#burnished generation

[laxibbeb]

🎀🔔 hO HO HO 🔔🎀 @missfckingfortune it is I, your Secret Santa! I'm so, so glad I finally get to reveal myself because it's been excruciating keeping everything a secret 😌

I wish you could've seen my face when I first saw that you liked a hospital AU. (i guess you could say I was like a child on Christmas 🤣)

I've had so much fun getting to know you and creating my gift(s)!! Let's start the week off with the second best thing in the world (second only to hospital drama) – elucien kissing.

and! thank you to the lovely @acotargiftexchange for organising, you're all rockstars –Santa🍪🥛

[matt0044]

Nobody tell the Ironwood Sta(i)ns about Promare.

They're insufferable enough without another "Strong Man Making Big, Touch Decisions" to fawn over.

[suguwu]

jy sunning himself like the big cat he is is so important to me

[cyrsed]

found a guy with the weirdest misconception about dead space which is that upgrading health doesn't actually give you more health it just makes the health bar look longer, but now it's making me paranoid that like. what if that's true. what if what i've been assuming are health upgrades aren't actually doing anything and in reality the "health upgrade" is just the improved armor from when you buy a new suit and any kind of advantage i thought i was getting from upgrading health directly is just psychological ghlskdjflksdjf

[xtruss]

General Grant At City Point! This photograph is a montage or composite of several images and does Not Actually Show General Ulysses S. Grant at City Point, Virginia. Three photos provided different parts of the portrait. Library of Congress

These Manipulated Photos Are The Original Political Deepfakes

Long Before Artificial Intelligence, Photographers Altered Images to Burnish the Reputations of Politicians—From Lincoln to Stalin.

— ByParissa DJangi | July 24, 2024

The rise of artificial intelligence or AI has made photo manipulation easier and more accessible than ever. And under the right circumstances, these images could wreak political havoc.

Generative AI-powered tools can create new images or videos, including so-called deepfakes. “Originally, deepfakes referred to videos in which the face of one person had been swapped with the face of another using AI,” says Matthew Stamm, an engineer at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “As generative AI has progressed, the word deepfake has been also used to describe many other forms of fake or manipulated [images] made using AI.”

When deepfakes feature political leaders, they risk spreading misinformation or discrediting administrations.

The AI tools that produce fake images may be novel, but there’s nothing new about the act of editing photographs for political spin. Long before deepfake entered the lexicon, manipulated photographs in the 19th and 20th centuries attempted to shape the image of world leaders.

Early Photo Editing Techniques

As long as there have been photographs, people have been editing them. Photography pioneers believed pictures were more than objective records of reality. Photographer Henry Peach Robinson wrote in 1869, “I am far from saying that a photograph must be an actual, literal, and absolute fact; […] but it must represent truth.”

The head of the above photo of Grant at City Point likely comes from this June 1864 portrait of Grant standing next to a tree in Cold Harbor, Virginia. Photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress

What kind of truth, though? Photographs could enliven a lifeless corpse to comfort a bereaved family or showcase the patriotism of a soldier heading to war.

Shaping these truths sometimes meant altering the photograph. “In the darkroom, [photographers] had lots of control over framing and the relative exposure of an image,” explains Tanya Sheehan, an art historian at Colby College in Maine. “Negatives could be double-exposed. Multiple photographic negatives could even be cut and recombined to produce composite images.”

Making L eaders Look Good

Studios also touched up photographs to enhance sitters’ appearance. “People who frequented photographic studios expected their portraits to show their ‘best selves,’ and retouching was seen as crucial to that goal,” Sheehan points out. Political leaders and their supporters were no exception.

In this portrait of President Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's head was superimposed onto the body of John C. Calhoun in an earlier portrait. Composite Print By William Pate (Left) And Print By Alexander Hay Ritchie (Right)

Around 1865, a new image showed Abraham Lincoln in a regal pose. It’s possible the depiction was created after the wartime president’s assassination had transformed him into a “martyr,” and it may have circulated after his death. The photo later turned out to be a fake: Lincoln’s face had been cropped onto the body of John C. Calhoun, a pro-slavery politician.

Decades later, the Soviet Union deployed similar techniques to make strongmen look even stronger, especially during the regime of Josef Stalin from 1924 and 1953.

“At the state level, most photo doctoring was carried out by the art departments of various official publications, journals, and newspapers, which used a range of different means to manipulate images,” says Jessica Werneke, a historian at the University of Iowa.

“Airbrushing […] was common to remove physical imperfections, specifically in images of Stalin, who had scars from smallpox and injuries to the left side of his body from a childhood injury.”

Excising Political Liabilities

Photo manipulation also served a more nefarious purpose during Stalin’s regime. “[It] was a means of rewriting history according to Stalinist policies and principles,” says Werneke. “Stalin and his supporters took this process to a whole new level in physically erasing individuals from images.”

Nikolai Yezhov (right) lead the Soviet secret police from 1936 to 1938 under Joseph Stalin (center). Yezhov was was arrested in 1938 and executed in 1940. After his execution, Yezhov was painstakingly removed from this image, earning him the posthumous nickname "the Vanishing Commissar". Photograph Via Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Arguably the most infamous case of political erasure involves a pair of photographs depicting a scene from 1937. The first image, printed that year, features Stalin and three colleagues, including secret police official Nikolai Yezhov. Three years later, the image appeared in print again––without Yezhov.

What happened? After the image had first been captured, Yezhov fell out of favor. By 1941, he had been executed and was literally and figuratively cut out of the picture, as if he had never been near Stalin to begin with.

Identifying Fakes

Mikhail Gorbachev, then Russian Politburo member and second in line at the Kremlin, in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1984. Photograph of Bryn Colton, Getty Images (Left). An official portrait of Gorbachev with his famous birthmark edited out. Photograph From The Collection of The Wende Museum (Right)

Today, organizations like the Content Authenticity Initiative can help vet digital images and detect AI’s influence. But what about pre-digital photographs have been heavily manipulated?

According to Micah Messenheimer, the Library of Congress’s curator of photography, provenance is key: “Knowing the photograph’s history […] helps establish its authenticity.”

Provenance is only part of the puzzle, however. “Expert conservators can examine the physical properties of a photograph to understand when something is out of the ordinary in the chemical composition, paper age, or applied coloring,” explains Messenheimer.

Sometimes, all it takes is a feeling that the photo doesn’t look right. Helena Zinkham, chief of the library’s Prints and Photographs Division, recalls how Kathryn Blackwell, then a reading room assistant, first raised suspicions in 2007 about a photograph featuring Ulysses S. Grant in what appears to be a military camp during the Civil War.

This image of Major General McCook photographed between 1862-1865 was likely used as the horse and man's body in the composite photograph of Grant at City Point. Photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Blackwell “was refiling the photo one day and thought, ‘Something’s off here.’” Detective work revealed the image was a composite of different sources. Grant’s head had been cropped onto another officer’s body, and the whole scene was cast against a background from an entirely different photograph. Researchers dated the image to sometime around 1902, well after Grant’s death in 1885.

The image portrayed Grant as a war hero, nobly posing on a horse. The means of manipulating photographs have changed over time, but the goal remains the same: to shape the image of political leaders, one edit at a time.

[joelsgoldrush]

“guilty pleasure” | 8.6k

worst!logan howlett x f!reader

SUMMARY: After saving Earth-10005 from impending disaster, Wade convinces Logan, the alcoholic and easily irritated mutant, to stick around for a while. He’s convinced that nothing good can come out of this experience, until he meets you: the charming bartender with a soft spot for swearing that matches his own. Suddenly, sticking around doesn’t seem so bad after all.

WARNINGS/TAGS: mdni - smut 18+ fluff. drinking. dirty talk. slow-burnish. grumpy!logan x sunshine!reader. reader is really kind but cracks a lot of jokes. age gap (25 vs 200 - they’re basically the same age). oral sex (f receiving). fingering. finger sucking. soft dom!logan. wade being the funniest asshole. logan calls reader "kiddo/kid”.

A/N: HI! first of all, i'd like to thank you for all the support you showed me on my recent post. let me just tell you that i’m LOVING writing for logan. but none of this would be possible without YOU, so yeah, i fucking love y’all.

** regarding this story, i was planning on making it even longer, but writing these two has been so much fun, and i didn’t want it to end just like that (i have attachment issues as you may infer from this note). therefore, i’ve made the decision to write a second part to this fic, which will contain fluff and other stuff (you already know the drill). i don’t know when i’ll be posting it, but i’m sure it won’t take me that long.

*** i’m also working on other one shots (purely fluff/domesticity because i want this man to cradle me in his arms). anyway, i don’t know if anyone’s going to read this, but still, all I have to say is THANK YOU FOR READING MY WORKS! i hope you really like this silly story i made up :)

**** english is not my first language so if you come across any mistakes don’t hesitate to tell me :)

special recognition to @zloshy who allowed me to rant about my own fic 😭 the sweetest human ever

The bar is far from packed, but then again, it never truly is.

Studying your regulars has become your favorite hobby. Soon you end up knowing their names, the drinks they like, and what time they come through the door. It’s what happens when standing on your own two feet and refilling glasses lose all their charm. A part of you thinks you also do it to make them feel safe. No matter how much you try to deny it, you truly care about their well-being.

Is this your dream job? Nope. Definitely not. You’re pretty sure that holding some stranger’s hair while they empty their insides wasn’t on your bingo card for this year. But sadly money doesn’t grow on trees, and university isn’t going to pay itself. Plus, this was the only job in which your resume was not immediately rejected. It should also be stressed that the drunks happen to love you. 

Perhaps this isn’t the life you had always imagined for yourself, but you were getting closer to it. You’d often talk to Adam, a retired psychologist in his seventies. He was without a doubt one of the most loyal clients you’d ever encountered. In the past, he’d even given you free advice on some of your failed hookups. You once told him that in less than two years, you’d be just like him when you got your degree in Psychology. To your surprise, he replied: “You’ll be much better than me, doll. I’m a mess, can’t you see it? You don’t wanna be like me,” his voice was hardly above a whisper as he continued. “I should be at my daughter’s birthday right now, but I didn’t get an invitation this year. Believe me, you don’t want to end up like this old man.” 

Like Adam, most of the men who frequented the bar day-to-day saw it as an opportunity to hide within the shadows. In comparison to the other pubs in the area, the one you work at doesn’t receive that much attention from the general public. A dimly lit place where only music from the 80s is allowed. You’re certain that if a health inspector ever came down here, you’d be in serious problems. But hey, you know what they say: do not worry about tomorrow; instead, live in the now.

The atmosphere of the bar shifts dramatically as the main door slams shut with a resounding thud, pulling you abruptly out of your daydreaming. You turn to see who’s arrived, but as soon as your eyes meet his, you’re compelled to look away. Nevertheless, the brief glance you catch of the stranger’s features is enough for you to unlock your phone and send a quick text to your best friend. 

You:

cutie patootie alert

there’s this really handsome guy at the bar

i don’t think i’ve ever seen him before

i think i’m in love with him

my night just got a 100% better

Allison:

age

what does he look like

is he bald?

You:

he looks like he could be in his early fifties??? it’s hard to tell UGH i wish you were here

brown hair, beard, 6’2 if i’m not wrong 

i didn’t stare at him for too long

otherwise that would’ve been very weird

and no he’s not fucking bald

that happened only once and i was not aware of that gentleman’s lack of hair 

Allison:

so you’re dating retired now

get it grandma!

You:

oh fuck you allison 

Allison: 

it’s okay girl we all have our flaws

just make sure it’s nobody’s father

wait it’s not mine right?

You:

nah your dad’s way hotter don’t you worry about it

Allison:

bitch 

Even with the music blasting through the speakers that are attached to the ceiling, you can still hear the low murmur and the whispers. The mysterious stranger seems to have attracted the attention of the other patrons, some of whom have even raised their phones to take photos. Your eyebrows draw together. Why would they do something like this, approaching the man as if he were a celebrity? Since curiosity never fails to kill the cat, you decide to get involved.

“Do I have somethin’ on my face?” you hear him ask the crowd, his raspy voice making your knees wobbly. He sounds enraged. You step on your tiptoes, trying to see what all the fuss is about, albeit it’s pretty hard considering how these men are caging him with their bodies.

The glow of a phone’s flashlight catches your attention, and suddenly, a chair is dragged without much elegance. “Enough of that, y’hear me?”

Enter you now. “Okay, gentlemen, I’m sorry. I’m gonna need you to make some space for me, alright?” you mumble as you gently push them aside. “Thank you, thank you. Y’all can be real sweethearts when you put your minds to it.”

Then you spot him, and it becomes clear why everyone is making such a fuss. 

Gary, your worst client ever, steps forward. His nasty breath clouds your senses as he rests one of his sweaty hands on your shoulder. “Doll, it’s the fucking Wolverine. Don’t ask him for a picture, though. He doesn’t seem to be in the mood for that.”

The last thing you needed to see today was a fight (despite your knowledge of who would be the winner). You locate yourself amidst them, shaking your head like a disappointed mother, so as to add a tiny bit of drama to the situation.

“Guys, what you’re doing here is completely inappropriate. I thought I’d taught you better. Imagine if I were to pull this crap on you. You wouldn’t have it.”

