to him and—”

“That’s more than enough, I think,” Logan interjects, and Janus is glad of it. He’s used to Remus’ gory tangents, can deal with them well, normally, but he’s exhausted, and he thinks that consciousness will slip away from him any moment now. He can feel his eyelids beginning to droop, his body leaning against Remus’ more and more, and he highly doubts that he will make it to see Roman and Patton.

But that’s alright. He’ll wake up again and see them then. For now, he has Virgil here, and Remus, and he is still holding Logan’s hand, and he is tired and he aches, but he’s alright.

He meets Logan’s eyes, squeezes his hand, and smiles. And Logan smiles back.

General Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer @mrbubbajones @snek-boii @severelylackinginquality @aceawkwardunicorn @gayerplease @elizabutgayer @dwbh888 @thatoneloudowl @sanderssides-angst @gayboopnoodle @wildfire5157 @ldavmp4 @a-ghostlight-for-roman @sammy-is-obsessed @imlovethomassanders @a-yeet-bop-bop-boom @halfords-hysteria @random-fander @addykatb @i-cant-find-a-good-username @intruxiety @maybedefinitely404 @arya-skywalker @thefivecalls @nerdy-emo-royal-dad @bisexualdisaster106

Janus Fic Taglist: @idkanameatall

717 notes · View notes

thefanficmonster · 3 years

Text

There You Are

PART 2: ‘Finally, You’re Back’

Karl Heisenberg x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Mild spoilers for Resident Evil 8:Village, Swearing

Genre: Romance, Mild Angst

Summary: It’s the life before the nightmare. It’s the breath of fresh air before the pollution. The sunshine before the storm. And there they are, standing in the warmth of a sunny spring day in that Romanian village, their meeting coincidental yet fated at the same time.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! I’m sorry for the long wait but here it finally is - you request turned into a fic! Also, big thanks to that other Anon who gave me the idea of modifying the fic in a way where it’s now gonna be a two-parter, a sort of the before the nightmare and the aftermath of Heisenberg’s turning. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the read. Love, Vy ❤

Because one is incapable of expecting the unexpected One can never see what the future may hold One can never know what storms await One can never fully prepare And neither did he Because he could’ve never guessed Never known He could only see so far ahead He could only plan so much Yet he always thought he’d run free Let the winds and rivers guide him forward Never did he think his fate would uproot him into a nightmare He had no idea what to expect He had no idea he’d never be the same again Hell, to him it was the first and last time But to his hope it was a lightning spark Praying for more Regardless, in that moment When eyes met eyes, all he could think was... ‘There you are’

And there they were, standing in the almost completely melted snow on the outskirts of the Romanian village, the shy sun rays shimmering on their skin, making their hair glow. Their gaze gave away nothing yet so much simultaneously. Their crystal, shining yet still tired orbs were busy taking in their surroundings, their back turned to him. They didn’t have to face him for him to be able to guess they weren’t from around here. Truth be told, there were several clues that let him know: the clothes, the shoes, the sun-kissed skin - which there’s no way they could’ve obtained from the gloomy sunless winter in the village- but most important, the dead giveaway was the huge rucksack burdening their back and shoulders.

‘A traveler‘, he thought, ‘They’re probably lost. There’s no way they landed in this shithole on purpose.‘

The contemplation of whether to address them or not ends shortly and not really willingly - it mostly has to do with the fact that his thoughts were momentarily shut up when the traveler’s eyes met his.

Even with the amount of distance between them, something in those E/C pools glinting in the faint sunlight while also reflecting the brightness of the last remaining snow on the ground stole his breath away and paralyzed him. He was rendered helpless and unmoving from simple eye contact with this stranger.

But they weren’t done surprising him with the overwhelming power they unknowingly possessed.

They, out of the blue, shot him a smile that could only be described as blinding. One that sent his heart racing, eyes widening ever so slightly with disbelief. He was rarely offered such a kind reaction upon being seen by someone. A smile - not a mocking or menacing one - was an expression he rarely saw directed towards him.

‘They don’t know you, idiot!‘ He scolds himself mentally, ‘They don’t know what kind of lowlife piece of shit you are.‘

Yeah, they don’t. And they’re never gonna find out

He was willing to pull every lie from the book to keep his miserable life as a nearly homeless, poorly treated worker of three jobs hidden from this stranger. He didn’t want to see pity in those eyes nor sympathy in their smile.

He didn’t want things to change. Though, he simultaneously didn’t know what ‘things’ he didn’t want changed.

And so, he decided to create some, knowing full-well they would be temporary.

“Need any help? You lost or something?“ He calls out to them as he makes his way down from the cliff and into the large field where they’re standing.

They shake their head in response, loose strands of hair forming a curtain over their features as they do so, their smile never fading, “Nope, not at all. I’m exactly where I wanna be.”

“What could you possibly wanna see here?“ He asks, now without having to belch his lungs out due to the smaller distance between them.

They turn away from him, pointing to the monstrosity of a building he’s more than familiar with, towering over the village and dominating the outskirts. Having been abandoned for years now, the factory has become a home for rats, roaches, bats and Karl Heisenberg. The young man runs the risk of having it all crumble atop him while he sleeps the three hours he’s allowed each night. He’s not usually embarrassed by this fact but he doesn’t proudly announce it either. Sure, some people who pick on him and are determined to make his life a living hell have spread rumors about his place of stay but no one dares go into the factory to fact-check. It’s menacing exterior looking to be straight from a horror movie or a nightmare is more than enough to drive any person away, but the haunting noises the place harbors accompanied by the many creatures that produce said noises just add to the fear factor among the villagers when it comes to the century old structure.

“That.“ The traveler says, looking almost dreamily at the building so many people turn to with disgust and fear. “Would it be trespassing to enter? I really wanna have a look inside.“

Forgetting to mask his confused and surprised expression, Karl is caught with that wide-eyed, mouth-slightly-agape look on his face which sends the traveler in a fit of laughter.

“I know I probably sound crazy saying that, but abandoned places are sort of my thing, you know. I can’t simply pass by one without going in and doing a literal scavenger hunt. Not that I ever find much apart from graffiti and crap all over the place, but it’s worth having a look. Especially inside a place that looks that old. And man is it huge.“ No, his assumption was right the first time - their eyes do indeed get dreamy when they turn to observe the giant structure further down the overgrown path.

Who gives him the right to tell them no?

“Lucky I found you then.“ He says, shedding every last bit of confusion and replacing it with enthusiasm, a wide smile plastered on his face, “Follow me, I know all the entrances.“

He needn’t tell them twice. Hell, he barely had to finish his sentence before they literally took flight as they rushed - as much as they could with the heavy backpack they were carrying - towards the factory, taking his hand to drag him along, never stopping their river of gratitude the whole way there.

It awoke something in him, something warm and genuine that made him want to get to know this sunshine in human form better. He hasn’t had a chance to smile plenty in his life, never having a reason to do so. But during this less than five minute interaction, he hasn’t been able to contain the grin brought upon him as a side effect of their own happiness.

“I’m Karl, by the way!“ He informed them as they stomped their way up the path.

“Nice to meet you, Karl!“ They called back, giving him a brief glance over their shoulder, “My name’s Y/N.“

‘Y/N‘ the name echoed and repeated itself in his head, intensifying that feeling dangerously close to adoration.

“Nice to meet you too, Y/N.“

* * *

Dust and dirt had stuck to their clothes, practically merging with the textile by the time the pair left the factory to see the setting sun once again. The darkness and dinginess of the factory periodically made them forget how beautiful the outside world was. The place was filthy but what Y/N didn’t know is that it had been in a worse state before. Before Karl started staying there.

The young man always had a fascination with mechanical engineering, having met many workers who worked in the factory prior to its closing. They often times snuck him in so he could admire the work process the different types of machinery they had in there - many of which still remained in the factory covered in rust and spiderwebs. That being said, he took it upon himself to clean up a bit, treat the powerful mechanical giants with the respect and decency a machine of their kind deserved. Some he even miraculously repaired - probably the biggest achievement in his life - but he was yet to put them to good use, given that he still didn’t know how to properly operate them and what their true purpose was.

“That was incredible!“ Y/N cheered once the two had stepped onto the grass outside in the field again, “I can’t believe I almost started debating whether to go or not after so many of the villagers tried to scare me.“ They turned to give the factory one more lingering look, “Damn, I wish I could go back in there again to see if we missed anything. Unfortunately, my time’s limited.“ They sigh, checking their wristwatch before sparing the setting sun a look as well. “And it’s almost up.“

The knot that suddenly appeared in Karl’s throat made him choke on the oxygen he had inhaled. The worry of what those words of Y/N’s meant made his stomach turn.

But, before he could ask what they meant, they gave him an apologetic smile, their eyes still shining, but saddened now, “I have to get going. I have a different destination I need to reach by dawn.“ They sighed heavily, looking down at their boots. Karl opened his mouth to say something, but he found himself to be at a loss for words. He felt hollow and empty and couldn’t bring himself to stomach what he had been told. However, Y/N once again beat him to the opportunity of saying something. Their head snapped back up, their eyes meeting his, now glimmering with the glow he had grown to think of as familiar at that point. “However, that doesn’t mean I won’t be back.“ They took him by the wrist and brought his hand up, opening his clenched palm to drop a small chain in it. “Growing up, I was taught to not expect people to return things you give them but to go and take them back yourself. And so, Karl, I’m giving you this necklace and promising I’ll be back to retrieve it.“ They closes his palm again, letting his arm fall by his side. While he still had only processed half of all that happened when they spoke up again, “Ok, so now I ask of you to stay here, not see me off, not follow me, just stand right here. Or you can turn around and walk away too, that’d be even better. Can you do that for me?” They asked, cringing suddenly, “Sorry, I’m bad at goodbyes.“

He faintly nodded, unable to get any words out yet again. That was probably a good thing, cause there was a huge risk that he would’ve asked them to stay if he spoke.

Taking his nod as a positive response, they gave him a quick peck on the cheek before turning around and walking off in the direction they came from earlier, leaving him behind. Karl wanted to force himself to walk in the opposite direction like they had told him to, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off them. He stood there, heart aching, watching them go. All the while squeezing the dog tag necklace tightly in his hand. The physical proof of the person that reminded him how it felt to feel.

The physical proof of the promise that they’d come back.

They’d come back to him.

He’d see them.

And he’d once again think to himself...

There you are, finally, you’re back

100 notes · View notes

jaskicr · 4 years

Text

jaskel but it’s with witcher jaskier

i’m setting out to write some variation of witcher jaskier for all non-geraskier ships because there’s simply not enough of that. i did yennskier last time, so this time, have some jaskel!

eskel meets julian, a witcher from the school of the manticore, when they’re both young and fresh on the path

they took the same contract accidentally and they raced to be the first to complete it

eskel completes it first

and it keeps happening - they keep taking the same contract and it gets a bit competitive as they try to outdo each other, so they become slight rivals

as time passes, they run into each other more and more, and they definitely don't seek each other out on purpose, why would they do that?

they just happen to run into each other every few months and take the same contract, that's all

during the winters in kaer morhen, eskel complains about the manticore witcher that keeps stealing his contracts

geralt tells him, exasperatedly, that he’s rather obsessed with this random witcher, and eskel vehemently denies it

it’s nothing more than a bit of rivalry between witchers, and eskel definitely doesn’t stare at julian’s pretty golden eyes whenever they meet, no he doesn’t

eskel thinks that julian does the same when he returns to the manticore keep in winter

he doesn’t

most of the witchers from the school of the manticore are very skilled with alchemy, and they sell alchemical formulas to the highest bidder without regard for what the formulas are used for, so there have been many deaths at their hands

and julian hates it, so he distances himself from his fellow witchers - which isn’t hard, since they already ostracise him for his extra mutations

julian winters alone

and that distancing from his own school is why julian isn’t great with people. he doesn’t know how to interact with them, he doesn’t quite know how to make a friend

so when he’d met eskel and started this rivalry, julian wanted to be friends with him, wanted to keep him company, but he doesn’t know how, hence the rivalry

but julian has always seen eskel as his first and only ‘friend’, and the more they ‘run’ into each other, the more julian wants to get to know eskel properly, but every time they meet, julian just seems incapable of actually communicating

but then at some point eskel gets injured as they compete on a contract, and julian is frantic and very worried

he kills the monster and patches eskel up

when eskel wakes up, he’s baffled to see julian there and questions what he’s doing here

and julian panics, because he actually needs to interact with eskel properly, so he stutters and stammers his way through an explanation

and as he talks, eskel looks at him, really looks at him, looking past the rivalry, and he sees a sad lonely witcher who only wants company

suddenly, he understands julian’s behaviour, and with what he knows about the affairs of the manticore school, along with julian’s white hair marking him as having received extra mutations, it’s not hard to realise that julian has likely been alone his whole life

all he wants is for julian to be happy, and he wants to keep julian company, so he asks julian to travel with him for a while

at first, julian is prickly - he's not good with people, and he’s not quite sure why eskel has suddenly offered to travel together

but eskel is soft and patient and understanding, and slowly, they bond and get closer

they talk about their shitty childhoods in hushed tones over the campfire. they chat about everything and nothing when they’re on the road. they learn to fight together, learn the way the other moves. they stay in the same room, in the same bed. they bathe each other after a hunt.

(they’re very very soft)

gradually, eskel coaxes julian out of his shell, and julian learns to properly talk and communicate, and the longer they spend together, the more julian learns about feelings

and julian is so very fond of eskel, and one day, he sees eskel’s golden eyes sparkling warmly over a campfire, and he can’t help but pull him into a soft, sweet kiss

they learn to work their newfound romance into their friendship, which doesn’t change much - after all, they’ve been cuddling together at night for several years

after one winter, julian shows up with deep scars across his face, feeling insecure that eskel would find him ugly and mounstrous, but when eskel sees him, he mentally beats himself up for not being there

mutual facial scar appreciation!!

eskel brings julian to kaer morhen, and julian gains more friends in the wolf witchers (the kaer morons)

they all see how sad and lonely he is and collectively adopt him

one winter, geralt returns to kaer morhen with slumped shoulders and weary eyes, and the witchers learn about blaviken

and julian is furious at stregobor for hurting his friends - he has very few of those, and he can’t stand the thought of his friends being hurt

so once he departs from kaer morhen that spring, he goes after stregobor, and eskel figures out what he's doing and comes with him

but neither of them have ever fought a sorceror as powerful as stregobor, and they’re underprepared

stregobor sends a wave of fatal magic towards eskel, whose back is turned, but julian sees it coming

and julian knows that he can’t let eskel die. eskel means everything to him and - he just can’t let eskel die

so he leaps in front of eskel, the wave of magic hitting him straight in the chest, and eskel turns around just in time to see him dissolve into nothing

stregobor escapes, unwilling to face off against an angry witcher, and eskel falls to his knees, staring into the empty air where julian had disappeared

and eskel mourns, unable to believe that julian is dead

and it's horrible, because julian was so bright and warm, and even though he didn't quite know how to act around people, he was still so full of life and love, so much that he loved eskel enough to sacrifice his life for him

that winter, eskel mourns with his brothers, mourns the bright warm light that had been julian, the walls of kaer morhen bleak and empty

unbeknownst to them, tissaia had been tracking stregobor and his misdeeds. she put a tracker on his power, so she arrived just in time to see stregobor try to kill a witcher for no reason

so she saves julian, but pretends that stregobor's spell worked so as to not make stregobor suspicious

still, stregobor’s magic was powerful enough that julian is dying, and there’s only one way to save him - tissaia takes julian’s consciousness and puts it into a human body

little julian alfred pankratz grows up in lettenhove

he’s a bright and bubbly child, always joyful, always laughing

he’s good with people. he loves people, loves interacting with them, loves making friends (and there’s a sort of cruel irony in that)

he goes to oxenfurt and renames himself jaskier, surrounding himself with flocks of friends, and when he becomes a bard, he dreams of performing for adoring audiences

and then jaskier meets a witcher in posada, and he feels an inexplicable urge to travel with him

there’s been a hollow ache in him since he was born, and something tells him that following geralt might fill that hollowness

but when he travels with geralt, it feels right, but also wrong at the same time, and he loves travelling with geralt, but it - it just isn’t right

jaskier stays with geralt though, because it’s the closest he’s ever felt to being whole

over time, geralt opens up and talks about his brothers, about his mentor vesemir, his younger brother lambert, and his brother eskel

and jaskier has never met them, but he longs to go to kaer morhen for some reason, and he longs for more

when they meet yennefer, she senses traces of tissaia's magic on jaskier, so she goes to ask tissaia, who tells her the truth, but warns julian's body is still recovering from stregobor's strong magic

so yen knows the truth about jaskier, and she learns even more when she and geralt sleep together

geralt tells her about that one manticore witcher who meant so much to his family, but died at stregobor’s hands, and yen realises that oh. that’s jaskier

and she wants so badly to tell geralt, seeing how turn up he still is over julian’s death, but tissaia asked her to keep it a secret because there's no guarantee that julian's body will recover, and there’s no reason to give the witchers false hope

skipping over the mountain, geralt finds ciri and is travelling with jaskier and yen to kaer morhen

no one recognises jaskier as julian, even though something about him seems so familiar

but for the first time in decades, kaer morhen feels complete with this bright bard in the keep, bringing light to it that julian had taken with his death

jaskier and eskel bond over poetry, and eskel shyly tells jaskier that he really likes his songs

jaskier quickly becomes fond of this sweet, soft-spoken witcher, and he writes a song about eskel and his adventures - the adventures of the red dragon

and eskel warms up to jaskier quickly, something about his easy smiles and his kind words and his gentle touches draws eskel in

and the memories of julian are somehow more painful than ever, and everything that jaskier does is a painful reminder of julian, but eskel reminds himself that julian is dead, and jaskier is human

one day, when they’re talking quietly in eskel’s room, eskel tells jaskier about his old witcher companion

and jaskier hurts for eskel - to care for someone on the path is rare, and to fall in love with them even rarer

jaskier tries to comfort him, and eskel lets jaskier cuddle him, and eskel thinks that only one person has ever held him like this - like he’s worth something, like he’s loved

the next day, jaskier writes a song about eskel and julian’s relationship - the story of the red dragon and the snow leopard

he pours far more of himself and his emotions than he ever has in any song he’s written before, and something in him resonates with the song, and it almost feels like eskel and julian’s emotions in the song are his own

but then their luck runs out and nilfgaardians attack the keep

there’s too many of them, the witchers and yen trying to fend them off as jaskier and ciri huddle in the keep, watching them anxiously, and jaskier wants to help but he can’t

but they're getting overwhelmed even as tissaia portals in to help, and they just need something, someone to turn the tide

and tissaia sees the way they’re losing, and decides fuck it

she grabs yen and they portal off quickly to where julian’s body is, even though it’s not stable

yen has the brilliant idea to drain the energy from jaskier’s human body to fully heal julian’s body, and tissaia puts julian’s consciousness back in his body and brings them back to kaer morhen

and jaskier/julian is just very disoriented because he has two sets of memories in his head, but then he sees several soldiers bearing down on eskel and eskel is about to get overwhelmed

and he just forgets about his identity crisis as instinct kicks in and he leaps in to protect eskel

and eskel reels back in shock, almost getting stabbed as he stares at julian

because he must be hallucinating. there’s no way that julian is here

and as he stares at julian, who must be a hallucination, eskel has flashbacks to the last time julian leapt in front of him

but this time, julian doesn’t die

he slashes through the soldiers surrounding eskel, fierce and deadly, and eskel just drops his sword in shock, unable to believe the sight before him

and when julian has cleared the soldiers around him, he looks at eskel, who's blinking at him in utter disbelief

and he smiles softly at eskel. julian is covered in blood, but still the most beautiful sight eskel has ever seen

'come on, my darling dragon. let's protect your home'

and eskel is stunned, because jaskier is the one who’d written the songs about the red dragon, but he’d never sung them to anyone outside of eskel

jaskier is the only one who knows that name, and julian is using it

eskel glances quickly at where jaskier at been, and jaskier is gone, his lute laying abandoned on the floor, but then the soldiers are advancing again and he doesn’t have time to think about that

then he leaps back into battle with julian and it's like no time has passed at all - they work together as well as they always have, and eskel is half convinced that he's actually dead and he's in heaven with julian

(because apparently heaven for witchers is just fighting)

with julian helping them, they manage to turn the tide of the battle, and the soldiers fall one by one until none are left

and then eskel and julian are left standing surrounded by dead bodies, but eskel pays them no heed as he reaches out to julian with a trembling hand, hope and disbelief in his eyes

‘are you... are you real?’

then his hand makes contact with julian's cheek, and familiar golden eyes smile at him gently

‘i’m real, my darling dragon. i’m here, and i’m real.’

and eskel pulls him into a desperate, frantic kiss, and gods, he never thought he’d get to have this again

and that missing piece finally slots back into place inside julian, the piece that had been missing all his life as jaskier

the other kaer morons are in shock, unable to believe that julian is back, and yen is just going, finally

she spent the whole winter watching jaskier and eskel pine while knowing that jaskier is julian, and she’s just so done

when they finally pull away, eskel chokes out, 'how?'

and julian smiles, humming the opening lines of the red dragon and the snow leopard, the song that jaskier had written for eskel’s ears alone

and finally, finally, something clicks in eskel - so that’s why jaskier had felt so familiar, so right; so that's why jaskier had held him like that, the way only julian had ever done

as they head back to the keep, eskel just keeps touching julian to convince himself that he's real, he's here, he's alive

and julian clings to eskel just as tightly, unable to believe that eskel had been in front of him and he just... didn't realise

but they’re here now

they’re here, together, and that’s what matters

once they’re back in the keep, tissaia explains the situation, and eskel is so grateful to her for saving julian’s life, but also pissed that yen knew and never told geralt, and yen explains that she didn’t want to get their hopes up in case julian never recovered

julian picks up his lute. the calluses on his hands are different now, callused from swords and not lute strings, and his fingers are less dexterous, but he practises, and eskel helps him

as julian reteaches himself how to play the lute, he teaches eskel along the way, and ciri as well

they decide the stregobastard has lived long enough, so this time all of them go after him because they refuse to have a repeat of what happened last time

stregobitch dies under eskel’s sword, his throat slit and he dies slowly, choking on his blood

‘that is for my julian,’ eskel hisses, sheathing his bloody sword and yanking julian into a fierce kiss

then eskel and julian set back out on the path together

they sometimes do the competitive thing, for old times' sake

and everything is just soft, and for quite some time, they’re both a bit in awe that the other is actually here with them

but they’re together. they’re here and real and alive, and they’re together again

#jaskel #jaskier #eskel #jaskier x eskel #eskel x jaskier #witcher!jaskier #witcher jaskier #mine*

549 notes · View notes

jenniferstolzer · 3 years

Photo

Babylon 5 rewatch Episode 2.22: The Fall of Night

Babylon 5 is at the center of not one but three conflicts as John Sheridan agrees to shelter a wounded Narn cruiser. The Centauri don’t like this. Earth doesn’t like this. The Shadows don’t like this. But Sheridan has a strong moral compass and what he doesn’t like is how much the institutions around him are willing to sacrifice in the name of forging some kind of cursory peace.

