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wintersongstress · 1 year

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A Dream’s Winding Way

Part II — The Weaver and the Loom

Pairing: Arthur Morgan (high honor) x Female Reader

Summary: For as long as you could remember, you dreamt of falling in a love so whole and pure it was worth enduring the many griefs in your life. But the world, cold and cruel as it was, robbed that dream from you, and you believed you would forever be broken until you met a man who was scarred in his own way.

Word Count: 10.8k

Warnings: sexual assault trauma responses, murder, canon-typical violence.

A/N: Arthur will make his appearance at the end here ♥ thank you THANK YOU @the-halo-of-my-memory for beta-ing 💞

Part I | ao3 link

~ II — The Weaver and the Loom ~

Snick.

The bolts inside the cabinet lock slid free. Between your finger and your thumb, the tarnished key in your grasp opened a long-latched door, a swoosh releasing dormant air. Inside the stale cell, relics of the past awaited, felty with dust. A chatelaine belt rested on the shelf, ornate with filigree, alongside a satin pouch, a crystal hat pin, silver spurs with brass rowels, and a wedding bouquet, its once-white roses shriveled and decaying. You paused once, running your fingers over the cool rivets of a sapphire brooch, and overlooked it all, instead retrieving a new vase for the kitchen table—one that would not shatter into pieces when it fell—and a tattered recipe book.

With the book settled in your lap you opened it with a crack. Antique, creamy pages inked with words fluttered past your fingers, food stains mottling the margins alongside cursive pencil scrawls. A flattened sprig of poppy bookmarked the page for an oatmeal pie recipe. You tucked it back in for time to keep safe. A few gentle turns later you found what you were looking for and rose from the floor of your grandmother’s room, relocking the cabinet, and shutting the door behind you. You donned an apron and began your work.

The rugs, the curtains, all were taken down and rolled up, flapped outside, and beaten with the handle of your broom. You swept the floors of broken vase shards and stray leaves, replenished the oil in the lamps, trimmed the candle wicks, tossed out last night’s dinner, laid a new tablecloth, filled the silver ewer from your grandmother’s cabinet with water and fresh flowers, and scraped the ashes out from the fireplace. Wood clopped as you piled it up in a canvas carrier outside and lugged it in. Soap suds splashed your wrists as you scrubbed the dishes spotless. All the while the clock ticked on, from hour to hour, the day waning, until you could no longer prolong the inevitable, and commenced your grisly task.

You propped your family recipe book open on the counter and fetched a large stew pot from the wall rack. The cutting board hosted the full spectrum of ingredients you needed, so you set the pot over the stove flame and warmed a dollop of butter and olive oil. The yellow onions you chopped sizzled as you added them in, and, using a knife, you deployed your special ingredient from the cutting board. A few dashes of salt and pepper joined the mixture next, and once the onions popped their flavor, caramelizing, teaspoons of dried sage and thyme hand-picked from your garden snowed from your hand with clumps of chopped garlic.

Stirring, mixing, curdling, after a few minutes a pour of red wine and a splash of vinegar came next, making the soup bubble fragrantly. You scraped the copper bottom with a wooden spoon, stirring the browning bits of onion and garlic around, and drowned it all in three cans of beef broth from the general store. Two bay leaves fluttered in last before you covered the pot with a lid to let it simmer.

The Sheriff would have a fine last meal.

When the first three stars appeared in the evening sky, your cottage was aglow with soft light and welcoming with the scent of a rich dinner. Fine dishes and silverware sparkled on your table with a basket of bread in the center beside a lit candelabra. A fire warmed the hearth, and the alluring shimmer of dusk slipped in through the clean curtains. All was set. You sat in your armchair and waited, staring at the flames.

Hoof beats. Sweat chilled your palms as the sound drew nearer and you stood to peer out the window. The dot of a lantern bloomed in the distance. You tucked your shirt into your belt and clutched your shawl tighter, holding your heart to tame its wild beating, fingertips bumping the band of your mother’s ring, still hanging around your neck from a chain. The most important thing for you to do was breathe, slow and even, so your blood could thrum throughout your body as it was supposed to and give you strength. It flowed into your heart and you closed your eyes.

“Ease up,” a voice called. His voice.

A horse nickered, blowing out its nostrils. Leather creaked as he dismounted from his saddle and the bit tinkled as he hitched the reins, whistling. You could imagine it all, him fixing and grooming himself as he walked up, expecting a girl who would be so happy to see him and enamored with him that she made her home all nice to welcome him after a noble day of hunting outlaws.

The jingle of his spur was as foreboding as a snake’s rattle as it marched up the flagstone path. You positioned yourself in front of the stove, bending over the pot with a spoon and stirring the flavorful broth, a smile schooled on your face.

“Honey pie, you home? It’s me.”

The picture of a perfect wife, you thought, standing in your inviting home in a cooking apron. He would only see what he wanted, blind to you being capable of anything else.

“Door’s open!” You chimed, and the doorknob turned.

Some change at once went through the room. In a heavy, dominant rush it all came back, like the strong winds the night before that rattled the window panes and made the trees plunge and bow. You spent all day distracting yourself from the flashbacks of his lurid words, the fondlings, and the sound of his labored breaths. Anguish seized your throat at the footfalls entering your home once again and the pillar of strength you constructed within, had leaned upon, began to crumble.

You had a hangnail on your thumb. You discovered this while squeezing your fist tight, tethering yourself to the present. It was a welcome, soft twinge of pain for you to focus on and you picked at it, fixing your eyes on the window. The candle before it illuminated the glass, and you watched the sapphire heart of the flame waver, heard the little hiss of it, and glanced beyond. A sky wistful with waning blue, a sunset throwing gold on all that was green, a hush of wind passing through the leaves, and your reflection blending in between. To take it all in brought you forward in time, to a crackling fire and a bubbling soup, and a purpose hanging over your heart.

It is not happening again, you reflected. And it will never happen again.

You were safe, you reminded yourself, safe in the present, grounded, and irrevocably turned to face the man who hurt you in a way no one ever had. You looked at him without seeing him, a dish towel in hand.

“Come on in, I have some dinner on the stove. It'll be ready in a jiff if you want to hang up your things.”

“I would be delighted,” was his reply.

He took off his Stetson, hung it on the hook. The sound of his coat being tugged down his arms and his gun belt unbuckling made your heart beat fast and your fingers curl into your palms again. Shaking, you gripped the edge of the counter. Steam from the bubbling pot kissed your cheeks.

A chair scraped across the floor. “It smells delicious, sweetness. I’m downright famished.”

You breathed in and out slowly. He folded his leather gloves beside his table settings and you prepared a dish for him. With a gulp and a clench of resolution, you dipped the ladle deep and unearthed the chunks of vegetables, pouring them artfully into a bowl, spoonful after spoonful.

“Any luck tracking down that gang?”

He sighed, deep and tired. His elbows knocked on the table as he reached for the loaded bread basket.

“They slipped through our fingers last night, but we almost had ‘em.” Pulling the loaf apart, he ripped a piece and tucked it into his mouth.

You rounded the table and laid the baleful meal on his place setting, in a daze as he happily snatched up his spoon.

“Oh my,” he marveled. The polished silver of the utensil disappeared in the broth and came back up replete with the softened wild bulbs.

“These onions are quaint,” he commented.

The lie came to your tongue easily. “They’re called pearl onions. I have them growing in the back.”

And with a pleased grin, he feasted. You sat across from him with your own bowl, your spoon a special porous one so you could pretend to eat alongside him. He dipped his bread in the soup and drained his glass greedily, refilling it himself from the pitcher you set on the table earlier. Before long he scraped the bottom of the bowl and you replenished it.

You tried not to pay attention to his sordid aspect. The way he sniffed loudly and chewed openly, the dirtiness of his face from riding, the grease slicking his unwashed hair and the matted tips of his mustache, his eyebrows also unkempt and overgrown. You fixed your eyes to the grain of the wood instead, ate your bread with a slice of cheese and a handful of walnuts, munched on the salad of spring greens you prepared, all the while waiting for time to take its natural course as the toxins of the ostensible pearl onions invaded his system.

“You’ve been quiet,” he observed. His hunger appeared to sate as he scraped up the last dregs of his supper, affording his utmost attention back to his hostess. “Why won’t you look at me?”

You lifted your chin from your palm. Something in his expression shifted with awareness.

“Is this about last night?” he went on. When you remained simmering in your silence, he deflated. “Listen, I–I didn’t mean to get so rough with ya. I was drunk, and I’m sorry.”

Your insides twisted and flamed, refusing to be quelled. You shot up, turning your back to him and crossing your arms as you faced the window.

“You’re sorry?” you seethed. A drum pounded in your ears; it was the mad pulse of your heart. Tall in your judicial resolve, you whirled and directed your fury towards him in its full magnitude. “Not a bone in your body is capable of being sorry,” your voice shook, low in its tenor. “You saw an opportunity to take advantage of me and seized it. The way you spoke to me—degraded me—it’s impossible for me to believe you didn’t enjoy every moment of your vulgarity.” Split flew as you scoffed at him. “Regret is not within you. Not when I see now that you planned it. All along.”

He broke into a laugh of disbelief and leaned back to survey you. The worst kind of smile distorted his face, as if your fit of temper delighted him.

“Yer actin’ like you didn’t want it. Like your cunny wasn’t drippin’ wet for me–” you lunged forward, vision red and nostrils flaring, ready to seize his neck in your hands and crush his windpipe like the frail stalk of a vegetable, but stopped, grasping the back of your chair instead. You despised the idea of having to touch him and were reminded that you would not have to get your hands dirty to kill him. But you were prepared to. How much longer could you stand his gloating and his shameless iniquity? The wood of the chair’s cross rail creaked beneath your unforgiving knuckles. The Sheriff smirked at your little display.

“I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it,” he argued, pointing his finger at you; then he shook his head. “What nerve you have, bein’ a little cocktease with me. But I didn’t treat you like those whores in town, no, I went out of my way to…to enamor you, bringin’ you flowers while you greeted me in your garden in your lace and your pretty smiles, a pie coolin’ on your windowsill. You know my dear Carolynn never blessed me with a child, and here you were,” he gestured to your frame and the home around you. “Takin’ on the responsibilities of housekeepin’ all by yer lonesome. All you needed was a man to take care of you, and I could be that man. Honey, I want to marry you. I could make you happy! Can’t you picture it?”

Flushed from his diatribe, he pleaded with you, half-rising from his seat until you thrust out a hand in warning. Surprisingly, he heeded your tacit command. Disgust curled your lips into a sneer.

“Marry you?” you echoed, hollow with disbelief. Your vision blurred and you blinked against the mounting tide of revelation washing over you. His mindset, his reasoning, it was unfathomable, and you struggled to piece together a sentence. “This whole time…that was your object? And you thought that by—by trapping me, and giving me no other choice, that I would accept you?”

His eyes rolled heavenward and frustration flashed across his oily face. “Lord knows I’ve been patient,” he gnashed his teeth, voice raising a note higher. “I didn’t want any other man to have you. What, you think you’re meant for one of those half-witted grangers in town? They don’t know the first thing about women, let alone how to keep one as pretty, smart, and pure as you. You know it’s downright sinful to keep such gifts to yourself.”

His words were worse than his touch. You had not one to describe your own sensations; the shock of his inflicted on you completely suspended your power to think and feel.

“Sinful…” you wandered over his meaning. “You’re a hypocrite.” Releasing the chair, you stepped away a few paces and shook your head, huffing to contain your brimming despisal for this man. You refused to listen to him any more. All throughout the day strands of thought had weaved through your head, firmly knotting into what the shame made you believe about yourself. That you were ruined. That you were worth less. He must have thought he was paying you some kind of compliment, saying what he said. The refutation rose in you to a forbidding height, like the dust before a whirlwind, and your lips parted to release your final judgment of him.

“You don’t know the first thing about me: about what I want, or what I need. What you did was assume. You assumed I wanted someone to come around and sweep me off my feet, save me from my solitude, and you assumed that I wanted you. A gluttonous, arrogant, entitled pig who can’t take responsibility for his own actions, who would rather blame them on the beast at the bottom of the glass,” you spat with venom. Emotion began to wrack your voice, lifting and dropping it like the swell of a wave, but you plowed forward, pinning him to his seat with the fearsome gleam in your tear-stricken eyes.