Adam presses his lips together, flushing a bit. “She does have a point.” 

“Thank you, peanut. You’re still my favorite,” you flash him an honest smile. Scrutinizing the rest of the men, you continue with your speech. “You can still make up for it and fill my tip jar all the way to the top. Deal?” they all scoff, barking their disagreement. “Oh, you don’t like the sound of that? Then leave him alone, okay? Class dismissed! Back to your places,” you clap your hands repeatedly, signaling them to go away. “Chop chop. All this alcohol won’t be drinking itself.”

Just like that, everything goes back to normal in the blink of an eye. Wolverine sits back down in his chair, leaning closer to the table and resting both elbows on it. He examines you, lifting his chin while his brown eyes take in every inch of you.

“Thank you,” he utters, his eyes still trained on your features. 

“No need to. It’s what I’m here for,” you point to your work clothes, which consist of an antiqued apron and a silly sticker that has your name written on it. “Can I get you anything to drink? It’s also Burger Night. You can get one for half the usual price.”

(No. It’s not fucking Burger Night. You just happen to find yourself deeply attracted to him.)

He doesn’t seem too eager to hear you talk. “Not hungry at the moment. But I could use some whiskey.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, kid. Very sure.” Well, now he does look annoyed.

“Great. I’ll be back in a minute,” you move as if you were in a race, returning to him after a hot minute. Setting his glass down on the table, you fill it with some old whiskey you don’t even know the name of. Still, he omits that detail, gulping down two-fingers of whiskey as if it were water. “I see you’re thirsty.”

“Could you leave the bottle here?” those brown puppy eyes are begging you to do as he says, and although you’d be happy to oblige, rules are rules. 

“Actually, I can’t. The bottle stays on the counter. But you can always join me at the front,” your proposal doesn’t appear to have the desired effect on him. “I won’t talk to you if that’s what you want.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he rubs his neck, drawing a long breath as he stands up. 

You can feel many pairs of eyes searing into your soul. The others ask you for more drinks and you pour them, pricking up your ears when you hear them talking about him.

“What a weirdo. Didn’t you see it on TV? He’s not even from this universe,” Gary explains, looking for accomplices to hate on Wolverine. “Let me tell y’all something: he shouldn’t even be here. He’s fucking dead on this earth.”

Yeah… that you knew.

It had been all over the news for weeks. Some would even swear that he was back from the dead, but that was until the representatives from the TVA spoke their truth. If someone would’ve told you a month ago that multiple universes were a thing, you would’ve laughed in their face.

As if that weren’t already difficult to process, your mind does the job of reminding you that there’s a man with metal claws sitting a few meters away from you. Despite that, you can’t seem to be scared of him. There’s something magnetic about his personality and that don’t-come-near-me-or-there-will-be-consequences expression that he has. Why had you promised not to speak to him? Dammit.

“I can hear your thoughts,” a muscle in his jaw twitches after knocking back another glass of whiskey. He squeezes his eyes shut before tapping the table with two fingers, silently asking for a refill.

“I thought you didn’t want me to talk,” you raise one of your eyebrows, and you behold how the corners of his mouth turn up for an instant. “I can assure you your liver hates you.”

“Alcohol won’t kill me, so don’t be afraid. Keep ‘em coming.”

For nearly twenty minutes, he does nothing but drink. He attempts to light a cigar at some point, and you stop him. “You can’t smoke in here.”

“No special treatment?” he inquires, placing the cigar between his parted lips and tilting his head back. He’s so… dreamy. He has to know it.

“I saved your ass today. The least you can do is not cause me any trouble.”

His eyes widen at your words, blinking owlishly. “You saved my what?”

“Your goddamn ass. You were about to start a fight.”

“Blame the idiots you have for clients,” he says, jerking his thumb toward your direction. “I was just mindin’ my own business. They came for me, not the other way around.”

“Look, Wolvie. I–”

“Wolvie?” giving a bitter laugh, he rams a hand through his hair. “That’s the worst nickname I’ve heard in a long time,” he looks at you through his lashes, getting rid of his leather jacket. “It’s Logan.”

“Wow. Your name is very boybandish.”

You succeed in making him laugh once again. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to observe his face without feeling like you were just about to get caught. He has deep creases and worry lines etched between his eyebrows, a brown beard that perfectly frames his jaw, and a few white hairs scattered in his sideburns. Pearly teeth that go hand in hand with one of the most impeccable smiles you’ve ever seen, and a pair of brown eyes that make you feel weak in the knees. You know for a fact that he’s a lot older than you; his exact age remains a mystery, but his appearance is enough for you to start fantasizing.

Shit, you want him. You should feel sickened by the mere thought of being with him. He was born God knows when, has lived hundreds of years. Still, the idea of tracing his cheekbones with your fingers while lying on his chest doesn’t leave you. This is fucked up. You are fucked up. A fucked up Psychology student. The joke is pretty much self-explanatory.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, you preening slut. Can’t even bother to answer my calls now?”

The tension between you shatters like a glass dropped onto the floor. He doesn’t dare to look in the direction of the owner of that voice, not even as the seat next to him gets taken. He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Wade, what the hell are you doin’ here?”

“It hasn’t been exactly easy, raising our kid on my own. I don’t even have money to hire a babysitter, Lo. I spent nine months carrying your child, and for what? You end up going after a bartender,” the masked man turns to you, giving a sly wink. “No offense, baby. You must be a real sweetheart. In fact, do you want my number? The name’s Wade, but you can call me whatever you like.”

“You dumb fuck. Are you flirtin’ with her?”

“No shit, smartass. You’re the future of this country.”

A soft giggle escapes you despite your attempt to hold it back. You take a step back, admiring the two men. “Well, aren’t you two a beautiful couple?”

“You should see our little munchkin. He’s got my eyes and Logan’s hair. His first word was gubernatorial.”

“Would you like to have a drink while you’re here?”

“A beer would be great. Thank you, sugarbear. You’re the cutest,” Wade sinks back into his chair, resting his chin on his palm. He jerks his head in Logan’s direction, bumping his shoulder. “She’s the cutest. Are you two together?”

Logan rubs his forehead, speaking through gritted teeth. “How did you find me?”

“It's the power of love, baby. I had It’s All Coming Back To Me Now on repeat for hours. Couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Handing Wade a cold beer, your eyes scan Logan’s face. “I didn’t know patience was your strongest suit.”

“Me neither.”

“Enough of that! I can’t stand not being included in a conversation,” Wade throws his hands in the air, and you look at him. “There you are. So, what about you? Are you even allowed to be here? Did bars change their policies?”

You can’t help but snort. “I’m 25.”

Wade looms closer, lowering his voice. “Now that I think about it, you could totally be Logan’s caretaker. He’s been having some issues recently, given his age. Do you… know anything about adult diapers?”

But then Logan’s face contorts, turning crimson. He rises from his seat, grabbing Wade’s arm. “That’s it. We’re leavin’,” his eyes lock on you for a moment. “How much do I owe you?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s on the house.”

The things you’re willing to do for a man, right? You should be ashamed of yourself.

(But you aren’t.)

His mouth hangs open in disbelief. “Kiddo, are you–”

“Completely sure,” you finish his sentence for him, bowing your head and clasping your arms behind your body. A tight-lipped smile takes over you. “Just don’t tell my boss.”

Wade shifts his gaze back and forth between Logan and you. “I usually don’t mind third-wheeling, but I sort of feel left out.”

“I’m gonna sew your mouth shut, Wade.”

“Oh, come on! I was just making small talk,” the masked man tries to excuse himself while Logan pushes him towards the door. “It was a pleasure meeting you, sunshine. I’m free on Thursdays. Hit me up if his whiskey dick fails to impress you! Mine’s way more agile and young!”

As you watch them leave the bar, you remain frozen in your place amidst the clamor of ongoing chatter and clinking glasses.

What the fuck had just happened?

“Patrick’s normally the first one to get wasted during weekends,” you explain to the blonde woman sitting in front of you, and she writes that information down in her notebook. “He can usually handle himself, but at some point, he’ll try to call his ex-wife, and that’s when you know you need to stop serving him.”

She clicks her tongue, the color draining out of her face. “This is… definitely a lot to remember. I think I already forgot half of what you said.”

You shake your head, shoving your hands in your pockets. “You’ll get used to it, believe me. I’ll be with you at all times, so if you have any doubts, just ask me.”

After a whole year of working solo at the bar, you finally get to have a coworker: Gwen, a mother of two teenagers in her forties. You had met her at the grocery store, and in the process of helping her find a specific brand of cookies, you found out that she had recently lost her job. One thing led to another, and now she’s your trainee.

Your savior complex strikes again!

It has been four days since your first encounter with Logan. The thought that he could show up at any moment makes your heart race and your hands sweat. Allison had received countless voice messages where you narrated the entire experience in full detail. 

Touching your arm softly, Gwen’s face lights up. “Another man came in. Is he a regular? I don’t think you told me about him.”

Fuck, it’s him. Manifesting does work wonders. He locks eyes with you and raises a hand in greeting.

“Leave this one to me,” you tell her as your feet take you to where Logan’s sitting, contemplating the way in which his leather jacket hugs his wide frame. “Long time no see.”

“Hey, kid,” he grins. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Nobody has puked yet, so that’s a good thing,” you crinkle your nose, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. “Whiskey?”

“You know me so well,” a smirk takes place in his lips, and he smiles cockily. “Though this time, I won’t be leavin’ without payin’.”

“We’ll see about that,” you go back to your usual spot behind the counter, looking for a glass. Your cheeks kind of hurt from smiling so hard. Next to you, Gwen studies your reaction to seeing Logan. “Is that your boyfriend?”

You almost drop the whiskey bottle. “God, no. He’s not my boyfriend. Barely know the guy.”

“It’s funny,” she says, raising her eyebrows with a knowing look, as if she knows something you don’t. “He hasn’t stopped looking at you since he arrived.”

“It’s probably because of this,” you reply, lifting the bottle in her direction before pouring a small amount into a glass. Just as you’re about to walk over to him, a girl slides into the sit beside him, her long blonde hair swept up in a ponytail. She’s wearing a stunning red dress and black heels. You wonder if she’s a model, because she certainly looks like one.

Her hand creeps up his arm, fingernails scraping against the worn leather. Although Logan’s expression is hard to read, he doesn’t even flinch.

“You know what? Here’s his drink– You take care of it. I’ll stay here,” you don’t give Gwen a chance to talk back, instead staying behind the bar, engaging in small talk with other clients. 

“Doll, are you okay?” Adam asks you after noticing you struggling to open a beer bottle. He takes it from your hands and opens it with ease. “There you go.”

“Thank you, Adam. I’m fine, never been better. Why you ask?

“You sure?”

“Affirmative.”

“You mixed up our drinks,” he explains in his most psychologist-like voice. “This never happens to you. Michael has my wine, and I’ve got his martini.”

“Fuck! I’m so sorry. I just— I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you chew on your bottom lip, rubbing your temples. “I feel stupid.”

“Oh, please. Don’t say that. You’re far from being stupid,” he sits up straight, reaching for your fingers and giving them an apologetic squeeze. “If you ask me, I think you’ve got your mind on someone else,” he must notice how you visibly get tense because he adds: “Remember: I know when you’re lying. You didn’t charge him the other day, which means that you must really like him,” taking a tentative sip of the martini he didn’t even ordered, Adam shrugs. “I’m a great observer. That’s all.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the blonde girl from before returning to where her friends are chatting. Logan is left alone, and you watch him grab his glass and head towards the counter.

“As I said, your mind’s somewhere else,” Adam sighs, a tiny smirk tugging at his lips. “Go get your man. I’ll survive.”

“Not my man. But thanks, older-and-wiser-version-of-cupid.”

Pretending not to have seen Logan, you continue with your work. He remains silent for some minutes before finally saying: “Hi.”

Hi? It sounds so out of character for him.

“Hey, claws,” you force a smile, still avoiding to meet his gaze. “Do you need anything?”

Logan points to his empty glass, like a toddler asking for more cereal. “I also wanted to talk to you.”

“I thought you were busy over there,” you say, surprisingly managing to sound nonchalant, despite the jealousy bubbling underneath your friendly tone. “Did you get her number?”

“What? No.”

“Why not? She’s cute.”

Yeah, maybe you don’t sound as collected as you think.

Whether Logan notices it or not, he chooses not to mention it. He folds his arms over his chest, fixing his brown eyes on you. “I’m not interested.”

“And what is it that interests you, champ?” your question elicits a low chuckle from him. Just as he opens his mouth to seemingly reply, Gwen appears out of nowhere to ask you about the price of a certain drink. Your gaze shifts between her and Logan, who remains focused on you while sipping his drink.

After that, Gwen leaves. The man in front of you goes poker-faced, pursing his lips, and his abrupt change in demeanor alarms you. “Wade wants to have dinner tomorrow at his apartment– well, our apartment. I live with him now. It’s complicated,” he adds with a dismissive wave of his hand, and you laugh. “Anyway, he asked me to tell you that you’re invited. I know we don’t know each other that much, but… he said you seem like someone worth havin’ around,” he mumbles awkwardly, eyes downcast. “I think the same as well.”

You could die at peace.

“You’re a lucky fucker because I don’t work on Sundays,” you quip, smiling. “I’d be more than happy to attend your feast.”