Things I liked about The Fall of Nighit

1, Lennier and Vir’s friendship. If you ask me Vir, could be friends with literally anyone. He’s such an understanding soul. Lennier is by nature a little judgey. More closed off. So when they sit down next to each other and discover how much they have in common both of them look at each other like “hello what” and automatically agree to meet again. But even this exchange is done almost like spies meeting and I don’t think we stop to think about that very often. These are the attaches of two ambassadors for two of the most powerful races in the galaxy… they could very well be exchanging state secrets instead of expressing solidarity for their equally frustrating jobs.

2, The Centauri are apparently willing to put their ships on autopilot and black out from g forces if it means when they come to they’ll be in a better firing position. This seems extremely reckless and VERY Centauri. It is the spacebattle equivalent of the hair. Big. Flashy. Not well thought through.

3, In the wake of the mass driver bombing, Sheridan gives Londo an opportunity to speak and Londo is like “NOPE” and jets before he says something that’s going to get him and his whole race in more trouble than they already are. Garibaldi then reads Londo like a literal book, delivering one of my favorite analyses of the character. Everyone thought Londo was a clown, indulging in opulence, going into debt at the casino, drinking himself to a stupor in public, but Garibaldi was his friend and knows that Londo’s not dumb, he’s actually very smart and his mind moves really fast. His error is in his judgment and priorities and he’s currently in waters he did not expect to tread. He’s scared, and he’s going to keep darting in and out of cover until he feels like he has a handle on things or he gets picked off by a hunter, whichever comes first. Also a very classic JMS line “He’s a pain in the butt, but he’s our pain in the butt.” Hunt for that or similar lines in other JMS stuff, he loves that line.

4, The ache of watching McCarthysim at work is very effective. Zach knows the guys he’s ratting on don’t deserve to be ratted on and even says so. “They’re just fooling around” but we can tell by the level of interest and tone of the Nightwatch captian’s voice that they’re gonna get blackballed. Zach can’t deny that they said what they said, but can tell that ratting them out is the wrong thing to do. In the end he relents with a bunch of qualifications but the Nightwatch doesn’t want qualifications. They want names. Thank you for your service.

5, I love that the guy there to ally with the Centauri is from the Ministry of Peace. So poignant. They’ll get peace all right, by paying off the aggressors.

6, When the Narn ship was coming under threat by the Centauri warship, Sheridan opened a line to Londo just to spit in his face and hang up. It was amazing. Also during this crisis, Sheridan whips out a law book to smack the Nightwatch guy back in his hole. Sinclair would be proud.

7, Watching B5 come under attack is so emotionally stirring. Even on a rewatch, I don’t want to see it hurt.

8, We have arrived! The scene where Kosh reveals himself. I love that G’Kar is hiding in the plants – like he’s not a huge gecko man who people are going to notice. I also love how plaintiff his voice is, thinking if he speaks on Sheridan’s behalf it’ll help him in the political shitshow he’s currently in. I mean he’s issuing this apology for helping a Narn ship and G’Kar is very very very grateful for that. Also B5 blew up a Centauri warship so he’s pretty grateful for that too, I mean come on… I like that B5 has like a standard subway system in the middle of it and that they let the Puppet Friends ride. I miss the puppet friends. I love that the rotational gravity system means there’s a weightless portion in the center of hydroponics and that we used that to our advantage in this story. Also the vorlons in their native form play on the perception of the lesser races. They are light beings, and humans see them as angels. The rest of the races see them as prophets or gods, but none of these perceptions are perfect. We see wings and white robes and think Angel, but Kosh didn’t appear like a rennaissance painting. He’s got a butterfly look to him, too. The face he wears is a facsimile of a human not an exact human. He’s not perfect, we’re just in awe. Love that.

9 And finally a lot has been said about why Londo doesn’t see anything when Kosh appears. He’s been touched by the Shadows, so he can’t be converted by the Vorlons b/c we’re playing a game of Othello today I guess. Maybe because he doesn’t actually believe in his pantheon of gods so he doesn’t have any deities to witness. Maybe he’s lying because what he saw was his own greed and vanity. The general consensus is the first – that he’s incapable of seeing the light because he’s in the dark. For a fresh take on it, let’s look at the Vorlons through this lens. Kosh said before that if he revealed himself everyone would know him… I take this as being a side effect of being Vorlon. Vorlons are a feeling not an image. Like Magenta. Magenta’s not a real color, it exists on the color wheel because something has to connect red and purple on the color spectrum… but the spectrum of visible light is actually a straight line. The wavelengths for red and purple are far from touching, but our brains can perceive when they’re both present, so Magenta occurs. It’s imaginary, but we see it for real with our eyes. That’s Vorlons. Perhaps Londo saw a shapeless light thing in the sky, perhaps that’s what Vorlons really are… or perhaps they have no visible representation at all until they hit our brains. Our eyeballs behold something, but our brains have to construct it out of pieces. When the rest of the galaxy looked at Kosh they used the color wheel to construct him, but Londo was only given the wavelengths. He saw nothing, because nothing was there to see. I really wish there was another Centauri there to be like “I saw the goddess Li welcoming me to her arms!” and Londo’s over there like “I’m the problem” instead of not really answering that question. Maybe it’s answered in season 3, I don’t know. Did Vir see anyone up there? He must have been on break.

What I like Less about 22

1, So here’s where I’m going to talk about Keffer. I know the origin story…. that he was an unwelcome addition to the cast added per network request, but who the hell is he other than that? I think its remarkable how he slips right out of my head the minute he is off camera. We know he’s a pilot, that he was close to Carlos (whose story/death you may recall I was laughing at in a previous episode because its significance ALSO came out of nowhere), and that he made friends with the GROPOS grunts (who we incidentally learned to care about enough in that one episode that we were sad when they died…. Awkward considering Keffer’s contribution to this episode…) Honestly the most interesting thing about him is that he’s got an old-timey fighter pilot scarf he wears and he believes in ghosts and I bet you all forgot about the ghosts. Honestly, the most interesting thing about Keffer is how he’s a lesson in how not to write an interesting character – and no shade on JMS for that, I know he did it on purpose. Significant things happening to a character does not automatically make them a strong character. Keffer experienced loss, came face to face with the shadows, got in fights… a lot of stuff happened to him, but he was almost always the only named character in those scenes. We cared about the GROPOS because they cared about each other and we responded to that. Keffer was there to play cabbage head and ask questions. He’s not tight with any of our main cast who we’ve had tons more time to grow attached to, and dies for plot reasons without leaving an impact with his loss. Heck, you can see the value of interpersonal relationships on character development in action when the show used a shoehorn to try and force some in in context to Carlos a second and a half before he died. We had him drinking at the bar with command staff suddenly, we had him die as a result of a flight mission Sheridan was part of to make Sheridan feel guilty about it. Everyone was standing around going like “No, Not Ramirez” and if you recall on my previous episode writeup I was LAUGHING at how tortured this sudden human connection was. Keffer could have been made interesting. Follow me on this.

My treatment on how to make Keffer interesting:

Let’s say Keffer was introduced as an old friend of one of our characters – Fraknlin let’s say. He was a friend from the Minbari War days that helped him sneak behind enemy lines. Perhaps he was complicit in the covering up and destruction of Franklin’s notes on Minbari anatomy. As a result, the two hang out in medbay sometimes, talking about old times and comparing the current war to the one they fought together. We learn that Keffer has a fire for justice. Hates bullies. Sees the strong as absolute defenders of the weak and that any stronger race picking on a weaker one is a bigger coward than the unvierse can hold. Then when Carlos gets killed by the ghost he starts researching what it could be. Kosh and Delenn tell him to stay out of it. The audience assumes he’s going to uncover something and bring Franklin and other characters into Delenn and Sheridan’s confidence about the shadows through curiosity and honor, but we’re learning through the episodes that the Shadows are IMMENSELY powerful and have no patience for flies. When he breaks off from his squad to go have a looksee at what he suspects led to his personal friend Carlos’s death, we know this is going to kill him. He ignores the warnings of those who have more awareness and dies to bring back evidence of the Shadows to the station. Sheridan recognizes how Keffer’s curiosity and sense of judgment led to recklessness, something Sheridan himself is prone to. He vows not to let Keffer die in vain, but also states that the proof he got has changed everything… and that Sheridan would have done the same. Killing your men in the name of a mission is never the goal but there’s a line everyone crosses when the safety of the universe is at stake and sometimes things are worth dying for. Franklin walks into medbay, casts a look to the counter where Keffer used to sit all those nights, and turns away.

But that’s not what happen. Keffer’s dead now and I don’t miss him. Glad he emailed the Shadows to ISN five nanoseconds before he died.

Babylon 5 is now the last best hope for victory because sometimes peace is another word for surrender and because secrets have a way of getting out. On to season 3!

#Babylon 5 #babylon 5 rewatch #season 2 #episode 22 #babylon 5 spoilers #art #jenstoart #kosh #john sheridan

31 notes · View notes

slowly-writing · 4 years

Text

Part of the Family: Part 6

Avengers x Kid!Reader

Part 1 Part 7

Word Count: 2274

a/n: Hey y’all! Here’s part 6! I wanted to let y’all know I have a few pretty important tests this week so I’m not sure how active I’ll be, but I’ll try to still get some stuff out for you guys. Have a great day!

After that day you started hanging out with Peter more at school, you and MJ merging in with him and Ned to form one friend group. You even stayed with Peter and his aunt when the whole team had to go to Sokovia. You had begged them to let you come but they refused. It was too high profile of a mission with too much room for injury. Your parents were still just a little too protective for your liking, so for now you had to watch the news and wait for them to come back.

You shake yourself out of your thoughts as you hear people yelling down the hall.

“Hey! It’s Penis Parker!” Flash yells as Peter walks into school.

You walk up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “hey buddy. Leave him alone, alright?”

You tower over him but Flash doesn’t know how to be intimidated apparently, and he refuses to back down, “why do you hang out with that loser anyway?”

“Because unlike you, he has a personality outside of being a dick. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be anywhere but here,” you smirk as Flash’s friends laugh and walk back towards MJ.

“Hey, thanks y/n,” Peter says as he and Ned walk over, “I’m trying to keep the whole, uh, internship on the downlow.” You nod, acknowledging that he doesn’t want to say the truth with so many people around.

“I get it. That ship sailed for me a while ago, but you’re a part of the team now. We’ve got each other’s backs. If he keeps bugging you, let me know, yeah?”

Peter nods before walking off to class, you smile after him, he’s kind of turning into the brother you never had. He’s part of the family now, and you always take care of your family.

“You’re a good person, you know that?” MJ asks and you blush.

“It’s uh...the serum. I can’t help it,” you try to brush it off but she grabs your hand looking up at you.

“No it’s not. You and I both know that serum just brings out what’s already inside you. You’re a good person, and that’s all you.” She says and you smile down at her, “now c’mon. Let’s get to class, loser.”

You laugh, “you’re incapable of showing feelings for more than 30 seconds at a time, huh?”

“Shut up, Jr,” she teases and you roll your eyes.

xxxxx

“Thank you for dinner Miss Parker. And thank you again for letting me stay here while my parents are out of town,” you say and Peter’s aunt smiles at you.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me May? And of course, you’re welcome here anytime, y/n.”

“Thank you, May.”

“So what did you say your parents do?” She asks and you look to Peter who shrugs.

“You can tell her if you want.”

“Tell me what?” She asks and you smile.

“They’re, um…they’re Avengers. Black Widow and Captain America. I kinda am too. They had to leave on a mission. Normally I’d stay in the tower with whoever was left, but this was kind of a whole team sort of situation,” you explain and her eyes get wide.

“Wow, I knew I recognized your last name from somewhere. If it was a whole team thing why aren’t you with them?” she says and you smile.

“Yeah I get that a lot. They’re a bit protective. They don’t like to admit that I can help. I’ve been training with them since I was twelve and I think sometimes they still see me as a little kid,” you say with a laugh.

“That makes sense. I don’t know how I’d handle it if Peter was off doing what you do. That’s very admirable of you,” she says and you and Peter exchange a look.

“Um...yeah. Thank you,” you say softly.

xxxxx

“Come on Parker, one more rep!” You encourage Peter as he finishes his workout. You had come to the tower to use the training room. People looked at you funny when you bench pressed hundreds of pounds at the gym.

“Man, I may have the strength, but you definitely have the stamina y/n.” Peter says and you groan.

“Please don’t start that whole strongest Avenger fight right now. It never ends. My dad and I have been arguing about it since before he was my dad,” you say rolling your eyes. MJ laughs from her spot next to you. She’s sitting criss cross on an empty bench reading a book. You’ve long since stopped trying to get her to participate in your workouts but she always comes to keep you company.

“You were raised around way too much testosterone, y/n,” MJ stays and you roll your eyes.

“Don’t I know it. I swear heightened testosterone levels were a requirement to live here. I don’t know how mom and I survived.”

“By being the smartest people here,” your mom says from the door and you grin.

“Hell yeah we are!” You say, running over to hug her. “How was the mission?”

“The mission went fine. It was a tough one but we made it out, we always do,” she says and you smile at her. “Also, don’t let your dad hear you talk like that, he’ll yell ‘language’ at you,” she jokes and you laugh.

“I know he’s from the 40s but he really needs to get with the times.”

“Who needs to get with the times?” Steve walks through the door and you shake your head.

“Oh great, it’s a family affair. Did you guys need something?” You tease, but really you’re glad that they’re both home safe. You always get a little stressed when they’re gone. Your dad puts a hand over his heart.

“Our little girl is all grown up, she doesn’t need us anymore,” your mom says, wiping fake tears from under her eyes.

“They grow up so fast. It feels like just yesterday she was taking her first steps,” your dad joins in and you can hear Peter and MJ laughing behind you.

“You do realize you didn’t meet me until I was twelve, right? Is the old age finally getting to you dad?” You tease and he laughs.

“Very funny. Anyway, we were coming to tell you guys that we’re all home and dinner's almost ready, unless of course you don’t want food,” your dad goes to leave and both you and Peter jump to stop him.

“No!” You yell in unison cause the other three to laugh.

“We just gotta hit the showers real fast, we’ll be down in a minute!” You say and Peter looks at you.

“Race you!” He yells before taking off toward the locker room.

“You’re going down, Parker!” You yell, running after him.

“Miss Romanoff, I really think all that testosterone is getting to her,” MJ says with a laugh and your mom places a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve got no idea, kid.”

xxxxxxx

“Hey guys!” Clint walks in to dinner a few minutes late, “I come bearing our newest recruit! She helped us out in Sokovia.” He says as a girl with brown hair and a shy smile step out from behind him.

“Hello, everyone. I didn’t really have time to introduce myself in all the chaos. I’m Wanda,” the girl says, with a thick accent.

“What is this, teenager recruitment week? Can MJ join up, too?” You tease and Clint rolls his eyes.

“We’re not making your girlfriend an Avenger because you think it’d be cute.” Tony says and you blush looking away.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” you grumble and MJ laughs.

“Only cause you won’t ask me out,” she says with a smirk and your jaw drops .

“Wait, what?” You look at her with wide eyes.

“Y/n, flirt later. Introduce yourself now,” your mom cuts in, snapping you out of your stupor.

“Huh? Oh yeah. Hey Wanda, I’m y/n. I’m the resident teenager around here. This is Peter, he’s on the team with us, and this is my friend MJ.”

“Your potential girlfriend if I heard correctly,” Wanda cuts you off and you glare.

“Yeah she’s gonna fit in fine,” you say rolling your eyes as she laughs. “Anyway! Neither of them live here, but they’re here all the time. Everyone else stays here and they’re all members of the team. My parents Natasha and Steve, and that is Tony and Bruce. You’ve obviously met Clint.”

“That’s a lot of names,” Wanda laughs nervously and you smile.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had years to get this down. You’ll get there. Are you moving in?” You ask and she nods, “cool! Well, how about you join us for dinner and then Peter, MJ, and I can give you the tour. You three are lucky by the way! I only had all the old guys to show me around. They didn’t tell me that you could play video games on the screens in the lab or about the secret passageway to the roof.”

“Secret what now?”

“Nothing, mom!” You say, avoiding eye contact, causing everyone else to laugh.

xxxxx

“Hey, now that there’s more teenagers here can I drop out of school again?” You ask the next morning at breakfast and your dad laughs.

“Nice try, kid” Tony says and you sigh.

“Again?” Wanda asks and you nod.

“I dropped out when I first got here. I didn’t quite have control of my strength and they were trying this whole joint parenting thing. With 5 parents I could pretty much always convince one of them to give me my way. Then they adopted me and dad went on a power trip and put me back in school,” you tease and your dad rolls his eyes.

“Since when is making sure you get an education a power trip?” Steve asks.

“Since I could’ve been training and making sure I was ready for any danger that could arise.”

“Like wrenches?” Your mom teases as she walks in and you groan.

“When are you gonna let that go? I was a little kid!”

“Wrenches?” Wanda asks and you sigh.

“There was an accident in the lab when I first moved in. Long story short, I was helping Tony and he wasn’t paying enough attention leading to me getting hit in the face with a wrench and needing stitches,” you explain and she tries to hide her laugh.

“They won’t let me live it down,” you groan.

“Are you complaining about the wrench again?” Tony asks and you throw your hands in the air.