“The worst part about it is you could’ve made your intentions clear! I could’ve been spared from all this pain if you had only the stones to be straightforward. But I guess the prospect of your hurt pride was too much to endure. Deep down, you knew the only way you could have me was unwillingly.”

Your hand clutched at your breast, wrinkling your shirt and tangling in your necklace chain. You let go and charged forward again, and this time, the chair rail snapped in your hands at your final word.

“You had no right. You’re the most pathetic excuse of a man I’ve ever seen, and I’ll be glad to see you drop dead.”

At the crack of wood he sneered. No longer tolerating this speech, he stood, and for a fleeting moment you shrunk back. Until his hand—his fat, pallid hand, still bearing a wedding band—braced itself on the tabletop and he wobbled on his feet. Blood rushed to his face and a delta formed in his forehead as he blinked at the ground, as if his vision was filled with spots while his legs drooped unsteadily beneath him. He clenched his gut and groaned.

A griefless laugh croaked from you. “You know, they say that wishes and dreams have a winding way of coming true. It looks like you are gonna spend the rest of your life with me, Sheriff.”

His sight fixed itself on the bowl in your place setting, at the spoon resting in it, and how none of your portion was consumed. He had the look of a man who realized something too late. The vein in his neck fluttered and his breaths sawed in and out of his lungs. Sweat dotted his temples and a thread of saliva spilled from his wobbling lip.

“Wh–what did you d-do?” He choked out.

The compass of your soul spun and whirred, before the ruby-tipped point settled decidedly south.

“What I had to.”

As his knees gave out beneath him, the Sheriff clutched the table’s edge, and the peaceful, law-abiding chapter of your life ended. The scent of bile fouled the air as he retched and retched, his body rejecting every morsel of the Death Camas he had stomached, and the pallor of his skin colored to that of fish’s belly before the monger’s crude knife carves it open. Not a twinge of sympathy or regret rippled inside as he fell helpless to the floor. Not at his struggle for breath, at his uncontrollable muscle spasms, or the chunks of undigested food dangling from his chin. He would lie there, wheezing and convulsing in a mound of his own vomit, until his heart stopped. You had no desire to watch, and you had no desire to wait any longer for your meteoric flight from this tainted place of grief and despair.

You unlatched the trunk in your bedroom and sifted through your belongings. Two saddlebags quickly filled. You packed the essentials: bedding and a camp outfit, medicine and provisions, clothing for severe weather, and valuables to fence. Rummaging through the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cabinets, you moved mechanically, occupying your mind with a plan moving forward, all the while a man lay dying on your floor, twitching and choking, sightless and inert. His breath was a mere rattle as you dressed yourself for travel and long riding, laying your necklace with your mother’s ring inside a sack for safe keeping. This was not the time for thoughts and moral ruminations, it was the time for action.

It would buy you time–and perhaps forego a bounty altogether–if you buried the body. His absence from town would not go unnoticed, but—Oh, yours would not either. Regardless, your next course of action began to formulate itself. You would need a shovel, a rug or a blanket, and a lantern, for the sun had dipped below the horizon and would not light your path.

As the night closed darkly in, the sunset folded its wings over the rib cages of clouds; the last pulse of color on the shore of the world a glowing, molten shade of marmalade. Insects clacked and clicked in the dusk as you stepped out in your hunting jacket, hoisting your supplies over your shoulder on the dirt path to the stable with a lantern swinging in your free hand. White moths flittered around the light and followed in your grim, resolved wake.

You hung the lamp on a hook behind the creaking door, illuminating the hay-strewn space. Bridles, bits, and martingales populated the wall inside the stable, with rakes and shovels propped up from the ground. An empty wheelbarrow served as a temporary home for your provisions, setting them inside so you could perch yourself on a stool in the corner to strap on your spurs.

Willa shifted on her hooves to adjust to the weight of the various sacks and pouches you affixed to her saddle, but she complied with a trusting snort. You spoke to her kindly, stroking her forehead, knowing that she was listening in her own way and understood her importance to you. Without her, you would be alone. Without her your future, your freedom, it would all be infeasible. You led Willa out into the night, a shovel tucked under your arm and your lantern restored in hand.

An owl hooted and a pack of coyotes yipped and yowled, the sound carrying throughout the valley. Willa’s keen ears flicked, along with her long tail, and you gestured for her to wait behind the cottage, hitching her to an oak sapling. You intended to trudge through the muck of the funereal situation as quickly as possible while the night breeze slipped cool fingers through the forest and snuffed out the last tendrils of daylight. You marched back into the firelit house for the last time.

The stench hit you first. Foul and nose-wrinkling, you tugged your collar up against the smell and regarded the log of the Sheriff’s body, lying rigid. In death, he soiled his pants, as all men do. The body releases everything and the muscles stiffen and lock, blood stagnates in the veins, the skin purples, the tongue lolls out, and the eyes fix wide open to meet the unknown. Nature takes its course. Flies are drawn by some promising whiff of a feast in the air and consume the dead flesh in a quivering swarm of greed. Time passes. Maggots crawl. And bones will be all that remain, until, some day, they are dust for the wind to claim.

He was the one you rushed to when you found your grandmother cold in her bed. He was the one who arranged for the church to collect and prepare her body for burial beside your parents in the local graveyard. He was one of the persons who offered you words of comfort during the funeral.

He was the man who hurt you most in the world.

And he was no more.

It was a yawning, black moment, the one in which you stood, hesitating on some windy pinnacle, reflecting on not what will be, but what, long since, has been. Your throat choked around nothing. What has become of you? The future stretched out before you gray, interminable, and desolate. Thoughts crowded thick and fast in your mind, and you imagined carrying out the rest of this act—covering his body, dragging it across the floorboards, the weight of it, the slack look on his face, the creases of his fat fingers outstretched from his limp hand, and you knelt to the floor with a gathering horror of your deed, a tremor pulsing in your throat, your heart crumbling to the same ash dropping in the dim fireplace.

A numbness possessed you to pull up the corners of the rug, to nudge his body to the center of it with your foot, to wrap the carpet around his form and tuck him inside. To do what needed to be done. Your mind turned off. It had to, for it was the only way to endure. There was no choice left for you. But you wished you had listened. To the night, to the change in the wind, for the footsteps of fate and the creeping shadow of the terrible god of chance stepping into your doorway, eclipsing your hope of escape from this dire strait. A darkness was gathering in the hush; the kind something crouches within.

Fate is a weaver, poised at a loom; the spider over your garden gate. It works silently and unseen, amidst an intricate and silvery web, attaching invisible strands of possibility along a path leading to an inescapable epicenter. Fate, with its nimble clutches, spins and entwines, pulls one thread, wends the other, until the time comes when the unwary traveler reaches a pivot point, the moment when their life goes down one path or another, and the spider strikes the grappling victim caught in its web.

Back first, you dragged the carpet bearing the Sheriff’s body outside your door. His boots stuck out from the roll, thumping along the ground as you grunted with the effort of transporting him, using the strength behind your legs to shuffle farther along. The light from inside spilled out along the flagstone path, and as you stopped to establish a stronger, more efficient grip, your ears pricked at a pair of unfamiliar spurs clicking and scuffing to a halt behind you.

A pin-drop silence encased the air.

Your heart froze. Ice enveloped your ribcage and crystallized the blood inside their elaborate vessels, each breath serrating through your chest like a razor. For a time, only the stars moved with their twinkling. Slowly from the ground, inch by inch, you turned your head and your sight rose to the face of the intruder, the sole witness to your grisly act, and you almost laughed at how twisted fate could be.

A faltering deputy was fixed in place on the path, taking in the undeniable scene before him. He was no stranger. You recognized him in that slant of dandelion light by the curled tip of his nose, his ruddy cheeks, and the cleft in the middle of his chin. His beard was strong, a shade darker than his hair and not so red as his skin, and he had grown into his jaw, the line of which had become more pronounced and square. He wore wrinkled pants tucked into worn, dusty boots, with his lanky frame swallowed by a long duster, a vest beneath it buttoned all the way, and a gun belt sagging around his hips. Ungloved hands hung at his sides, fingers that long ago squeezed the curves of your budding body dangling emptily.

Though he scarcely looked it, he was the boy from the orchard with russet hair and dimples all those years ago, whose mother treated you like her own; but he had grown since that uncomplicated beginning. How a broken collarbone led to a friendship, which ripened into an affection and concluded in bitter resentment, was unforeseeable at the time. You never guessed that the two of you would end up like this.

“Gideon,” you breathed. “What are you doing here?”

The hungry, sweeping motion of his mouth against yours invaded your mind. In the blink of a moment like this, despite the current of the years that swept past and weathered away the discomforting, stony edges of the memory, you could relive the minutest details of your past with him: the sloppy tangle of tongue and teeth and the scratch of an adolescent mustache; the mopey, beseeching expression on his face, begging for more of you. A chill crept across your skin at the remembrance of his neediness and desperation, making it hard to look at him, shame rooted so deeply in you.

He uttered your name in the same stunned tone, his mouth agape until he swallowed his alarm. “It’s been a long time,” he said, and his eyes, murky, silver, and cold—like a pond in winter—cut to the sagging roll of carpet in your arms. An unmistakable pair of boots stuck out. “And I see much has changed.”

None of your muscles moved—but the weight of the deceased tired your arms and you ached to rest them. You slowly lowered the rug to the ground, your eyes never leaving one another’s.

“This isn’t what you think it is.”

A disbelieving scoff left him. “What I think it is,” he echoed. “I’m thinking that better not be who I think it is. I’m thinking ‘she went from breaking men’s hearts to stopping them altogether’,” his long legs carried him forward and your spine stiffened. His face came into the light. You shrank back. “Something tells me you don’t have one of Dutch Van der Linde’s boys wrapped up in there. See, I knew the Sheriff would be here tonight, and that’s his horse hitched there,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the animal. “You have five seconds to produce the man I’m looking for alive and well or I’m taking you in.”

You wished to heaven you could think of a way out of this. What vestige of freedom you could still secure was within your grasp and it made your teeth grit that the bitter waters of life would surge high once again at this crucial hour. It figured; the final wave for you to overcome came in the form of Gideon Taylor, the pouty boy who you had no remorse for jilting. Your fists clenched beside you and you lifted your head, standing tall, measuring and meeting the danger of his presence.

Holding his stare unblinkingly, you pitched your voice low, words growing frost. “You should leave.”

Though he had a gun and lasso on his hip and an inflated sense of superiority to empower him, Gideon hesitated.

“I will, once you tell me where the Sheriff is.”

His spurs jangled. He spoke to you cautiously, as if you were a skittish animal about to bolt for an impenetrable thicket, the flit of his eyes gauging your every move, and his hand rose out to you while he subtly reached beside him.

Before you a narrow avenue of escape flickered, shrinking smaller and smaller like the last sliver of the moon in the dark of an eclipse.

When lightning flashes, the precise amount of moments that pass between the initial burst of light and the thunder that follows measures the distance between the strike and the listener. A blink, a heartbeat, a slow breath. That was how much time you had to act, before the thunder came and the earth trembled. In that slow, blinking, beating instant, you knew how this would play out.

When his gun began to clear leather your instincts kicked in, quick as a snap. You leapt backwards into the house, throwing the door shut. Fumbling with the bolt, the rusty metal bar slogged its way through the lock, making you cry out in frustration as you strained to jiggle it forward. The bolt slid home the instant Gideon’s shoulder rammed against the boards.

Your teeth rattled at the battering of the frame. He charged against it repeatedly and your eyes, in darting about the room, snagged on a buffet table. Praying the old lock would hold, you rushed to push it in front of the door and the furniture groaned as you shoved it in place, only for Gideon’s attempts to break in to cease.

“So, we’re doing this the hard way?” Gideon yelled through the door. Your heartbeat thumped in your ears and your face grew hot at the rushing of blood. You moved to extinguish all the lamps and candles, flooding the room in darkness and the lacy scent of candle smoke. His voice came again a moment later.

“Shit, what the hell did you do to him?”