“Great. I thought you would turn down the invitation.”

“Now why would you think that?”

“‘Cause you barely know me– us,” he corrects himself rapidly. “Plus, Wade’s annoying as hell when he puts his mind to it. You’ll see.”

“Marital problems?” he actually in response. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Oh, I’ll bring the dessert.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I do want to,” you tilt your head in an effort to hide your longing for him.

“Just want to get under my skin, huh? I can see why Wade likes you,” Logan beams, reaching out to tuck a $100 bill into the pocket of your apron. “The tip’s included.”

“I don’t know how things work in your universe, but you’re giving me way more money than you’re supposed to. I can't accept this.”

“Oh, but you will,” his gravelly voice fucks your system up, and you’re glad he can’t see how you squeeze your legs together behind the bar.

He writes down Wade’s address on a random napkin, holding his breath as he stands up. “I should get goin’. See you tomorrow then.”

Before he walks out the door, you stop him. “Logan? You didn’t answer my other question.”

His back shakes momentarily with laughter. Turning around to face you, his stare leaves you even more confused. “Good night, doll.”

This is becoming a habit: every time he goes away, you feel as though you’ve just run a marathon with no water available. Your mouth is completely dry, your fingers are numb and there’s a knot in your stomach that’s becoming all too familiar.

“Would you mind telling me where you got him?” Gwen’s voice makes you almost jump out of your skin.

“He’s not from around here. I think he’s Canadian.”

You’ve got this. You’ve got this. You’ve got this.

Knocking softly on Wade’s door, you step back, the container holding the tiramisu cold to your touch. It’s your first time trying out this recipe, so you’re expecting it to at least not taste like shit.

Wade answers the apartment door, acting surprised when you remain silent. “Well, look what the wind blew in: if it isn’t my husband’s lover. How dare you? We’re still going to couples therapy.”

You show him the container, and he squints at it. “Tiramisu. You want it or not?”

“I hate twenty-somethings,” he says with a defeated sigh, stepping aside to let you into the apartment. 

Leaving your purse on the nearest surface, you scan the living room, wondering where Logan might be. There’s a small mirror beneath the couch, and you check yourself for the hundredth time tonight. “Don’t get too excited. He’s still showering,” Wade’s voice rings in your ears, and you turn to look at him, your eyebrows knitted. “Yeah. I noticed. You’re already drooling over that big piece of metal between his legs.”

“Keep quiet!” you cover his mouth with your palm, noticing the scarred state of his skin up close. “Wade, you fucking dog. Are you licking my hand?”

“Couldn’t help it. You taste like mascarpone cheese and espresso.”

Then Logan emerges from the bathroom, with only a white towel draped around his waist. Droplets of water fall from his wet hair, tracing the muscle of his abs, ending somewhere beneath his happy trail. Your eyes keep flickering between him and his torso until he clears his throat. “I thought you were comin’ later.”

“Me too, but I…,” you trail off, your brain struggling to catch up, “I didn’t know what else to do at my place.”

“It’s fine. Just– let me put on some clothes.”

“Please don’t,” Wade murmurs next to you, but Logan only scoffs. “I was just being honest. Communication is key.”

When Wade and you are alone again, he lets out a harsh breath. “That was probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. My pants are really tight right now.”

“Thin walls, buddy!” Logan shouts from his bedroom, earning a laugh from you. 

Like A Prayer starts playing. Wade moves his hips to the beat, getting lost in the melody. “Is that your phone?”

“Yeah, but I always take a few seconds to dance to it. Such a banger!” he says, then picks up his phone, accepting the call. “Hey, Ness! What´s up?” Wade covers the speaker before telling you: “It’s Vanessa. My ex-girlfriend. We fuck once a week, sometimes even twice.”

From behind, Logan nudges your arm with his, looking at you. ”Hey, kid.”

“No, I’m not busy at all,” Wade exclaims, grabbing his crotch and thrusting into the air. “I’ll be there in ten, cupcake. See you,” he spreads his arms wide and whistles. “Someone’s getting laid tonight!”

“You made me come all the way here… and now you’re leaving?”

“What? My friend Wolverine wanted to invite you over. I just had to provide the apartment,” in one quick movement, he presses a kiss to your cheek, then does the same to Logan. “Shave yourself, will you?”

“Go fuck yourself, will you?”

“Love you too, honey. Hope you two lovebirds have a good night, because I know I will!”

Wade throws a wink over his shoulder before heading out, the apartment going dead silent. Logan and you stand frozen, staring at each other, although he quickly drops his gaze, unable to maintain eye contact. A giggle threatens to escape you: he wanted to see you. Could he possibly enjoy your company as much as you enjoy his?

Logan watches the spot where Wave had just been. The absence of his chaotic energy makes the room feel strangely empty now. He coughs lightly, the sound awkwardly loud in the quiet room.

“So... I, uh, bought pizza,” he says, his voice a little too casual, as if trying to cover up his nervousness. Averting his eyes, he focuses on the pizza boxes on the table.

You catch the hesitation in his tone, your curiosity piqued by his discomfort. Tilting your head, a teasing smile forms on your lips. “Pizza, huh? You sure know how to impress a girl.”

Logan chuckles, the sound strained, as he scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, I figured it was a safe choice. Didn’t want to ruin it, y’know?”

You move closer to the table, the warmth from the pizza boxes radiating against your hands as you open one of them. The rich smell of melted cheese and pepperoni fills the air, a comforting scent that makes your stomach growl softly. “Thank you. I’m a big fan of pizza.”

He sits in the chair across from you, taking a bite of his slice. You watch him quietly, your own thoughts churning. The truth of his origins had been a shock at first, but now, it just made you want to know more about the man. What was his life like in the other universe? Did he miss it? Was he happier here, or was he longing to return?

“Logan…,” you begin, your tone gentle but probing, “Can I ask you something?”

He glances up at you, eyes widening. There’s something in your eyes –an understanding, maybe– that makes him feel like you could see right through him. 

“Sure,” he replies, trying to sound more at ease than he really feels. “Ask away.”

You hesitate for a moment, not wanting to push too hard. “I was wondering... would it be okay if I asked you some questions? About, you know, your life. Where you're from.”

The bite of pizza suddenly feels heavy in his mouth. He hadn’t talked much about his world, not even with Wade. Partly because it was too painful, and partly because he wasn’t sure how to explain how things turned out for him. He nods slowly, setting his slice down. “Yeah, it's okay. I’ll answer what I can.”

“I just... I want to understand you better.”

“Well, first and foremost, I’m no hero. You should know that by now.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Kid, I’m the worst Logan. A complete failure. Of all the variants out there, Wade just had to pick the one despised by every living soul on his earth,” Logan looks away, his voice low and heavy. You’re wondering if doing this was a good idea. “I need a drink.”

He gets up and you follow him into the kitchen. He rummages through the fridge, in search of a cold beer. Meanwhile, you attempt to find the right words. “I don’t think–”

With a sharp flick of his wrist, three metal claws sprout from between his knuckles. A gasp catches in your throat as he uses his claws to pierce the beer can, drinking from the punctured holes. Once he’s done, he goes back to staring at you. Your gaze, on the other hand, is still glued to the now-empty beer can. “What?” he asks, exhaling slowly.

“That was completely unnecessary,” you mutter, and he lets out a bitter chuckle, tossing the can into the trash. “But, back to what you said before– I don’t think you’re the worst Logan.”

“You didn’t know me back then, darlin’. I fucked it up,” he leans against the counter, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “Like the Logan from this universe, I once belonged to the X-Men too. I remember that Scott used to beg me to wear my suit. So did Jean, Storm, Beast– All of them,” his gaze grows more distant, and you can tell that memories are flooding his mind. “Wanted me to be part of the team, but I wouldn’t do it. Told them they looked fucking ridiculous.”

The pizza’s long forgotten. You take the risk and get a bit closer to him, your eyes never leaving his. 

Logan’s silence stretches for a moment before he speaks again. “One day, while I was off on my own, the humans came. They went mutant hunting.”

Your heart clenches at the pain in his voice. He still remembers everything as if it had happened yesterday. “I can guess the rest. You don’t have to–”

But he cuts you off. “No, let me say it. I need to say it,” he takes a deep breath, lowering his head. “By the time I stumbled home, shit-faced from the bar, it was too late. They were dead. They called after me and I walked away.”

Reaching out, your hand gently brushes against his. He doesn’t pull away, but instead searches for your eyes. “My suit's all I've got to remind me of who they were. What I did. I found them and they were… dead. I started killing, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I turned the whole world against the X-Men.”

You tighten your grip on his hand, knowing there’s nothing you can do to change how he feels. “You’re not a bad person, Logan,” he shakes his head, mumbling something you can’t quite catch. “I mean it. What happened back then doesn’t define you. You took the blame for their deaths upon yourself. I can tell you loved them deeply, and I’ll never fully understand the pain you feel. I wish I could. I wish I could take it away, make you forget somehow, but I can’t. That’s not how life works. But you got your second chance: you saved this world. My world,” gently cupping his face in your hands, you allow your fingers to caress his cheeks. He leans into your touch, watching you with half-lidded eyes. “You’re my hero. I’m your biggest fan– after Wade, obviously, which is a lot to say.”

He grins, letting out a laugh. “Easy there, bub.”

“Should I give you some space?”

That’s the last thing he wants from you right now. You already know that as he looks you up and down, placing his hands on the small of your back, his thumbs drawing small circles on your skin. There’s no turning back– The warmth between you feels almost like a fever dream. “For a long time, all I wanted was to disappear. I couldn’t stand waking up every morning, knowing that another day awaited me.”

“And what happened?” your breath mingles with his, his closeness becoming nearly intoxicating. “What changed?”

“I met a pretty girl at a pub, that’s what happened,” he murmurs, his dilated pupils flicking up to meet your gaze. “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

“Do all your kisses come with a warning?”

“God, do you ever shut up?”

You don’t have time to respond because he kisses you there and then. His stubble scrapes your skin as your mouths meet again and again, needy hands that hold you as if you were prone to breaking. Logan licks into your mouth, sliding his tongue against yours and swallowing every one of your whimpers.

“So this is what it takes to shut you up, huh?” he murmurs against your lips. You can feel him smiling, and it makes your heart skip a beat. 

“Keep talking and you won’t get a single bite of my tiramisu,” you tease him, kissing him again, the taste of beer numbing your senses. “I really like kissing you.”

“The feeling’s mutual, but now that you’ve mentioned that tiramisu…”

“Am I that easily replaced?”

“No. You’re just a pain in the ass.”

Jokes aside, you’re as happy as a clam.

Since that night you and Logan kissed, you’ve been living your best life. Like a freaking schoolgirl with a crush. Some things never seem to change.

He hasn’t been to the bar in three days. Yes, you’re counting them. No, you haven’t lost your mind. You want to see him, but there’s something about making the first move that gives you the chills. What would his reaction be if you showed outside of apartment?

It’s been a long time since you’ve been with anybody. On top of that, all the guys you’ve dated were your age. Being with someone that older than you certainly wasn’t no your plans. You’d be lying if you said that the mere idea of being with him in that way didn’t excite you.

Oh boy, you miss him. You miss his scruffy voice, his gorgeous hair. And you two aren’t even official yet. To be honest, you don’t even know what he wants from you. Is he even the type to be in a relationship?

“Nighty night, gentlemen,” you say to Gary and his friends as you find yourself in front of them, smoothing your apron. Gwen had called in sick tonight, so it’s just you at the bar babysitting a bunch of grown-men.

“What’s up, doll? You’ve forgotten about us. We miss you coming in here to chat,” Gary’s eating his burger at the same time he speaks, something you find repulsive, but you’ve seen worse. “Y’know, I’d love to take you out someday. I have a place you’d like.”

The other men laugh and punch him in the back, just boosting his ego. Pathetic. 

“I’ll let you know when I’m free,” you reply with the most polite smile you can offer, intending to go on. “What are you having tonight?”

“You always pull that shit, baby. I don’t think you’re so busy that you can’t accept a date.”

You hate the way he’s looking at you, as if you were wrong for not being interested. As if you didn’t know any better.

“You’re reading minds now? Shocking, Gary.”

“Oh, doll. That attitude of yours shows you’ve never been with a real man like me, that’s all,” he leans back in his chair, resting one of his arms on the table and the other one near his crotch, manspreading. “It’s alright. I like you bratty.”

“I’ll be back when you finally have something to order,” you attempt to turn around but he grabs your wrist, pulling you closer. Your eyes lock, and he seems to enjoy this: being in control. Like a predator hunting his prey. “Come on, Gary. I don’t want to have to kick you out.”

“It’s not that you don't like me, right? You’ve already got your mouth full.”

“Careful.”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re not fucking that useless mutant. I see you like ‘em older. Pretty little things like you drive me wild.”

You laugh in his face, showing him your teeth. “It was never about your age, Gary. You’re right: I do like them older. I’m just not into bald, vertically-challenged pricks.”

His entourage of idiots goes silent after that. He looks up at you, eyes burning with hatred. His grip on your wrist tightens, probably leaving a mark. “Fucking bitch.”

“Get your hands off her.”

Logan’s voice forces the two of you to look in his direction. It seems that he’s just arrived at the pub, his jacket still on. 