“Mom brought it up again. It wasn’t me!”

“Sure, y/n. Whatever you say,” he teases and you roll your eyes.

“You know what? I take it back. I don’t want to drop out. I’m going to school to get away from you crazy people!” You yell, grabbing your bag and heading for the door.

“Wait!” Your dad calls, “Wanda is going to start at your school today. Show her around, okay?”

“Yeah sure, welcome to the American education system kid,” you say leading her out the door.

“It surely can’t be as weird as they say it is, can it?” She asks and you laugh.

“It’s worse, there’s videos of my dad for almost every subject. You’ll hate it, let’s go.”

xxxxxx

“So how do you wanna play this?” You ask as you climb off your dirt bike, since you had turned 16 your mom finally let you drive it to school. Luckily she was a little groggy this morning and didn’t have time to put together that you don’t have a spare helmet. It’s not like you really need one anyway, you always give it to MJ when you sneak out to take her on rides.

“What do you mean?” Wanda asks as you lead her into school.

“Do you want to tell people you’re joining the Avengers? Everyone knows about me, but Peter keeps it a secret,” you explain and she nods.

“They’ll all find out eventually, right?” she says and you nod. “Then we can tell them. It’s okay.”

“It’ll hopefully help you get made fun of less,” you say and her eyes get wide, “Don’t worry. Most of them are scared of me. Stick with me and you’ll be good.”

“Hey, Captain Widow!” Somebody yells as you walk in and you nod in their general direction. That had become your sort of unofficial superhero name, but you kind of enjoyed it.

“Who’s the new kid?” Flash says stepping in front of you.

“This is Wanda, she’s joining the Avengers with me,” you say and he smirks.

“New teenager kick, I like it. Can I join?” he asks and you roll your eyes.

“You have to have some actual talent for that one, now, if you don’t mind, I’m pretty sure being in your presence is killing my brain cells,” you say stepping around him.

“Flash bugging you again?” Peter asks as you walk up and you shrug.

“He just wants to seem cool, he doesn’t do a very good job of it though.”

“You can say that again,” Ned says and you laugh.

“Oh, right! Wanda this is Ned, Ned this is Wanda, she just moved into the tower,” you introduce.

“Nice to meet you!” Ned says and Wanda smiles at him.

“Are you coming over today?” you ask MJ softly and before she can respond Peter cuts in.

“When does she not? She’s there more than I am and I’m on the team!”

“Watch it spiderboy,” you say and he raises his hands in surrender.

Tag list: @rvgrsbrns

Series Tag list: @hannahsairwave

#avengers x reader #avengers imagine #Avengers kid fic #avenger imagine #avengers #steve rogers x daughter!reader #natasha romanoff x daughter!reader #wanda maximoff #mj x reader #michelle jones x reader #peter parker #marvel imagine #part of the family

402 notes · View notes

wildwarcat · 4 years

Text

Okay, I caved in to my own personal peer pressure and decided to post the first chapter of Warhawk. If you’ve got questions, or just wanna chat because you’re slowly slipping into madness due to social distancing, shoot me a message!

Words: 4k

Warnings: Fluff, partial nudity, maybe some cussin’

Prologue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Reunion

"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown. But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

New Orleans, Louisiana, May 1995

Had I known what events would transpire over the course of the following twenty-four hours, I would have had less to drink at my usual watering hole. Not that it made a difference. After the crash in 1989, I found that I was physically incapable of ever getting drunk again. What a horrible way to grieve... sober, that is. Had it not been for my level of clearance at S.H.I.E.L.D., I never would have known the details surrounding the crash, the details regarding why Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. was terminated. Lawson was dead, her body recovered at the site. But Carol...

Carol was nowhere to be found. There was no evidence of a body at the crash. We were forced to believe that when Lawson's light speed engine exploded... we were forced to believe that her body disintegrated on contact as a result of the blast. Maria was given the remaining half of her dog tags, which she in turn gave to me. It sat around my neck everyday, next to mine. But it didn't do much to take away the pain, the hole in my heart that had been growing wider with each passing day over the course of six years.

"Foxtrot to Warhawk."

I pressed the comm in my ear as I flagged down the bartender and pointed at my empty beer glass, "Go ahead, Foxtrot."

"I'm gonna need you to swing by a set of coordinates not too far from your location. I've sent them to your pager."

"What for? On account of me being S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top asset, I believe I have the right to know what I'm walking in to, don't you?" I asked him with a smirk, despite the fact that he couldn't even see it.

"Well, if I told you what it was about, that would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?"

I laughed, taking a sip from my glass as I did, "All right. I'll be there in an hour. Want me to bring my briefcase?"

"And your Sunday best."

I straightened up, my light tone turning serious as I threw forty bucks down to pay off my tab, "I'm on my way."

Chugging the remainder of my lager, I grabbed my leather jacket and keys before exiting the bar, making my way toward my now rusty truck. I had been given the option of upgrading it shortly after the crash, but there were too many memories in it for me to simply let it go. I would drive that old Chevy into the ground if given the opportunity. The engine roared to life and I slammed the driver's door shut, whipping my pager off my belt. Sure enough, Fury had sent me a set of coordinates along with the message, 'Look for the jet parked out front.'

I pulled out a map from my glove compartment and tracked down where I needed to be pretty quickly before throwing the truck in reverse and speeding out of the parking lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finding the place that Fury wanted me to go wasn't that hard. It was what came after I got there that made things interesting. When I put my truck in park outside of a small house not far from the Louisiana bayou, I immediately went to my truck bed and pulled out a large steel trunk. Having enhanced strength certainly had its perks because with one arm, I was able to carry one hundred and fifty pounds of reinforced steel without trouble to the front door.

Not knowing what was on the other side, I decided to give a S.H.I.E.L.D. approved code through the door.

Knock... knock, knock, knock... knock... knock, knock.

The door swung open wide, revealing Nick Fury. His left eye had been patched up, looked like it had been cut just above his brow, and he looked exhausted, but aside from that, he seemed okay.

"What happened to you?" I asked him, "I thought you were in California."

"It's a long story." He sighed, "You brought your stuff, right?"

"Everything's here." I replied, lifting the trunk a bit higher. Fury stepped aside and let me in, but stopped me before I could go any further into the house.

"There's something you need to know, Mac." He said quietly, his tone serious. I arched a brow at him and took a hesitant step back.

"Then tell me."

"That pilot you told me about, the one who died in a crash six years ago. Her name was Carol Danvers, wasn't it?"

My expression faltered, went from steely to heartbroken and back in an instant, "Yeah. And I thought I told you to never bring it up. So why are we talking about it?"

"Well, that's the thing. Turns out-"

Someone stepped into the hallway, well, multiple someones did. What I saw sent my head spinning. There was Maria Rambeau, standing with her daughter, Monica, now twelve years old. And there with them...

"That's impossible." I breathed, my voice cracking uncharacteristically, "You're dead."

But she wasn't. Standing there right before my eyes was Carol Danvers, still stunningly beautiful, still as fiery as an F-15 afterburner. But there was something different about the way she was looking back at me. It was as though she didn't recognize me at all, as if I was a stranger to her. Then something seemed to click, and recognition flooded her beautiful brown eyes.

"Paige?" She asked gently, her voice like music to my ears. I set my trunk down and opened the front door, motioning for her to follow me outside. She did, and as soon as we were far enough away that I was certain no one would see or hear us, I turned around to face her again.

"How are you alive?" I asked her angrily, tears stinging the backs of my eyes, "I saw the photos of the crash, there's no way you could have survived!"

She took a step toward me, reached out to set a hand on my shoulder, but I slunk back, wanting to keep my distance from... whoever this imposter had to be.

"Lawson and I both survived the crash. We were shot down by a Kree ship; they're an alien race hellbent on getting their hands on Lawson's lightspeed tech. They killed Lawson and kidnapped me."

The more she spoke the less I believed. Every word that tumbled out of her mouth just added to the insanity.

"How can you expect me to believe that?" I demanded, my hand drifting to the pistol attached to my belt, "How can you possibly expect me to believe anything you say?"

"Then ask me something." She begged, tears welling up in her own eyes, "Ask me something only I would know."

I took a shaky breath and drew my pistol, "Tell me about the night we first kissed."

She paused, looking as though she was searching for the memory, her eyes drifting toward the ground. I wrapped my index finger around the trigger. Then her eyes shot up to meet mine.

"We were at your place after karaoke night at Pancho's. Maria had gone home early because her babysitter bailed on her, so it was just the two of us. We were standing on the front porch of your house and we were both drunk off our asses, but we still managed to remember every single detail when we woke up the next morning. After I kissed you, I said, 'I've never wanted to kiss anyone as badly as I've wanted to kiss you.' And then you kissed me."

I had never told anyone about that night... not even Maria, not even Nick. It was really her. My entire body tensed, I dropped my gun and let the water works run.

"Carol?"

She nodded, tears streaming down her own cheeks as she began to smile. I strode over to her, my arms snaking around her, her hands making their way around my waist. Time seemed to speed up as we stood there, holding tightly onto each other, both of us fighting the urge to kiss each other. It wasn't until Maria called us both back inside that we finally separated, though that didn't stop Carol from keeping her hand in mine the entire walk back to the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So let me see if I've got this straight." I said, recapping the events that had just been described to me, "After you shot Lawson's light speed engine, you absorbed the radiating energy from the blast and got kidnapped by the Kree. On their home planet you were given a blood transfusion which makes you a human/Kree hybrid. And after being kidnapped by the Skrulls, including this guy over here," I pointed at the Skrull, who had introduced himself as Talos, "You ended up back on Earth with no recollection of your past life. Then you managed to break into Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., escape S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, realize that the Kree are actually the bad guys and regain your memories. And now, you're asking me to go with you into space in order to find Lawson- sorry, Mar-Vell's lab, where she hid the energy core that the Kree are after. Sound about right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Though when I got my memories back, I definitely didn't remember you being taller than me though." Carol remarked with a lopsided smirk. She and Fury had filled me in on what had happened and why two green, monstrous-looking aliens were in the Rambeau house, but I was having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around everything. So rather than ask a million questions, I turned my attentions to Carol's comment.

"The last time I saw you physically was the day before I went in to receive the Super Soldier Serum. As soon as the procedure was over, I was sent to D.C. for S.H.I.E.L.D. training. We spoke on the phone a few times, but I never saw you again after that day. And next thing I knew, you and... Mar-Vell were both dead." Lawson's true name still didn't sound right coming out of my mouth. The look on my face made both Carol and Talos, chuckle.

"So what have you been doing then for the past six years?" Carol asked me out of genuine curiosity, "They didn't stick you behind a desk like Fury, did they?"

It was my turn to laugh, "God, no! Director Carter assigned a S.T.R.I.K.E. team to me as soon as my training was complete. I've been leading covert ops missions all over the planet for the past seven and a half years."

"Did they dress you up like Captain America?"

I narrowed my eyes at her and got up from my chair at the dining room table. The trunk I had brought in was still sitting by the front door, so I brought it into the dining room and set it down in plain view for everyone. I unlatched the lid and lifted it open, revealing a custom uniform, similar to Rogers' design. It was mainly blue, a navy blue, darker than Rogers' uniform and on the chest was a navy hawk crest set atop red and white stripes. Deep red leather gloves, matching navy pants, a utility belt and simple military combat boots completed the ensemble. I reached underneath the uniform and drew out the icing on the cake.

I don't know how Howard Stark had managed to get his hands on more vibranium and, frankly, I didn't ask. But before going out into the field, Stark had given me a vibranium shield and, aside from the hawk crest replacing a star, it was an exact replica of the original. I held it out to Monica, who had been sitting quietly, awestruck the entire time. She dipped a bit under the slight weight of the shield, but her smile went from ear to ear.

"I may be an enhanced soldier, but I'm no Captain America. They call me Warhawk." I said, turning my attention to Talos, "My job is to look out for the little guy. The ones who're stepped on and persecuted by those who believe they're superior. I'll do what I can to help you get the Kree off your tail."

"Thank you." Talos said, bowing his head slightly. The grandfather clock against the wall began to chime. It was late, midnight in fact, and going off of the original plan, we would be heading into space at dawn. We needed rest. After everyone figured out their sleeping arrangements, we bade each other goodnight. I began to make my way toward the living room couch, but a hand grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the stairs. I smiled when I saw that it was Carol dragging me toward one of the guest rooms upstairs.

As soon as we were behind closed doors, Carol's lips crashed on to mine. My hands immediately made their way into her hair, hers around my waist. My heart soared at the contact, at the thought that Carol and I were once again reunited after all those years. Her tongue darted out, running over my lower lip, asking for entrance. I complied, and together our tongues began to swirl and dance in an elegant battle for dominance. The Nine Inch Nails t-shirt that Carol was wearing suddenly became too restricting, as did the plain navy thermal I had on. Both were gone in an instant, tattered remains on the hardwood. She certainly didn't seem to mind that I ripped her shirt in half, discarding it lazily on the floor. If anything, the passion that had been recreated between us began to burn even brighter, as a soft glow began to break through my closed eyes. I pulled away gently, my eyes opening ever so slightly.

"You're glowing." I whispered huskily. It was a sight to behold, pale rays of blue, purple and gold light danced off her skin in a stunning array of color that lit up the dark bedroom in an elegant display. From a distance, she must have given off the appearance of a fallen star, but here, up close, she was a woman on fire; radiant, beautiful, powerful.

"I've dreamt about this moment. About us." She admitted quietly, setting her head in the crook of my neck, listening closely to the sound of my steadily beating heart, "But I couldn't remember who you were. I wanted to, so badly. Even if it was just your name... that would have been enough. At least then I would have one part of my life that I could still hold on to."

"Well, if it makes up for anything, it's been hell without you here." I replied, my hands shifting down to her waist, taking note of the muscle that she had put on in the years that she had been gone, how warm her skin felt beneath the pads of my fingertips, "Not a day went by when I didn't wish you were with me. Even before the crash, not being able to see you, not being able to hold you like this... it was torture unlike any other."

"I love you, Paige." She muttered tiredly.

I smiled, leading her to the queen-sized bed and pulling back the covers. I pressed another kiss to her lips, this one gentle, sweet and loving, but still filled with passion.

"I love you too, Carol."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The dawn came earlier than I had hoped. But it came nonetheless, and with it came the mission at hand. Carol was still asleep, and rather than wake her up right away, I thought it best to let her rest. My trunk was still downstairs, my uniform and shield still with it, so I grabbed a spare shirt from the nearby dresser, slipped it on and ducked downstairs without a sound. When I got down there, Talos, Fury and Maria were already awake.

"She still asleep?" Maria asked me, handing me a steaming mug of coffee.

"Of course. That much certainly hasn't changed about her." I replied, taking the mug and grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl that sat on the dining room table. I turned to Fury, "So that new guy let you guys go, huh? What's his name again? Coleman?"

"Coulson." Fury corrected, "Yeah, looks like he's gonna be one hell of an agent. Already going against protocol, breaking the rules."

"Sounds like he learned from the best."

"Very funny."

"Not as funny as that time you wiped out trying to chase a couple of Soviet spies in Budapest in '91." I smirked. Fury didn't reply, he just glared at me and walked away. I polished off the coffee and the apple, grabbed my uniform and went back upstairs to change.

Sure enough, not only was Carol still asleep, but she had taken over my side of the bed, limbs sprawled out covering the entirety of the bed. I changed quickly and quietly before making my way over to her. I sat down on the bed next to her feet and shook her on the shoulder.

"You know, as adorable as you look right now, we have an entire alien race to save, so I'm gonna have to ask that you get your beautiful self out of bed."

"Fi mo ins." She grumbled into her pillow.

"Come again?"

She rolled over and groaned, "Five more minutes."

I leaned over and pressed my lips to hers, making her smile softly, "No can do, baby. We've got lives to save."

She sat up, meeting my lips lovingly on the way, then took a moment to drink in the sight before her.

"Nice outfit." She grinned, setting a hand on the hawk head on my chest, "It suits you."

"Thanks, beautiful. Now get dressed, we've gotta go."

Going to space was definitely something on my bucket list. Going to space to fight a technologically advanced race of aliens... not so much. But hey, how many opportunities was I gonna get to go to space? As I stood outside the stolen P.E.G.A.S.U.S. quadjet with Maria, Talos and Fury, who held Goose, a creature that looked like a cat, though Talos insisted she was a dangerous alien called a Flerken. I watched as Carol interacted with Monica, who had made sure to get herself out of bed before we left. She was fiddling with the color scheme of Carol's suit, before settling on the colors of the original Air Force logo.

"She's somethin', isn't she?" Fury asked me when he saw the way Carol suddenly locked eyes on me.

"Just somethin' doesn't do her justice, Fury. She's... amazing." I smiled, lifting my shield up and attaching it to the electromagnets on my back. I pulled out my Colt Mustang and checked the magazine. Six rounds, plus five additional magazines attached to my belt, perfect. Carol made her way over to the quadjet, wrapping an arm around my waist and leading the rest of us on board. We all took our seats, Maria and Carol in the pilots' chairs, Fury, Talos, Goose and I all behind them.

"Hope your science guy knows what he's doing." Fury muttered to Talos as the quadjet lifted off the ground. Talos grunted, his violet eyes staring straight ahead. After a minute or two, Carol spoke up.

"Passing five hundred and climbing."

"Maintain speed. Any change in speed will turn this old junker into a fireball in the atmosphere." I remarked, letting the familiar feeling of pressure wash over me as we climbed.

"You know you really shouldn't have that thing on your lap." Talos said to Fury, pointing at Goose who was lounging comfortably on Fury's legs.

"Our little alliance with you is tenuous at best." He replied, lifting Goose up and holding him out toward Talos, who shifted away uncomfortably, "And as long as she continues to freak you out, I'm gonna keep giving her all the love and hugs she needs."

I laughed, "Didn't know you were a cat person, Fury."

"Didn't know you were gay until yesterday, Mac. Looks like we're all learning something knew about each other."

"Guess so." I smirked, leaning back in my chair.

"Can I ask you something?" Maria asked, glancing over her shoulder to look at Talos, "Do you just turn into anything you want?"

"Ah, well, I have to see it first." The Skrull replied, surprised at the interest in his shapeshifting abilities.

"Can all of you do it?"

"Physiologically, yeah. But it takes practice, and, dare I say, talent, to do it well."

"Can you turn into a cat?" Fury asked him.

"What's a cat?"

"What about a filing cabinet?" Maria asked him.

Talos gave her a confused look, "Why... would I turn into a filing cabinet?"

"Oh! Venus flytrap! I'll give you fifty bucks right now if you turn into a venus flytrap." I smirked. Talos gave me an unamused look and I heard Carol chuckle under her breath in front of me.

"Switching engines from Scramjet to fusion." Carol announced, "Buckle up, folks."

The sudden shift in propulsion made me suck in a breath. The jet began to shake as we rose higher, everyone was pushed back in their seats. Fury began to grip the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.

"Hey, is this normal, like space turbulence?" He asked over the sound of the roaring afterburners.

"Pretty much!" Carol called back to him. Talos looked over at him and then at me and shook his head slowly. Suddenly, the propulsion came to a stop, everything that wasn't strapped down to something, that included Goose, began to float from the lack of gravity. I held back an audible gasp as I looked out on the vast emptiness of space for the very first time. Something that seemed so dark, so endless, and so monotonous, and yet it still managed to take my breath away.

Maria switched on the artificial gravity and everything fell back into place as the jet came to a halt.

"Locking in coordinate grid." Carol said.

"Where is it?" I asked, seeing only the black void of space and a clouded corner of the western hemisphere.

"It's here," Talos muttered under his breath, "It's gotta be here."

"Well, is it in front of all that nothing, or behind it?" Fury asked him, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. I rolled my eyes as Carol pulled up a holographic computer from her wrist gauntlet and punched in a code.

Suddenly, the void wasn't a void anymore as a massive ship appeared out of nowhere. My mouth fell open as I beheld the sight before me. Totally worth getting only four hours of sleep. Carol navigated the jet easily into the central hangar, where, once everyone was out, we went over our plan one final time. I grabbed my shield, attaching it to the electromagnetic plates on my left arm and took a deep breath, following Talos as he took off running into the bowels of the ship.