The body. Beyond the threshold. He must have peeled back the rug, looked upon the Sheriff’s vacant eyes and felt his clay-cold cheeks. A leaden weight sunk into the pit of your stomach. There was no escaping what you did. But a small chance remained to evade capture. You could sneak through the back window and mount Willa quietly, get a head start before Gideon gave chase. You could lose him in the woods near Lady Face Falls and follow the water north—

A bullet crashed through the window. You dropped to the floor. Moving forward, you crawled towards the bedroom, covering your head with your hands whenever glass shattered and chunks of wood flew. Along the way your foot slipped through a sludge of the Sheriff’s vomit and your knee banged against the wood. You bit your cheek so as not to cry out in disgust and pain and shuffled slimily onward by the heels of your hands.

Gideon fired off six shots in total before you made it safely to the other room. Quietly, tortuously, you unlatched the window and pulled it up by the handles in increments to prevent any sound while outside Gideon cursed to reload his weapon faster. You winced as it gave a squeak, but the noise was muffled by the breaking of a window in the front room. A heavy stone’s thump followed after.

Gideon called out in the dark. “Are you gonna come willingly or do I have to shoot you? There’s nowhere to go!”

The night air beckoned. Without another thought you swung a leg over the sill and ducked out, making a break for Willa. Behind the cottage, you slid down a slippery bank of pine needles until you reached your moonlit mare, grasping the smooth horn of the saddle and clambering astride to get a move on.

“Ya!” With a kick to her flank, Willa gave a jolt and a toss of her head before starting forward. Moments. You had bought yourself moments to escape, merely. Snatching up the reins, you seated yourself properly and urged Willa through the grove of trees, hunching low to dodge the lash of branches.

She moved with a swift determination beneath you. With hooves heavy upon the earth, she sensed your urgency. Twigs snapped and spears of moonlight shot through the pine canopy as you wove through a wide belt of trees, your breath coming hard and fogging in the air.

The lane of a meadow came into view and you burst through the tree line, into the moon-bright open. Willa vaulted over a fallen log and landed in the muddy grasses, your rear hitting the saddle hard while pellets of ice flecked your cheeks as she scudded over a sheaf of unmelted snow.

“Go, go, go!” Crying out, you nudged her flank again, and Willa obeyed, breathing hard. The prospect of speed and gaining distance from your pursuer outweighed the risk of exposure, riding in the open like this. Her pace transcended into a gallop. You clung tight, blinking against the cold air as it pricked your eyes. The thunder of her feet matched the beat of your heart and the landscape became a blur of stubby trees and boulders smudging past you. In the wind she made Willa’s mane flowed, and you trusted her completely to deliver you from danger.

A gun fired off in the distance. You were forced to let up, arming yourself with your father’s hunting rifle, the stock firm against your shoulder as you peered down the sight and readied your aim. A quarter of a mile off a glint of moving light came from a lantern, and it struck your heart with a pang to do it—to fix your sights on the pulse of it and fire with violent intent. The sound split through the valley. The empty cartridge ejected.

Astride his horse, Gideon shouted as it reared up. Your round pierced the dome of his upheld lantern and sent glass and kerosene raining. In the briefly purchased interval you prompted Willa onwards, back into the ponderosas that environed the open meadow and the darkness their bristling boughs afforded before he and his horse finished screaming.

The farther into the woods you ventured the thicker the trees crept in, until you were forced to a walk. Into the silence of the night you listened, straining for any sound of pursuit. Nothing, only the cold shadows, dim moonlight, and scaly bark of pines passing by your knees. You propped the rifle against your thigh and loaded another brass round into the breech before hopping down from your mount. If the necessity rose again, it would be easier to aim on solid ground rather than swiveling on horseback.

Pine cones and fallen twigs scattered at your step, and you took care to prowl lightly through the snowmelt. You held Willa’s bridle in one hand, her bit jingling, and led her until the murmur of flowing water pricked your ears. Miserable cold began to set in. At every rustle and riffle of leaf and breeze your eyes snapped to each corner of the woodland on high alert. More than anything, you wished for the warmth of your hearth—to be nestled in your favorite chair like any other evening spent in the solitude of your home. Not gripping a loaded gun in a dark forest, heart racing for your life.

But at home, you remembered, lay the body of a dead man. To return to such a place was to hold to your ear a shell from the sea of the past, filling you with the hollow echo of what once was and no longer is. Those chapters from before fluttered away—as the seasons did.

The soil turned mossy and spongy from the lush influence of the river, with trilliums springing up between tree roots and felled, sun-bleached logs. You let Willa walk on ahead, and the music of the water dampened the far-off sounds. Your breath came out slowly as you surveyed the wooded area behind you.

How smart had Gideon grown in the past few years? Could he track you, undetected? Was he stalking you through the woods, with the patience and guile of a hunter? In truth, you had no idea what he was capable of, and it made your fingers twitch towards the trigger. Then again, what were you?

The treetops stirred. A gale whistled down from the mountains, hauntingly cold, and spliced through your jacket, meanwhile the starlight twinkled on. The moonlight turned the river iridescent. Willa drank her fill of water and you settled back into the saddle to trudge downriver. Gideon would lose the tracks you had no time to cover once he reached the stream, but could easily piece together your route. You stowed your rifle and formed a grip over the reins, knuckles over, and moved to fit your boots into the stirrups to give Willa a kick.

You wondered how you could not have heard it: the low, whisking sound of a twirling lasso. By the time it dropped around your shoulders, it was too late. With a violent lurch you were dragged backwards from your horse into the numbing, snow-fed water. Hard and unforgiving rocks bashed into the side of your face as you slammed into the streambed, the taste of coins flooding your mouth as your teeth cut through your lip and tongue. You wrestled with the unyielding hold of the rope amidst the water flowing around you, the shock of which soaked ice in your blood instantly. Black flowers blossomed behind your eyes. A hard yank snagged the air from your lungs and pulled you free from the chaos of the current.

Coughing, spluttering, blinking and gasping, twigs and gravel scraped your palms and before you could brace your hands against the silt someone else’s pinned them together and pushed you on your stomach.

“You’re not gettin’ away now,'' a voice hissed. You remembered those hands on you years before, stronger since, and contempt flamed up in you, compelling the fight in your limbs to kick and scramble beneath Gideon’s hold.

“Quit makin’ this harder for me than it already is!” he snapped. With force, he wrapped the rope around your wrists in a tight bind. All that was left to fight him with was your ankles and you thrashed your knees to shake him off, but the solid weight of him prevailed.

“No,” you groaned, and it took all of your strength to. The rope bound your feet together, and a stupor sludged your limbs from the shock of the cold water. You were flipped onto your back, flinching at a face you were loath to look into. Gideon shook you by the shoulders and your eyes rolled.

“Tell me why! Why did you kill the Sheriff?!”

The river still roared in your ears. Water dripped down your neck, bunched in your lashes. You thought they might turn into icicles, like the great big ones that hung from the cottage roof in the wintertime. Senses dulled and dazed, you could hardly see from the blur of tears and cold, but you caught the echo of his question, and the vial of indignation within you overflowed past the chatter of your teeth and the shivering of your limbs, unable to contain the seething words any longer.

“You have no idea–” a cough interrupted your speech. “What kind of man you are defending.”

Blood from the cut inside your lip spattered onto his face and he only blinked as if it were water. His astonishment was beyond expression. By the moonlight, the dark of his eyes narrowed, and you wormed beneath his glaring sneer.

“He was a great man. Everyone saw the good he did. But you–” he yanked you up from the rocky bed by the elbow, your head lolling. “You were all he talked about. And I tried to warn him about you! You know what he did? He just laughed at me and said I wasn’t man enough to handle you.”

His statement stunned you into silence. Upright, your senses were slow to sharpen with the fog accumulating in your head. The idea of the Sheriff boasting about you to his fellow men sickened you more than the memory of his touch almost. But you had no time to harbor the thought before Gideon dragged you to his mount like a lamb to slaughter.

Within the narrow, binding circle in which your ankles could shuffle you were pushed along, stumbling over pinecones and driftwood. You were too cold and cut up by the rocks to fight him, but you dug in your heels as you approached the tan horse’s flank, the gelding’s tail twitching.

You rolled your shoulder as he shoved you harshly forward by the center of your back and searched for your horse desperately. Willa had taken off during scuffle, trotting down the opposite side of the riverbank. You whistled for her, and her head swung in your direction.

Gideon lost what little patience he had and pulled you up by your underarm. “Do I need to gag you as well?” You braced your arm against his horse’s side to keep your footing. “I think I should, since you’ll be savin’ your confession for the judge.”

“Gideon, stop. Please,” you wheezed. “There was a wrong done to me.” You hoped the pain in your voice would make him pause and see the misery in your eyes, think about the weight behind your words. Maybe he would remember the girl you used to be, and recognize that she was gone, wondering what took the light from her heart. A minnow of doubt darted across his face and his grip nearly faltered, until the breeze blew cold and snuffed any flame of apprehension sparking inside him.

“And you call what you did makin’ it right? Killing a man is against the law,” he elucidated. His spit sprayed across your cheek and you flinched. “But I’ve heard all that I have an ear for. You’re spendin’ the night in a cell.”

Gideon crouched and lifted you from around the legs, hefting you onto your stomach over the horse’s rump. Blood rushed to your head as your weight gravitated to your abdomen and your muscles strained to support it. The steed’s legs shifted underneath you and you lifted your head with a painful effort to speak your mind as he rounded the horse.

“The law doesn’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong; it only says there’s a price to be paid for certain actions,” you snapped. Disdain pulsed through your veins, your blood humming with contempt.

“Yeah?” Gideon’s feet slotted into the stirrups and he gave a kick, gripping the reins and flicking them to the right. “And you are gonna pay—with your life. What’s that tell you?”

You balled your fists and squirmed, the weave of the rope digging into your wrists. Gideon started forward, roughly, back into the darkened forest. Your chin knocked against the horse’s hide and you held your head up again. “Men like the Sheriff bend the law in their favor whenever it suits them to get what they want and never pay that price. The law doesn’t protect those beneath it.”

“Spoken like a true degenerate.” He tossed you a look over his shoulder and scoffed. “God, if my mother could see you now.” At the memory of Mrs. Taylor and her old warmth towards you, you flamed up again, voice coming out in a growl.

“Oh, you don’t have room in your head for more than one idea!”

“I know better than to listen to this. I know you. A man’s heart is your joy to play with–”

“And it’s your joy to play the victim! Even now you can’t fathom why I despised you. You filled me with shame. Men like you and the Sheriff, all you care about is what I can give you. My heart, my feelings, they don’t matter. In the face of your desires they mean nothing. They don’t so much as cross your mind. The Sheriff took advantage of me and he would do it without a second thought over and over again unless I stopped it!”

“Shame?” Gideon turned back to you. The cold pinked the tips of his ear and nose, his knuckles also red from their place on the bridle. He went quiet for a moment before going on, the scenery passing by vaguely in shadows and shafts of moonlight. Your sternum ached at the pressure accrued from resting on it, and every time your head bounced along with the rhythm of the horse you glimpsed your bound feet on the other side.

He spoke softer this time. “You must not remember how sweet I was on you when we were together. But the way you turned so sour so suddenly, when I could’ve sworn you liked me just as much…it made my head spin more than anythin’. I didn’t know what I did wrong.”

The confession strummed a somber chord within you, twisting your expression grimly. You stepped out of the present, back into the years, while Gideon emerged from the cover of the woods and picked his way onto a pale ribbon of trail that wriggled ahead like a snake. A sign post at the fork heralded the one mile marker to the main road into town, painted white and chipping.

“We were so young. We were children, Gideon. It wasn’t love.”

It struck you that, at the age you spoke of, you did not know how to say no—the word not being something girls were taught. What you knew of women’s’ relationships with men was the expected role they fulfilled: giving. Giving affection, pleasure, children, companionship. In theory the rationale was not so terrible. Love was a dream. To be in love was everything. But your tryst with Gideon acquainted you with a breed of men who were used to taking what women were expected to give. Your kiss, your touch, your embrace and your body, these were all special to you; a gift to be bestowed, the chance to do so reveled. Not things you were expected to surrender to the first boy who looked at you lustfully, unconcerned with your true, inner value. You wished you knew that then.