“You joining us? We’re just getting started here, big boy.”

“Did you not hear me?” Logan lunges forward, his nose almost touching Gary’s. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

“Easy there, cowboy. I’m just having a chat with your girl. She’s one of the good ones, I’ll give you that,” arching a sly brow, his forehead puckers. “You don’t like sharing? We can even take turns.”

Logan clenches his jaw, lips set in a grim line. “Say one more word, and I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’ll give you a full sentence instead: can you even get it up?” 

The tension in the air is thick, every second stretching out as Logan's anger simmers dangerously close to the surface. Gary’s smug grin only makes it worse, pushing him to the edge. Before you can react, Logan’s fist swings forward, connecting with Gary’s jaw with a sickening crack. Gary staggers back, realising your wrist. Blood seeps from his nose, his white shirt becoming stained with it. “You fucker! You broke my nose!”

“We’re just getting started here, big boy,” Logan mocks him, repeating his previous words.

“Stop!” you shout, moving quickly to grab his arm, trying to pull him back. But he’s beyond hearing, his rage blinding him to everything else. He shakes you off, and with a fierce growl, drives another punch into Gary’s stomach. The latter doubles over, gasping for air, the wind knocked out of him. He then falls to the floor, curling into a ball. People start to gather around you, and soon your beloved bar becomes a box ring.

“That’s enough, Logan! He’s barely conscious,” you murmur under your breath, stepping between them, hands up in a desperate attempt to create some space. Logan pauses, chest heaving, fists still clenched, as he finally looks at you. The wildness in his eyes starts to fade, replaced by a dawning realization of what he’s done.

“He deserved it,” he nods vigorously to himself, as if trying to explain his point. “He was hurting you.”

“If you keep that up, you’re going to kill him. My bar is not a fucking cemetery,” your voice trembles a little bit, expecting to talk some sense into him. “I won’t let you do this.”

The room is quiet now, the only sound being Logan’s heavy breathing as he stands there, still tense, still processing. You turn to Gary’s friends, cold fury in your eyes. “Get him out of here,” you watch as they haul him up, practically dragging him to the door. The other clients continue to stare at Logan, their mouths hanging open. “Everybody out, right now! Go home. We’re closing earlier tonight.”

Adam is the last person to leave, slamming the door behind him. You rush to the counter, searching for a mop to clean the fresh blood off the floor. Still agitated, the images of Logan hitting Gary flash in your mind. He approaches you from behind, his fingers circling your forearm. “Bub–”

“Don’t. Now is not the time.”

“I was protecting you.”

“I told you to stop, and you didn’t. You just shook me off,” you snap, glancing at his knuckles which are not even bruised. Slamming your eyes shut, you get to your feet and wash your hands in the sink, the remaining water becoming reddish for a moment.

Logan moves closer, resting his chin on your shoulder. He wraps his arms lazily around your middle section. ”I’m sorry.”

You turn in his arms, your back flushed against the sink and your nose in the air. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t have a phone.”

“But– Jesus, Logan. You could’ve come sooner. I thought you regretted what happened the other day,” you say and the muscles in his face twitch, his body stiffening at your words. “Thought you no longer wanted me.”

“No, bub. I– I still want you. I want all of you, trust me,” he murmurs, and you allow him to press his body against yours, the scent of the cigar he must have smoked recently enveloping your senses. “I just… don’t know how to do this. I have a habit of ruining things, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to be with you without hurting you.”

“Pushing me away also hurts,” your eyes flick up to meet his gaze again, and he whispers under his breath. “I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me what’s going on in that ancient skull of yours.”

His face falters, flashing you a mischievous look. His hand creeps under the fabric of your shirt, fingernails scrapping against your spine. “I’m sorry, princess. I truly am.”

“You can’t just say ‘sorry’ with that voice and expect me to–”

You’re cut off by his lips crashing down onto yours. You melt into the kiss, unable to deny what your body has been craving for the past days. 

“I thought your kisses came with a warning,” you say, detaching your mouth from his, a smile spreading uncontrollably in your face as you see his toothy grin.

“Shut up and kiss me, will you?”

In a clash of tongues and teeth, your mouths meet once again. Tugging the hair at his nape, you feel him growl against your lips. His strong hands trace every curve of your body, kneading the flesh of your hips and undoing the knot at the back of your apron. You’re becoming one with the sink, but in a moment like this, you couldn’t care less. Logan’s hard on nudges your lower stomach, and he ruts against you like an animal.

“You said you wanted to know what’s on my mind, right?” his teeth nibble on the skin of your neck, syrupy voice going straight to your core. “Well, I’d love nothing more than to touch you right now.”

“Right here? On the counter?”

“Yeah, on the fucking counter,” he grabs you by your thighs, hosting you up and placing your body on top of the cold bar. He nudges your knees apart, his bulge meeting your clothed cunt deliciously. “Will you let me, baby? Can I make you come in here?”

“Please. I’m glad we have such a low budget. Camera installment is t–too expensive these days.”

“Do you always talk this much?” he slowly unbuttons your pants, and you help him to remove them.

“Yes. Next question,” your breath hitches in your throat as you feel the pad of his thumb circling your clit through your panties. Your eyelids drop, your head lolling back. “Fuck, that feels good.”

Logan hums, mesmerized with the way your hips roll into his hand, your whimpers sounding like music to his ears. “You have any idea how I felt when I saw him touching you? Wanted to rip his hands off you,” his eyes drift to your chest, how it rises and falls with impatience. “But it’s me who gets to have you like this. He can fantasize about you all he wants: I’m the only one who touches you, ain’t I right?” you sigh with content as his fingers graze your slit, aimlessly bucking your hips. He doesn’t go any further, and you tug at the collar of his flannel, needing more of his callousand hands on you. “Nuh-uh. You want something, you gotta use your words. Got it?”

“I w–want your fingers inside me,” you don’t even recognize your own voice at this point. The few guys you had slept with had never been very talkative during sex. But Logan isn’t like them. This is just the beginning and you’re already starting to realize that he has a dirty mouth, that expectant look on his face as he waits to see your reaction to his words. “Please, Logan. I want you so bad.”

“Oh, I know, bub. There’s something about me I don’t think you know,” he inserts one of his fingers in your cunt, your slick coating the palm of his hand. “These claws I have… they didn’t come on their own. Let’s just say my sense of smell is… pretty good,” Logan can almost see the gears turning in your head as you try to think coherently. He moves his middle finger in and out of you, stretching your walls. “And you… have been wet ever since the first time you saw me. Always nice to everybody, making sure they feel at ease,” you feel like you’re being stretched even further, another one of his fingers sinking into your warm pussy. “But you’re so needy, too. How long has it been since someone touched you like this?”

“Too long, f–fuck. Too long,” you’re squirming, a totally whiny mess. He retratcs his wet fingers and instead goes back to flicking your clit, this time with much less delicacy. His left hand squeezes your tits, and you hate the fact that you’re still wearing clothes. “Shit, Logan. I need you to fuck me. Please. Need your cock.”

His face comes to rest at your neck, and you feel lingering kisses and bites that keep you grounded to earth. “Not here. I need a bed to fuck you properly. You’re only getting my fingers now,” he positions them inches away from your entrance, testing your patience. “Tell me who owns this pussy.”

“L-logan–”

“Tell me and I’ll make you come,” his husky voice is making you dizzy, tears shimmering in your eyes. “Come on. Know you want it as much as I do.”

You succumb to the tentation, like divinity turned to sin. He kisses you roughly, and you struggle to find the correct words. “It’s you, Logan. You own my pussy. It’s f-fucking yours.”

With that, he goes back to nudging that spot that makes you see starts, that filthy squelching sound getting mixed up with your moans. The knot in your belly keeps growing tighter the more he pumps his fingers in and out of you. 

“I said you were only getting my fingers for now, but fuck… I need to gest a taste of this sweet cunt.”

He’s on his knees in an instant, urging your legs apart to make room for his body. Your thighs tighten around his face as he licks a hot stripe up your folds, tracing a heated path on your cunt, not wishing to waste a single second. Pleasure builds quickly, your breath hitching as your hands find their way into his hair, pulling him closer when your body begins to tremble. 

“I’m close,” you pant, breathing hard, grinding your hips against his face. “I’m so close.”

“That’s it. Come in my mouth like the good girl you are.”

Who had given him a damn script for this?

The release is explosive. Like the peak of a roller coaster: you go up up up, ascending higher. You think you almost see Jesus, but at some point, you also have to crash down with force. Your shoulders slump, your entire body cramping up; yet he doesn’t let you go that easily, his fingers still working, scissoring within you while you ride out the final waves of your high, drawing out every last moment of ecstasy.

Once you finally manage to open your eyes, there he is, staring down at you. He taps your lower lip with his fingers, and then mutters: “Open.”

And you do, because you’re just as messed up as he is. Your mouth parts, and he slides his fingers between your lips, dragging them smoothly across your tongue. His knuckles brush the back of your throat, and you gag around the intrusion, tasting yourself. He pulls his fingers out of your mouth, clearly satisfied with the way you’ve cleaned them off.

“I think we should really pay a visit to your apartment,” he suggests, groaning in defeat, and you feel his bulge poking your hip. He must be painfully hard. “I meant what I said earlier. I need a bed if we’re going to fuck. My back’s hurting.”

You raise an eyebrow, the corner of your mouth curving into a smirk. “Why not go to yours?”

“Wade’s in there. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”

You can’t help but laugh, pausing a moment to collect your thoughts, heat rising to your cheeks. “So we’re going rodeo?”

Aiming to silence up, Logan kisses you, pinching your chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Only if you can handle it.”

part 2: “GIVE ME THE FIRST TASTE”

dividers by: @/cafekitsune thank you!!! :)

[thebenjiblackwoodexpress]

The Blackwood Knight

Disclaimer: this is not mine. My sister wrote this for me and it's her first fic but wanted it posted for other Benji fans to enjoy :) hoping this might end up being a joint fic account if we continue writing.

Description: Benjicot falls for a Bracken lady and volunteers to be her knight.

Warnings: female reader. Swearing. Kieran Burton fancast (I'm in love with him your honour. My sister is a legend for writing this for me).

Playlist:

Royalty~ Egzod, Maestro Chives, Neoni

Once Upon a Dream~Lana Del Rey

Dynasty~MIIA

The massing clouds rolled over the Riverlands, casting a lattice of shadows over the grass except where shards of light broke through. Standing on the crest of the hill that marked the border between Blackwood and Bracken lands, Benjicot Blackwood found his gaze directed, as it was often wont to do as of late, towards the small figure of a lady ensconced under the canopy of an ancient oak. As she read from a small leather-bound book, a light breeze sent small rippels through her golden hair, which resembled the burnished leaves above her; the leaves of a Bracken tree.

Gazing out across the expanse of green, which marked a feudal boundary between one House's land and another, he was discomfitted by the realisation that this space represented a chasm between himself and the lovely lady who had made the boundary her haunt. Bracken and Blackwood enmity ran deep through this land, as it did through the generations, something registered in the sparsness of a landscape ravaged by incessant skirmishes from each side. The roughness of ravine and rock bore the memory of years of conflict.

This unprepossessing view was interrupted by the softness and beauty of the figure under the tree, whose frequent appearance with a new book had become as much a part of the young Blackwood's routine as his sentry over the border. Though his animosity towards the Brackens was deeply entrenched within him, he found it invariably failing to reach out to encompass that figure in the distance. Instead he watched the lady, intrigued by how she lost herself in her written worlds and by the thought of why she sought solace in a place at once so remote and yet so close to danger. He did not have to wait too long for his answer to this final question.

Upon the lady's fifth visit to her tree, Benjicot watched as her reading was rudely disrupted by a hand snatching her book from behind, followed by the sound of raucous laughter...Brackens. Three Bracken knights emerged from the trees, laughing at the confused expression of the lady at finding her peace disturbed.

"Reading again? What is it this time? Something about knights and princesses?"

The leader of the group, and Benjicot's scourge, Edmund Bracken laughed as the lady's face fell.

"Trying to get yourself killed by sitting this close to the border of those savage lands?'

He further taunted, as she stood to wrest the book back from him and he laughed again, holding the book above her head.

A hand snatched the book from above the Bracken's head, as he snapped around to face the thief.

"Well Bracken, looks like you've outdone yourself today in your chosen vocation."

His face twisting in rage, Edmund Bracken turned fully to face the offender: "and what is that?"

Benjicot pushed his tongue to the front of his mouth as he smirked wrly back at Bracken: "being a cowardly bastard who not only flaunts himself around like a Peacock asking for a feather plucking, but who I now find also harassing ladies."

Shoving his shoulder into the dumbstruck Bracken knight, Benjicot sauntered past him towards the lady who stood, cautiously watching the exchange.

Bowing before her with a flourish of his scarlet Cape, he held the book out toward her.

"Are you in need of a knight's assistance, Princess?" He said softly, with a smile that conveyed a mirth that was hers alone to share, at the same time as it suggested a gentleness and genuine concern.

Snapping around, Edmune Bracken stormed towards him.

"You're in Bracken land! What gives you the right? I'll have your tongue for speaking to my cousin like that!"

Lazily turning to face him once again, Benjicot returned: "Big talk from a Peacock like yourself. You wouldn't dare."