#brie larson #captain marvel x reader #captain marvel #natasha romanov x reader #marveledit #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #bucky barns x reader #carol danvers x reader #black widow x reader #captain america x reader #captain marvel x you #original character #avengers fanfiction #fanfiction #avengers fandom

66 notes · View notes

vargnir · 3 years

Text

world & lore masterpost.

here’s a whole drop of lore, monsters, magic, humans & various other things in fenrirs main canon for those interested. mostly it just serves as a guide for me to orient on.

all art here was created on artbreeder and doesn’t belond to me because while i can generate i definitely can’t draw.

THE WORLD OF ROTWELSCH.

the world itself is split into four different continents; anvel, halmel, nimdal & mucuri.

whereas anvel and nimdal prosper, halmel has been ravaged by war and famine and mucuri struggles against a neverending influx of darkness & monsters terrorizing it’s people.

anvel lies on the northern parts of the world and is filled with plentiful rivers & seas, water plays a major key in the continent and it’s countries have unified to form the northern kingdoms. it’s people know all there is to possibly know about water and its inhabitants, they live with the sea and prefer to worship water-related gods. the northern kingdoms are more secluded from the rest of the world and prefer to live their lives privately. though certain countries within their unions are slowly starting to open trades with other nations across the world more and more.

nimdal lies southern of the world, its kingdoms have the most varying climates; countries like stanlow and aynor are plagued by heat and deserts but rare and sought after plants and animals that enables them to afford wells and water supplies. countries like claethor, tranmere or strathmore are rich of vegetation, filled with large forests and jungles alike, a plentiful fauna enriching their nations. northern countries like wolfden and glenarm are filled with snow; cold and ruthless but bringing mountains over mountains filled to the brim with minerals and precious materials and gems with them.

halmel lacks population and resources across the formerly glorious continent in total; a war between itself and a long since vanished fifth continent left it in ruins all across its formerly rich environments. its countries have long ceased to exist and halmel at this point is considered one big kingdom in itself. bandits have easy play here and terrorize poor village people. to top it off monsters from mucuri have slowly begun finding their ways over and have begun making the vast, empty lands of halmel their homes. halmels general climate is a foggy, almost ceaselessly rainy and gloomy one.

mucuri used to be the most prosperous continent amongst them all, as well as the centre of all of rotwelsch. though it is unsure of what happened all that is known is that once, a long time ago, a man who called himself the harbinger of the gods stepped foot onto mucurian land and eventually monsters began flooding from everywhere, creatures of such malevolence and hatred that ever since the world has only called the man, who revealed himself to be a cursed wolf, tortured by cruel humans and craving to bring forth the end of the world, demise. ever since the cities and nations have been living in fear, trying to live a somewhat normal life at daytime and locking themselves closed and in at nighttime, praying to whichever god will hear them that they survive another night of slaughter around them.

CREATURES OF ROTWELSCH.

HUMANS.

humans are the primary race of rotwelsch, though certain nations or even continents live peacefully amongst other people ( such as anvelians live peacefully with certain oceanic inhabitants ) whereas others live in fear of creatures not humanoid in nature. humans born under special circumstances may have an affinity for magic whereas others may have a special connection to nature. those born with special abilities oftentimes are shunned by their kin and live in villages or towns of their own amongst their kind.

TIEFSEA.

a humanoid race of fish originated creatures adapting to life further away from deepsea. having made a deal with humans tiefsea are usually found lurking near port towns and occasionally even found sitting in bars. they are capable of surviving short amounts of time without water ( when trained up to a week ) but will dry out over time. they take on differing forms inspired by several animals found in the oceans. their appearance usually resembles fish more than humans in skin and facial features, though their body structure usually is more human. imagine zoras from legend of zelda but a tad more monstrous.

THE BROKEN.

former mortals corrupted by darkness and turned into husks of their former self and forced into submission by demise. while groups of them will attack villages and towns singular ones will target homes on the outskirts to either kill or find more suitable subjects for demise. some of them retain a sense of self somewhere deep within and it is not a rare occurance to hear the desperate cry of a broken fighting against its own instincts and mind. their appearane usually is vaguely humanoid with their bones and skin growing and hardening into sort of an armor.

THE PLAGUES.

creatures of unknown origin, some more humanoid than others. there are vast differences within plagues, some are small and fast while others are hulking brutes with raw power. the only similarity is that they seem to be able to communicate with each other and that each time they get cut their limbs and wounds can regenerate. their blood is acidic in nature and can burn through human flesh like it is nothing; because of that they are more feared than the broken. it is not uncommon to find a giant plague accompanied by a smaller, fast plague which turns them into deadly duos you have to be on the lookout for at the same time.

THE PREDATORS.

predators are a deadly kind; humans who are still completely capable of thinking but have lost all will of their own, incapable of making decisions for themselves they have been turned into deadly assassins by the darkness and make formidable foes. while it is assumed that their appearance is largely unchanged they are covered from head to toe in what appears to be dark coloured robes made completely out of void mass and pure corruption. one touch from them can prove poisonous to most, should they choose a quick death for their victims. their ability to think makes most of them unpredictable and causes them to be the most feared out of all the races in rotwelsch.

THE CURSED.

the cursed are beings like fenrir who have been wounded by magic and whose animalistic nature was meant to be subdued in favor of a humanoid nature. their appearance is mostly human though part of their animal origins is retained; for fenrir it is his ears and tail, for certain others it could be their antlers or even fins. the cursed are rare, incredibly so to the point they are mostly considered legends. but a handful of them exist, and while not all of them possess demonic blood like fenrir they still possess more abilities than the average human, all granted by their origin nature. cursed will usually live in isolation, though very few select ones will live among humans as their own, disguising their animal traits with magic in order to fit in.

OTHERS.

there is a vast amount of races within rotwelsch that have yet to be known by the majority of the world; even the tiefsea have only recently created contact with humans and with the current abundance in magic there is no telling what other beings are out there.

MAGIC IN ROTWELSCH.

magic is highly frowned upon in rotwelsch; it is considered the origin of demise and the reason darkness has befallen the world. people born with magic abilities are often abandoned at birth or taught from an early age to suppress their nature. fearing the power it bears most of humanity has dedicated itself to eradicating all magic from their lives whereas others, more powerhungry, cruel beings have taken it upon themselves to seek out people with magical properties to turn them into a part of their armies.

with all different kinds of magic it is almost impossible to keep track of all of them, and yet the gods know. they give and take magical abilities as they see fit and design the powers as they wish. in certain areas in the world humans with magic and cursed live together in peace, both shunned by a world too fearful to see the beauty in their existence.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

from prophecies long foretold three children will bring the end of times upon the world;

one cursed from birth, meant to grow until it can swallow the sun from the sky and devor the king of kings before it releases eternal darkness upon the world.

one born from death, meant to command the forces of the dead to end the lives of all creatures wandering the earth.

one born from betrayal, whose rage will be the catalyst to the worlds end until it swallows everything that is left to destroy.

FENRIR THINGS FROM MY OLD PINNED POST.

fenrir is known in his world / his main verse. a fourty feet wolf that devours monsters big and small while keeping most humans relatively unharmed? yeah, that’s a pretty big conversation topic around the world he lives in, especially given he travels everywhere.

but it is not necessarily a good thing; even if he leaves humans unharmed he is a monstrosity; a beast. most people fear him and those who see the form he uses to walk among people for what it is in it’s entirety usually shun him.

fenrir doesn’t like interacting with people in any verse; he’s so used to being mistreated that he’d rather help silently and disappear without talking to anyone

he hates being thanked; he doesn’t think he deserves it and he generally dislikes the thought of people thinking that what he did to help them was anything but natural.

usually the only words he does speak to people are actually “don’t thank me.” before they even open their mouth

his voice is hoarse and rough because he barely talks. the most he can do without his throat burning is a short sentence, so never expect him to be very engaging in conversation.

because of that he’s made up his own little sign language --- most people don’t really get it unless they know him a bit better

there is a special guild trying to hunt him down because they know more about his curse than fenrir himself does

one of their “members” (he’s pretty much independent but relies on them for information) is a young man from the village fenrir saved when he lost his arm. he doesn’t necessarily want to kill fenrir but he does want to stop his curse from breaking free

he tries to befriend wildlife and smaller animals but they’re usually scared of him, except for one bird that follows him everywhere because he saved its life once.

it’s a robin!

he doesn’t keep food on his person other than some bread slices so he can feed his little bird companion

he thinks he’s not a good person --- nor even a person at all; it’s why he tries so hard to better himself, why he helps everyone.

he’s very harsh on himself, too

while his human form has a metallic prosthetic for his lost arm his wolf form actually has black matter to replace it; it’s more slimy in texture and practically radiates bad energy --- it comes from his curse

he’s ashamed of his ears and tails

he’s also ashamed of his scars

he gets flustered and embarrassed by even the most vague compliments

if you ever manage to break through his shell he’s very soft.

this is a wip and will be reworked over time to come !

#* PSA !#* WORLD TBT !#&. 《 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 & 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 / HEADCANON.

2 notes · View notes

itstheendofthegoddamnworld · 5 years

Text

Male Drow (Dark Elf Vevmis) x Human! Female Reader Part 2 (Slight NSFW)

I enjoyed the first part so I made a second, with a bit of sexual content near to the end, but I’m sure you’re all used to that now! ENJOY!

Warnings: mild language and some sexual moments.

Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

The Underestimated Part 2

Of all the things in life that had to be thrown my way, why and how did my life come to babysitting?

You had found yourself questioning more and more with the days and nights passing, with that of a dark elf you had to look after. You had spent what little coin you had to keep yourself in a place with shelter, shielding the two of you from those of humans around.

When it came to providing food, it was you who would go down and find little to scourge, then come back with the scraps of bread and little waste of warm mead. Your room was small, but only provided one small bed; the bed Vevmis slept on.

You, being the kind one, decided to hunker down and sleep by the window, the window was suited with enough room to sit and lay across, and you found yourself when not sleeping, staring out of that stain glass window.

And Vevmis... the dark elf was as stubborn as a mule most days. He had a distaste for medicine and potions and pills, and it took more than all of your energy to get him to force him to drink the bottles you had on you. His health did progress, and with most of the days there, all he could do was heal through sleep.

All you did, you did for him, and in an odd occurrence, spending so much time on him made you feel less selfish, learning more of looking after another than for yourself. I have almost forgotten what that feels like. You thought one night, staring up at the canopy with little thought than to sleep.

Although you had learnt of the lessons of selflessness, you still had to contend with Vevmis; a character who you wouldn't think much to stay with. You two practically lived with each other- sleeping, eating, changing- and soon, you cared little to none about being watched.

It had been a full week since you had brought Vevmis here, and the thought of being cooped up in here was bringing you to losing your sanity. You barely slept, gave most of you food to the elf, and found most of your strength begin to falter. By now, all you could think about was trying to get back home to your village.

You laid by the window that evening, listening to the sounds of drunken calls of men and ladies, music filling the air so sweet yet in your situation you had grown to hate it. Every night you heard the same music being played, and you were sure it wasn't just you who was growing irritated by it.

Vevmis slept dead to the world, sometimes in a deeper sleep than other nights, and all you could do was glare with envy; wishing that you could for once get some rest and not have to worry.

You had to admit, even in the light of the moon, he was handsome, but his race was all known for that. His skin practically glowed, radiating and glistening in contrast between the candlelight and reflection of outside; making him appear like a mere God.

He rested so peacefully, you noted, watching the way he breathed and exhaled for softly as if he was more of a newborn babe than a barbaric dark elf. Sometimes I wonder what he would look like he was genuine, perhaps if he smiled with less smugness? You thought.

Your eyes trailed his shirtless body aimlessly, landing on his face as you took in his silver locks. Beautiful and silky like spun silver itself, you wondered how they managed to get it looking so soft. If only you could just run your fingers through it-

"Caught staring again, pet?" You blinked twice, a lack of words coming to mind when you looked back towards his eyes, now wide open and looking back at you with that same cocky attitude visible in his amethyst eyes.

Everything must be a hidden joke to him. You thought, a frown forming on your face as you looked away. "Was making sure you were breathing."

An amused laugh bubbled over his lips from your right, and when you took a glance, he was attempting to sit up; slow and lethargic.

"Really, or were you looking over my beauty?" He smirked, and again, you avoided his gaze, occupying yourself with whatever was going on outside.

"Are all elves like you so cocky? Were you born mean too, or did you come out the womb swinging a dagger and coming up with snide comments?" You leered, crossing your arms and trying to shift in the seat.

"My, for someone like you to be my enslaver, you sure do come out with such comments. I would've believed you were just jealous..." Vevmis remarked.

Enslaver. The word brought you to shudder, even you couldn't help but have to disagree quickly. "I'm not your enslaver, nor are you captive with me."

"Yes, but technically you're not letting me go, and for what I'm aware of, that's enslaving." Snorted the dark elf. "I am forever stuck with you until you either let me go or kill me off."

"And why would I do that? Don't you think I would've killed you by now? I don't think I would waste my time healing a man like yourself." You spoke. It was this time for Vevmis to frown, pale eyebrows furrowed.

"You know I am to ask this... but if you wanted me kept alive, don't you think it would've been better to keep me out of human settlements? Dark elves like me aren't exactly welcomed with loving arms."

That I'm aware of. You snorted. "They have better medicines and healers here than what lies beyond the forests." You looked back quickly over to him, eyes meeting his. "You wouldn't have survived five seconds out there."

"And yet here we are." He chimed. "Possibly hundreds of miles from your village, in a settlement that could punish us both. Aren't we the oddest pair?" He grinned ear to ear.

You sighed heavily, knowing what had to be said. "That was what I needed to talk to you about." You began. "We can't possibly stay here for days on end. I came up with the brilliant suggestion of leaving at first light tomorrow."

His wide grin dropped drastically from his face, and you didn't want to believe what he could've been thinking. "You're not being serious, are you? Do you think we are both capable in setting out on a journey that could end up in a disaster?"

It made you wonder why he thought you couldn't be capable of travelling so far. You had done it many times before alone, but never with the stress of having to worry about another, more so someone injured. It made you wonder whether there was more to him that made you question what he knew.

"I cannot stay another day in this prison of a room, watching from a window each day whilst you lay pampered like a fattening king." You retorted. "I don't care what you believe, whether that you think I'm incapable of travelling this far, but I can tell you I can do this alone as well."

"I'm not saying you're not strong enough to do this." He begun, his voice was oddly calm compared to yours. "I'm saying that instead of worrying about me, that you look after yourself?"

You were blank and shocked by his reasons, and never did you think he would've been clever enough to notice. You were aware though that you did look emaciated; with large bags under your eyes from lack of sleep.

"Do you think I've been blindly oblivious to the way you've been looking?" He informed, speaking before you could. "I am quite aware of the things you don't want to say out loud."

Was I just seething to myself after all this, when not aware he knew? You felt embarrassed, a blush crept to your cheeks. "I see how silly this all sounds-"

"And you should be. We're not squabbling children." He grunted for a brief moment, trying to sit up. "Isn't it all about ourselves in this world?"

You stared him over, unsure. "I... I guess so."

"So do this and take my offer or leave it and go with nothing," he begun, and for a moment, you thought he was going to stand up from his bed, "We do not leave come the morrow, but the day after. Which gives us both the time to prepare ourselves."

A deal where I can get even less sleep? Sure whatever you say. You had almost rolled your eyes at him. "What if I decline?" You questioned softly.

"Then whatever Gods out there so help me, for I will have my life in the hands of an idiot." He chortled, getting to you first by rolling his eyes. "I ask that you get your rest, so I'm not having to be the one who has to drag you back."

You stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. After all, who could think you would've been able to negotiate with a dark elf? You sighed in defeat, too tired to care. "I accept then."

The creaking of the bedsprings gained your attention, and when you looked up, Vevmis was staggering your way away from the small bed. It took some moments, but he finally managed to get to you within time, standing before you. In your eyes, he looked pale enough to collapse.

"I'm not going to ask again, only this once. But you will sleep better on a decent bed tonight. Even if the springs are bloody old with age. Or maybe someone was having a better time in here with a good fucking."

You rolled your eyes finally his way, snorting. "If I get in that bed genius, where will you sleep? Not on the floor?"

He smiled down to you, and maybe once, the emotions in his eyes didn't match the smile on his face, There was a look of sincerity or knowing that you were unsure in wanting to know of.

"I'm sure you know I think ten steps ahead in terms of plans?"

"I hate this." You grunted, facing away from the dark elf in the cramped bed. You were trying to stay as far away from his as possible, almost hanging off the small bed in hopes that you could barely feel him beside you. But alas, the dark elf was always too cocky to care, inching closer and closer to you.

"Oh, but you love it." His voice was whimsical and melodic to hear, and you hated the way it brought a chill down your spine. "Just you, me, and a narrow bed to share. How all my fantasies are playing out."

You scoffed in disgust, trying to bury your head into the mattress, wishing that it could just swallow you whole. "Yes, your disgusting twisted fantasies, where everything is just sexual in your eyes."

Vevmis seemed to be amused by your words, shuffling closer to you until you certainly could feel his chest press into your back. He barely was wearing any clothes, to begin with, so you were just trying to ignore every single feeling of him behind you. You hated that your body was reacting in ways you didn't want to experience.

"You must've experienced one good fuck in your life hmmm? Perhaps many suitors are waiting for you when you return?" He crawled closer to you until he was practically whispering in your ear, such enticing and sultry words that made you want to slap him off the bed.

You didn't answer him, in fact, you barely moved, trying to squeeze your eyes shut and pretending to fall asleep. It didn't work. "Oh, am I not correct? Would I have to believe that the fair maiden we captured is indeed still a maiden? Fresh as a blossomed fruit of spring?"

"Oh please." You scoffed. "Unlike you, I wouldn't brag about how many people I've had sex with."

"Yet my question to you is how do you think I have sex?" Vevmis was dangerously close to you now, and you almost yelped when you felt his fingers dance across the bare skin of your thigh. Your breath got caught in your throat for a second, trying to control your breathing.

"Gentle?" He traced his fingers higher along your stomach and naval. "Or rough?" They danced too close to your underwear, as he tugged softly on the fabric for effect. "Wouldn't you want to know?"

"Not no." You lied, gritting your teeth and trying to go to a happier place, where you weren't getting slowly sexually frustrated by a teasing elf. Even if his intentions were real or not, he was certainly trying to get something out of you. And it was working.

He chuckled in delight and the sound alone rumbled through your entire being. "You're truly an innocent little thing, aren't you pet? But that innocence you play at won't go well for you. Little games like yours will always bring the pleasures within us all to show through."

Games? You had almost slapped him there across the face. Never had you been playing at games to bring a man like him to feel teased. No games were being played on your part.

Instead of speaking forth of what he meant, you decided it was better to change the subject. "If you're so done with speaking of such lewd thoughts, I am trying to go to sleep."

You could feel him staring into the back of your head once again before his calloused hands came around your waist and pulled you tight into him. "It would bring me such happiness to see you like this in the morning, basking in my arms."

You had rolled your eyes even when he couldn't see you. "You're lucky you're still injured, or else you would've been kicked to the window when this conversation had started."

"What and miss this opportunity to be here with you, keeping you warm?" He whispered, nipping at your earlobe. That with his bold moves almost made you kick yourself out of the bed.

"I'm perfectly fine." You countered, trying to ignore his motives. Never had you met a dark elf like him so full of sexual innuendos centred around the two of you?

"Winter is upon us, and it will leave with the cold and hard snow soon to follow. We will all freeze just like the land, and not even our breaths will be able to warm us in our homes. Only our bodies together will keep us warm, so I do hope you're prepared for more of this to come."

"Yeah whatever, goodnight." You rumbled, shutting your eyes tight and perhaps, falling into one of the best nights of sleep you had missed in a while. Maybe it had been thanks to Vevmis. Or maybe it had been because you were sleeping in a bed rather by a hard concrete window.

By the morning, you were basking in the light pouring through the stain glass window; your body not sore nor your mind too tired, You felt refreshed for once, ready to tackle the day.

You would toss and turn in your sleep, and you did end up turn around to face the dark elf, who was still asleep soundly beside you. Your limbs were tangled up together, bodies plush as your head had replaced your pillow and you had used his broad chest as one instead. No wonder I slept a bit better. You realised, blushing.