The train of thought led you, for a glimmer of a second, to believe you could have stopped the worse act inflicted upon you by the hands of the Sheriff. As quick as it came it died. He would have found a way to get what he wanted, regardless of pleas, or strength, or precognition. You were not to blame. Bad people would always exist in the world and take advantage of others, and it was no fault of yours.

Gideon shook his head, sighed, and muttered to himself. Pivoting, he looked down on you with a pinched mouth, his eyes hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “Yeah, well. We still knew what we were doing.” The cutting edge of his words dismissed you and he spurred his horse into a faster trot.

I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it. A ghost whispered. The soft choke of his death rattle gripped your memory and you flinched from it.

The hardheaded hold Gideon held on his grievances made your teeth clench. If only the perfect string of words existed to compel him to release them, you would draw the strands from the air, thread them together into a net, and cast their influence over his mind to pluck his heartstrings and make him remember the boy he once was; the one who looked upon you so fondly. But the notion came to a halt at that, for was he ever a boy capable of thinking beyond his own wishes, considering the thoughts of others?

“You’re so selfish. You’ll never change,” you found yourself saying without thinking. But he did not catch your words, and you spoke up as your despisal surged anew. “Maybe you knew what you were doing when you groped me, and ground yourself against me, and kissed me slovenly, but I didn’t. Because maybe you’ve forgotten, but I just sat there. You only ever cared about making yourself happy.”

He scoffed. “As much as I know you’d like to think it is, this isn’t about what happened between us. I stopped thinking about you in that way a long time ago, along with asking myself why. What you offered—” Gideon cut a withering look to your frame and grunted. “Wasn’t that special. There’s plenty of other girls out there. I’m just glad I didn’t end up in a goddamn carpet.”

Further and further away your hope slipped. Your heartbeat pounded in your head, making it throb and ache as you hung over the horse’s side and your feet grew numb. Inevitably, water pricked your eyes. A chill breeze brushed past your nose and snot began to dribble from the end of it while your vision blurred and your voice broke.

“There is no getting through to you, is there?”

In reply, Gideon only spurred his horse to trudge an incline in the road and leaned back in the saddle, steering away from the deeper patches of snow. A knot formed in your throat as you choked down useless tears. He owed you nothing. His nature was not understanding, or reflective, or critical of himself. It was self-righteous and vindictive. The conviction rested in his eyes as unyielding as the laws of justice. An ounce of sympathy from him was as likely as drawing blood from a stone.

Bitterly, your head fell, and you sucked your quivering, gashed lip. One last time, you tried to implore him. One last time, you sought your freedom, because it was the only thing you had left to lose.

“You can let me go. I’ll never come back here! Whatever you’re trying to prove, you don’t have to–”

And he slapped you across the face to shut you up.

The strike stung like nettles and your ears rang. Shrinking away, your mind blanking with static and noise and blinding white despair, fresh blood spilled from your lips from the slap and your trembling body remembered how cold your dip in the river had been. Worse was the wind, billowing down from across the distant mountain peaks, and the shivers set in deep. The trot of the horse went on, up a hill and off the trail through the terrain once more.

In silence, in anguish, in defeat, you wept. Over the side of a horse, bound, slapped, and subdued, you wept and embraced the taste of salt. For your lost girlhood. For the grandmother who raised you and the mother who did not have the chance. For your life, for the ruination of your dreams, from the unfairness of it all. Was this the harvest of all that had been planted for you? Bone-weary, you slumped against the animal’s hide and let yourself rock with each step. If only sleep could take you. You were ready for all of this to be over, to be a dream you could wake from in a sweat and try your best to forget. Bleeding and shivering, you longingly ached for something to fetch you out of your present existence, and lead you upwards and onwards, but you had no heart left for anything.

Glancing up at the sky, a bank of clouds enveloped the moon. Over wood, over water, the flood of its silver radiance receded, the ensuing darkness weaving a mystery in every drop of dew and creaking branch. An owl hooted, but its mate did not answer. The stars did not have any either as you searched for them.

The tall trees rustled, violently unsure, and the night breeze carried a sickly sweet scent in its passing, as if stirring something hidden under rotting leaves. As Gideon passed beneath them, the ragged shadows cast from the spruces closed in, and in the gloom an old stone rose from the earth like a grave. It may as well have been your own. Darkened by the color of moss and damp, the granite ledge presided over the forest, sundered by some glacial movement from the mountains eons ago while death and rebirth churned in the woods all around.

Unable to face what was to come, you turned your head. But in so doing, you caught sight of Willa trailing you from a short distance, the spot of white on her forehead unmistakable, and your tears subsided. Your heart glowed and lifted; a wobbly smile dimpling your cheeks. Graceful and poised, steadfast and resilient, she trotted in the passing shadows like she was of its fabric, her coat the same shifting shades of moonlight while she moved like a river, the sinews of her forearms and chest a changeful, inky black above her socks of white. Her hooves were too soft to hear in the spongy dirt.

Willa’s softly brown and gleaming eyes held a star in them. Every journey you embarked on, she was beside you. She carried your bushels of burdock root and feverfew and fireweed back to your cottage without complaint, conveying you home through the forests and switchbacks countless times, and in turn you took care of her since the day your grandmother bought her from the livery.

The events which occurred in the past day loosened your foothold on your sense of self. But in that moment, pondering Willa, it came back to you. You remembered who you were, and what you believed you were meant to be. A girl brought up to respect the Earth and revere it, who kept hope in her heart always, and dreamed that she could be loved. With crystalline clarity, your mind broke free from its chains and a wind stirred a flame back to life inside of you.

From a drained well of will, you gathered your strength, braced yourself for another struggle and one last trial of endurance. While you raced to think of a way to cut your binds, Gideon’s head snapped around, and you stopped. His revolver was drawn in a flash and his horse whinnied and raked its hooves. He fixed his eyes on the tree line and you strained for any telltale sound while his gelding started to canter to the side uneasily. Something spooked it.

“What is it?” you hissed. He ignored you.

A twig snapped close by. “Who goes there?” he called out. Not far off, a ribbon of campfire smoke wove up into the night air and you squinted at the shadows.

Gideon tugged the reins hard to the left and clicked his spurs, venturing to investigate and evade the open clearing. Your head joggled with the movement and you grunted. A patch of ground ahead, though sideways from your point of view, appeared odd, misshapen, the thick carpet of pine needles too obvious to be natural. But Gideon was not watching his tread and aimed his horse’s walk right over it.

A dire creak made you freeze.

“Look out!”

It was too late.

A shrieking snap, and next, the wind was in your ear as the earth gave out from beneath. With a cry, the horse stumbled and reared and everything went upside down. Your heart seized during a timeless, weightless, airless second as a lattice of concealed logs collapsed beneath the load of Gideon and his horse, and you all fell in an outcry.

The sap and pine scent of fresh wood rushed up your nose as it cracked all around you. Unable to reach out for anything or protect your face, the sharp edges of branches snagged at your clothes and stabbed at your sides, needles scraping and stinging your skin. When the slamming force of the ground ended it all, a spike of wood tore a scream from you as it impaled your thigh.

The tumult fizzled to a static in your ears. You roiled on the dirt floor of the manmade pit, curling into yourself like a pill bug at the hot, pulsing throbs of pain in your leg surrounding the intrusion. You cried out at the unbearable and debilitating burning shooting throughout your body. Throat raw, vision white, breath sawing raggedly, your senses came clear enough for half a moment to observe Gideon, still astride his hysterical animal, gripping the bridle and urging the horse out of the pit. He kicked it harshly to vault over the rim back to solid ground.

He spared you one glance before riding off, and left you.

Tears stung your eyes and you wailed out your pain freely. Scratching at the rope around your wrists was useless, your nails only drew blood. All over, your body ached with bruises and fatigue, and it depleted all of your strength to focus on your breathing alone. Frustration and pain tangled in your chest like a mass of snakes, warring each other, and all you could to do alleviate the pain was roll onto your uninjured side. Your leg gushed like an oil-well.

Once everything started to fade, time ceased mattering, and you slipped in and out of consciousness. You blearily wondered why you were still fighting. A cold sweat chilled your neck and your chest palpitated unbearably.

Sounds from afar, beyond the pit, invaded your ears. There were hoof beats. The shouts of more riders, pursuing Gideon most likely. He would be rounding up what was left of the Sheriff’s posse, going after this gang that has been troubling this valley the past few days. No doubt this pit was dug by them, a trap for someone who got too close to where they were camped out. The whole town would be in a frenzy, meanwhile you...fading, languishing in the dirt…no one would find you in time…

With a quavering sigh, you began to let go. There was only so much your body could take; it would so much easier to sink into this grave than crawl your way out. To breathe became like listening to a lake lap a shore with its waves, growing fainter, quieter, and more still.

The moonlight was serene, and the coolness of this cavity of earth was welcome. Tree roots poked from the stratified layers of dirt, worms and centipedes clinging to the moisture therein. Above, a scuff of needles and a snort announced the presence of your most trusted friend.

Willa whickered, eyes finding your curled form in the pit. She paced around the edges. What remained of your hope ached. Through a glaze of tears you tried to speak, to soothe her, but no sound broke from you other than a whimper. But you were not alone. Never alone…in these woods…these mountains…with these familiar stars above…until unknown, male voices dispelled the cloud hovering over your thoughts.

“I’m telling you, I heard something. Someone in pain.”

Footsteps, a pair of them. You fought to stay awake, aware, but your willpower was slipping like the final sands through the waist of an hourglass.

“It’s probably another one of them law boys,” someone grumbled. “Maybe we caught one.”

“As soon as Dutch gets back we need to skip town without kissin’ the mayor goodbye.”

“You’re telling me. We should’ve left after that business last night.”

A haze began to drift over you again, sweeping you under the blessed numbness unconsciousness promised. Your eyelids were so, so heavy.

Willa nickered, the white of her eyes showing as the pair of men presumably approached her.

“Whoa, easy there.” One of the men regarded her, gently shushing and calming her in a matter of moments. In a way only you could—

“Look.”

“It’s a girl. Tied up like a steer.”

A gun being holstered, a thump of feet, and you were no longer alone. A shadow passed over the moonlight on your face. It was too dark to see, to know if you were about to be saved or damned by whoever was crouching over you. Dimly, you hoped you looked too powerless and broken to be mistreated.

“Pl—please,” your weak words tasted of copper. The apricot glow of a lantern warmed your face, and you looked up into a pair of eyes you trusted instinctively.

“What happened here?” The man who asked you this was older, with graying blond hair swept beside his temples. You had never seen him before. He had deep lines beside his shrewd eyes and his mouth was grim, but a kindness of understanding softened his countenance. It had been such a long time since any sincere compassion had looked at you through eyes other than your grandmother’s.

“Deputy—was bringing me in—left me here—“a spasm of pain interrupted your slurred speech. Wincing, you gestured to your thigh with your chin, seeing the pool of red darkening your pant leg for the first time. “Can’t move.”

The older man’s companion joined him in the light of his lantern. He was younger; tall and well-built, with a gun belt slung across his hips replete with ammunition, the brass of his bullets shining. A satchel hung from his side and he unsheathed a hunting knife attached to his belt. The quick gleam of it filled you with uncertainty.

“Easy, miss,” he raised his hands. “We don’t mean you any harm. I’m just gonna cut you free. Hold still.”

In a few saws of the blade the rope loosened its pitiless hold over your limbs; the relief of clutching your wound with your own hands was enough to make you sob. The men grew quiet, considering your condition. All of the blood was draining from your head, like it was all racing to escape out of your leg. The chunk of wood was buried in it, likely holding back a gushing torrent of crimson like the river miles and hours back. You wanted nothing more than to yank it out. It had not gone all the way through.

“We need to take her to a doctor,” the older man asserted, and his companion made a noise of protest. “I don’t know if Susan and Bessie can patch this up.”

“No—“ you cut him off, as forcefully as you could. “I can’t—I can’t go back there,” your breath began to labor and dizziness crept in as you moved to sit with your back against the packed dirt wall of the pit. “They’re gonna—gonna hang me, for killing that awful man.”

Clutching the wound, the blood oozed out warmly between the webs of your fingers, the dark, iron scent of it pungent in your nostrils. Air hissed out sharply between your teeth.