Walking with slow, measured steps towards Edmund Bracken, Benjicott looked into his face, as his eyes darkened: "If I find you assailing any young ladies with your squawking again, Bracken, I won't be so lenient next time. Wouldn't want to receive a plucking now, would we?"

Calling over his shoulder without turning, Benjicott directed his next words towards y/n.

"Let me know if you are ever in need of assistance, sweet lady and you'll have a knight at your service."

Only then did he turn to face the sweet lady who, whilst not meeting his gaze, smiled, holding back laughter. Offering her a devilish smile and another bow, he gently raised her dainty hand to his lips before he winked at her confused expression.

Shouldering his way past a stricken Bracken, he walked purposefully back towards the border of Blackwood land before the sound of a blade leaving its scabbard and a shout had him turning as quickly as he had left.

"BLACKWOOD! I'll kill you for this. Come back here!"

With a look of contempt, Benjicot strode towards Edmund to meet the challenge, the middle of his chest meeting the tip of the sword, as he retorted: "fuck about Bracken, and find out"

Without another word, he turned without further challenge and strode back towards his post on Blackwood's outpost, unaware of the blue eyes that watched his back as he walked off and secretly smiled at the thought of her knight...and the chastened expression of her Peacock of a cousin.

3 days later...

Several days had passed since y/n had encountered the young man, bearing the Blackwood insignia on his cloak, who had intervened in her cousin's usual volley of taunts. No one ever had before. Angered by the exchange that had occurred between his son and the Blackwood boy, her uncle had ordered her to remain within the purview of the Brackenwood, not venturing towards the golden Bracken Oak that marked the border of the riverlands' feudal strife.

Her first encounter with the Blackwood boy was not the first time she had seen him. Frequently seeking the solace of her tales of chivalry and dragons under the golden tree, away from the taunting of her cousin and his friends, y/n had often found herself staring into the expanse of rock and fern, spotted by blooms of maroon flowers that gave the appearance of the uneven earth bleeding. The Blackwood lands bore the appearance of the land itself remembering the blood that had been spent in defence of it by brave kights. Brave knights such as the one who had stood between her and her cousin on the border.

Y/N had seen his tall figure patrolling the border the first time she had found shelter under her tree and had continued to look out for him each time she had returned, sometimes believing that he caught her gaze. She should have been afraid of him. She'd seen him throw a Bracken bannerman to the floor with as much ease as if he'd been just another bracken weed in the earth. And yet...there was something about the way he would  sometimes pause when his patrol brought him closer to her retreat, and in the way he would angle himself when his bannermen joined him so that they could not see her, which made her think he possessed a gentleness that he didn't show to all. It was this curiosity to see if she was right and to escape the dark halls of Stone Hedge that had found her once again curled under her tree with a large volume on the history of Targaryens open on her lap.

Living away from Bracken lands for many years, and residing as a lady in waiting to the Princess Raenyra in King's Landing, had caused her to question the staunch loyalty the Bracken House held towards King Aegon II. Her love for her family, in spite of her dislike of them, vied with her belief that Raenyra was the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Reading her histories of the House of the Dragon, she allowed her thoughts to wander into dreams of a world in which a woman would ascend the throne without question. As she fixed her gaze on the illustration of Visenya on the page, she did not hear the soft tread of footsteps towards her hideout, nor the sound of somebody leaning against the trunk of her tree until they spoke softly by her ear.

"What are you reading about?"

Starting in surprise, Y/N saw the same Blackwood boy who'd defended her from her cousin leaning smugly against the tree above her with his arms crossed over his chest.

His self-satisfied expression fell, however, when she rose quickly to her feet, allowing the book to fall to the ground, as she turned to flee.

Taking a cautious step forward he gently held her elbow, preventing her from going any further.

"I didn't mean to scare you, I was only going to ask if there were any knights in your book I should be worried about displacing me as your protector?"

Seeing that she still looked from left to right, seemingly looking for an escape, he took a step back and bowed before her.

"Benjicot Blackwood at your disposal, my Lady"

"Y/N Bracken, Ser."

Smiling softly, an expression she had only seen him use with her, he slowly reached for her hand, giving her time to retract it if she so wished, before he raised it to his lips, as he had done once before.

"A very pretty name. It suits you, although I would prefer to alter the last part," He smirked. "I can think of another one that would suit you better", he added, smiling further at her confused expression.

Seeing that she no longer looked as if she were about about to flee from him, he asked her again, "what are you reading?", as he picked up the volume from the ground, wiping away the dirt on his tunic before handing it to her.

Cautiously taking it from his outstretched hand, Y/N rejoined, "I was reading a history of the reign of the Targaryens".

"About Visenya and Rhaenys", She added, hesitantly, used to her cousin and uncle's reprimands at her interest in ancient queens.

To her surprise, the handsome dark haired boy only smiled further at this and nodded at her, encouraging her to continue.

Bolstered by his encouragement, she continued, "Reading about the Queens of old makes me hope...makes me think that maybe one day it would be possible for another queen to command the support and loyalty of the realm. For all the great Houses of Westeros to bend the knee to the rightful ruler, even if she were a Queen and not a King."

Fearing she'd allowed herself to go too far in her speech, she hesitantly looked up towards the Blackwood boy who had sauntered closer to her as she was speaking. Surprising her once again, she noticed a glint behind his chocolate brown eyes, which held something like admiration behind them.

"Of course my cousin and uncle think I'm a fool for supporting Raenyra, believing as they do that a woman can possess no claim to the throne."

Benjicot's brow furrowed in consternation, his gaze darkening. Believing herself to be the cause of this sudden change in her expression, Y/N once again took a step back from him, directing her gaze downwards as she turned to leave.

"Forgive me, my Lord, it is only a book and I should return to Stone Hedge. The day grows darker."

She only took a few paces before she heard Benjicot's voice behind her.

"Any knight who refuses to bend the knee before the one true Queen Raenyra is a traitor to the realm. Any true knight would proudly sacrifice his life's blood in defence of his Queen. Of his ancestral lands. Of his....lady. Loyalty is loyalty, it should run deep and enduring, and be bestowed regardless of whether the object of it is a man or woman."

Returning his steadfast gaze, Y/N thought she had heard Benjicot hover over that last word, last, but dismissed it, believing him to be referring once again to the Queen.

"I don't think my family would agree with you."

Smiling once again, Benjicot returned, "No doubt they would not, but your good opinion is the one I am seeking, not theirs."

Jauntily stepping towards her he lowered his head conspiratorially towards her ear and asked with a grin, "has your Peacock of a cousin offered you any further insults since I gave him his last plucking?"

Smiling up at him, unaware of how this expression caused butterflies to spread in Benjicot's torso, she shook her head.

"He's been very quiet since that day, I must confess...except for today." She returned, a small frown turning her pink lips downwards.

"Want me to kill him for you?"

Y/N looked up sharply to meet Benjicot's questioning gaze, which displayed a seriousness at odds to his slight smirk.

"Absolutely not!"

Dramatically kneeling before her, casting his head downwards in obeisance and withdrawing his sword so that he held it out before her in both hands he continued in a solemn voice.

"I pledge my sword in defence to you, dear Lady, the rightful Queen of the Bracken lands." Turning then to smile up up her with a look of genuine adoration, he watched in fascination as she smiled down at him, trying to contain her laughter.

"May this knight once again assure himself that his Lady does not require her knight to strike down any assailants offering her insult?"

Surprising Benjicot, Y/N gently placed her hand on his shoulder, pushing him slightly as she shook her head sternly.

His smile broadening, he withdrew his sword back into it's scabbard and stood.

"We'll, if you insist. Let me know if he bothers you again and I'll give him a deplucking. You can decide whether I cook him or not", he added with a smile, causing her to laugh for the first time since he'd started speaking.

Brightening at the sound, he stood taller, winking at Y/N. His gaze softening, he asked quietly, "will I see you again?"

Hesitating for a few agonising seconds, at least for Benjicot, Y/N nodded quickly before turning from him in embarrassment and hurrying away.

Chuckling at the retreating figure of the beautiful lady who was already burying herself in the young Blackwood's heart, he turned to make his way back to his post at the border of the Riverlands, often turning back to catch another glimpse of his lady.

[definitelynotshouting]

your half of the ransom

inspired by this post and scar's tweets about secret life :] i speedran this just in time for the first eps of the new season to drop!! as always likes and reblogs and especially comments in the tags are appreciated❤️ enjoy!!

Scar wakes to a field of sunflowers.

The sun itself is a swollen yolk bleeding gold at its edges when he blinks, cascading down from the horizon to melt over the earth with indiscriminate fervor. It dips the petals of each field-flower in honey, honing their silhouettes to supple knife-points— even the soil beneath him, packed firm from countless nights of sleep, has burnished to a fine, patinated bronze. In the amber of its rays stray pebbles transmute to pyrite, the subtle scrabble of roots to filigree, and caught in the open mouth of such gaudy resplendence, Scar digs an elbow into the dirt and hauls himself, reluctant, back to his own unsteady feet.

Even at full height the sunflowers still tower, blocking all signs of hearth and home. But the sun (popped, bleeding, all gored-out gold in the upturned belly of the sky) remains his guide— Scar picks his legs up in a faltering stumble to follow it before catching rough fingers against the stalk of a nearby sunflower. He flinches; this early, it's too easy to perceive each stalk as part of a swarm, a yellowed panoptic presence bearing down on the world-weary muscles of his shoulders.

Their seeds will need harvesting soon. Scar hums, a match-strike against unyielding silence, and casts his gaze back to the sun above to orient himself in the direction of his base.

Until they're ready, he has nowhere else to be.

Trader Scar's is too-empty for so comely a morning, a hollowed-out shell long rebuilt and bristling with more wares than he has those to sell them to. But it's a familiar charade— Scar slips into the back with a single sunflower clenched tight in his palm, bruising the petals and scratching against the insides of his fingers. He changes in rapid, efficient motions; last night's poncho is discarded over a nearby chest in exchange for a brighter one, yellow wool lovingly dyed; his hair is released from its tie, combed through, then braided again; the soft leather shoes he'd worn underneath the stars are left to clump by the doorway in favour of far-keener diamond. Worn in but undamaged, the crystal chimes without dents or scratches— there's nothing left to fight here, anymore.

When Scar steps back out to the front, a ghost is waiting patiently for him at the counter.

Or— the ghost of a ghost, if he's being generous. The outline of a shadow, the flicker of a distant mirage. "Oh," Scar says, and the word scrapes like rust from the well of his throat. He'd recognize those wings anywhere. "Well, hello there, Grian."

Grian's filmy outline says nothing. They never do, when the shades appear for a rare visit. The barrier between living and dead remains a clear divide, a gorge through which Scar cannot pass— all that's left between them now are the soft, faded echoes of what was, and what it could have been.

Still, in the year he's spent here, that's never deterred him from a potential sale. Scar props a hip up against the counter, eyeing the flickering shadow and mustering up his best imitation of an enthusiastic smile. "So what brings you out here to my neck of the woods? Looking for something to buy? Some fine goods to trade, perhaps? Man, I don't think I've seen you around in a dog's age. How about some catching up?"

The back of his neck prickles, electric; Grian's shade is a stygian blot in his vision, a fuzz of static that extends its presence from floor to ceiling. His ghost keeps his silence.

Scar tugs his smile wider, flashing two rows of bright, gleaming teeth in Grian's direction until the strain threatens to choke him. "No? Not even a little bone for ol' Scar? Well, tell you what, don't you go standing on su— se— oh, ceremony! Come in, come in! You make yourself at home, you know how I just love a visitor— how about I make us a drink to share and you tell me where in the world you've been, mister."

He doesn't bother waiting for a non-existent reply; instead, Scar swoops down to snag his fingers against the cupboard he'd installed within the counter months ago, fumbling with the latch before throwing its doors wide open with a gust of musty air. Inside, an eclectic mix of quite high-quality wares and some of Scar's own humble belongings tangle, speckled with cobwebs and the first faint stirrings of freshly disturbed dust.

Scar purses his lips, eyeing each item in turn. A nautilus shell here, a few scraps of wood there, some glass bottles, the handle of a ladle he'd cracked over six months back.... Squinting, he thrusts his hand deep into the mess, sweeping the items aside and shuffling new ones into view until— there!

Toward the back lies a dented iron kettle, brittle with disuse. Scar snaps forward, straining out his arm until the tips of two fingers meet the edge of its dusty wooden handle. With a grunt, he flicks it closer, wincing at the shrill scrape of iron on wood as it inches toward him.

SCAR.

It is not a voice. No mere voice can resonate a single word like that in his chest, trembling in his bones and drumming out from the chambers of his very heart. Like a ripple on the still surface of a lake, it rattles through him, scattering each thought to the far corners of his mind and stripping him raw, flaying open his ribs to splay beneath the scorching sun. The yelp that bubbles up to his lips flies past them unbidden, rocketing out with such force that he jolts, and rams his skull straight into the overhanging lip of the counter.

White-on-red sparks, a cherry-hot bolt of fire centered on his crown. "OW! Oh, oh my gosh, I-I— Grian?"