This up-close chance to see him so close to you got your heart racing more than you wanted to admit, taking in his soft features. His eyelashes were long and beautiful; curved upwards and giving him such a relaxed expression.

His usual silver neatly brushed hair was now unkempt and dishevelled, fanning around his head like a halo, giving him an angelic look. Maybe there was more good in us than I realised. You thought, your fingers carefully and softly tracing through his locks, waiting for whether he moved or awaken. I wonder if he could be good too?

"Admiring my pretty locks, pet?" His voice was strained and tired, hoarse from sleeping as he surprised you to be awake. He cracked one eye open to look at you, breathing heavily and almost dreamily at you as he laid beside you.

You huffed as you pulled away from him. "I was just thinking, that's all."

Even you knew how crappy of an excuse that sounded like, and a deep rumble came from Vevmis to how naïve you could be. "I'm sure I can get used to you being beside me. How I could feel you so close to me last night, it'll be something I will look forward to in the future."

"Careful now Vevmis. I preferred it when you were sleeping. We don't want to make it permanent, do we?" Although your words sounded threatening, your tone made up for it; acting playful towards him in a way that sounded as if you were waiting for what he would do or say next.

He didn't answer you at first, but he didn't take your words to the offence; simply he just looked you over with mirth. "Such words from my captor." He stroked your hair absentmindedly.

Sighing, you rolled off to get ready for a long day, stretching as you did so as you rose. Just as you were going to grab your clothes to put on, something came around your wrist, promptly pulling you back onto the mattress.

You had little time to react as you landed on the bed with a thud, your heart racing more when you found yourself with no time to react over being pinned down by Vevmis; who was in-between your legs.

You had seen him tease you many times before, but not once had you seen such a pang of hunger that burned in his haunting purple eyes. "V-Vevmis what the hell-"

You would've spoken out further in response but was cut short when your lips were taken roughly and fiercely by the dark elf, kissing with you as if his life depended on it.

His movements, the way he pinned you down, you were slowly finding yourself moving against his lips, whimpering softly when his hips slowly ground against your own during your moments of want and lust.

"Where in the seven realms of Hell do you think you're going?" He questioned when he pulled away, a simple question that had you speechless. "W-What I-"

"Do you think I would let you go out there with those lustful foolish men who act likes hounds drooling you over? Without me there?" He added with much vigour.

You bit your lip as a moan fell from your mouth, trying desperately not to let him see he was having this effect on you. "Vevmis-" You whispered to him softly.

"You think I have it easy? Watching you with that body of yours? Oblivious to it all? I've seen the men that look at you, my kind eye-fucking you as you sat there chained. Oh how much I wanted to kill them for even thinking about doing something like that. To stain my blade with their blood, nothing has ever given me such a delight."

You laid there speechless, watching him talk. He spoke calmly, not like a wild man who had lost his mind. It was truly less than him losing his sanity. He brought you out of your thoughts when you saw how his eyes trailed down your body.

You wore such a thin gown that you knew he could see your breasts through the material; how your chest rose and fell with each little nervous breathe. He said nothing as he roughly took one of them into your hands. "These are mine." He squeezed in emphasis, causing you to arch your back, further bringing his groin to rub harder and faster against yours

"You are my pet. Remember that. Who do you belong to?" He growled possessively into your ear, his other hand trailing towards your legs. "Tell me." He pinched down there between your legs to get you to answer.

"Y-You, Vevmis." You gasped, wriggling and moaning as you had the freedom to grasp onto him, holding him by the shoulders tightly. His touch was like fire: and both thrilled and scared you of potentially getting burned.

"That's right, say it again. I want everyone in this damn place to hear you screaming my name." He pulled his mouth to your lips for a feverish long kiss, pulling away yet breathing hotly in your face. "Who do you belong to?"

"Gods, only you Vevmis!" You cried, begging for more even if you didn't say it. Vevmis continued, pinching, touching and bringing you to break under him. He pulled his mouth to your neck, biting, sucking and kissing at the flesh as it left you in an uncontrollable mess.

"Say it louder." He moaned your name, rare to hear.

"Vevmis!" You cried as your voice screamed in the room, certain it could be heard even through the closed windows. You were surprised you couldn't hear those in the other rooms not complaining,

Everything came to a still in your room, and your little bubble burst when you came back down from reality. Vevmis pulled back from you, admiring his work around your neck on the inflictions done.

He grabbed your chin into his fingers, making you have to look him in the eyes as satisfaction and pride fell on his face. "You belong to me." It sounded almost like reassurance, as he kissed you softly, too quickly to enjoy it as he pulled away.

"I am yours and you are mine." He stroked at your chin as he grinned down to you.

"Now and Always."

Well, that sounded darker than it was intended, but I WILL be making a final part, maybe even the reader will get her own back on him! It will DEFINITELY be more NSFW then if it is to be done!

Hope you enjoyed, it took longer than intended sadly due to saving problems like last time. STAY UPDATED IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHEN THE FINAL PART HAS BEEN POSTED! Thanks, everyone!!

#male drow x reader #male drow #male elf x human reader #dark elf fic #dark elf writing #monster writing #male monster #male elf #male elf x reader #drow x reader #drow #drow writing #my writing #dark elf #part 2 #slightnsfw

314 notes · View notes

1pepsiboy · 5 years

Text

Hollywood’s Bleeding (CB) - PT 4

Word Count: 1,786

He wouldn’t be dead for long, but she was sure he wouldn’t be too happy at the thought she killed him. Vampires could only die by a complete break of head, silver bullets, ripping out of the heart, and fire, so this wouldn’t harm him for any permanent death.

His instinct to hunt would kick in shortly after he awakened, yet she went to find a small rabbit or squirrel for him to feed on. When he wasn’t ravenous, she would teach him the basic skills for hunting non-human prey and show him how to “live” among the living. When it came to being dead, sometimes vampires forgot that humans’ chests rise and lower as they breathed and they blinked their eyelids.

When Dawn got back, she sat against a tree and patiently waited.

Colby gasped as he sat up, and then snapped his head in her direction, eyes darker than his current hair color. “What the fuck?”

Carefully, she explained, “To complete the transformation, you had to die. Theoretically… Vampires are invincible, but death by complete breaking of head, ripping out of heart, a silver bullet through the heart or brain, and fire are the only permanent ways… So a stake through the heart or jumping off a building at a melodramatic moment will not kill you.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “I will keep that in mind for the rest of my eternity.”

Dawn’s heart tugged and she knew he was trying to be light-hearted about the situation. She cleared her throat and gave him a small smile.

“You need to eat before we step foot out of this forest.”

Colby sniffed the air and then his eyes gazed at the food in her hands. His body began to shake and the veins in his neck popped out. Well, his instincts were craving blood, didn’t matter what source. That’s good, Dawn thought.

She handed the squirrel to him and watched as his face winced from his fangs extending for the first time. His mouth would be sore for a few days. He did hesitate for a moment, but then he found himself unable to resist and sunk his teeth in. His eye color slowly lightened in shade to not be so hunger-filled.

A few minutes later when there was no blood left, Colby said, “That was one of the grossest, but most satisfying things I have ever done.”

Dawn laughed under her breath. “I understand that… Colb, how hungry are you still feeling?”

“I could have more for sure.”

“Perfect. I’ll teach you to hunt right now.”

***

“The biggest trick is to make sure that your prey don’t know you’re around. Once they get the sense you are, they’ll run. Sometimes it’s not worth the run, but sometimes it is… Gets all the bottled up adrenaline out so you don’t snap when in the city.”

Colby nodded, his eyes focused on the deer in the small circle clearing. “Okay, anything else?”

“Always aim for the neck with larger prey, they’ll stay down once you start. Smaller prey, like the squirrel earlier, just jab them with a stick and then you can feed. I don’t believe in using real weapons to catch food.”

“I can agree with that,” he chuckled, rocking back and forth on his feet.

She smirked and shook her head. “Colby?”

“Yeah?”

“My last tip is to always trust your natural senses and instincts… Go for it.”

As he moved in to make his sneak attack, the deer noticed him and scattered off. Colby muttered some profanities before he ran to chase it down. She could hear him yell in excitement in the distance at his new found speed.

She shook her head for probably the twentieth time and ran after them to make sure he was good. But she should’ve known he had it covered as he had the deer on its side and fed from the neck. He was too natural about all of it, though she’d prefer that than him being incapable of anything. His resistance and control would be the real test.

After he was finished, she helped him clean the blood off his face and showed him how to hide the dead animal under a bunch of brush. The other wild animals would finish the deer off before any other human would come across it; technically, they shouldn’t even be in the area they were, but it helped prevent any discoveries they didn’t want. Then she reminded him of human behaviors because the instant he fully transformed, his brain forgot all of those, what used to be, natural motions.

They held hands as they walked out of the forest and Colby had a new jump in his step. He talked at a faster energy than she’d ever heard and seen before. Dawn knew this exact feeling after getting over the dread of becoming a vampire out of her own freewill. There were perks to it all.

Colby changed into the spare graphic tee that Dawn had stuffed into her backpack and thrown into the backseat. He got blood dribbles over his white, henley long sleeve. They used some of their water and hand sanitizer to clean their hands.

“As shallow as this sounds, I don’t have to worry about the aging process and what I would possibly look like at the age of forty. Now I know. My fear of growing old? Gone.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s a plus.” Dawn sighed lightly.

Colby’s face faltered and he reached out for her hand as she drove. “Babe, do you not like this?”

She retorted, “I don’t have much room to say whether I like it or not.” Then she sighed again. “I’m sorry. I just… It’s my fault. I should’ve known that Nate and Lisa were keeping tabs on me too, and I could’ve saved you by sucking the venom out, but… I’ve gone ripper before and I have no idea if I would’ve stopped when I started.”

“Babe…” He squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. It’s theirs, you know that… And I told you, I wanted this before and I know we talked about waiting, but plans change and we’re good at going with whatever life brings us.”

“Right, I know. Speaking of, I still need you to stay in the hotel tonight. I’m going to see if I can track Nate down. If not, I have to report the mission as ongoing and that we’ve got a new member. Regardless, I have to report about you.”

Colby smiled big and kissed her hand. “I can’t wait to join the movement.” Suddenly, he deadpanned. “Do you think Jake will sniff me out right away?”

She shrugged. “You’d think fresh vampires are the easiest, but in reality they’re the hardest to… He only sniffed me out the instant we met because I’ve been dead for a few centuries. You’ll only be dead for a couple days at most when you see him again.”

“Oh…” He cleared his throat. “Should I just tell him? I won’t tell the others, obviously.”

“Your choice. I think he probably had the idea I was turning you this weekend since I finally let you come with me.”

“That’s why he was so shocked about me going.”

Dawn laughed under her breath, “Exactly.”

She swung into the parking lot for the hotel they were accommodating this weekend. She held his hand tightly as they walked through the lobby. She still couldn’t get a full sense of his control yet. He did just feed, but sniffing a single scent of human blood for a freshie could be like “I’m just going to eat one chip” and then the entire bag is gone an hour later.

Thankfully, she could feel him trying to control it and not pay attention to the sweet smell of the red liquid. Dawn didn’t dare to wait for the elevator and pulled him through the door for the stairs. They took them two at a time and hurried down the hall to their room. Even though she was presuming herself to be calm, her heart was racing and Colby’s definitely was too.

Once the door was open and closed, Colby had her pinned up against the wall and embraced her in a kiss. A couple kisses actually. Dawn raised one of her legs up to Colby’s waist as one of his hands grazed her outer thigh.

She lightly flicked her tongue on his top lip and she kissed him again. “I’m so glad you can control yourself.”

“What if I didn’t right now?” he replied, eyeing her up and down, and leaned in to leave butterfly kisses on her neck.

“I have to… I have to go attempt to find Nate… And we’d tear this room apart.” Her eyes closed as the sensation of his lips on her skin was glorified by a thousand now.

He chuckled, his lips still attached to her “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

She groaned and her fingers tightened in his hair. “As much as I want to, we can’t right now.”

He pulled away and raised his eyebrows. “Right now? So… That means later for sure?”

“That’s a fucking yes.” She smirked. “Don’t do anything abnormally stupid while I’m gone.” She kissed his cheek and snuck out the door before he could pull her into another whirlwind of horny rage.

***

Luckily, Dawn was able to track Nate down at the random club he was pretty frequent to be at; it was definitely a vampire exclusive place and any human there didn’t know that. There was probably a frenzy of some sort at midnight. It was clear he was expecting her again.

He smirked with joy as she approached him. “How’s your boy toy? I’m sorry I sort of ruined the affect for you.”

She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like that and you know that. You know why I’m really here. Either we can step out into the alley way and do this the easy way, or… Keep it in here and cause some more chaos.”

“I love chaos.” He took the shot the bartender served him moments before she’d approached.

She hissed as her fangs and nails lengthened. She got her eyes as dominantly crimson as possible; she was older than him by a century, she could smell it. Nate lengthened his fangs out to show his strength, but Dawn didn’t crow in fear. She made her move to tackle him over the bartender’s bar counter and they went into a rustle.

One distinctive girl’s scream set off the rest of the humans to begin their attempts of escape.

A little chaos never hurt anyone.

A life motto Dawn liked to live by at times.

Next: Part 5

[HB Masterlist]

[Mer Sterf]

#Colby Brock #Colby Brcok imagine #Colby Brock short series #Colby Brock blurb #Colby Brock story #writing #short series #vampires #supernatural #werewolves #action #romance #comedy #Hollywood's Bleeding #Part 4

26 notes · View notes

achromatic-morality · 4 years

Photo

( sydney ashborne ) was just spotted in amsterdam. rumor has it ( he ) is a ( 2000 / appears 28 ) year old ( fallen angel ) who resembles ( francisco lachowski ). ( he ) has been said to be ( adaptive & patient ) but also quite ( scrutinizing & unpredictable ).with all the chaos surrounding the magical underworld, ( he ) has chosen to align with ( the fallen angels ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( a member of the inner circle of fallen ). hopefully the city doesn’t devour them whole.

Name: sydney ashborne Race: fallen angel Alignment: fallen angels Role: inner circle of fallen angels Age: 2000+ / 28 years Gender: male Sexuality: homosexual

[History]

Before the Fall

Being one of the first, those among the angelic named by God for themselves, the archangel Sandalphon, he carried the burden of tending to the unborn without wavering. For a long while he was happy, devoted in his love of both the creator and the tiny flickers of new life he watched over. But, being one of the most gentle mannered and sharp-minded of the angelic he was tasked with a short lifetime on earth as a prophet when God needed certain things to come to pass. He was equally resolved to that task but when he returned he carried with him new emotions, new lessons learned from mortals; and the most puzzling of them all was doubt.

He watched, time and again, while God tested and toyed with their creations to the point of destruction. It was not the efforts of a loving creator guiding, it was the cruel hand that pushed and pushed until they broke, growing only increasingly more distant.

He felt the pain watching more and more as the sparks of life held in his care were burned out short, tiny souls never allowed to take their first breath or open their eyes through circumstance or, worse still, willful intention. It was a loss he felt, one by one, so pointless and cold. What was the use in granting life a chance to flourish only to have it stolen before it even began?

In the After

When he took the step, let himself fall, it was not an act of rebellion. Sydney had no reason left to rebel, he simply wanted to hold the choices ahead of him in his own hands. He long ago lost confidence in the idea of good and evil as anything but circumstance and necessity in the moment; all the world was shades of grey that he finally could speak out loud without fear of knowing what he would lose for his certainty.

Letting go of his old purpose entirely, leaving behind his title and the name granted him, Sydney rebuilt from the ashes of the grey that stained his once ivory wings. But a part of him was created for certain things, even with emotions and self finally closer to human than only the distance chill of his archangel brethren he still could not fully turn away from those around him. He wanted peace, silence, time to reflect after his centuries of unknown confusion, only to find himself handed a new role within the inner circle of the fallen angels.

His age was their benefit, his place so close to God and named by them, his power a rare advantage; but it wasn't any of those that convinced Sydney to take the offer. He simply looked around him at the scattered, disjointed lot that made up the fallen and decided that, much like the children he had always deeply loved and watched grow from before birth, they needed him. He couldn't abandon them.

The World is a Twisting Path

Sydney had become a looming presence, an ancient power that the angelic were wary of and the fallen fell to respecting for the most part. The world offered him escape, comfortable distraction and a new direction. He cares nothing for good or evil, neither for the divides in the races nor for the wars threatening to bubble up. If he must fight he will, viciously if need be, but until that point he acts as voice of reason to his less stable fallen counterparts and stands between them and their own destruction. He holds mutual regard for anyone really, friendly enough, bemused by the oddities of those around him. He intends to enjoy his freedom, damned or not, because people are simply people no matter what form they wear and he knows the true enemy is the God who abandoned them all a very long time when they grew bored with their toys.

[Basic info]

In spite of the deeper sorrow he feels Sydney is easy-going to a fault on the surface much of the time, more level-headed than most. His emotions scatter wildly but he doesn’t often let that get the best of him. Not unless someone hits a nerve, usually said nerves involving people he cares about or kids or baby animals. He’s also friendly, in a lazy sort of way, pleasant all and all for one of those with tainted blood in their veins. He has his limits, of course, but he’s one of the lesser of supposed evils when it comes to being fallen; he doesn’t want a war unless he can have one with God themselves for what they’ve done to the world in their playing games with life.

Sydney mourns for the lives that never are allowed to be, even now. He does his mourning in private and well away from the other fallen, but he still feels the spark of life end in the unborn and it deeply wounds him. Some part of him considers these lost souls connected to him, a memory only he knows as what they might have been. In his days as an archangel he was always there beside grieving mothers who never saw their hopes take a first breath. For every birth cry that was never heard Sydney was there to shed his own sorrow and hold the fragile soul that slipped away. As one of the fallen he feels this pain even more strongly and is intensely watchful of those he can sense life growing within. For those who destroy such things with cold indifference he has, privately, become something of a demon, a nightmare, no longer holding back in exacting revenge for those who were never granted a way to defend themselves.

When he first fell Sydney threw himself into traveling, he moved from place to place with a wanderlust he’d never known before. There were things in the world he found amazing and to be part of the human experience actually brought him some comfort. He wandered the world for a few decades before finding the state of the other fallen and settling in Amsterdam with the role he took up for their sake but even now he longs for what felt like real freedom; to roam without purpose weighing him down.

Envy is something of a vice for Sydney, because he does indeed envy mortals and their freedom of choice. He was created a certain way, to be a certain thing, and his path was set before him with expectations that he would never question. When he did it came with the cost of some of what he was. For mortals to be born with a clean slate and possibilities of their own design he has always felt a little slighted. He makes his own choices now but even then it’s at a cost, knowing he won’t feel the sort of peace he once knew now that he’s damned himself for the chance at deciding his own fate.

Children are another thing mortals have the capacity for that he greatly envies. He would be perfectly happy having a family, he was after all created with a deep affection for the unborn and he adores children. But as an angel he knows it’s not likely, and being gay makes that an even more complicated matter. Compounded with the sheer danger he exists within as part of the inner circle of the fallen angels he can’t imagine that want is ever going to be fulfilled.

Of course family overall is a sore spot. His twin sibling Metatron has been lost to him for a very long time. He neither knows if they can hear any of his prayers or even they even want to, or if the fall has put a wall between them that can never be torn down. He deeply misses the bond they used to have, but it seems to be something else lost to time.

He compensates somewhat for the things he can’t have by trying to look after those around him. His fallen ‘siblings’ of course, but it makes no real difference to Sydney what race anyone is if they’re in a dire situation. He views angels as his still distant ‘cousins’, much to the irritation of many of the fallen, and humans and werewolves not exactly as equals but still not anything to loathe simply for being different. He actually finds them fascinating and admirable in their determination and ability to survive. His basic nature is that of a caregiver, that tends to extend a bit too far at times.

He was once an archangel though, so he’s not incapable of holding his own, just usually prefers not to fight for the simple sake of it. If necessity he will, but short of that he is sharply intelligent and tries to work his way around problems. His role in past wars was more in making plans and tending to the injured than outright fighting. He certainly can though if need be, and since falling that skill has turned more vicious than it used to be, dangerous in the lack of control he can maintain in the heat of battle. Strategy is what he brings strongest to the table within the circle, that and his willingness to bridge the gaps. He’ll step outside the security of dealing with the fallen to approach angels or any other race if it brings change, quick to volunteer for such things in order to keep some of the bad blood out of the equation with his own passive outlook towards his ‘cousins’ and the mortals.