The two men looked to each other in mute discussion.

It left you in a sad whisper: “You should just leave me here.”

“We’ll help you.”

“We will?”

“Arthur.”

The fading began in earnest. You were incapable of protesting what came next. A pair of hands grasped your elbows, guiding you to your feet, which only stumbled because there was no strength left in your legs. Boneless, a broad chest caught you, your head lolling in the pillow of an arm, your nose grazing the fur of a jacket, and you burrowed into the scent of smoke and forest with a groan.

“We need to get back.” The lantern flame was doused, and the arms surrounding you lifted you in their hold. Your lashes fluttered to catch a glimpse of him, the man who held you, but his hat cast a shadow over his gaze and the night around him was dark with blue.

“You’ll be safe with Arthur, miss,” a voice said, but you were far away, lost to memories and hollow dreams. They dragged you down deep with pictures of bluebells in a water puddle, of lightning flashes through a curtain, of useless wrists beside you.

Your last awareness was of a sky made of woods and branches, with all of its stars perishing.

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan/reader #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan fic #red dead redemption x reader #red dead redemption fic #rdr #rdr fic #arthur x reader #a dream's winding way #*my writing

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gingerteaonthetardis · 10 months

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the thing about me is... i will write little vignettes. putting rose tyler in situations and whatnot. via dimension hopper, naturally.

this takes place right before that ending scene in the garden in the giggle. rated g, gen. rose-centric, guest starring the best dad, shaun temple. to read on ao3:

the happy landing

The scrapes and aches of the warzone she left behind—a world falling out of orbit, a catastrophic end after eons of civilisation—are fresh, and so are the smudges around her eyes. Tears still mingle with days-old mascara. And yet, when she jumps again, it's into the most beautiful summer day she can imagine.

She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t even know where she expects to be. But the sky is scrubbed clean by recent rain, the forgiving soil dark beneath her boots. In her periphery, all is green.

Her first breath is dizzyingly rich, verdant and sultry with growth and flourishing. Not even the lingering taste of ash can taint its wholesomeness. As she sucks in oxygen like she's been starved of it, her legs give way with the force of her headrush, and she manages to catch herself against a nearby stone wall.

She is in a garden, somewhere.

Ivy tickles her fingertips, and she wants to dig her hands into it. Wants to fall to her knees and bury herself in this clean, perfect dirt. Instead, she takes several more measured breaths. She swipes away her tears and stands straight. And when she finally feels she must, Rose moves.

The garden is sprawling, bigger than the kinds she’s seen attached to posh city houses, so she can guess this must be the countryside. A countryside, anyway.

All her senses—even the ones she's only just begun to explore—tingle with the sense that this is right, this is Earth. This is home. But she pins down fledgling hopes before they can take flight. She’s been wrong before. Can’t be too careful.

Her nose pricks with the realisation that there's a fire somewhere close; she mistook it, at first, for the staleness of the world she's just left behind, but this is a warmer, more cheerful fire. It sizzles with a different kind of burning. A barbecue, her nose identifies before her brain can properly catch up. Someone is close, and cooking outside.

Her stomach pangs with hunger. The last thing she can clearly recall eating was a ration bar, guiltily nicked from a bunker on her way to the last human outpost. That was more than a day ago. Possibly longer.

As she walks through the expansive garden, following an emergent trail of smoke, she toys briefly with trying to identify the flowers she sees: there are so many, a vivid patchwork, and they'd certainly tell her something about where she's landed if she knew them. But she never had the chance to become a green thumb, in her past life or this one. She recognises the plants only vaguely, pausing at intervals to tip her nose toward one open bloom or other.

The sweet scents tickle her nose until she sneezes. It's loud, ricocheting all over the stone, echoing in the big open sky.

Rose goes perfectly still.

Over the garden wall, she hears a voice. “Hello?”

Wincing, she follows the curve of the wall for a few more steps, but the path has turned to gravel, and each crunch just makes her more aware of her own noise.

There's a scraping sound, probably tongs or something over a grill. “That you, Mel?” It sounds like a man. “If it is, you've come too early. Sylvia won't let me open the wine ‘til the brisket's done, and I can't get the brisket done ‘til I manage to scrape this infernal tofu off the rack. No idea how you’re s'posed to barbecue the stuff—it's like glue!”

By the time he's done talking, she's had time to round the bend more fully, where she comes upon an open wooden gate, waist high, looking in on another smaller garden.

It's a lovely, sequestered place, more tame and shaded than the relative wilderness she's wandered so far. There's a kind of pergola up overhead, laced through with vines. Grapes hang from them in bunches. And she's never been a particularly religious person, but she is imaginative, and this is not totally unlike how she used to picture the Garden of Eden.

Except for the barbecue, of course.

And the man in an apron that says Kiss the Cook, tongs in hand, staring blankly at her.

“Hello,” she says, giving a little wave. She tries and fails to imagine how she looks to this stranger, with tear tracks still down her face, coated in another planet’s dust.

“Hello.” He doesn't seem particularly suspicious of her. More like… curious. His eyes are dark brown, and kind, and observant, too. He looks like someone's father.

“Sorry, I was just… I was on a walk, and I got a bit turned around. What street is this?”

The man snorts. He looks less like someone's father and more like Mickey when she's bothering him now. “Oh, I dunno, probably la rue Something-or-Other. France, my wife says, she wants a little cottage holiday in the south of France. Mind you, none of us speak a word, and I need a map to find the nearest petrol station, it’s embarrassing! Would never happen to me in London.”

“France,” she repeats, smile blooming in wonder. “This is France?”

“Where exactly did you walk from?” His laugh is less baffled than she might have expected.

“Long way off,” she replies. “I'm on a sort of… journey.”

“Ah,” the man says wisely, with a shake of his tongs at her. “Gap year, is it? You're on walkabout. You lose your duffle?”

She nods. “Fell in the sea.” The lie comes easily, because it’s something she supposes she would do. Or something the Doctor would do, she thinks wistfully. Get caught up in an adventure and lose all his gadgets to the depths of the Mediterranean.

“Oh, that's rough luck. No offense, though, but don't say anything like that too loud near my daughter—it’s my worst fear, honestly, my Rose wandering off with nothing but a pack and a map.” He gives a visible parody of a shudder. “Not that she's exactly the type, you know, but kids change as they grow up, don’t they? You can never tell.”

Her smile only brightens further. So he is a father. And a good one, far as she can tell. She can tell by how his eyes crinkle up.

She asks, “Your daughter's called Rose?” He nods, and really, what are the odds? “So am I!”

The man isn't quite finished in his examination of her, that much is clear, but at the sound of her name, his eyes undergo a further softening. He sets his tongs aside and rubs his hands together.

“That's a funny coincidence,” he says. Then, in another moment, he seems to settle on something. “Look, why don't you join us for dinner? My family's all here, and I don't know how long you've been walking, but you're a pretty long way off from anywhere. I'm Shaun, by the way,” he adds with a self-deprecating smile at his own perceived rudeness. “Shaun Temple.”

Rose doesn't hesitate a bit. She is drawn by the scents of home, by a home more home than home. The effortless clarity of the sky, and the bees buzzing mildly... It’s like paradise.

She begins to feel every moment like the past few days of blood and loss and darkness are really going, gone, slipping off her shoulders, leaving her almost—very nearly—light.

“It's lovely to meet you, Shaun,” she says. It’s true. He is lovely to meet. She’s sure his wife will be just as lovely, and his daughter Rose, and whoever Mel is. “I'm Rose Tyler.”

And she steps into the garden.

#this is probably full of mistakes but idc i had to share my vision #i just think! shaun and rose would have a very good bond right away #and that he'd sort of become her adopted prime universe dad. but that's for later stories (if anyone wants to hear them)#dw fic #rose tyler #shaun temple #dimension hopping rose #fic and chips #doctor who #abbey writes #at this point my inability to think of tags is just becoming embarrassing

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theprophetizaiah · 9 months

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Achilles Come Down | Chapter 1: Pain As a Motive

Summary: Crowley believes Aziraphale died in the bookshop fire. Now, he's sending the armies of hell to avenge him. Based loosely on the story of Achilles and Patroclus.

Warning: None for this chapter! (Aside from some foul language)

Word count: 1.5k (this chapter)

All chapters should be available here! (I haven't written on Tumblr in many moons please forgive me)

To read on AO3, check out my work here!

Crowley burned in the hell he imagined he’d always belonged in. Ashes rained from the heavens. Burning paper engulfed his senses. Black smoke burned in his eyes. He breathed in his dead lover. Misery. Misery for the rest of eternity.

“Somebody killed my best friend!” he was somewhere between a yell and a sob. “Bastards!” Between fury and agony.

They spent the last 6,000 years toeing the line between best friends and lovers. Dining at the Ritz, feeding ducks, saving each other from mortal peril, you know, as friends do. Crowley would know him in any lifetime. From the weight of his step, the smell of his hair, the sound of his breath (it would skip and stutter when he had thought of something clever). The air around Aziraphale was always heavy, but not in the manner of suffocation. Rather, his aura was a heavy wool blanket. Warm, grounded, homey. The closest thing Crowley ever really had to a home.

Before the apocalypse, Crowley recalled their drunken ramblings. Amidst the whiffs of red wine, he remembered how he smelled. Like earl grey, oak, and bourbon: something his barber suggested. He also always smelled a bit like paper. It made the burning around Crowley all the more unbearable. Anthony J. Crowley, fallen angel and Duke of Hell, reeling over the doing of a foreigner’s god. Certainly not the one he knew, or maybe exactly the one he knew.

He laid in the flames, thinking through his new reality. This was a rare moment of clarity for the distraught demon. Who killed him: heaven or hell? Either reality had some sense to it. Heaven could, and would, excommunicate him for working with a demon. Permanent discorporation, or banishment to hell. Hell would kill him just for the sake of it. Just to say they did. Racking his brain, he realized Hell was unfortunately, his best chance of finding Aziraphale, or at least what became of him. Crowley slowly creeped up from the ashen ground. He was unsure how much time had passed, but it seemed that the flames had slowed. In mere moments, he stared between the two escalators. He chose downward. As the escalator carried him into the dank, dark corridors, his anguish gnawed at him, clawing its war from the inside out. He allows a single tear, and immediately wipes it away. Only the damned cry in hell.

Crowley had stopped fighting for hell decades ago. In the presence of his angel, he saw no reason for it. He saw no reason to fill the world with more violence. The humans were better at that anyway. After his bout in Edinborough, he was promptly tortured for the next several decades. Crowley never saw the face of Satan, but he would give it an ethereal, firm uppercut the second he had the chance. He lost faith in his leadership, in the art of mass scale temptation. He preferred the gentle temptation of his beloved. Of asking him out to breakfast, bringing him wine, planting seeds of heavenly doubt in his mind. He thought often about the Greek myth of the origin of love. They were alone together at the edge of the universe, a body of eight limbs, four eyes, and a flutter of feathers. Whoever Crowley was, it was a product of the angel. Whoever Aziraphale was, it was Crowley’s collateral. And beautifully so, their symbiosis carried on through the centuries. The demon had the fight pulled out of him the way the angel unshelved his books. Carefully and with gentle hands.

But now that he was gone, this was war. If he had nothing, he would still have Aziraphale, but if he didn’t have his angel, he had nothing. His fury craved battle, to make them hurt the same way he did. His wrath could summon the very same fire that had surrounded him in the hours prior. If his beloved really was gone, then he would destroy the heaven that took him.

Crowley barely managed his way through the crowds of demons slowly but surely trudging their way through the crowded corridors of hell. After passing the rest of the high offices he comes to the door of the one and only Beelzebub. For a moment, he questions if he should even knock, let alone open the door. He wonders if any of this is worth it in the first place. What if his Angel didn't care whatsoever about him? What if he didn’t need saving, or worse, he was already long gone? But in reality, he knew that wasn't the case. He’d be damned, more than he is already, if he let Aziraphale die knowing that he could have prevented it. Crowley gulps and burst open the door of Beelzebub's office. Demons were typically not known for their politeness. Inside, he sees Beelzebub sitting upon their throne, legs crossed fancifully, almost as if they were expecting him. Crowley's stomach turns at this realization.