None of the shades haunting him and this server have spoken. They've never spoken. They've never— so why now, when he's made his peace with that—

Scar wets his lips, tongue dry as desert bone, and drags the kettle out of the cupboard with one quick yank. Clutching it to his chest, he rises back up on shaky feet, holding it up as if to ward off an incoming attack. Some shield; its hollow interior reverberates with a screech when he raps his knuckles against it. "Now— now hang on, mister, you can't just— you— oh my gosh, I-I think you just made my heart stop there for a second." A bracing breath. Two. "Y-You can't just shock a man in his own home like that! You...."

Scar trails off. The misty impression hovering on the other side of the counter remains impassive, impersonal— this is not the Grian he knows.

The Grian he knew.

Deep within the static writhe of his shade, the after-image burn of greyed-out eyes begin to squirm to the surface. Scar flicks his gaze back to the kettle with instinctive, long-honed deference, staring hard into the distorted lines of his own reflection.

YOU WON. Once again the words rip something vital in him, boil up through his veins to tear themselves, wet and coppery, on the limp meat of his tongue. Scar risks a peek up, lump hanging heavy in his throat; each syllable comes out as a squeak, threatening to crack the smooth silver of his voice.

"I— yep, I sure did! I sure did, and— thank you very much, for noticing! I, uh, I still don't know how I did that, what with— oh, you know how it is, with, with the, uh, the— friends situation, how that all panned out. Y'know, actually, I wonder if that's wh—"

The eyes blink at him, asynchronous and blank. Hollow. In the heartbeat it takes for them to train back on his own, a soul-wrenching wave of gooseflesh ripples up over Scar's arms.

He whirls himself away so fast his vision spins. "So, uh— tea! You like tea, right Grian?" Without ceremony Scar scrambles to the other side of the room, forcing the counter still between them, every nerve in his body winding tighter, tighter, kinetic energy in a bottle. "How about, um, a—" he rifles through a new cabinet, clumsy with frenzy— "oh, shoot, now where did I put that— I've got some, uh, some dandelion root! Hand roasted by yours truly, of course. Not that anyone else could do it now, but— oh, oh, and look at the lavender, now that's just delicious, you've gotta try it, G, I know you'll just absolutely love it."

Silence. Scar's hand pauses, braced tight on the handle of the cabinet.

"Grian," he says, slow, quiet. Lets the words drift up, shining soap bubbles, to pop against the ceiling. "Why— what are you doing here?"

To his credit, Grian is direct. IT'S TIME.

Without permission, Scar's fingers tighten around the handle of the cabinet. "It's— what? Wait, wait—" He blinks. Does not turn around. "Time for what?"

Silence.

Scar licks his lips, worrying at the split still stinging at the right hand corner. "Time for what, Grian?"

The distinct pall of burning ozone scalds through the air. Tentatively, Scar shoots a glance back down into the kettle, peering at the distinct smudge still smearing the wall behind him. No eyes in its reflection; some of the tension riding in his shoulders loosens, slackens his tendons and begins to uncurl his fingers from the cabinet knob.

Without warning, a wash of ice wisps forward to numb the small of his back. COME HOME, Grian says simply. The words echo in the gap beneath his sternum, drag themselves up each vertebrae in his spine, and Scar freezes stiff, solid.

"This is home," Scar says, blank.

NO.

Some hot ember, banked countless months ago, sparks back to life in the pit of his stomach. "It is," he says, more firmly this time. "It's— that's it. You said it yourself: I won. And I did it fair and square, I'll say. I followed every rule, every task to the— to the nth degree, and... and now I, um." He falters. Grits his teeth until the molars ache. "I get to live with it."

But a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the shade behind him abruptly slips beneath his skin. Hesitantly, still clutching the kettle in one hand like a lifeline, Scar says belatedly: "... Right?"

Despite the sun nearing midday, the temperature around him plummets. NOT ANYMORE.

"Oh," Scar says. The metal surface of the kettles creaks as his second hand joins the first, digging nails into rust and grime. "I— again?"

YES.

"... And what if I don't want to do it again."

He does not phrase it as a question. They both know his answer.

Scar sucks in a sharp shock of air anyway, rattling the kettle against his chest and daubing a blotch of dust over the soft wool of his poncho. "Is—" he bites his lip— "will everyone... be there?"

YES.

Ah. Scar's eyes slip shut of their own accord; behind them, dozens of veins brim over, webs of blood welling up and spilling to slake a thirst so abyssal it could drink and drink for years without satiation.

"... Will you be there?"

For one long, nightmare-eternity, Grian does not reply. Then, a knife between his ribs: YES.

With slow, halting steps, Scar turns. "Okay," he breathes, and drags a hand over his eyes to cloak them both in darkness, and sags back until his skull knocks against the cabinet door with a dull, tender thunk. Each exhale emerges as a series of shaky puffs, damming up his lungs and swallowing all the air in his esophagus. Scar shudders, scrapes his bitten-down nails against iron, and breathes with the roiling of his gut. "... Okay."

When he opens his eyes again, Grian's ghost has vanished.

The spot it occupied is still frigid when he waves a trembling hand through it; Scar inhales, exhales, inhales again. Rinse and repeat, the perfect cycle, the mantra against extraneous thought. Then, solemn and deliberate, he holds the kettle out in front of him, trailing one wandering finger over its dents and bruises, tracing the paths between the known and the new.

"Guess I'll see you there," he tells it, and lifts its grubby handle up in absent toast.

High above, the bleeding sun strikes noon at last. Scar does not harvest the sunflowers.

[bullet-prooflove]

Whiskey Kiss: Jesse Van Horn x Reader (NSFW)

Tagging: @caffeinatedwoman @cosmic-psychickitty @kmc1989 @happyfox43 @julius-ceasar

Prequel to:

Geordie - Jesse makes one hell of a statement when your ex-boyfriend comes around.

Mixed Tape - Jesse makes you a mixed tape before he leaves for the US.

The Green Card - A visa issue complicates your relationship with Jesse.

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll - Jesse tries to convince you not to disrupt your trip during the aftermath of Pittfest.

Song 2 (NSFW) - Jesse tries to chase away his demons the only way he knows how.

Atomic - Jesse reflects on his HIV status.

Blood Orange - Jesse comes to the rescue of your neighbour during an autoerotic asphyxation accident.

You taste like whiskey, like oak that’s been smoked for generations with the sweetest tinge of honey. Jesse laps it off your pussy, his tongue tracing over your clit as he savours every drop from the bottle you’d poured over yourself. Your fingers tangle in his burnished curls, gripping them hard as you arch up against his mouth, desperate, wanting.

“Fuck.” You drawl as his tongue dips lower, thrusting inside you. His thumb begins to trace circles on that sensitive little nub. His free hand guides your thigh back towards your chest, pinning it in place so his tongue fucks deeper hitting just the right spot.

Your breathing hitches, almost drowned out by the sound of AC/DC’s Shook Me All Night Long asit vibrates through the speakers from the stage. The whole of his dressing room is practically shaking with the force of Brian Johnson’s voice as you grip the couch cushion underneath you for support as the crescendo builds.

“Oh God.” You moan as the chorus hits. “Oh God Jesse!”

You climax against his mouth, clenching around him as he devours you, licking up your mess as it intermingles with the whisky. He smirks as he raises his head, his goatee coated with your essence as his lips brushes over your knee.

“I told you I could make you come before the song was over.”  He says as the drummer from his band pounds on the door.

“Two minutes until stage time.” He bellows before his footsteps trek down the hall.

“I’m about to play to a crowd of ten thousand with you smeared all over my face baby.” He says with a feral smile. “How does that make you feel?”

“Like I’m about to come all over again.” You tell him from your fucked out position on the couch, your hand creeping lower.

His long fingers wrap around your wrist, drawing it up above your head instead. His body settles over you, his mouth claiming yours. You can taste yourself on his lips as he grinds against your pussy, soaking the denim of his jeans.

“Save it for me baby.” He murmurs, his teeth grazing your lower lip. “I wanna be inside you, the moment I get off that stage.”

Love Jesse? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Epilogue;

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

A/N: Cannot even describe what it feels like to finally finish something completely for the first time in almost a year. I feel weird and insecure about this ending, about the whole story in general, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think I'm okay with that. I'm also just happy it's done. Thanks for sticking with me :')

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Character Study, Infidelity, Cheating, This Is a Story About Joel Miller!, Self Healing, Mild Injury/Blood, Stream of Consciousness, Angst With a Happy Ending, Grief, Group Therapy

Word Count: 2.3K

Read on AO3

Epilogue;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized there is something within him…changing. 

More brown than purple—a comforting color. He has come here, to the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, to be reminded of something. 

The Omega that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. He feels certain he’s heard it before. When he looks at her, the burnished copper hair threaded with soft white, he sees something in her eyes that reminds him of another woman who he isn’t certain he didn't dream of, but who he’s sure he knows. 

Something like… a desperation, perhaps. Maybe that’s what he’s needing reminding of. Something that’d made him feel desperate. Something he’d tried and tried and railed against letting go of, and now that it was gone, he could not help but want back. 

Joel had done something to himself, let something go. A girl with green eyes and a terrible grief. A brother who would not speak to him. And a—

A what?

“This will be my last meeting,” the woman at the podium says. “I thought for a long time that I was here to cure my loneliness,” she laughs, a sound that confuses Joel. “I’m sure we all at one point thought the same. But I think I’ve let go of that arrogance. Or that wishfulness—who knows.” She sighs and it’s easy, light. “And I’ve realized… well, let me tell you now, the bitter truth about loneliness is this: we never escape it. We only learn to take short interludes from it. Distractions. But eventually… you always return. Eventually, it’s only you again, left to pick up the pieces. Work through it. There is no miracle move on drug that can truly cure a soul in grief. No false peddlers get-well-quick scheme. There is only ourselves, and our willingness to change because we want to change for the better.”

Joel pulls the scarf he’d found tucked into the pocket of his coat weeks ago. A woman’s soft garment, he’d had no idea who it could belong to for he hadn’t seen his wife in a long time.

He buries his face in the blue cashmere, unable to stop the odd, choking sound from gurgling up his throat, the scent of her turning in his lungs. A crushing sense of despair spinning the other way within him, some terrible vortex of an almost unbearable sense of loss and loneliness he’d thought he’d cured himself of. Something worse than anything he’d ever endured before. 

Joel had made a terrible mistake, all the remaining grief inside of him told him so. He couldn’t remember, but all he knew was that there was a fracture through the center of the man so that he could never ever be real again without mending it. It was impossible to explain, nor did part of him even want to, all he knew was that he’d suffered a loss so acute he’d ruined his entire heart and life for it. There were so many things he’d forgotten, how to cry, how to be brave, how to be real. 

A woman named Maria who reminds him of his brother calls for any other volunteers willing to share and with the blue scarf gripped in his fist, Joel takes his now familiar place at the podium. He remembers names and he shares and he’s sure he isn’t the way he used to be but on his way to someone else. 

He tells them the only tale he has to tell:

“I had a daughter a long time ago. Her name is Sarah. When she died, I did too. And sometimes, well… you can imagine, but it’s a terrible thing, walking around the world dead. It made my views on the whole thing—dying—change. You’d think it would’ve radicalized me, made me awake to the reality of what it really means to be alive. But instead…death was like…her death was like—I can’t even say—like a door. Like she walked through a door I couldn’t follow and so I tried everything, all the possibilities—I tried to walk through my own doors, even tried to follow her through hers, and nothing ever worked, and now I’ve spent my life since, in the wrong room. And now that I want to go back, to be alive again and make it right, I feel like I’ve lost the key, you see, and can’t find my way back out.”

There are so many strange and unknown faces in the crowd before him. They all blur together, morphing like the skin’s grown over bone wrong and distorted. No one wearing the one he’s looking for. 

“It feels like I’m cursed. And it’s so unfair. And so selfish. Everyone loses someone,” Joel says. “Why’d I have to let it consume me the way I did? Why’d I have to walk around dead for so long? How could I have gotten so lost and so trapped I forgot to live?”

But Joel feels certain now, that if he could only find that key, he’d be let out and alive again. 

Out of the basement of the church, he crawls, false and cowardly. And at the same time, with a lightness he hasn’t felt since before he’d put his own child in the ground, wearing the terrible exhaustion that comes from being so alone you can’t remember what it is to be otherwise. Starting along his walk home with a blue scarf draped around his neck; he walks places now, he knows someone taught him the simple joy of this, but he can’t remember who. 

Halfway through, middle mark to home and just past the watch shop, the rain begins. It’s cold on the come down and then slicing hot against his skin; butter knife meet soft, unsuspecting flesh.

He begins to stumble then, confused, north becomes south, the west falls away to nothing and the thought of an east facing wind losing itself to the ocean terrifies him. The sky is weeping. His mind spins like a typhoon. Joel Miller is lost. The rain distorts, he walks past a split maple—blood colored—lying in the front yard of someone’s home as if they’d forgotten they’d left it there. His feet continue but his eyes stay on the tree cleaved in half by who knows what—who could do such a thing?—neck turning turning clicking. The toe of his boot catches on a split in the pavement, and then he’s being felled just like the maple, falling, brow cracking sharp and split, too. Blood colored, too. 

When he finally makes it home, for a single unbalancing moment, he thinks the house he’s lived in for seven years looks entirely unfamiliar to him. There’s a hot slice of pain across his mind and pavement printed face. His memory, fickle and disturbed, broken. The wife he has been married to for those same seven years is not here. 