Given his opinions of God as a whole Sydney is very questioning of those in power, even the ones who lead the fallen. He doesn’t care to stand toe to toe with them if he feels their actions are foolish or reckless, pointing that much out in flat terms. He’s a follower by choice but certainly not because he feels he needs to be in order to stay safe.’

[Wanted Connections]

Past connections

Metatron // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

Sydney hasn't seen his twin sibling since breaking away from heaven a good century ago. While he has attempted contact now and then it seems unlikely that the angel who serves as the voice of God is going to hear the words of the fallen. He still has no idea where his sibling is and what their opinions of him are now. In the past the two had a warm, if not typical sibling teasing relationship at times, but Metatron being the busier of the two there was some distance between them. Open to pretty much anything with this one.

Other angels // Open // Angels or Fallen Angels

Since he was one of the first created after Adam and Eve discovered how to create life, and thus God needed someone to look after the unborn until they were to join their earthly parents, he has ties to other angels. An archangel himself, but one of the 'lesser' ones, he still held some command over others. It was never really a point he practiced though, always a bit curious and quiet by nature. Now though, as one of the fallen, his old ties might be new enemies, or old friends cautious about the dangers of that friendship.

Almost soulmate // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

Sydney had one once, he thought, but his ideals ran too wild and said person stepped back. Given that he existed to look after the unborn it was only natural that in time and watching how the humans existed he came to the conclusion that he wanted such things as well. For an angel though that was impossible, a point of strain between himself and the one he thought was meant for him and, eventually, part of the reason they distanced from each other. Now fallen, Sydney has all but let the memories fade. It was never meant to be, he was mistaken, but the pain still lingers somewhere and maybe the best he can do is salvage a friendship with them.

Antagonist // Open // Angel or Fallen Angel

While he had a habit of keeping to himself and watching the human world, there was one who Sydney is certain took some sort of pleasure in riling him up. Constantly annoying him about his shortcomings as an Archangel who didn't step up to fight, more or less just making his life frustrating. Ironically though the tension between them is what taught Sydney that he could rebel in the end, pushed too far, he lashed out and discovered that he was not simply a follower to the will of God. This person pushed him to that first step that would lead to his fall and at the time the two were constantly at odds but now Sydney has realized he might owe them for that. It still doesn't mean they get along though, not yet anyway.

Current Connections

'Siblings' // Open // Fallen Angel

While Sydney keeps an eye on most of his fallen 'siblings', this one has earned a soft spot with him. For whatever reason he's taken to looking after them, trying to steer them in the right direction and more often than not getting himself into trouble because of them. But it's not such a bad thing, they're helping him step more and more into the sort of freedom he's always wanted, letting go of things and enjoying the world. So it's a mutual benefit really, that chaos. Helping him shake off his reservations and really enjoy life now and he needs that more than he realizes. Unfortunately they’re also stirring up a bit of impulsive nature he didn’t know he had but maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Mortal Counterpart // Open // Human or Werewolf

Sydney finds humans and their sort fascinating, mortals in general really. This one is an oddity and he enjoys their company for all the strange notions they bring with them. It's a bit eye-opening what he's discovered along the way from them and ultimately there's a hint of fear behind it knowing how fragile and short-lived mortals are. The pain of losing that friendship one day has him acting somewhat as looming protector to them, true, but he really can't help it.

Best Friend // Open // Vampire // Taken by Felix

An old friend and off and on lover over the years, Sydney has maintained a comfortable friendship with this person. They met early after his fall and when he realized he liked his company Sydney stuck around. They've had periods of distance because life had gone different ways but still run back across each other. There's something comfortable between them and Sydney considers them to be his best friend and confidant.

Soulmate // Open // Any

After thinking he'd found it in the past and lost it the fact that there is someone who he connects to so entirely is going to be startling for Sydney. The person that Sydney finds both his opposite and partner in crime, something missing he didn't expect to find at all.

[Tags]

dusty like an old photograph // Visual tag by divine words // Musings search the ashes // Interactions

#nhqintro #by divine words // sydney #by divine words // intro #child death tw #child abuse tw

11 notes · View notes

spookyspaghettisundae · 4 years

Text

The Doctor's Dilemma

Doctor Theodore Carnaby washed the blood from his hands. The water running from his faucet enraptured his entire attention—a technical marvel recently installed in his practice. He used a brush to scrub his hands and fingers with methodical precision, taking a painstaking amount of time because the blood clung to his skin like tar.

The sound and sight of water continuously pouring from that metal pipe hypnotized him all the while and made the noise of passersby and horse-drawn carriages from the street outside sound a million miles away.

A sheet of fog suffocated the afternoon sun, dimming it to a small bright spot in the sky and forcing him to illuminate the insides of his practice with gas-powered lanterns. He stopped the flow of water, orchestrated by the subtle little screech of him twisting a valve and letting the cold wet drip from his slender hands, still fascinated by this wondrous new installation.

When he turned to grab a towel, he almost jumped out of his skin. Someone stood in the open doorway of his practice, motionless, and without making a sound. Just staring at him.

“G’d day, sir,” Carnaby said after clearing his throat.

He forced himself to smile out of politeness but it did not quite reach his eyes. For that, his visitor’s sudden appearance had frightened him too much. Carnaby quickly dabbed his hands with the towel to dry them off and tossed it aside before approaching.

The visitor tilted his head and returned the same kind of feeble smile. He pushed back the spectacles resting upon his nose, a pair of round and thin-framed silver glasses. The reddish-blonde hair on his head and a pair of light blue eyes lent him an air of vulnerability and innocence.

“Hello,” replied the visitor.

He lifted his right hand, revealing it to be wrapped in a sloppy arrangement of cloth—soaking up a spot of dark red color where his palm must be.

“I had a little,” said the man. He paused and smiled, now with a genuine warmth to it. It reminded Carnaby of the sun on a beautiful summer day. “Uh, a little accident. This requires a good doctor’s touch, and I heard you’re the best in this quarter.”

Carnaby chuckled and nodded.

“Of course, have a seat, Mister,” he said, letting the words trail off for the patient to fill in the blanks.

The patient smiled again. Something about his expression instilled Carnaby with both endearment and something strange. Something the doctor could not quite put his finger on.

“Hanrahan,” said the patient after a long and awkward pause. “Baxter Hanrahan.”

Mister Hanrahan extended his hand for a shake. Carnaby shot a glance down at it and noted that his patient’s fingers were stained dark, while the hand was not calloused, rather soft and thin. He took so long to study Hanrahan’s hand that he followed up with a nervous chuckle.

“I’m terribly sorry Mister Hanrahan. This time of the year, I never shake hands with patients. Wouldn’t want to spread anything unpleasant,” he told him with a wink and a genuine smile.

Hanrahan emitted a nervous chuckle of his own and then nodded in understanding.

“Please, have a seat, and we’ll have a look.”

Carnaby gestured to a stool and fetched his instruments. They settled down and the doctor unraveled the improvised bandage—it appeared to be a simple set of cloth that Hanrahan had torn from something. Hanrahan winced and hissed as he sharply inhaled.

The doctor noted that reaction and revealed a nasty gash on Hanrahan’s palm. It looked to Carnaby as if his patient had cut himself with a kitchen knife, though the placement for such would have been unusual.

Then Carnaby’s stomach knotted. The injury reminded him of a cut he had inflicted upon himself once—a ritualistic cut to shed his own blood for an attempt at practicing alchemy and magick. Could this man also be an occultist?

As soon as he caught himself staring and pondering for far too long, he asked, “What do you do for a living, if I may ask, Mister Hanrahan?”

“Druggist, I’ve set up shop in the upper city,” he said. “Just opened up this autumn and figured it would only be a matter of time until we met.”

“Oh, the upper city? Why didn’t you see Doctor Manning? Not that I’m willing to give up a potential new customer, but he would have been closer to your practice.”

Hanrahan tilted his head again, though a smile stayed absent from his face. He studied Carnaby from behind the thin glasses of his spectacles. They reflected the tiny specks of gaslight from nearby lanterns.

“I live nearby here, not in the upper city. Had a little accident at home and, uh—truly though, I could never afford living in the upper city.”

Their eyes met and Carnaby found himself staring a moment too long. Hanrahan smiled once more, but it felt forced to to the doctor. The patient then cringed and stifled a groan behind gritted teeth. That was when Carnaby noticed he had squeezed Hanrahan’s hand, lost in idle thought.

“Oh dear, I’m terribly sorry. Are you in a lot of pain?”

“Yes, ‘fraid so. I left it alone for a few days and it’s not healing up well, and, well, it’s pretty deep.”

“May I?” asked Carnaby before getting a nod of consent and them then pushing back Hanrahan’s jacket and shirt sleeve together.

This revealed an odd tattoo on the man’s forearm. It bore clear trappings of occult symbols and alchemical formulae. Carnaby averted his eyes as to not stare at them. But the sight of it burned into his mind and stuck there. It would stay there until Hanrahan left his practice that day.

Carnaby took some time to disinfect the injury, stitch it up, and dress it in proper bandages. He noted multiple instances of Hanrahan suppressing sounds of pain.

“Color me curious, Mister Hanrahan, but—as a chemist, don’t you self-medicate against the pain?”

“I’d rather not,” he said. “I like to keep a clear head. For my work.”

Carnaby nodded in approval, cleaned up, and grabbed a small tincture bottle from a cabinet. He held the tiny bottle of laudanum out to Hanrahan and waited for him to take it. His patient just stared at it and Carnaby could witness the gears turning behind his forehead.

“A few drops of this each night should dull the pain and help you sleep better.”

Hanrahan clicked his tongue and said, “I’m all too familiar with the substance, of course. Truth be told, I’m ever wary about overdosing it.”

On reflex, Carnaby fetched a metal syringe from the cabinet and held it out to Hanrahan in his other hand.

“Three millilitres will do fine as you’re not in a terrible amount of pain, and this syringe has precise measurements you can use to ensure the proper dosage.”

“No, really, I’ll be fine,” Hanrahan said. That sun-like smile returned to his face as he added a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

Carnaby shrugged and returned the items to his cabinet. With his back still turned to the patient, Hanrahan asked him, “That syringe is some beautiful craftsmanship, though. I wouldn’t mind having some of those in my pharmacy. Who made it?”

“Johnathan Hill, a tinker who has a shop right down the street,” Carnaby said.

He escorted Hanrahan out and had his assistant take down notes for the visit. The patient took his leave and they exchanged friendly smiles yet again.

Carnaby’s smile faded the moment Hanrahan turned and walked out onto the streets of Crimsonport. The good doctor ignored some question from his assistant—the words barely reached him through his mental fog, incapable of distracting him or piercing his focus.

He locked himself inside his study and unlocked the bottom drawers of his desk. Then he spent the next minutes flipping through his growing collection of occult tomes. The minutes dragged into an hour, and he dismissed another question from his assistant, muffled through a locked door.

The old leather-bound book in his hands slapped down onto his desk, open to the pages he had sought. He sighed, the chemicals of bewilderment, fear, and curiosity mixing together in his brain.

He knew he had seen that symbol before.

“The Shape of Beasts,” it was dubbed in that particular tome. Part of an alchemical process to transform the body of man into that of a beast. Though the author’s theories outlined the idea that the affliction of lycanthropy may have originally stemmed from archaic attempts at using this magick gone awry, it enabled perfect physical transmutation when conducted properly.

Carnaby did not know what to make of this, but he wondered if he should approach Hanrahan and inquire what he knew about alchemy and the occult. The doctor caught himself pacing up and down inside his office, lost in thought. Walking in circles and his mind racing in the opposite direction had made him dizzy.

He decided against doing anything. Perhaps this Baxter Hanrahan had no idea what symbol he bore; perhaps a tattoo artist had copied the symbol without deeper understanding. Besides, the symbol alone meant nothing without conducting the rest of the ritual—as far as Carnaby understood, the glyphs arranged around the circle only served to remind the alchemist how to administer the reagents correctly.

He dismissed every further thought on the matter and took the rest of the day off, closing up shop. Though the vision of Hanrahan’s warm, sunny smile haunted him for the next few nights. And he regularly caught himself exploring the idea of finally finding exchange with another occultist.

But mostly, the smile stayed with him.

Ever since discovering that magick tome in that awful apartment he had stolen it from and expanding his collection from obscure book traders afterwards, Theodore Carnaby had wondered if anybody else out there had such intimate knowledge of working magick.

Here was an opportunity—a possible companion—and he was letting it slip through his fingers.

Part of him wished that there was complications, or some other incident that would bring Hanrahan back into his practice. Part of him wanted to strike out and find Hanrahan’s pharmacy to meet him on his own time. Part of him was just afraid to find out; afraid to clear the fog of uncertainty.

A week later, a thick bank of mist once more suffocated the streets of Crimsonport. It was early in the morning, well before sunrise, and Carnaby was reviewing notes from observations made with another patient the day before when he felt watched. A shiver ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight.

Hanrahan was standing there in the doorway, staring at him again. With that wide warm smile. But his face was pale as a sheet.

“G’d day, Doctor Carnaby.”

This time, Hanrahan’s jacket was a bit torn by the shoulder and overall caked in some dust. The collar of his shirt was disheveled and the necktie a bit loose around the center.

Carnaby’s heart skipped a beat when he saw blood dripping from the fingertips of Hanrahan’s left hand.

“Oh goodness. Please, have a seat, Mister Hanrahan.”

The doctor helped him out of his jacket, rolling up his blood-soaked sleeve, and investigating this new wound. Someone had clawed the outer side of Hanrahan’s forearm. The scratches proved to be deep and Carnaby surmised a woman’s nails to have done this.

With swift and decisive action, he treated the injury while asking Mister Hanrahan about it.

“Just last night.”

“Some woman outside the opium den. I think she was hallucinating.”

“No, I came here because it’s still bleeding. I don’t think there’s any need to report this.”

In between each answer, Carnaby sighed. He felt the burning urge to ask Hanrahan about alchemy. Ask him if he knew. Once done, he turned away to wash his hands in the sink. The marvel of the running water had worn off, especially in light of his inner conflict—the internal debate on whether or not to open up to Hanrahan about magick.

The metal squeak of the valve, the soft trickle and flow of water, and the rhythmic scrubbing on his hands still managed to capture his senses.

Without turning from the sink, he asked, “Do you need more laudanum?”

“No, I still have plenty in the bottle you gave me.” Very close.

Carnaby turned to grab the towel and dry his hands off, but Hanrahan stood right there.

Right next to him.

Stunned, the doctor froze in place and found himself lost in the sparkle of Hanrahan’s deep blue eyes. The natural charm the druggist exuded combined with a unique mystery; the wonder Carnaby felt over whether or not this man indulged in occult practices.

They stood so close to each other that the warmth of Hanrahan’s breath upon his skin mesmerized him. Carnaby’s gut instinct told him to take a step back, but his heart pounded with fury against the inside of his chest, pulling him forward and urging him to lean in for a kiss.

Hanrahan tilted his head in that same strange way he always did and gave the doctor another one of his warm smiles, melting away Carnaby’s ability to do anything.

“Thanks again, Doctor.”

With that, he left. Through the haze of his mental paralysis, it dawned on Carnaby only with delay how wide his eyes must have been and how he had stared after Hanrahan as he left the practice and shot another glance at him over his shoulder. Gone, just like that.

When he snapped out of it, his assistant had already seen Hanrahan off and his most fascinating patient had already left.

The rest of the day flew by in a delirious blur. Carnaby’s mind kept circling back to that moment of attraction and frustration with his lack of ability to act upon it. In between, he barely thought about the clue that hinted at Hanrahan’s interest in the occult.

In the weeks that followed, visits to the opium den, several parties, and some lectures at the university slowly diluted Carnaby’s obsession with the enigma that was Baxter Hanrahan.

He often perished the thought of never seeing him again and considered himself a coward for not seeking his company in his free time. He knew how to find the pharmacy, if he really wanted to.

But he did not. Part of him was afraid.

The press making a big spectacle out of the “Outer Wall Reaper"—a serial killer murdering brothel women in the city’s slums—moved Carnaby to avoid being outside alone too often. It also made him start worrying about Baxter Hanrahan’s safety.

One day, while washing his hands in the sink again, he felt a gaze upon him. The hairs stood up on the back of Carnaby’s neck. Someone stood in the doorway, staring at him.

He turned and expected to see Hanrahan’s smile.

Instead, he beheld the stern face of a police constable. A giant of a man clad in black, the lawman lifted his helmet in greeting. In the reception room behind him, the silhouettes of other figures and a renowned private detective stood out.

In a low, voluminous voice, the constable asked, "Doctor Carnaby?”

The doctor confirmed.

“I need to speak to you about a criminal investigation regarding the murders in the outer city. Have you seen this before?”

The constable’s meaty fingers pinched a metal syringe between them, holding it out on display for the doctor to take in its appearance. The same syringe Carnaby had given Hanrahan.

Doctor Carnaby’s heart skipped a beat.

—Submitted by Wratts

2 notes · View notes

borusawa · 5 years

Text

Hell

A/N: Hey guys, this is a special story. First because it’s a sequel that nobody asked for of heaven. Second because that’s my first angst one shot. The last reason is they’re married in this story and around 26 years old. I enjoyed it though haha. Married BoruSara is life. I dedicate this story to @karinrumi for being such a nice person. Send her a lot of requests, make her work.

Pairings: BoruSara

Beta reader: @abbypdg

Warnings: rated M

Word count: 1,976

No. Sarada could not believe she was having the same talk for what it seemed like the 327th time. Boruto took a deep breath for the 45th time, only that night. They both were in the edge of despair. However, none of them was ready to give up just in that moment, each one in a side of the living room, but both standing far apart.

“We’ve been married for years I cannot believe you’re still complaining over this.” Boruto sat on the couch resting his elbow on his legs, his fingers interlaced with his blond locks.

Sarada huffed. “And I cannot believe you’re still doing the same stupid mistake.”

“Do you really think I’m doing it on purpose?” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “I don’t like to see you that way.” Boruto couldn’t stand one more minute of fighting. They’d been arguing for over a couple hours, even the initial rage and shouting were far gone. By that moment, they were only two people trying to make shit work and failing.

He got up, she shivered. He gave one step towards her, she broke eye contact and looked to the side. He stayed still. Sarada gave all the signs indicating that he should back off, and he knew better than ignoring those.

Boruto took a deep breath for the 46th time.

“Please don’t start this now.” Sarada hissed closing her eyes and placing two fingers on her temples.

“This what?” He started to feel agitated again, for her body language was saying the opposite of what he would like to read that night. Or any night to be fair. He just couldn’t accept that after he just came back from a two-month mission, they would spend their first night together fighting.

She turned to face him, dropping her shoulders and fierce look in onyx iris. “Trying to kiss me to make things fine. I really think we should try to get in a conclusion this time.”

“Fine. I’ll do whatever you want me to.” And again, he sat on the couch with another loud sigh.

“Breathing loud is not helping, you know?” She didn’t even look at him while saying that.

He got up, blue eyes on her once more. “Okay. I can’t touch you, I can’t breathe. What do you want from me then?” Boruto shouted, he couldn’t control the rage bubbling inside of him anymore. Sarada’s eyes widened, she’d never heard him raising his voice to her that way before. He started to agitatedly pace across the room in circles, being observed steadily by the surprised eyes of his wife. He stopped. She gave a small step back. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is all that I can be, and I cannot be the perfect guy you expected.” His voice was calmer, but his words were what worried Sarada the most. His gaze fixed on the floor. “But what if it’s you the one projecting too many things into me, things that I cannot be? You want me to be someone I’m not. That’s not fair.” Realization hit her.

For the first time she was wrong. And she knew that.

After a long silence Sarada sighed. "You know, maybe it's possible to love someone and let go."

"What are you implying by that?" Confusion spread on his face.

"Otherwise we will be going through this over and over again."

"What? I don't..."

Sarada cut him off. "I'll be fine." Boruto sighed as soon as those words came out of her mouth and she started to gather things around in the living room. "I'll be in my office when you need me."