“How's it going up there?” Beelzebub asks. Crowley puts on his best front and looks Beelzebub dead in the eyes and lies:

“Fantastic,” he says. “The Antichrist is mere moments from inciting the Apocalypse.”

Beelzebub smirks. “Wonderful. Great job.”

Crowley shudders ever so slightly. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for him to feel a profound discomfort. He again looks to Beelzebub, “did you capture the angel? Is he here?”

Beelzebub looks confused. “What do you mean capture the angel?”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley starts. “The other angel that has worked in my same jurisdiction for six thousand years. Did you capture him?”

Beelzebub purses their lips, seemingly scanning their memory. Alas, still confused. “No… Why would you assume that? Why would we let him in here?” They began to look vaguely suspicious of their colleague.

Crowley pulled something out of his ass. “I saw that the Bookshop was on fire,” he blurted out. “I could have only imagined that it was demonic intervention.” Beelzebub chuckled.

“It's not always hellfire,” Crowley stifles a laugh, just enough for Beelzebub to think it's genuine. Beelzebub speaks up once more. “Yeah, I don't know about the angel. We don't have ‘im here.” Crowley takes a moment and a step back. He decides to tell the best lie that he's ever told, aside from the fact that he was not madly, disgustingly in love with a forbidden fruit.

“I want that slimy bastard gone forever,” Crowley spits. “I want that fussy dumbarse to not be anywhere near God's green Earth.”

“Well, I know that much… What are you suggesting?”

Crowley laughs disingenuously, but trying desperately to seem genuine. “I think we need to raid heaven.”

Beelzebub looks puzzled. “But why do we need to raid the heavens if we have already conquered the Earth, Crowley?” they said. “Why would we postpone destroying Earth to fight this war first?”

“That’s exactly it… they’ll never see it coming,” Crowley says. “We can start with the archangels: Gabriel, Michael, Uriel… There will be no one left to lead their army in such short order. Then we let the Earth burn, and winning their holy war will be easier than dropping the antichrist at the convent.”

His voice grows raspy. Crowley takes a deep breath. “It'll let them know once and for all that their God means nothing.” Crowley sits down in front of Beelzebub. They seem a bit more intrigued. Crowley describes a plot more ambitious than any of his plans to date: to invade the heavens. To crusade his lover’s workplace by summoning a demonic army, comprised of hundreds of damned souls. He plans to force them through the Gates of Heaven to slaughter any angels in their sight. Beelzebub loved this concept, and was almost surprised Crowley came up with it. But, he did dream up the Spanish Inquisition, after all (or so they thought).

“Honestly, why not?” Beelzebub smirks. “If we're all going to be separated for the rest of time anyway, this would be a fun way to go out. If they want us to fight this war, we ought to do it our way. Hell fights dirty.” As the flies buzzed among their crown, they grinned the way a child would when they had come up with the perfect prank. Except this wasn’t a prank. It was the end of the world. Of Crowley’s, at least.

Beelzebub grimaced. Crowley laughed. “Well, I'll go talk about it with head office, and we'll get it sorted. I want it done by the end of the day today. That sound alright?” Beelzebub nodded in excitement. Crowley seems giddy with anticipation but not in the way that you would imagine. The anxiety pulsed through his veins. He was setting into motion the divine war days earlier than was planned, all for a fussy angel he drank wine with one too many times. But at the same time, he knew this was his reality. Crowley couldn’t pretend he didn’t love him anymore. Not when he could be dead. If heaven wanted a war, they were going to get it, god dammit.

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its-sixxers · 3 months

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abeyance

(sorting through old docs, have a prelude to a half light sort-of sequel starring viola the tremere and allusions to a 70s new york fic i might write eventually)

tremere oc x mercurio, blood bond angst

—

Los Angeles was a lost cause. Venture Tower burned, and Viola could see the glow of flame against the navy sky through the chantry window.

A muscle in her throat constricted. Her eyes felt dry, itched, and something between her ribs ached.

After thirty years apart they were reunited in the city of angels. Never to exchange words, to make reunion as painful as separation. Once they had been friends, one they had been each other’s sole confidant, the only one to be trusted. A chasm greater than time spanned between them, greater than regnant.

Life no longer hummed through her veins. He was yet a servant. When she looked at him she could see the color in his cheeks, his nose, his ears, the red in his knuckles, and it reawakened a hunger she’d long tried to forget, long thought she’d smothered. It reawakened twisted, a predator wishing to hunt and kill and consume, and she’d thought it was for the best that their paths crossed rarely and in places where they could not speak.

Until the sky burned, his regnant dead, and his life destined for the ashes if it had not already joined it.

Six months later she stood in the San Diego chantry, a pitiful small thing near the sea, Strauss at his desk across from her and looking no less imposing despite their diminished circumstances.

“I was informed a week ago that the Camarilla is sending an Archon here.” The regent explained. “To help Prince Tierney maintain control over the city, officially - an embarrassment to her, to be sure.”

“Unofficially?” Viola inquired, though she couldn’t give life to her voice. It was flat, hollow, numb - and Strauss was not impressed.

“The events in Los Angeles were disturbing. Confusing. By all accounts the Anarchs had no chance of success. The fledgling was their catalyst, of course, but she had no right to her achievements at her age. I met the poor creature.” Strauss frowned deeply. “There have been isolated reports of increases in blood potency through the ages, and each have been treated with utmost gravity by the Camarilla. This is one of such cases.”

Viola remained silent, her question unasked but obvious. Strauss was telling her this for a reason.

“I have met the poor creature,” Strauss repeated. “But I knew her little. Those with greater familiarity are our enemy. LaCroix for all of his faults would enlighten us. Unfortunate. However,” he rose from his desk and walked past her, pushing open the door to his office and gesturing for her to follow him. “The Nosferatu were willing to cut a deal.”

Strauss led her through the chantry, a crumbling abandoned mission church by the seaside that had been layered with enchantment upon enchantment. Through the halls, floors of sun baked ceramic, down into the cellar; converted to cells. Viola’s curiosity managed to burn through the fog of her apathy, the dimmest glimmer of flame. The infamous Red Nosferatu was dead, the fledgling who’d seized Los Angeles by the throat and had brought an Archon to the New World to see how she’d done so - and yet a part of Viola hoped she had been brought to the very cells they passed by. A part of her burned with envy, wishing she could grasp such power and break her chains so easily.

Instead Strauss stopped by the final cell, next to a rotting wooden rack that had once held wine barrels. A figure was curled in the corner of the cell, in the darkness; hair graying and limbs bony. The faint scent of cologne, cigarettes, and gun polish met her nostrils, sparking familiarity in her memory.

Not the infamous fledgling - but someone back from the dead, nevertheless.

“Mercurio.” she breathed. He flinched, raised his head to meet her gaze - there were deep lines set in his face, he looked fifteen years older and exhausted. Viola’s chest grew tight, and reflexively she wrapped her hand around the bars of the cell. Mercurio dropped his gaze back to his feet. Terror lanced through her at the realization he hadn’t been fed in some time - perhaps not since LaCroix’s death.

In only a few years she’d be seventy. Which meant he’d - not die, exactly, but -

“The Prince’s ghoul.” Strauss affirmed, cutting off her panicked thoughts. “The next best thing. It’s my understanding he was somewhat close with the fledgling. I recall the two of you having great success in New York when you worked together. I hope your knowledge will fill in the blanks where he lacks it, and the Archon will leave satisfied.”

The unsaid was obvious. If unsatisfied, it was likely both she and Mercurio would be dragged back to Europe, minds subjected to all the techniques the Camarilla had at their disposal to ferret out the truth. Viola was a sacrificial lamb. It was a hazard of the job, after all.

“How long has he been starved?” she inquired quietly, keeping her tone aloof and uninterested. Strauss knew they’d worked together, but he could never know how closely - even if it was only ever one sided, a flame too dim to shine across the abyss of separate regnants.

“Long enough for entropy to resume.” Strauss said dryly. “Perhaps the anarchs grew tired of feeding him - or he was unable to scavenge what dregs he could.”

Viola could have lied - could have said he would be dead soon if it was allowed to continue, soon to be useless to any interrogator - but Strauss was not one to remain ignorant of those enjoying his hospitality, prisoner or guest. All she could do was stare at his hunched form.

“In order to expedite the task that lies ahead of you, he is yours.” The regent continued. “Consider him a reward for your work in Los Angeles with the fledgling’s sire. If he survives the Archon’s questions, he’ll serve you as well as he did LaCroix. Admirably, from my understanding - a pity for the Prince that he wasn’t there to help on that final night.”

LaCroix was dead. Perhaps it was a threat - a mockery - but Viola knew Mercurio better than Strauss would ever guess.

Hers. It made nausea roll in her gut. Her ghoul, and all that implied.

At least he would be fed, she reassured herself.

“The Archon is expected within the fortnight.” Strauss advised. “Ensure you’re ready to answer his questions by then. I’ve business to attend to; I trust you can handle him.”

Viola nodded - it wasn’t a question, but she answered nevertheless. Strauss’ footsteps echoed against the cobblestone of the cellar. She waited until they crested the stairs before she passed her hand over the door lock, willing her heart to beat.

The echo of blood unlocked it, and she drew open the cell. Mercurio did not move from where he was huddled, not even when she knelt in front of him.

Words stuck in her throat, her tongue heavy when she opened her mouth. To her shame a low whine escaped her - a whimper, at how matters were never in their control, how it had all come to this - how their continued existence was about to rely on a betrayal, an abomination, and worst of all it might only buy them a few more weeks.

The city of angels was lost, and the failure lay heavy upon their shoulders.

“Do I leave you?” she whispered to him in the dark. “I can’t imagine the hunger, but if this is what you want -”

Mercurio lifted his head again, silencing her, his blue eyes nearly glimmering in the gloom. Far too pretty for him, for the man they belonged to; doubly so now that time was enacting its revenge upon his body.

“No.” he spoke after a beat of silence, his voice hoarse.

“You know what it’ll do.” Viola continued nevertheless, her own voice cracking. They both had been ghouls, they knew what it did - how one could never quite be themselves again, always aware of the boot on their neck. After the death of her sire she’d been free - as free as a childe of Tremere ever could be - but he’d been shackled long after she.

Until then - until he sat hunched in the cell, what youthful charm he had fading fast.

Viola peeled off her gloves, pressed the thumb of her left hand to her right wrist, let her nail bite into the flesh. Deliberately she drew a thin line, her blood a darkened and thick plum in color rather than the crimson of a mortal, stark against her ashen skin.

Mercurio’s pupils blew wide at the sight, the gleaming blue of his iris now a thin line. He sat up straight, leaned forward, licked his lips - he was salivating, and if her heart still beat it would have quickened its pace.

Instead she lifted her wrist to his face, and his hands wrapped around her arm. They were hot, even after a stay in the cell, and his mouth was hotter, tongue pressed to the wound in her skin, burning, heat crawling up her veins as he fed from her. Some primal instinct urged her to bat him away, to crush his cheekbone against the back of her knuckles for his presumption, but instead she remained still.

The lines in his face softened, some of the damage of the ages reversed - when there was nothing more to be done she withdrew her arm, even as he still clung to it. Viola laved her own tongue over the cut, tasting him against her skin. Bittersweet.

Once upon a time she’d imagined herself kissing him, tasting him upon her tongue in a much different context. It’d been a source of no small amount of shame, for there was no hope of reciprocation - and now, with him shuddering from a new source of vitae in his veins the shame colored a shade darker.

How long had she hoped for the Embrace, how naively she’d thought it would improve her station. Ever since had been failure after failure, isolation after isolation, all in her living death tainted and twisted.

Mercurio’s hands had fallen to her knees, his gaze fixed hungrily on her lips. How she’d wanted him to look at her the way he did then, on the edge of manic, some shade of the desperate madness she’d once felt. Forbidden, taboo.

Now she was certain he’d do whatever she asked, sate each fantasy she’d ever felt - but those blooms were blackened husks now, and she had no desire to turn them into nightshade.

Instead she stood, walked back to the cell door to take her leave.

Mercurio gripped her ankle, giving her pause. She thought he’d ask her for more blood, but instead he managed to speak three words into the damp air, vocal cords rejuvenated by her vitae.