Suddenly, Joel begins to cry. 

Slow at first, like most good things start. One tear over that trough ledge, he thinks of children that are lost, then another and he gives it a moment, lets it make its slow and meandering way over skin to lose itself amongst his whiskers, hidden and fearful just like he is. He lets it go slow until he’s ready for all at once, and then he weeps in great heaving sobs. 

He makes his way into the dark, abandoned house and he thinks that perhaps not all has been lost. After all, he feels he’s finding himself in this moment, coming back to reality, waking up to memory. 

Laying in bed, curled and shivering, he pleads with that who-knows-what he doesn't believe in to let this terrible grief end. His crying is like a bloodletting. But what about tomorrow? When the girl is still gone and Joel is still alone. Then, he’ll only be able to remember the terrible alone-ness he’d endured and the sense of relief he’d felt only to lose it again. 

When he sleeps, he dreams of his daughter, he dreams of miracles and cheats, of a face he knows should be resting against his own pillow when he opens his eyes. He dreams of remembering. 

Finally, after years might have passed, throbbing head beating like hammer and anvil, he wakes to the odd but unmistakable sound of snarling, snapping teeth which are, so far as he can tell, his own. Heart pounding in his throat, his stomach lurches like he’ll be sick. He turns over in the uncomfortable, cold bed, legs swinging over the side to brace himself, and when he looks up, his wife sits just there in the corner of the room, watching him. 

“My, what drama.”

“Where have you been?”

“Busy, living.” The thought seems incomprehensible to him. “What have you done to yourself, Joel Miller?”

“I cheated. It didn’t work.”

“That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I got desperate. I felt so alone.”

“So you should’ve done what I did. Gone out and lived your life. How could you ever possibly think you could cheat yourself out of having to do that? Silly man.”

“I—I tried. I did. But I got confused…lost. I made a mistake. I thought I needed to forget everything in order for it to work.”

“Joel. Oh, Joel,” she sighs. “You’re floundering. Whatever you’ve done, it wasn’t right. Look at yourself. You’re falling apart.” She says it so matter of factly it shames him even worse.

“Maybe. Yes.” He feels a terrible rush of embarrassment.

“Remembering is the most important part. If you don’t remember the past, you can’t find your way through to the present.”

There had been many times in his life when Joel Miller had been thoughtless, selfish, a bad man. But taking you, leaving you—he remembers he remembers—nothing had ever been worse than this. A miracle move on drug…he’d been so wrong. So selfish, so weak. There was no miracle, no neat and quick logical cure. There was only himself, taking his courage in hand and letting go of that which no longer served him, preserving memory in a glass case and leaving it there to go on with the rest of his life, just as his wife had. 

He thinks of you now, and examines his own loneliness: the idea that to be a man, he’d had to hold his tears at bay, his lust, his feeling, that there was strength in his solitude that protected him from his past losses, his terrible grief, that weakness was a sin. It’s so obvious, and how could he have not seen it before, that none of that is true. 

He’d been turned back into himself by a girl made of his own heart, and then he’d let her callously slip through his fingers. What a terrible mistake. What a terrible thing to do to someone that would love you. What a terrible thing to do to yourself. 

For one last moment, he lets the old doubt and fear comfort his mind like a cloud, and then sudden as daylight, his memories settle, the certainty that he cannot not move forward if he does not live with the past as what it is. 

And the realization that he cannot live without you. It’s a simple, awful certainty. 

-

The girl who answers the door has red brown hair cropped short around her pointed chin, a splatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Green eyes that remind Joel of another’s. 

“If you aren’t here to fix it, I’m not letting you in,” she warns as if she knows him. 

But he promises her that he is, that finally, he’s realized what it is he needs to do to make it alright. 

He comes into the perfect room, and kneels at the side of your bed like a supplicant. 

You’re sleeping, frozen in your hibernating stillness, your nightgown slipping low over one full breast so that the soft peak is bared to him. Your knee hitched high, allowing him a view of your smooth, lush thigh. He pulls the duvet over your shoulder, backs of his fingers brushing the cold skin there. 

And you look so alone in your abandoned bed, bared and vulnerable. He breathes slowly for many long moments, watching the still planes of your face—there are no moving dreams behind your eyelids. Had he stolen those from you also? 

When your eyes snap open, it’s an immediate step into waking. No confusion, only the frightening dilation of your pupil and complete understanding in your gaze.  

Your eyes study his face carefully. 

“You hurt yourself.” A single fingertip pressed to the open wound at his brow. 

“Yes. Very badly.”

“I’m sick,” your voice is throaty and full. 

Heat-sick, heart-sick, all his fault.

And there exists now, something more powerful than logic or his past losses, his living writhing grief, which had cured his mind, his heart, that drew his eyes to your mouth. He had split himself open, it had been a bloodletting. He had cried, it had been a bloodletting. You hurt. He had hurt you. He needed to mend his errors. To be alive again.

This may seem like a small ending to you, but it is a large beginning. It’s the start of the rest of Joel Miller’s life, after all. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I made a mistake,” he says.

“It was never going to work.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You could see that, but I needed to live it to know. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I know. I believe you.”

Sometimes it really is that simple. 

Joel rests his head in the cup of your hands and cries now because he can, because that, in and of itself, is a miracle. 

“Tell me what my name is,” he asks you.

“Joel.”

—And he’s real, then, loneliness cured.

End.

References; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, David Sheff Mad Men, (2007-2015) Asteroid City, Wes Anderson, (2023) Cool About It, Boygenius Fortnight, Taylor Swift Wrong Norma, Anne Carson The Devil You Know, Liz Carlyle

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[x-dark-whimsy-x]

The Sundered Soul, Chapter 1

Prompt credit for this fic goes to @theroundbartable. I found it on @merlinficprompts. https://theroundbartable.tumblr.com/post/723312849564418048/camelot-is-being-attacked-by-a-sorcerer-somehow

I hope it does this prompt justice!

Twelve chapters are currently written, and now I'm proofreading them one by one. This first chapter is as good as I'm going to get it without a beta. (Any volunteers?) :D Also I will be cross-posting to ao3.

Enjoy!

Edit: I'm an idiot who didn't know how to add Keep Reading. Fixed, I hope.

The Sundered Soul Chapter 1: What Remains

The throne room of Camelot stood empty in the pre-dawn darkness, save for the guards at their posts and one restless prince. Arthur Pendragon sat on the steps below the throne—never on it, not yet—and watched the first pale fingers of light creep through the high windows. The great seat loomed above him, carved stone that had borne the weight of kings for generations. Soon, perhaps sooner than anyone suspected, it would bear his.

He could still see his father's vacant stare from the evening before, the way Uther had looked through him as though he were a stranger. The physicians spoke in hushed tones about shock and grief, about time needed to heal. They didn't speak the truth that Arthur saw in their eyes: the king's mind had shattered like glass when Morgana's betrayal was revealed, and all the healers in Camelot couldn't piece it back together.

King Regent. The title sat uneasily on his shoulders, heavier than any armor he'd ever worn. In all but name, he ruled Camelot now. The thought should have filled him with pride—wasn't this what he'd been trained for his entire life? Instead, he felt only the crushing weight of every decision, every life that hung in the balance of his choices.

"You're brooding again."

Arthur didn't startle—he'd learned years ago to recognize the particular quality of silence that meant Merlin was approaching. His manservant had an uncanny ability to move through the castle like a shadow when he chose, though he was just as likely to crash into suits of armor when distracted.

"I'm thinking," Arthur corrected without turning. "Kings must think."

"King Regents," Merlin corrected gently, coming to stand beside him. "And I've seen you think. This is definitely brooding."

Arthur finally looked up at his servant, ready with a sharp retort, but the words died on his tongue. The morning light streaming through the windows had caught in Merlin's dark hair, turning it to burnished gold at the edges. His eyes—had they always been that particular shade of blue? Like the deep waters of the lake beyond the citadel, holding depths that seemed to go on forever.

Arthur's chest tightened inexplicably. He forced his gaze away, focusing on the middle distance.

"The council meets within the hour," he said, his voice rougher than intended. "Have you—"

"Prepared your papers, polished your ceremonial sword, and ensured the kitchen knows you'll need breakfast after because you never eat before important meetings? Yes, Sire." There was gentle mockery in the title, a warmth that transformed what should have been proper address into something almost like endearment.

Arthur found himself fighting a smile. "I don't know why I keep you around."

"Because no one else would put up with your royal pratness," Merlin replied promptly. "Also, I'm the only one who remembers that you prefer your wine watered at formal dinners so you can keep a clear head."

It was true, and the fact that Merlin had noticed—had been watching him closely enough to discern such preferences without being told—sent another uncomfortable flutter through Arthur's chest. He stood abruptly, needing distance.

"The council will want to discuss the raids on the border villages," he said, striding toward the doors. Merlin fell into step beside him, as natural as breathing. "Leon returned last night with disturbing reports."

"Magic?" Merlin's voice carried an odd note, something Arthur couldn't quite identify.

"When isn't it?" Arthur sighed. "Sometimes I think every hedge wizard and sorceress in the five kingdoms has decided to test Camelot's defenses now that—" He cut himself off.

"Now that the king is indisposed," Merlin finished quietly.

They walked in silence for a moment, their footsteps echoing through the empty corridors. The castle was beginning to wake around them—servants scurrying past with lowered eyes, guards changing shifts with muted clanks of armor.

"You're a good king, Arthur," Merlin said suddenly. "Regent or otherwise."

Arthur glanced at him, startled by the conviction in his voice. Merlin wasn't looking at him, his gaze fixed ahead, but there was something in his expression—a fierce pride that made Arthur's breath catch.

"Merlin—"

"The kingdom sees it. The knights see it. Your father—" Merlin paused, choosing his words carefully. "Your father prepared you for this, even if he didn't intend it to come so soon. You're ready."

They'd reached the council chambers. Arthur could hear voices within, the low rumble of conversation as Camelot's advisors gathered. He should go in, take his place, be the leader they needed. Instead, he found himself lingering, studying Merlin's profile in the torchlight.

There were shadows under his servant's eyes, a tension in the line of his shoulders that spoke of burdens carried. When had Merlin begun to look tired? When had the boyish enthusiasm that had so irritated Arthur in their early days together given way to this quiet strength?

"Sire?" Merlin prompted gently. "The council?"

Arthur squared his shoulders, becoming the prince—the king regent—Camelot needed. "Have my breakfast waiting when I'm done. And Merlin?"

"Yes?"

Arthur hesitated just a moment too long, stifling the open gratitude he wanted to express. Too many watching eyes and listening ears that would pounce on something so un-kingly as thanking a servant, and use it against him. Or worse, use it against Merlin.

"Don’t wander off,” he said instead. “I’ll need you afterward to remind me which advisor is Lord Havelock and which one is Lord Harrow, because I still can’t tell those two wrinkled old buzzards apart."

Merlin blinked, then grinned. "Havelock’s the one with the beard that looks like a distressed squirrel."

Arthur gave a soft huff that might have been a laugh. "Distressed squirrel. Right. That’ll help."

He stepped toward the chamber doors, then paused again, voice quieter.

"And... don’t let the kitchen burn the toast. You always get it right."

Merlin’s brows lifted slightly, but he said only, “Wouldn’t dream of letting your royal highness suffer subpar toast.”

Arthur nodded, then pushed through the doors before he could do something foolish, like reach out to smooth the worry lines from Merlin's brow or ask him to attend the council meeting just so he could have that steady presence beside him.

The councilors rose as he entered, a sea of bowing heads and murmured "Your Highness"es. Sir Leon stood near the great map of the kingdom, his expression grave. Geoffrey of Monmouth clutched his ever-present scrolls, while Lord Cynric and the other nobles arranged themselves according to rank and precedence.

"Gentlemen," Arthur said, taking his place at the head of the table. Not his father's seat—he couldn't bring himself to claim that yet—but close enough. "Sir Leon, your report?"

Leon stepped forward, indicating several points on the map. "The attacks have increased in frequency and boldness, Sire. Three villages in the past fortnight, all along the northern border. The survivors speak of a sorcerer who commands the very trees to attack, who can call lightning from clear skies."

"Druids?" Lord Cynric suggested, his voice dripping with familiar disdain.

"No," Leon said firmly. "The Druids seek only peace. This is something else—someone else. The attacks seem random, but there's a pattern. Each village had recently sent men to serve in Camelot's army."

Arthur studied the map, his mind already working through possibilities. "He's trying to weaken our defenses, make us pull back our patrols to protect the villages."

"Or testing our responses," Geoffrey added quietly. "Seeing how quickly we can mobilize, how we deploy our forces."

"Then we give him nothing to study," Arthur decided. "Double the patrols but vary their routes. I want word sent to all border villages—any sign of magic, any strangers asking questions, and they're to send word immediately." He looked at Leon. "Take Gwaine and Percival, scout the area where the attacks occurred. Look for patterns we might have missed."

"Yes, Sire."

The meeting continued, flowing from border defenses to grain stores to the ever-present challenge of maintaining order with the king's... condition. Arthur found his attention wandering, his gaze drifting to the door where he knew Merlin waited.