“It’s midnight.” He got closer but that time she didn’t show any reaction.

“I always have work to do.”

She closed the door, he started to think. When the door was closed, she started to cry.

Sometimes love is not enough to keep two people together. He denied it. She was starting to accept.

The moon was full and glowing in the clear night sky. The streets of the village Sarada swore to protect were now scaring her more than any other thing. Not that she was scared that something might happen to her – she was the Hokage after all – but she couldn’t avoid the strange feeling of being fragile. The cold dark streets kept her from seeing the stars shining galaxies away and even if she looked up, the tears would blurry the view. Her glasses were off at that point, but she could see the Hokage tower getting closer. She wasn’t going to work, of course she couldn’t, Sarada just needed some time alone. The building was quiet. She tried to greet the guards properly but her voice didn’t come out. They looked worried but made no questions. Who would? Everyone in the village knew her private life, therefore her husband’s absence did not go unnoticed by the gossip. They know nothing, they don’t understand but it’s okay. I won’t explain, I don’t need to, she told herself walking up the stairs. She had a great sense that everything they would go through would be worth it if it was for the village. However, she could not avoid the hurt.

Meanwhile, Boruto stayed sitting on the couch at the same position for so long that his body was already feeling numb. He couldn’t move. He could feel the pain in his heart, the wetness on his cheeks and the ache growing in the back of his head though he lost the ability of moving. His mind, on the other hand, was racing. He was incapable to keep track of his own thoughts. They were messy, sad and he felt like he was drowning. Nevertheless, he was sure of one thing: he would not let go, she knew nothing. He would never let go. With that in mind he rushed to the door.

The night sky was still clear and the glowing moon was still on its highest point. When he got to her office, he had a bag on his hands and she was facing the night sky with swollen eyes and giving her back to the door; the only light in the room was provided by the moon and the little stars so visible through the glass of her window. No need for greetings – his presence was noticed ages ago. She didn’t avoid the encounter and that was a good sign. Boruto got closer to her table still facing the back of the chair.

“I brought black tea and dangos for us. Well, for you.” She didn’t give a reaction so he just kept talking while placed the things over the table and poured the tea in two mugs. “I guess the store two blocks away from our house is not 24h anymore.” He heard a giggle so he waited. The silence of the building made the waiting feel longer.

“And what made you guess that?” She whispered.

He smiled just by hearing her soft voice. “I was there and it was closed. It’s only 2am.”

“I like your logic, it’s infallible. Except that today is holiday.”

“Is it?” He got on her side, leaning over the table and handing one mug to her. She took it with no questions and her small smile made him flutter. “Which one of them?” She giggled more. “What?” He smiled.

“I should know it, I guess. But I don’t.” She took a sip of the tea, staring at the sky like it was the last time she would see it. He could only look at her.

“I can’t avoid but notice how beautiful you are under the moonlight like this.” She immediately looked at him and he spotted a small blush burning on her face. “It’s nice to know I still have this effect on you.” Her blush increased and she returned her sight to the sky in order to hide her blush.

That moment was strangely familiar for both of them; the beautiful night sky and a room only enlighten by the moon, the silence trying to hide the anxiety behind every small motion. The feeling that this time something was different.

“I’m sorry for tonight. You must be tired from your mission and I guess I was too stressed from work that I just…”

“We’re fine now, aren’t we? That’s all that matters to me. We just needed to cool down.” Boruto cut her off, getting even closer to her and taking her hands in his, interlacing their fingers. This act made a sweet smile born in Sarada’s face and she looked into his eyes. Those eyes… She promised to love them till the last day of her life.

“It’s been so long since the last time we were together, we shouldn’t have fought.” She got up and hugged him, resting her head on his chest where she could hear his heartbeat and feel the heat emanating from his body; his arms quickly found their way around her.

“Fighting is nice for one reason.”

She departed a little only to see his face. “What would that reason be?” In the deep of her heart, she knew what he was talking about.

He leaned closer and kissed her softly. “You know.”

“Again with this story?” She giggled before closing the distance between their lips. The kiss became heated in no time, making Boruto sit on the desk and Sarada sitting on his lap, spreading her legs. He never answered the question, no words were needed. In no time his hands started to travel her body, bringing them closer.

Out of nowhere he broke the kiss. “I guess we should go home now.”

“For what?” She tilted her head, a playful smirk in her lips.

“To execute a funny idea I have.” Boruto couldn’t avoid the smile while she kissed his neck; he was trying to be the reasonable one among them. But he almost didn’t want to.

“Execute it here.” Sarada said with the sexiest voice he’d ever heard.

“I like the way you’re thinking.” He changed their position, pressing her back against the table. It was 2am, but the night was only starting for them.

It was always like that. They fought, noticed that their love was so much more important than any reason to fight, then they had make up sex and everything ended up okay. Eventually, that would happen all over again, but they would never break apart, that was a largely known fact. After all, the love was there. And love was enough for them, always will be.

…

“Are you hearing this?” One of the two shinobis standing in the Hokage tower’s lobby asked his friend, assigned for the same mission and standing beside him.

With a really troubled face, the second shinobi answered. “Well, if a person is not deaf and is in a 20 meter radius from this building… I guess they can hear it.”

“Do you think she is okay?”

“I’m pretty sure he is not killing her, or else why would she be screaming “Don’t stop”?”

The first shinobi sighed. “I’m so glad I’m not their neighbor.”

“This didn’t keep any of us to hear it either way.” He chuckled a little but became worried again in no time. “Do you think they’ll stop soon?”

The other one frowned before answering. “I thought they would stop the first time they made silence. And all the three times after that.”

They stood in silence for a while, loud moans and screams filling the night air.

“So how is your family?” The second shinobi tried to bring a subject to distract them from the sounds.

“The kids are fine and my…” A specific loud scream took both of them out of track, scared expressions taking control. “Okay, we can’t ignore it.”

“At least we tried.” Both of them nodded with wide eyes.

#boruto #borusara #borutoxsarada #borusarafics #borusara oneshot #naruto next generation #i love the last scene just because in my headcanon sarada is really loud #sarada #sarada uchiha #boruto uzumaki #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot

133 notes · View notes

quietya · 5 years

Text

31 Days of quietYA: Books for Fans of Time Travel

If time travel is your thing, then I’ve got some good news for you - there’s a lot of it in YA. Some of these aren’t actually/strictly time travel, but you’ll get the gist.

Loop by Karen Akins

At a school where Quantum Paradox 101 is a required course and history field trips are literal, sixteen year-old time traveler Bree Bennis excels…at screwing up. After Bree botches a solo midterm to the 21st century by accidentally taking a boy hostage (a teensy snafu), she stands to lose her scholarship. But when Bree sneaks back to talk the kid into keeping his yap shut, she doesn't go back far enough. The boy, Finn, now three years older and hot as a solar flare, is convinced he's in love with Bree, or rather, a future version of her that doesn't think he's a complete pain in the arse. To make matters worse, she inadvertently transports him back to the 23rd century with her. Once home, Bree discovers that a recent rash of accidents at her school are anything but accidental. Someone is attacking time travelers. As Bree and her temporal tagalong uncover seemingly unconnected clues—a broken bracelet, a missing data file, the art heist of the millennium—that lead to the person responsible, she alone has the knowledge to piece the puzzle together. Knowledge only one other person has. Her future self. But when those closest to her become the next victims, Bree realizes the attacker is willing to do anything to stop her. In the past, present, or future.

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Incapable. Awkward. Artless. That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: She wants to fail. Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen to work the looms is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to manipulate the very fabric of reality. But if controlling what people eat, where they live, and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested. Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and used her hidden talent for a moment. Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her dad’s jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape. Because tonight, they’ll come for her.

Future Shock by Elizabeth Briggs

Elena Martinez has street smarts, the ability for perfect recall, and a deadline: if she doesn’t find a job before she turns eighteen, she’ll be homeless. But then she gets an unexpected offer from Aether Corporation, the powerful Los Angeles tech giant. Along with four other recruits—Adam, Chris, Trent, and Zoe—Elena is being sent on a secret mission to bring back data from the future. All they have to do is get Aether the information they need, and the five of them will be set for life. It’s an offer Elena can’t refuse. But something goes wrong when the time travelers arrive in the future. And they are forced to break the only rule they were given—not to look into their own fates. Now they have twenty-four hours to get back to the present and find a way to stop a seemingly inevitable future—and a murder—from happening. But changing the timeline has deadly consequences too. Who can Elena trust as she fights to save her life?

The Wood by Chelsea Bobulski

When Winter’s dad goes missing during his nightly patrol of the wood, it falls to her to patrol the time portals and protect the travelers who slip through them. Winter can't help but think there's more to her dad's disappearance than she's being told. She soon finds a young man traveling in the wood named Henry who knows more than he should. He believes if they can work together to find his missing parents, they could discover the truth about Winter’s dad. The wood is poisoned, changing into something sinister—torturing travelers lost in it. Winter must put her trust in Henry in order to find the truth and those they’ve lost.

Cold Summer by Gwen Cole

Kale Jackson has spent years trying to control his time-traveling ability but hasn’t had much luck. One day he lives in 1945, fighting in the war as a sharpshooter and helplessly watching soldiers—friends—die. Then the next day, he’s back in the present, where WWII has bled into his modern life in the form of PTSD, straining his relationship with his father and the few friends he has left. Every day it becomes harder to hide his battle wounds, both physical and mental, from the past. When the ex-girl-next-door, Harper, moves back to town, thoughts of what could be if only he had a normal life begin to haunt him. Harper reminds him of the person he was before the PTSD, which helps anchor him to the present. With practice, maybe Kale could remain in the present permanently and never step foot on a battlefield again. Maybe he can have the normal life he craves. But then Harper finds Kale’s name in a historical article—and he’s listed as a casualty of the war. Kale knows now that he must learn to control his time-traveling ability to save himself and his chance at a life with Harper. Otherwise, he’ll be killed in a time where he doesn’t belong by a bullet that was never meant for him.

Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins

Cassandra craves drama and adventure, so the last thing she wants is to spend her summer marooned with her mother and stepfather in a snooty Massachusetts shore town. But when a dreamy stranger shows up on their private beach claiming it's his own—and that the year is 1925—she is swept into a mystery a hundred years in the making. As she searches for answers in the present, Cassandra discovers a truth that puts their growing love—and Lawrence's life—into jeopardy. Desperate to save him, Cassandra must find a way to change history…or risk losing Lawrence forever.

Tempest by Julie Cross

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he's in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it's not like the movies — nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there's no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors — it's just harmless fun. That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he's stuck in 2007 and can't get back to the future. Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities. But it's not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these "Enemies of Time" will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him. Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he's willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

Traveler by L.E. DeLano

Jessa has spent her life dreaming of other worlds and writing down stories more interesting than her own, until the day her favorite character, Finn, suddenly shows up and invites her out for coffee. After the requisite nervous breakdown, Jessa learns that she and Finn are Travelers, born with the ability to slide through reflections and dreams into alternate realities. But it’s not all steampunk pirates and fantasy lifestyles—Jessa is dying over and over again, in every reality, and Finn is determined that this time, he’s going to stop it…This Jessa is going to live.

A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

Talia fell under a spell...Jack broke the curse. I was told to beware the accursed spindle, but it was so enchanting, so hypnotic... I was looking for a little adventure the day I ditched my tour group. But finding a comatose town, with a hot-looking chick asleep in it, was so not what I had in mind. I awakened in the same place but in another time—to a stranger's soft kiss. I couldn't help kissing her. Sometimes you just have to kiss someone. I didn't know this would happen. Now I am in dire trouble because my father, the king, says I have brought ruin upon our country. I have no choice but to run away with this commoner! Now I'm stuck with a bratty princess and a trunk full of her jewels...The good news: My parents will freak! Think you have dating issues? Try locking lips with a snoozing stunner who turns out to be 316 years old. Can a kiss transcend all—even time?

Invictus by Ryan Graudin

Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time-traveling Recorder from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in Rome in 95 AD, Far's birth defies the laws of nature. Exploring history himself is all he's ever wanted, and after failing his final time-traveling exam, Far takes a position commanding a ship with a crew of his friends as part of a black market operation to steal valuables from the past. But during a heist on the sinking Titanic, Far meets a mysterious girl who always seems to be one step ahead of him. Armed with knowledge that will bring Far's very existence into question, she will lead Far and his team on a race through time to discover a frightening truth: History is not as steady as it seems.

The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past: To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory. Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to be broken.

The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination. As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix. But the end to it all looms closer every day. Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence. For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters. She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love. Or she could disappear.

The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” At first, they’re just momentary glimpses—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right. That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Proof of Forever by Lexa Hillyer

Before: It was the perfect summer of first kisses, skinny-dipping, and bonfires by the lake. Joy, Tali, Luce, and Zoe knew their final summer at Camp Okahatchee would come to an end, but they swore they’d stay friends. After: Now, two years later, their bond has faded along with those memories. Then: That is, until the fateful flash of a photo booth camera transports the four of them back in time, to the summer they were fifteen—the summer everything changed. Now: The girls must recreate the past in order to return to the present. As they live through their second-chance summer, the mystery behind their lost friendship unravels, and a dark secret threatens to tear the girls apart all over again. Always: Summers end. But this one will change them forever.

Prada and Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard

Fifteen-year-old Callie buys a pair of real Prada pumps to impress the cool crowd on a school trip to London. Goodbye, Callie the clumsy geek-girl, hello popularity! But before she knows what’s hit her, Callie wobbles, trips, conks her head...and wakes up in the year 1815!

She stumbles about until she meets the kind-hearted Emily, who takes Callie in, mistaking her for a long-lost friend. Sparks soon fly between Callie and Emily’s cousin, Alex, the maddeningly handsome - though totally arrogant - Duke of Harksbury. Too bad he seems to have something sinister up his ruffled sleeve...

From face-planting off velvet piano benches and hiding behind claw-foot couches to streaking through the estate halls wearing nothing but an itchy blanket, Callie’s curiosity about Alex creates all kinds of trouble.

But the grandfather clock is ticking on her 19th Century shenanigans. Can Callie save Emily from a dire engagement, win a kiss from Alex, and prove to herself that she’s more than just a loud-mouth klutz before her time there is up?

The Edge of Forever by Melissa E. Hurst

In 2013, sixteen-year-old Alora is having blackouts. Each time she wakes up in a different place with no idea how she got there. The one thing she is certain of? Someone is following her. In 2146, seventeen-year-old Bridger is one of a small number of people born with the ability to travel to the past. While on a routine school time trip, he sees the last person he expected—his dead father. The strangest part is that, according to the Department of Temporal Affairs, his father was never assigned to be in that time. Bridger’s even more stunned when he learns that his by-the-book father was there to break the most important rule of time travel—to prevent someone’s murder. And that someone is named Alora. Determined to discover why his father wanted to help a “ghost,” Bridger illegally shifts to 2013 and, along with Alora, races to solve the mystery surrounding her past and her connection to his father before the DTA finds him. If he can stop Alora’s death without altering the timeline, maybe he can save his father too.

The Next Together by Laura James

Katherine and Matthew are destined to be born again and again, century after century. Each time, their presence changes history for the better, and each time, they fall hopelessly in love, only to be tragically separated. Spanning the Crimean War, the Siege of Carlisle and the near-future of 2019 and 2039 they find themselves sacrificing their lives to save the world. But why do they keep coming back? What else must they achieve before they can be left to live and love in peace? Maybe the next together will be different...

Return Once More by Trisha Leigh

Years have passed since refugees from a ruined earth took to space, eventually settling a new system of planets. Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting your one true love. Sixteen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and she can’t resist a peek at her long-dead soul mate in Ancient Egypt. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could destroy more than just her new romance. But when Kaia notices a fellow classmate snooping around in a time where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers could threaten the entire universe. If her experience has taught her anything, to changing history means facing the consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it— in a race across time to save her only chance at a future.

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Ever since she arrived in Germany on a school trip, Ellie Baum has felt the weight of history on her. After all, she’s the first one in her family to return since her grandfather’s miraculous escape from a death camp, and in Berlin, pieces of the past—World War II, the Cold War—are still visible decades later. One day, visiting the Berlin Wall Memorial, she sees a stray balloon floating across the park, and she wanders away from the crowd to follow it. One moment she’s reaching out to grab it—the next, she’s yanked back through time to when the wall is still standing. It is 1988, and Ellie is in East Berlin. Nobody knows how she got there, not even the members of the underground guild—the Runners and the Schöpfers—who use balloons and magic to help people escape over the wall. Now as a stranger in an oppressive regime, Ellie must hide from the police with the help of Kai, a Runner struggling with his own uneasy relationship with the powerful Balloonmakers and his growing feelings for Ellie. Together they search for the truth behind Ellie’s mysterious time travel, and when they uncover a plot to alter history with dark magic, she must risk everything—including her only way home—to stop the deadly plans.

The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Siblings Ilse and Wolf hide a deep secret in their blood: with it, they can work magic. And the government just found out.Blackmailed into service during World War II, Ilse lends her magic to America’s newest weapon, the atom bomb, while Wolf goes behind enemy lines to sabotage Germany’s nuclear program. It’s a dangerous mission, but if Hitler were to create the bomb first, the results would be catastrophic. When Wolf’s plane is shot down, his entire mission is thrown into jeopardy. Wolf needs Ilse’s help to develop the magic that will keep him alive, but with a spy afoot in Ilse’s laboratory, the letters she sends to Wolf begin to look treasonous. Can Ilse prove her loyalty—and find a way to help her brother—before their time runs out?

Kissing Shakespeare by Pamela Mingle

Miranda has Shakespeare in her blood: she hopes one day to become a Shakespearean actor like her famous parents. At least, she does until her disastrous performance in her school's staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Humiliated, Miranda skips the opening-night party. All she wants to do is hide. Fellow cast member, Stephen Langford, has other plans for Miranda. When he steps out of the backstage shadows and asks if she'd like to meet Shakespeare, Miranda thinks he's a total nutcase. But before she can object, Stephen whisks her back to 16th century England—the world Stephen's really from. He wants Miranda to use her acting talents and modern-day charms on the young Will Shakespeare. Without her help, Stephen claims, the world will lost its greatest playwright. Miranda isn't convinced she's the girl for the job. Why would Shakespeare care about her? And just who is this infuriating time traveler, Stephen Langford? Reluctantly, she agrees to help, knowing that it's her only chance of getting back to the present and her "real" life. What Miranda doesn't bargain for is finding true love . . . with no acting required.

Timeless by Alexandra Monir

When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor's family, she is forced to move from Los Angeles to New York City to live with the wealthy, aristocratic grandparents she has never met. In their historic Fifth Avenue mansion, filled with a century's worth of family secrets, Michele discovers the biggest family secret of all - an ancestor's diary that, amazingly, has the power to send her back in time to 1910, the year it was written. There, at a glamorous high-society masquerade ball, Michele meets the young man with striking blue eyes who has haunted her dreams all her life. And she finds herself falling for him, and into an otherworldly romance. Soon Michele is leading a double life, struggling to balance her contemporary high school world with her escapes into the past. But when she stumbles upon a terrible discovery, she is propelled on a race through history to save the boy she loves - and to complete a quest that will determine their fate.

Now That You’re Here by Amy Nichols

In a parallel universe, the classic bad boy falls for the class science geek. One minute Danny was running from the cops, and the next, he jolted awake in an unfamiliar body - his own, but different. Somehow, he's crossed into a parallel universe. Now his friends are his enemies, his parents are long dead, and studious Eevee is not the mysterious femme fatale he once kissed back home. Then again, this Eevee - a girl who'd rather land an internship at NASA than a date to the prom--may be his only hope of getting home. Eevee tells herself she's only helping him in the name of quantum physics, but there's something undeniably fascinating about this boy from another dimension... a boy who makes her question who she is, and who she might be in another place and time.