“I missed you.”

Viola lowered her head and closed her eyes for a moment. Oh, she wanted to believe him, but she knew what it was to have a regnant feet from her, how one wanted to say anything in hopes of a scrap of approval, mind crude and not one’s own.

“I’ll lead you to my room.” she said flatly, desperately trying to ignore how he seemed to hang on her every word. Mercurio was never a sycophantic ghoul, always aloof and reserved in his way - but she knew him well enough to know what it took to make him straight backed, to make him reach out, to hold onto something. “No doubt Strauss has work for me, so I won’t be around much, but you’ll have your hands busy with research.”

It didn’t take long for Mercurio to understand - he was always smarter than anyone gave him credit for. With a groan he clambered to his feet, joints most assuredly stiff from his time in captivity - though the vitae in his veins meant that wouldn’t be a reality for much longer.

She tried to ignore how he eyed her as she pulled the cell door open, how acutely aware he appeared to be of her. Before they left the cellar he stopped her again - this time with a simple brush of his fingers against the back of her arm.

“Are you upset?” he asked, so bluntly she felt as if she’d been slapped.

“No.” she answered, equally bluntly. “Why?”

“I never came with you.”

New York burning, just like Venture Tower. He chose the ashes over her to twice, bonds of blood stronger than anything their experience together could create. She could never blame him - and felt some bitterness to know that in the end it didn’t matter either way.

He was tied to her now, and would never be the man she’d grown to care for again so long as he was. A catch 22, his life her responsibility and the very duty ensuring things would never be the same.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” she said quietly, and he did not argue with her.

Against all hope, she still hoped they’d survive the Archon, for anything was better than the void. Even a poor parody of briefest happiness.

#vtmb #fanfic #oc: viola florakis

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inkinmyheartandonthepage · 7 months

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The Magic In Family

Here it is! Magic!Buck fic is finally here! You can read it here on Ao3

Peru

“I see,” Finn proclaimed in a dramatic voice, holding his teacup out in front of him. “Clumped tea leaves in the bottom of this cup.”

Rhona leaned across the bar and slapped Finn on the shoulder, giving him a scowl as he simply laughed. “Give it here.” She snatched the teacup from Finn and titled the cup before twisting it this way and that. The scowl dropped from her face as she studied the wet tea leaves intently. “Okay, this looks like an arrow.” Rhona looked down at the book Tasseography Symbols for Reading Tea Leaves and Coffee that she had picked up in the bookshop on their last trip. It had become her latest hobby that those who worked at the bar had been dragged into while she practiced.

“Good news, right?” Finn grinned, waggling his eyebrows as he picked up a wineglass and begun to polish it.

Buck didn’t need to read the book to know that it was not good news. Arrows generally meant news from the direction it pointed in. Buck knew instinctively that it wasn’t good news, for Finn’s arrow was pointing in the direction of their co-worker Ash who Finn was currently sleeping with. Not for much longer, if Buck was right. His magic had been antsy around the two of them lately, picking up on some unknown conflict that was brewing.

Rhona winced. “Not really.” She gave Finn an apologetic shrug.

Finn frowned, leaning over to get a better look at his cup. “It looks more like a hammer than an arrow. What does that mean?”

Rhona looked down at her book again. “Okay. A hammer, a hammer – ah, a challenge to overcome. Hey, guess that means you will actually be doing some work tonight.” She sent him a teasing grin, shrieking when Finn flicked the dishtowel he had been polishing the wineglass with at her.

Finn grinned. “Suppose that’s better than what the arrow was telling me.” He hung the wine glass back on the rack and picked up another.

Rhona rolled her eyes and shifted her gaze to Buck. “What do you see?”

Buck looked at his own drained cup, eyes searching the tealeaves for shapes. His magic shifted inside him, his fingers tingling where they were curled around his cup. “I see a house.” He turned the cup, the leaves shifting as he did. “And a ladder.” He spun the cup around once more, letting his magic guide his hands. “And a moon.”

Rhona looked down at her book again and a smile spread across her face. “Hey cool! A house means business success. And a ladder means travel.” Her finger travelled down the page. “And the moon means happiness and success.” She looked back at Buck eagerly. “What kind of moon?”

“Crescent,” Buck said, looking back at his cup. He didn’t tell her that the leaves were currently shifting through the moon cycle.

(Read the rest on Ao3)

#ao3 fanfic #9-1-1 fanfiction #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #9-1-1 #buddie 911

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milkyruins · 2 years

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## han jisung x reader, TO ALL OF THE HOODIES I'VE "LOST" BEFORE

summary: you've spent the course of your newly-founded relationship with jisung creating yourself a new wardrobe.

genre: fluff

content warnings: eating/food, mentions of consuming alcohol, joke about postpartum depression

wc: .9k

one: the first date zip-up

jisung showed up to your first date in a tactically simple outfit. a black tee, wide-leg jeans, and that grey zip-up he adored– topped off with a small pendant necklace, he knew he made the perfect weapon. it was simple but perfect.

you adored him, especially his shyer moments, like when he asked whether you liked the way he cleaned up for you. the whole egotist act was ruined by the giant blush that engulfed his features, and you were quick to point it out with a teasing grin.

and by the end of a long walk around your campus, which included a pit stop for both overpriced bookstore merch (“ash the squirrel looks so much like you, hannie!”) and ice cream, you managed to ruin his masterfully curated outfit.

“sungie,” you turned to face your boyfriend, ice cream cone in hand. “sorry to be a bother, but i’m getting really cold eating this.”

a gust of cool night breeze flew at you both and you flinched noticeably, nose scrunching at the sudden violent act of nature.

within seconds, jisung’s grey zip-up was draped around your shoulders. for emphasis, he slung the hood over your head and mussed up your hair through the hood. “better?”

his body temperature was like a big, warm hug. “absolutely.” you gave him the tiniest peck on the cheek.

two: the formal-informal hoodie

sometimes you wished that hannie’s upperclassmen friends would just shut up.

as you got to know jisung more, you were introduced to his friends, which included upperclassmen music majors chan and changbin. they both were eager to coach your new boyfriend in the ways of becoming the romance master, which was sweet of them, but jisung was more than impressionable and this expensive restaurant was stuffy as all hell.

“god, how do you even pronounce these wines?” jisung whispered. it was subtle– definitely not meant for you ears– but you caught it.

“god, i wish i knew.”

hannie looked like a deer caught in headlights. his eyes practically bulged out at you in surprise. “um.. i wanted to impress you?”

you reached for his hand, which was currently clenching onto the pages of the menu. he immediately relaxed his grip once your hand found his. “with your great mental catalog of foreign wines? babe, have you ever seen me drink anything that wasn’t the cheapest wine on the rack?”

he shot one of those unsure half-smiles. “it’s okay, sungie. thank you so much for doing all of this, but you know that you’re already plenty impressive in my eyes– also that i could enjoy three-dollar pizza by the slice equally to whatever beef carpaccio is.”

your breath caught in your throat– did you go too far? after a few beats, jisung reanimated. he stood up, tugging you along, quickly thanking the staff as you two exited the fancy restaurant.

the cool breeze hit your skin and immediately you two rerouted to jisung’s apartment, where he nabbed you the first thing he could find in his dresser– a comfy cozy navy hoodie.

you probably looked like an idiot parading around in the fanciest silken garments known to humankind layered beneath a pajama-like navy hoodie, but god if you cared– it smelled like jisung’s subtly rosy shampoo. it was a keeper.

three: the kitchen safety hoodie

after a long night of “studying” together (half of it was playing gang beasts together, but that was just a minor detail), jisung insisted you couldn’t leave to your own place at the “asscrack of dawn”. with a big fuss, he forced you stay at his for the night.

with great effort, you opened your eyes to the sun invading every corner of jisung’s room. you rolled over and out of bed, making a beeline to the kitchen, where you heard some clattering. you needed your darling to cling onto as you properly woke up.

ah, there he was. you slipped behind him, hugging him tight. but your ever-loving boyfriend practically pried you off.

he turned to you. “don’t pout baby.”

you shook your heard, reaching for him again. you wanted your mobile heater back.

“i’m scared the cooking oil will splatter and hit your bare skin.” he reasoned, motioning to the eggs crackling on the stove.

after letting out a great huff, you turned tail back into his room. you returned a minute later, clad in whichever hoodie he left laying around, which happened to be the fluffiest baby blue hoodie, fully ready to squeeze the living daylights out of him.

you forgot to hand it back to him before you darted off to your first class of the day.

“oh! and this was from that morning after you stayed over.” sungie exclaimed as he rummaged through the very not-so-inconspicuous stash of his hoodies crammed into the farthest corners of your closet.

your head was buried in your hands. god, your life was over. how were you to survive without these absolutely banging sleepwear pieces?

his eyebrows knitted together a bit at your stance. “are… you okay?”

you looked up to face him. “i feel like i’m a postdelivery mother feeling the onsets of postpartum depression, so no.”

jisung’s expression contorted into a mix of horrified and concerned. “but if i left these with you?”

the largest, most radiant smile overtook your features. “i wouldn’t cry myself to sleep tonight.”

he practically ripped the baby blue hoodie out of his hand, placing it gently into your arms. “no tears please, baby. they’re all yours. they’re just, say, indefinitely m.i.a. 100% lost.”

#han jisung imagines #han jisung x reader #han imagines #han x reader #skz jisung #skz imagines #skz x reader #skz fluff #stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader #stray kids fluff #i love han jisung sm i'm so glad i finally got to write for him !!#! 💬. ⋆｡𖦹 °✩ minis

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qqueenofhades · 9 months

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Might I request Helnink sharing their country’s winter/holiday traditions with each other?

"I don't care how traditional it is in Fjerda," Nina says warningly, putting her hands on her hips. "I am not eating lutefisk."

Matthias gives her a slightly hurt look, as if they're finally reunited (well, mostly) and working on actually reconciling, and the first thing she does is go and slander his country's terrible, terrible food. The winter solstice is an observation of particular significance to Djel -- something about the renewal of the year, the holy light returning to the fallen world after an eternity of darkness, and so forth -- and Nina would think there would be more joy and cheer to it, but of course, Fjerdans are suspicious of anything that looks too much like fun. There are other traditional foods, to be sure, some of which she might even voluntarily consume. But when it comes to lutefisk, no. She is putting her foot down.

"Fine, then," Matthias huffs. "What do they do in Ravka, then?"

"We have lots of things," Nina informs him, "that people actually like to eat. Babka, kalach, sochivo, peljmeni, tvorozhniki, just to name a few. I'd cook some for you and we could have a contest, but that might throw you into terrible religious disfavor."

Matthias throws a sour look at her, as if to point out that by virtue of deserting his homeland and his calling, his military training, his order of humorless witch-hunters and all the rest, and taking up in carnal cohabitation with a Grisha demoness, that pretty much does for any scrap of his religious favor anyway. Nina laughs, then bites her cheek, feeling slightly guilty, and pads over to put her hands on his chest. "I can, if you want," she adds. "And I'm even willing to take a stab at some Fjerdan food, but no lutefisk. What else?"

He thinks about it. "Pinnekjøtt," he says, after a moment. "It's a special rack of lamb. Same with juleribbe. And there's rice pudding with sugar and cinnamon, risengrynsgrøt. Marzipan, apples, almonds, hot spiced wine." He pauses, eyes going briefly distant. "My mother used to make marzipan candy. A long time ago. It was one of my favorite things about Yule."

"Well, then," Nina says briskly. "We'll just have to find Fjerdan marzipan somewhere in Ketterdam. If we did make a whole dinner, do you think Kaz, Jesper, and Wylan would want to come?"

Matthias snorts. His opinion of their new cohorts remains unavoidably low, though there's a grudging and very unspoken respect between him and Kaz. Jesper is always up for any party anywhere, of course, and Wylan will perforce tag along. Nina's up for eating most things, and even despite her intransigence on the issue of lutefisk, she does want to do something to make the holidays special for Matthias. They're not quite as tentative around each other as they used to be, but after how long he spent rotting in the guts of Hellgate -- it's the least she can do, that's all.

"What else?" she says. "Is there a service? Do you have to go prostrate yourself for hours in front of some frozen ash tree, or -- ?"