Stolen Time by Danielle Rollins (coming February 5, 2019)

Seattle, 1913 // Dorothy is trapped. Forced into an engagement to a wealthy man just so she and her mother can live comfortably for the rest of their days, she’ll do anything to escape. Including sneaking away from her wedding and bolting into the woods to disappear. New Seattle, 2077 // Ash is on a mission. Rescue the professor—his mentor who figured out the secret to time travel—so together they can put things right in their devastated city. But searching for one man means endless jumps through time with no guarantee of success. When Dorothy collides with Ash, she sees it as her chance to start fresh—she’ll stow away in his plane and begin a new life wherever they land. Then she wakes up in a future that’s been ripped apart by earthquakes and floods; where vicious gangs rule the submerged city streets and a small group of intrepid travelers from across time are fighting against the odds to return things to normal. What Dorothy doesn’t know is that she could hold the key to unraveling the past—and her arrival may spell Ash’s ultimate destruction.

Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone

Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet: she lives in 1995 Chicago and he lives in 2012 San Francisco. But Bennett has the unique ability to travel through time and space, which brings him into Anna’s life, and with him a new world of adventure and possibility. As their relationship deepens, the two face the reality that time may knock Bennett back to where he belongs, even as a devastating crisis throws everything they believe into question. Against a ticking clock, Anna and Bennett are forced to ask themselves how far they can push the bounds of fate, what consequences they can bear in order to stay together, and whether their love can stand the test of time.

Into the Dim by Janet B. Taylor

When fragile, sixteen-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas, her secluded world crumbles. Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time. Along the way, her path collides with that of a mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s undoing.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Em is locked in a bare, cold cell with no comforts. Finn is in the cell next door. The Doctor is keeping them there until they tell him what he wants to know. Trouble is, what he wants to know hasn't happened yet. Em and Finn have a shared past, but no future unless they can find a way out. The present is torture - being kept apart, overhearing each other's anguish as the Doctor relentlessly seeks answers. There's no way back from here, to what they used to be, the world they used to know. Then Em finds a note in her cell which changes everything. It's from her future self and contains some simple but very clear instructions. Em must travel back in time to avert a tragedy that's about to unfold. Worse, she has to pursue and kill the boy she loves to change the future.

Summer of Yesterday by Gaby Triana

Summer officially sucks. Thanks to a stupid seizure she had a few months earlier, Haley’s stuck going on vacation with her dad and his new family to Disney’s Fort Wilderness instead of enjoying the last session of summer camp back home with her friends. Fort Wilderness holds lots of childhood memories for her father, but surely nothing for Haley. But then a new seizure triggers something she’s never before experienced—time travel—and she ends up in River Country, the campground’s long-abandoned water park, during its heyday. The year? 1982. And there—with its amusing fashion, “oldies” music, and primitive technology—she runs into familiar faces: teenage Dad and Mom before they’d even met. Somehow, Haley must find her way back to the twenty-first century before her present-day parents anguish over her disappearance, a difficult feat now that she’s met Jason, one of the park’s summer residents and employees, who takes the strangely dressed stowaway under his wing. Seizures aside, Haley’s used to controlling her life, and she has no idea how to deal with this dilemma. How can she be falling for a boy whose future she can’t share?

Steel by Carrie Vaughn

A mysterious broken sword transports a modern teen through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past, and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as she learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home—one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain!

Wildwing by Emily Whitman

When Addy is swept back in time, she couldn't be happier to leave her miserable life behind. Now she's mistaken for Lady Matilda, the pampered ward of the king. If Addy can play her part, she'll have glorious gowns, jewels, and something she's always longed for the respect and admiration of others. But then she meets Will, the falconer's son with sky blue eyes, who unsettles all her plans.

From shipwrecks to castle dungeons, from betrothals to hidden conspiracies, Addy finds herself in a world where she's not the only one with a dangerous secret. When she discovers the truth, Addy must take matters into her own hands. The stakes? Her chance at true love . . . and the life she's meant to live.

#31 days of quietya #ya books #this is your mod speaking #time travel #quietya #book list

92 notes · View notes

ellistheauthor-blog · 5 years

Text

Transformation Of A Soul

This recollection of events leading up to my changing you are about to read may frighten you, but believe me when I say that is not my intent. In the aftermath of what I will soon do, as morbid as it seems, please don’t be distraught. I beg you to be at peace as I finally am. What I am about to inscribe within the pages of this journal is not about death as humankind knows it, but of transformation.

My given name was Matthew. I was the third to hold that title in my family, sharing the name with both my father and grandfather. I grew up with a desire to serve my community and fulfilled this calling by becoming a firefighter. A job I held until just recently when my mind’s eye opened, planting the seeds to what would ultimately become my evolution. The reconciling of the physical and spectral realms. I’m sorry if I’m confusing you, whoever you are. I have gotten ahead of myself. Let me bring you back to where this beautiful transformation began. Please keep an open mind.

Early in the morning four months ago, I was in bed at work when my crew was awoken by the tones, followed by the disembodied voice of dispatch assigning us, as well as the next four closest units, to a structure fire. I was tailboard for the shift, meaning I rode in the back of the engine and was responsible for establishing water supply to the truck and fighting fires from inside structures, if conditions warranted it, with my Lieutenant, Manny Gamallo.

The building was a moderate size, similar in stature to a three-story home. When we pulled up, we noticed the structure was a temple with architecture reminiscent of the buildings you’d see in Japan. We were the first unit in. I dropped lines, caught the nearest hydrant, and dragged the charged hose through the front door, Gamallo pulling the excess behind me.

Beyond the door, the interior of the temple was pitch black. Its contents were hidden within a curtain of smoke, and silent apart from the hiss of our regulators with every inhale. Following the growing heat of the inferno, we made our way blindly through the maze until we found the stairs. An amber glow dawned over the top, illuminating the wispy tendrils of smoke in the doorway. Gamallo swore as we rushed up the stairs. Fighting fire was a race to the attic. Attics are giant voids of space, providing a fire with a buffet of oxygen and fuel. When a fire made it to an attic, it could spread anywhere.

We emerged over the top of the stairs to what seemed to be a worship room. The wood had been burned black and was littered with the charred remnants of several prayer rugs. My eyes were drawn to the pixelated orange and yellow blur of flames obscured within the smoke. My hand tightened on the nozzle as I stepped forward and aimed the hose towards the seat of the fire. But I didn’t open it. I tried with every ounce of energy within me to unleash the barrage of water, but I couldn’t. My arms were locked in place—paralyzed—my mind perplexed by the sight before me.

Emerging from the parting haze like a lighthouse cutting through the morning fog was a metal shrine. It resembled a capital H with a roof on top and fences along the sides. Sitting Indian Style in the center with hands tucked neatly in its lap was a life-sized wooden carving of a man. We had found the fire; it surrounded the shrine after making quick work of the rest of the destroyed contents within the room. However, what stopped Gamallo and I in our tracks was the realization that the shrine and statue within were utterly untouched. The flames rolled along the perimeter of the shrine, but it never reached in to seize the wooden man.

The expression carved on the idol’s face was a look of pure bliss; an expression that seemed to say I am surrounded by danger, yet I am safe within myself. I’m not sure exactly how much time elapsed since being confronted by the fire around the shrine, but it must have been too long for my Lieutenant’s liking. Manny swore behind me, telling me in his words, to stop fucking around.

I regained use of my arms. As my gloved hand tightened around the nozzle, my attention fell once more to the wooden man, causing a gasp to escape me. It seemed, for just a passing moment, that the wooden man was alive. For, I could have sworn his eyes, which were turned away just a moment earlier, were now focused upon me. The fire lashed forward, taking advantage of the gaps in the metal gate. The wooden man was seized by the flames. I took a step back and opened the nozzle.

The fire hissed as it met the water, falling back like a cowering dog before transforming into a black cloud. Naturally, once being extinguished, the smoke would rise to the ceiling and dissipate. However, for a lingering moment, the black wisps hung elegantly in the air—seemingly watching me—before fading.

—

It wasn’t until a week had passed that I truly began to feel the weight of what I had witnessed within that old temple. In my nine years with the department, I had fought dozens of fires, and not once did a fire behave in that way—defying all laws of physics. The shrine had several openings along each side, yet the flames shuffled along the edges as if repelled by something within.

The wooden man. My mind was brought back to the idol. How it gazed straight ahead one moment, then looked towards me the next. Except it wasn’t just that. There was something else; the carving’s expression had changed. When he looked at me, there was something in those mahogany eyes of his that told me there was a force far beyond my comprehension at play in the temple. Looking back, I know that to be true; the room was alive with a palpable energy unlike any I’d ever felt. It hadn’t unsettled me, but it also hadn’t given me a good feeling. The sensation had been a strong, pulling force, devoid of any emotion attached to it. Truly neutral.

I tried to recreate the path of the smoke when the fire was extinguished in my mind. Instead of dispersing, it had curled in on itself as if it were caught in a vacuum. It pulled together, becoming almost solid, then it grew weak, widened, and dispersed. All of those things couldn’t have been coincidences, I told myself. It was impossible. Though I had always been a skeptic, I couldn’t help but entertain the thought that there may have been something supernatural at play in the temple. I decided to at least keep an open mind. That is when my journey truly began.

—

Visions I had once perceived as nightmares started coming to me nightly a few weeks later. I had grown to believe I would never receive the answers I hoped for, and then, as if by some divine intervention, I was shown spectacular dreams in my sleep. The dreams would begin the same way; it would be completely black—a darkness of unfathomable depth. I would suddenly become aware of my surroundings, but I wouldn’t be in control of my body because there was no body to inhabit. I was simply a collective form of energy and consciousness floating in the void.

Just ahead in the center of my view, two amber orbs would ignite. The orbs always hovered parallel to each other as they came towards me. They tracked me—studied me. I came to recognize these as eyes made of fire. When it was just a mere foot or two from me, the orbs would flare, briefly illuminating the outline of a solid black, featureless face behind those beautiful eyes. The first time I witnessed this, I was quickly overcome by a sense of deja vu. Whatever this being was, it became apparent that it was the same force I felt in the temple. It was an entity of immense power.

The first night I dreamt of this unnamed deity I had woken up before I could learn more of its origins. Every night for the month following, the dreams became more vivid, going from being mere dreams to epiphanies. Every night I encountered it, I was able to stay in that realm of consciousness a little longer; I could feel my spirit growing stronger with each passing night.

It wasn’t until I could witness the coming of this fire-eyed deity without even the faintest trace of fear that it began to speak to me. I was impatient at first, seeing something of such an infinite magnitude but being given no answers. But, looking back, I am thankful it waited to speak, for if it had spoken to me the first night I saw it, I am sure my mind wouldn’t have been able to handle it. The deity spoke to me through the void in a voice I noticed as my own. As it spoke, I felt a sensation rising within me. I could feel the deity speaking through me, except it said things unknown to myself.

You are becoming something greater than yourself. It would say, before following it with what sounded like a warning. Others will either avoid you or grow cold. Man will mistreat you. Take this as inspiration: man fears what man is incapable of understanding. Man shuns the unknown; opting to remain ignorant of the true world beyond their bubble of reality.

The vision would end here each night the first week I had it, allowing me to process what it was telling me fully. As much as I tried to ignore that sense within myself that I hadn’t experienced a simple recurring dream of great vividness, I couldn’t help but know deep down that it was right. I was changing—for better or for worse, I did not know at the time, yet I always felt its lingering presence within the depths of my mind.

I worked three times following my first encounter with the deity. We work twenty-four hours on, followed by forty-eight hours off. Life at the station seemed different when I returned. My coworkers behaved strangely. They spoke in whispers in the dayroom while I was out in the bay or the bunkroom, only to go silent mid-sentence when I would enter. I could feel their eyes burning into my skin when I was turned away, yet when I’d look back, their eyes would wander. Whenever I walked past, they’d shift in their seats to avoid accidentally touching me. When I left the room, the whispers resumed. I could have stayed by the door and eavesdropped if I so desired, but that wouldn’t be what my new companion would want.

The next month I grew closer to my nightly visitor; a special bond bound us together with an energy more powerful than the pull of two magnets. I had found a sense of comfort when in the presence of the deity I hadn’t known before. In that dark realm, I felt at home. I could tell this being shared a similar sentiment.

The deity revealed itself to me in a show of trust gained between us. Its eyes burned brighter, revealing its pure form. The outline of a man’s body floated before me. An athletic build, the body was made three-dimensional by a shade of black darker than the night around it. The shadow moved in the pattern of rolling waves—the smoke from the temple fire. For the first time, I found my voice.

I looked into the fire of its eyes and asked the deity who it was and where it came from. It reached out one of its melting, solidifying, and melting again hands and extended it towards where my body would be if I were physically in this realm. Ice ran through the veins in my sleeping body as I felt its arm cross between dimensions into this world. It was trying to show me something, perhaps another vision, but the force of its touch caused me to awaken with a jolt.

I had returned to my bedroom. The sheets were moistened with sweat, and goosebumps rose along my shirtless body from the chilling breeze of the fan overhead. For a brief moment, I believed I would find my companion standing beside the bed, but he wasn’t. It seemed he had tried to cross over but couldn’t quite manage it. A profound sense of sadness filled me at this thought. I was alone again.

My head was clouded as I drove to work two hours later. I had trouble thinking about anything other than my latest encounter with the deity, and my muscles occasionally twitched as surges of ice sludged through my veins. I wasn’t sick. I had checked my temperature: the thermometer reading a perfect 98.6 degrees. I didn’t have a headache, either. My mind felt fuzzy as if my soul had become trapped between realms. I barely felt like how I did just six months ago, but it was for the better. An overwhelming sense of change now filled me. I could feel myself becoming something greater.

I got into work half an hour later. I began my morning duties of checking off the engine, but my mind was still caught in the space of limbo between realms. The rest of the crew avoided me more than ever now. Whenever I would glance over my shoulder at one of the doors leading into the dayroom, I’d see one of them standing behind the glass, peering curiously out at me like I was an animal in the zoo. I guess that isn’t so far off; I did feel trapped. My mind was moving a million miles a minute; my soul yearning to escape, but I was stuck inside my own head.

—

A call for a house fire came out later that same day. It was evening, and we had just placed dinner on the table. We pulled in, once more being the first unit on scene. I was going to head in with Gamallo, following the two-in-two-out rule, but when I advanced into the home, Gamallo must have gone to grab something from the engine, because he wasn’t behind me when I entered. I could feel the presence of the deity radiating from the house as I crossed the threshold.

My lungs pulled in oxygen through the airtight seal in my mask as I winded through the corners of the home following the distant orange glare. Pulling a fully charged hose isn’t so hard when you have someone assisting you, but by yourself, it feels like an anchor strapped to your back. After an exhausting few minutes, I emerged into the kitchen of the home.

It was a standard kitchen fire. The family had neglected to clean oil and grime from the top of the stove. The build-up had ignited, causing a fire to roll over the top and sides like a mushroom cloud. When I came into range of the oven, the fire changed trajectory. It seemed to almost stand up as it grew wider, now engulfing the entire counter on each side. The hose tucked under my arm and nozzle in hand, I could feel the hum of water ready to be released. However, I paused. I hadn’t lost use of my arms like I had in the temple; I had been stopped by a new case of inner turmoil.

Sweat dribbled down my forehead and dripped into my eyes, causing them to sting. The fire burned brighter and reached closer. The entire stove, pantry, and counters were now fuel within the fire’s belly. The nozzle was fixed on the center of the flames, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Staring into the blinding light rising from the depths of the flames, I could see my deity reaching out for me as he did in my last vision. To extinguish his physical self would be to reject him.

Sudden bliss overcame me, causing my head to grow light with euphoria. The nozzle slipped from my grasp as my legs went numb with the ecstasy one can only know when overcome by the presence of their God in the flesh. I collapsed, landing on top of the hose behind me. In the background, the sound of Gamallo and a few others called out to me, but I could barely hear them. My restless mind had finally stopped stirring; I was at peace in the presence of my deity. My companion reached one flaming tendril of an arm out to me. Fire kissed the outer layer of my turnout pants and began spreading up my legs. If it hurt, I did not know, for I felt nothing. A smile grew over my lips. I closed my eyes; welcoming my deity with open arms.

�� —

I came to an undisclosed time later. I was being buckled to the stretcher. All of my turnout gear apart from the pants had been removed. Sweat drenched my navy undershirt, turning it almost black. Without saying a word, I sat up straight. The EMT and Medic currently buckling the seatbelts flinched. They looked at me, bewilderment lost within their eyes. My head spinning, I struggled to remove the buckles from myself. I insisted I was okay. I told them my name, where I was, and what day of the week it was to prove that I was alert and oriented to my surroundings. They shrugged and assisted me off the stretcher after lowering it halfway.

I passed my crew on the way back to the engine. Gamallo approached me and said something, but my mind didn’t process what. I was angry at him and the rest of the rescue crew with him. They may think they saved me, but they didn’t. They damned me—cursed me to live another day trapped in this prison of flesh. I just prayed my deity wouldn’t be disappointed with me. When we returned to the station, I informed my Lieutenant that, concluding the shift, I would not be returning to work.

The following night I had another rendezvous with my deity. Whenever I would ask it questions, it would usually not respond. I see now that it wasn’t dodging what I asked; I had simply not been asking the right questions. I had been thinking a lot about my own changing identity, especially in the twenty-four hours leading up to this crucial meeting. As the collected energy of my soul floated amongst my deity, the right question came to me.

“Who am I?” I asked.

My deity watched me through his burning eyes in silence, processing my question.

“Or... what am I?”

Finally, it spoke. You are Kami.

“What does that mean?”

Here you are Kami. In your realm you are Kami trapped in the flesh. Bound by the chains of humanity.

Although I didn’t know what it meant by Kami, I could feel my true identity burning inside me like a fire starved of oxygen. I had grown tremendously since meeting my deity, but now I felt that I had hit a wall.

“What are you?” I had asked this once before when first meeting the deity, but it had ignored me. Now, it knew I was ready for the truth.

I am Kami.

“You are me?”

That is partially true. Are you familiar with the Christian belief in the Trinity

“It’s grown fuzzy.”

We are both Kami, yet we are each individual. We haven’t reached our full potential. We are the final two pieces in an intricate and fantastic cosmic puzzle lying separated on a tabletop. I have searched for you for a thousand years and just now found you.

At this moment, I realized there was something crucial that had to be done. “What do I do?”

The reunification.

With that, Kami’s eyes grew dim and went out. As I drifted into consciousness, I heard it speak one last time. Cleanse the spirit.

I woke up this morning knowing what must be done to complete this ritual of reunification of man and the Gods. Cleanse the spirit. Echoed in my mind as a confirmation of what I had realized to be true.

—

I sit on the floor in the center of my living room. All of the furniture has been relocated to the basement. I have removed the television, all lamps and clocks, and tables. The room is empty apart from myself and the candles in the corners. I sit as I was born into this world; untainted by the humanity of clothes. I am pure. I will free myself. The reunification will be completed; I am Kami.

My skin stings and has grown red from the gasoline, but I don’t mind. The smell of gas emanates from the floor, causing me to become slightly dizzy. The moonlight shines in through a window, radiating the lines starting at the base of each candle and running to me. Wax soaks into the corners as the candles continue to melt. The fire has reached the halfway mark. The final, and most important, step in my transformation will soon begin.

I will place these letters in the metal box sitting on my lap. Though I’ve become detached from this world and the humans sinning within it, I still believe those who were my friends and family deserve an explanation to what has occurred. I am sure it will be hard for you reading this to process what has happened. Just be reminded that it isn’t grotesque; it is beautiful.

—

The fire was put out at three-thirty in the morning. It had burned for six hours, only growing stronger the more water the responding crews placed on it. The firefighters were baffled by the difficulty in putting out the blaze. Many of them joked that the fire was fighting them back.

When the fire was finally extinguished, the small home lay in ruins. The crews shuffled through the charred remnants of the house doing overhaul. It looked like the occupant had been in the process of moving. All the furniture had been piled neatly in the basement. The living room, where the fire had started, was stripped bare.

The cause of the fire was quickly deemed an arson. Four distinct burn patterns in the shape of a V were tucked in each corner of the empty living room. All pointed towards the center of the room which, oddly enough, was the only unburned portion of the entire home. A neat white circle sat in the center of the room amongst the ash like a spotlight. In the center of the unburned circle was a metal box.

END.

#weird #weirdtale #fiction #speculative #horror #urban fantasy #spiritual #mythology #japan #shinto #spirits #metamorphosis #transformation #depression #dreams #visions

2 notes · View notes