"Some of us," Matthias says with considerable asperity, "do still take the gods seriously. What about you?"

"Ravkans go to church, usually. Kneel in front of the icons of the saints and ask for their blessings." Nina hasn't been religious for as long as she can remember, and frankly, after what she saw the so-called Sankta Alina do in the Fold, the way she used black merzost to bring back her defunct otkazat'sya lover, she's especially suspicious of anyone or anything proclaiming to be pure and holy as sunlight. "I don't think I'll be doing that this year, though," Nina adds, half to herself. "I've never really wanted to."

Matthias briefly looks as if he is about to deliver a stern sermon on her lack of pious sentiment (truly, why does she like this man so much?) but then sighs and gives in. "All right," he says -- and look at that, the big bad druskelle, actually making compromises. Maybe there is hope for them after all. "As long as we get the food."

"Oh." Nina rises on her tiptoes to kiss him -- just on the cheek, but still, and at last, he does not flinch away. "When it comes to Nina Zenik and food, you can always count on me."

#anonymous #ask #helnik #helnik ff #sab ff #winter prompts

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morphemeta · 21 days

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gakuto oshiro. cis man. he/him. bisexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that hirokazu 'kaz' amuro ? i think that the forty-five year old from okinawa, japan works as a city council member & owner of dracula's coffin club, but outside of that people describe them as shelves of leatherbound books, artworks hanging in gilded frames, expensive vintage wines in their rack and not a thing out of place; a dark room illuminated only by the flicker of candlelight; an old photo album, full of snaps from a disposable camera, hidden away in the back of a forgotten closet; crisp suits, expensive jewellery, an image so perfectly designed as to be uncanny; strong posture, total control of the room, a gaze sharp enough to dissuade any arguments . i hear they are manipulative & a control freak, but they are also known to be sentimental & artistic . consider giving them a visit at their home in the winterwood estates and get to know why they’re called the tormented.

IMPORTANT LINKS: will be added when they're ready!

TW: emotional neglect in childhood, disappearance/death of a loved one??

just to make my intentions with this character very clear before we get any further, this guy SUCKS. he's meant to be somewhat antagonistic and just all-round not that great a guy. sure, he probably has his redeeming features & he was a decent person at some point but :) time changes ppl, i guess! i feel like he's probably pretty amicable and decent on the surface but he's also very two-faced so it's like...Be Careful <3 also, i have no particular want to plot any active ships for this character. this isn't because of a lack of interest on his part, it's just because i don't necessarily want to write, or think it's appropriate to rp, what would definitely be a very toxic relationship! also he's definitely still in love with a person who's been missing for twenty years so there's also that. anyway, that's my little note done. read away! also! unlike most of my other muses (except ash), this is a new character i'm writing just for anchorage so please keep in mind a lot of stuff is generally subject to change. i'm going to try and work out the kinks as i go but this intro might not stay 100% totally accurate.

BASICS.

His full name is Hirokazu Amuro (安室洋一) but he started going by Kaz for short once he moved to the States in his late teens. It just kind of stuck. I imagine his nickname growing up would have been 'Hiro'.

Kaz was born in Okinawa City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan and is of direct Okinawan descent. Kaz may describe himself as Japanese for simplicity's sake but he considers himself Okinawan first & Japanese second. (Okinawans/Ryukyuans are an unrecognised ethnic minority in Japan & are ethnically/culturally distinct from the mainland Japanese majority BUT that's all I'll say on the matter bc this is a topic on which I am not qualified to speak & that presumably requires far more nuance than should be squeezed into an rp intro hehe)

He speaks Japanese (standard & Okinawan dialects) and English fluently, and he knows a little Uchinaaguchi. I imagine he knows some other languages too, I just haven't settled on that. I think he's very interested in cultures and language.

As a council member, he dedicates a lot of his attention to the Arts sector, having taken it upon himself to oversee the relevant funding and the like. He's very invested in the arts and considers it a matter of great personal interest. Kaz is also a known patron/doner of the Hanging Arts Gallery and paid out of his own pocket to financially support certain productions of the Single Carrot Theatre, especially due to his history with the venue. This has given him a reputation for being philanthropic but it largely comes from a place of self-interest and satisfying his own wants and needs.

Similarly, he's donated money to publications such as the Anchorage Daily Diem under the guise of support but the reality is that he has built up a good rapport with news outlets so as to give him more control over how he's portrayed in the media. Money speaks. And money can make sure that you don't speak.

This is a recurring issue, for the record. He very much needs to be in control of things. He's not especially power-hungry, and is quite content to sit back and let things play out without him lifting a finger, but he likes to be the one putting pawns in their places to ensure things go his way. Obviously, his success here will vary but, again, this is just how he likes things to be.

All this to say, he's kind of a known eccentric, hence his ownership of the Coffin Club. What can I say? He likes spooky shit. On top of that, the way he presents himself in public is so particular and perfect and poised that it's a little uncanny. I think he probably comes off a little unsettling.

I imagine he might clash with his fellow council members at times because he prefers to speak directly and he's kind of condescending, especially if he disagrees with you on something. He holds grudges too and is the type to start playing Devil's Advocate just to rile someone up because he happens to dislike them. He also doesn't have much issue just insulting people SO UH....

He likes screwing with people. I really picture him as the type of guy to pour a glass of red wine over someone's head in order to humiliate and belittle them.

Insufferable rich man.

CHILDHOOD

Hirokazu was born, on 13th October 1978, as the second of two children, the only son, of a wealthy family. His father was in business, as his father had been before him, and his mother was a homemaker who had also come from a wealthy background. It was tolerant but largely loveless marriage, the couple having come together at the behest of their respective families (who had been primarily concerned with what the union might do for their collective reputations). It is hard to say that the Amuro children grew up surrounded by much warmth but they were comfortable.

The expectations placed on the two Amuro children were high, particularly for Hirokazu who had been deigned the obvious sucessor to his father's work. They were raised in a strict home where studying well to impress the parents was the be-all-and-end-all. They had strict curfews and were forbidden from the sort of hobbies their parents considered frivolous and a waste of time. If the children weren't working to improve themselves for future job prospects, they were wasting time.

Fortunately for Hirokazu, he was a clever and studious child and never struggled much in this regard. He was also a voracious reader and, to his good luck, this was considered an acceptable hobby. He was known to spend hours at the library down the road from his family home. It was just about the only source of entertainment to which he had easy access.

In his early teen years, he grew irritated with this constrictive lifestyle, of only doing and reading and even thinking this that had been approved of by his family. The first step in breaking free was a very, very small one indeed: he deliberately hunted out the pulpiest, schlockiest book he could find in the entire library, a beaten-up and dog-eared old copy of some horror anthology, and found himself hooked. The entire genre was such a far cry from the world in which he lived, full of freaks and weirdos and people who obeyed none of the rules. This led to him reading more and more horror, and then to him sneaking away to the local arthouse cinema where they'd show strange and splattery flicks imported all the way from places like Italy. Here, he learned that he didn't really want to follow in his father's footsteps. Business bored him but art fascinated him.

In his first year of high school, at the age of sixteen, Hirokazu took it upon himself to form and appoint himself leader of the school's new Horror Literature Club. The membership was small but the attendance was strong. (It should be of note that the small attendance was also what justified his position as leader, despite being a first year.) This was also Hirokazu's very first taste of leadership. He'd never been an outgoing child and was usually left alone by other children but he found that, suddenly, people listened when they believed he was important. This stint lasted until halfway through his second year of high school, at which point his father found out what he'd been doing and forced him to withdraw from the club altogether.

The new opening in his schedule would be filled with more studying. After all, he needed to get into a good uni if he wanted to maintain any respect in this family and his father wasn't just going to pay his children's way. If they couldn't earn their education on their own merits, they were no children of his. And, so, Hirokazu studied and studied until he secured himself a spot at a top university in Tokyo, studying Business (a decision made for him by his family). Because his sister had also gotten into a good women's university in the city a couple years prior, the family left the tropical climate of Okinawa behind and moved to Tokyo.

EARLY ADULT YEARS

Two years into his time at Uni, at the age of nineteen, he was offered the chance to take part in an exchange program that would send him to New York for a year. Eager, if not desperate, to get away from his parents, Hirokazu jumped at the opportunity. His father considered it a good chance for Hirokazu to branch out and network and so he approved it. Along with a good friend from Tokyo, Hirokazu made the move and immediately set to work on forging his own path, living his own for the very first time.

His actual education was of minor concern and Hirokazu immediately threw himself into the nightlife. He found himself at home in more alternative groups and more artistic spaces, even beginning to dabble in poetry himself. He surrounded himself bands and poets and artists, adopted the name Kaz and stayed out all night shoving fuck know what kind of substances into his body. He'd become a free sprit; the idea of rebellion had long since crossed his mind, so far had he come from those repressive beginnings.

And, then, he met them. They were just another member of Kaz's wider circle but, from the moment he laid eyes on them, he was infatuated. They would often break free from the rest of their circle in the wee hours of the morning to steal away private moments. At age twenty, Kaz had fallen in love for the first time and he fallen quite hard.

It was 1999 now and the two had been officially dating for quite some time. Kaz had made the decision to remain in New York and finish out his education there, having graduated that very year. He ignored his father's demands that he move back home and take up a position working alongside him. His partner mentioned wanting to up north somewhere for New Year's Eve, in the hopes of seeing the Northern Lights as the new millenium rolled in and, so, Kaz surprised them with a two week trip up to Anchorage.

During this trip, the two grew very fond of the strange town and decided to take root there, having found themselves feeling otherwise lost in life after graduating. Thanks to Kaz's wealthy background, they were able to buy a home in Delilah's Gated Den without any trouble. Kaz took up a job handling the finances for the Single Carrot theatre, believing it to be the ideal way to pursue his love of the arts while still making good use of his business degree.

In 2004, when Kaz was twenty-five, their partner disappeared. Another statistic in Anchorage's endless list of missing people. The news hit Kaz like a ton of bricks, his reality seeming to chip and crack around him. He was forced to watch, helpless, as those in charge seemed to do nothing, not a finger lifted for any casuality in the town. Unable to let go of his missing loved one and determined to prove that they were still out there, Kaz left his position at the theatre behind after five years of work and moved into local government. He would work his way up the ranks and find the answers he was after.

ADULT YEARS

After years of hard work, such hard work that it had bordered on obsession, Kaz had become a member of the Anchorage City Council. He was on top and he had access to everything he needed. That was when he learned about the Miroir, and that was when he had learned about their miroir. The cracks that had formed all those years ago splintered beyond repair. Shattering. The vague hopes onto which he had clung for so long twisted and contorted into something like rage and resentment. The journey he had taken to get to this point had already changed him for the worse, the years spent following only one trail blinding him to anything that did not serve his own interests, but this would only push him over the edge.

Separately from this, somewhere along the line he took it upon himself to start a small business of his own: Dracula's Coffin Club. Of course, his love of horror was never forgotten and this little shop is a testament to that. He's often too busy to do any work in the shop itself but it's sort of a little passion project for him. He still likes to write poetry in his own time too but that's a very private business. (SORRY THIS IS SUCH A SHIFT IN TONE LMAOO I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE ELSE TO PUT IT </3)

As for his family, they fell out with him during his Single Carrot years but, having caught wind of his successes in local government, they eventually changed their tune. Kaz was understandably not impressed with this but has tried to stay in their good books out of a desire to remain on his father's will. (His belief is that he deserves to be compensated for having this man as a father.) His sister has since taken his place as their father's successor, having proven herself a perfectly capable businesswoman, and has a family of her own whereas his mother has had some success in launching her own jewellery business. Kaz does not take any interest in their affairs.

#« 𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚣𝚞 » / 「 intro. 」#anchorintro #oh yeah for sure i'm keeping it brief this time (it's 2k words long)#ALSO I DO NOT LOVE THIS GRAPHIC I WILL NOT LIE but i threw it together in like 10 mins bc i just wanted smth in here #maybe i'll redo it later...maybe i'll just grow to accept it #who knows #anyway hopefully this isn't a mess and doesn't suck or whatever #i wrote the whole backstory part in one sitting & i need to sleep at some point so i didn't proofread HOPEFULLY IT MAKES SENSE

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