It was foolish, this hyperawareness of his servant. Dangerous, even. But lately, Arthur couldn't seem to help himself. He noticed things—the way Merlin's hands moved when he was nervous, quick and fluttering like birds. The particular tilt of his head when he was listening intently. The way he bit his lower lip when concentrating on a task.

"Sire?"

Arthur jerked back to attention, finding the entire council staring at him expectantly. Heat crept up his neck.

"I apologize, Lord Cynric. You were saying?"

"I was inquiring about the feast for the Feast of Beltane, Sire. With His Majesty unable to preside..."

"The feast will continue as planned," Arthur said firmly. "The people need to see that Camelot remains strong, that their lives continue uninterrupted. We cannot afford to show weakness."

The meeting dragged on for another hour, each issue blending into the next until Arthur felt his patience fraying. When Geoffrey finally suggested they adjourn, Arthur barely managed a dignified exit before escaping into the corridor.

Merlin was there, of course, falling into step beside him without a word. They walked in comfortable silence back to Arthur's chambers, where a simple breakfast waited on the table by the window.

"How did it go?" Merlin asked, busy himself with pouring wine—watered, Arthur noted with a fond exasperation he didn't examine too closely.

"Lord Cynric is convinced that every ill that befalls Camelot is the result of magic," Arthur said, sinking into his chair. "Lord Bayard thinks we should increase taxes to fund more soldiers. And Geoffrey wants to consult prophecies and portents before making any decisions."

"So, the usual then." Merlin set a plate before him, the gesture so familiar, so domestic, that Arthur had to look away.

"The usual," he agreed, attacking his breakfast with more force than necessary.

Merlin moved about the room, tidying things that didn't need tidying, adjusting items that were already perfectly placed. It was a nervous habit, one that emerged when he had something on his mind.

"Out with it," Arthur said finally.

Merlin froze mid-reach for a candlestick. "What?"

"Whatever it is you're not saying. You're rearranging my chambers like you're preparing for a siege."

A flush crept up Merlin's neck. "It's nothing, Sire. I just... I worry. About the raids, about you taking on too much. You haven't been sleeping well."

Arthur set down his knife carefully. "And how would you know that, Merlin?"

The flush deepened. "I... that is, when I bring your breakfast, sometimes you're already awake. And there are circles under your eyes. And you've been..." He gestured vaguely.

"I've been what?"

"Distant," Merlin said quietly. "Like you're carrying the weight of the world and won't let anyone help bear it."

The words hit too close to home. Arthur stood abruptly, moving to the window to put space between them. Below, the courtyard was filling with people going about their daily lives, blissfully unaware of the threats gathering at their borders.

"That's what kings do," he said to the glass. "They carry the weight so others don't have to."

"You're not alone, Arthur." Merlin's voice was closer now, though Arthur didn't turn to look. "You have the knights, the council. You have—" A pause, heavy with things unsaid. "You have people who would stand beside you, if you'd let them."

Arthur's hands clenched on the window ledge. He could feel Merlin's presence behind him, warm and steady and impossible to ignore. If he turned now, what would he see in those impossibly blue eyes? What might he do?

"I should attend training," he said instead, his voice carefully neutral. "The knights will be waiting."

"Of course, Sire." Was that disappointment in Merlin's tone? "I'll prepare your armor."

They fell back into routine, the familiar dance of servant and master that had defined their relationship for years. But as Merlin helped him into his mail, his fingers brushing against Arthur's neck as he adjusted the collar, Arthur found himself holding his breath.

"There," Merlin said softly, stepping back. "Perfect."

Arthur met his eyes, saw something there that made his heart race. Then Merlin was turning away, busying himself with gathering laundry, and the moment passed.

The training ground was already crowded when Arthur arrived. His knights—his knights, the ones who'd chosen to follow him rather than simply obey the crown—were warming up. Gwaine was regaling Percival with what was undoubtedly an exaggerated tale of his latest tavern conquest. Elyan and Leon were discussing sword techniques while Lancelot stretched in preparation for the bout.

And there, sitting on a barrel at the edge of the field, was Gwen. She caught his eye and smiled, warm and knowing in a way that made Arthur want to fidget like a squire caught in mischief.

"About time you showed up, Princess," Gwaine called out. "We were starting to think you'd gotten lost in your own castle."

"The only thing lost around here is your sense of propriety," Arthur shot back, but there was no heat in it. These men had proven themselves time and again. They'd earned the right to informality.

"Propriety's overrated," Gwaine grinned. "Ask Merlin—he's been dealing with your royal pratness for years without any."

Arthur's jaw tightened. "Merlin is—"

"Standing right there," Lancelot interrupted quietly, nodding toward the colonnade.

Arthur turned, found Merlin lurking in the shadows of the arches, a basket of laundry forgotten in his hands as he watched the knights prepare. When he realized he'd been spotted, color flooded his cheeks.

"I was just—the laundry—I'll go," he stammered, backing away.

"Stay," Arthur heard himself say. Then, when everyone turned to stare at him, he cleared his throat. "That is, someone should be on hand in case of injuries. You know how Gwaine is with a sword."

"Oi!" Gwaine protested, but he was grinning.

Merlin hesitated, then set down his basket and moved to sit beside Gwen. They put their heads together immediately, whispering about something that made Gwen giggle and Merlin duck his head.

Arthur forced his attention back to his knights, drawing his sword. "Right then. Let's see if any of you have been practicing."

The training session was brutal, Arthur pushing himself and his men harder than usual. He needed the distraction, the simple clarity of combat where the only things that mattered were blade and balance and breathing. But even in the midst of a complex drill with Leon, he found his awareness drifting to the edge of the field.

Merlin had produced a small kit of medical supplies from somewhere and was tending to Elyan's scraped knuckles with gentle efficiency. The young knight was saying something that made Merlin laugh, the sound bright and clear across the yard, and Arthur's concentration shattered completely.

Leon's blade slipped past his guard, stopping just short of his ribs.

"Point," Leon said mildly, but his eyes were knowing.

Arthur reset his stance, irritated with himself. "Again."

They went three more rounds, Arthur winning two through sheer stubborn determination, before Gwaine called out a challenge.

"How about we make this interesting? Team sparring—me, Percival, and Elyan against you, Leon, and Lancelot."

"Hardly seems fair," Arthur said. "You'll need at least two more to make it a challenge."

Gwaine's grin was wicked. "Cocky bastard. You're on."

The melee that followed was chaos of the best kind. Six of Camelot's finest warriors moving in deadly synchronization, testing each other's limits. Arthur found his rhythm, Leon on his left and Lancelot on his right, the three of them moving as one unit against Gwaine's more chaotic approach.

Sparring brought order.

Strike, pivot, react. In those moments, the weight of Camelot slipped from his shoulders. No politics, no council, no shadows of his father’s judgment. Just motion, timing, and breath.

Arthur called the rotation. “Circle left!”

Lancelot flanked smoothly. Leon followed. Across the yard, Gwaine, Percival, and Elyan mirrored the shift. Gwaine, true to form, added an unnecessary flourish to his step, as if auditioning for a crowd.

From the bench near the edge of the yard, Arthur caught Gwen’s laughter. Merlin must have said something — probably at his expense. Arthur didn’t mind. Not when things felt, for once, almost normal.

A glint of movement caught his eye: Percival lifting the two-handed training axe, more suited to strength drills than finesse. Arthur made a mental note to question that later, but now—momentum.

He angled toward Gwaine, who was weaving wide in an attempt to bait Leon. Arthur recognized the tactic, cut inside, and drove toward him fast.

Gwaine blinked. “Oh, now you’re trying?”

Arthur ducked beneath Gwaine’s swing and stepped into his guard, catching his elbow and turning his weight. Gwaine tried to counter—too slow.

Arthur released his sword deliberately, letting it drop to the dirt, and used both hands to drive Gwaine backward with a controlled shoulder slam.

Gwaine grunted as he went down hard.

Arthur straightened, breathing fast, ready to retrieve his blade—

And that’s when it happened.

Gwaine’s boot, flailing for balance, caught a length of rusted training chain half-buried in the dirt.

His leg shot out from under him.

His elbow slammed into Percival’s side.

There was a startled shout—Percival’s grip twisted mid-swing—and the axe flew, end-over-end, loosed in a wild arc that glittered in the sun.

Arthur turned just in time to see it coming.

The weapon was spinning straight for his unprotected side. His sword was out of reach. He had no time to move.

He couldn’t stop it.

Then—

“Gestillan!”

The air hummed, and the axe froze mid-air, held for a suspended second before it dropped harmlessly to the dirt at Arthur’s feet.

Silence slammed down over the field.

Arthur stared at the axe. Then, slowly, he looked up.

His servant stood frozen at the edge of the field, one hand still half-raised, his face draining of color as he realized what he'd done. Their eyes met across the yard, and Arthur saw naked terror there.

Then Gwaine laughed, loud and boisterous. "Nice catch, Merlin!"

The tension didn’t break, but it seemed to loosen its stranglehold on them. Leon, his expression carefully neutral, reached to help Gwaine to his feet. Percival approached Arthur, placing his huge frame none-too-subtly between Arthur and his line of sight to Merlin, clapped him on the shoulder and quietly apologized for losing his grip on the axe.

Arthur’s mind spun uselessly as he looked at his knights, perplexed. Everyone seemed determined to pretend nothing unusual had happened. They had all seen it, of that he was certain, and yet the only one who would meet his eyes now was Gwaine, who stood casually less than a sword-strike away. His easy grin never faltered, but his sharp eyes glared, threatening, and the message was clear. Just you try to hurt Merlin, I dare you.

And Arthur couldn't help but turn and stare at Merlin, who was now very deliberately organizing medical supplies with shaking hands, his pale skin almost bloodless from fear. Gwen put a comforting hand on Merlin’s shoulder and whispered something to him before casting an apprehensive look briefly in his direction.

Magic. Merlin had magic.

The thought should have filled him with rage, with betrayal. Magic was evil, dangerous, the root of all Camelot's suffering. His father had taught him that from the cradle.

But all Arthur could think about was how many times he'd fallen—from horses, from walls, in battle—and walked away with barely a bruise. How many times had Merlin been there, quiet and unassuming, cushioning his landing?

"I think that's enough for today," he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

The knights dispersed so reluctantly, he almost made it an order, but then Percival threw his arm around Gwaine’s shoulders and began to drag him off, saying something, with forced cheerfulness, about getting a drink at the Rising Sun. Elyan muttered something about needing to get something from the armory, and Leon fell into step beside him as they walked away. Lancelot paused beside Arthur, his expression pensive.

"Sire—"

"Not now, Lancelot."

The knight inclined his head and withdrew. Arthur found himself alone in the yard with only Gwen and Merlin remaining. His servant was standing now, the medical kit clutched to his chest like a shield.

"Merlin," Arthur began.

"I should go," Merlin said quickly. "The laundry won't—I need to—"

"Merlin." Arthur put command into his voice, saw his servant flinch. "My chambers. Now."

Merlin's shoulders slumped in defeat. He nodded once, then turned and walked toward the castle like a man heading to his execution. Arthur watched him go, his mind churning.

"Arthur," Gwen said softly, suddenly at his elbow. "Whatever you're thinking—"

"Did you know?" The question came out harsher than intended.

Gwen lifted her chin. "I suspected. As did your knights, apparently. As did you, if you're honest with yourself."

"That's not—I never—"

"Arthur." Her voice was gentle but firm. "How many times has he saved your life? How many impossible escapes, how many lucky chances? You're not a fool. You've always known there was something different about him."

"Magic is—"

"What? Evil? Look at him, Arthur. Really look at him. Does anything about Merlin seem evil to you?"

Arthur's jaw worked. He thought of Merlin's ridiculous ears, his terrible jokes, the way he fussed over Arthur's meals and worried about him getting enough sleep. The way he'd stood against sorcerers and monsters and kingdoms for Arthur's sake, armed with nothing but loyalty and—apparently—secret magic.

"He lied to me," Arthur said finally.

"To protect you both," Gwen countered. "What would you have done, truly, if he'd told you that first week? That first year? Would you have listened, or would you have done your duty?"

Arthur didn't answer. They both knew the truth.

"Talk to him," Gwen urged. "Before you do something you'll regret."

She squeezed his arm and left, her skirts whispering across the stones. Arthur stood alone in the empty yard, staring at the spot where Merlin had saved him.

Again.

When he finally made his way to his chambers, he found Merlin standing by the window, his back rigid with tension. The abandoned laundry basket sat by the door, forgotten.

"How long?" Arthur asked without preamble.

Merlin's hands clenched at his sides. "Always."

"Always?" Arthur's voice rose. "You've had magic this entire time?"

"I was born with it." Merlin turned finally, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I didn't choose it, Arthur. It chose me. I've tried to—I've only ever used it to protect you, to protect Camelot."

Arthur tried and failed to comprehend. "All those times—the magical attacks, the creatures, the sorcerers who mysteriously failed—"

"Yes."

The simple admission hit Arthur like a physical blow. He sank into a chair, suddenly exhausted.

"The dragon?"

"Me."

"The branch that fell on that bandit who had his sword to my throat?"

"Me." Merlin's voice was barely a whisper now. "Always me."

Arthur buried his face in his hands. His entire world was tilting, everything he thought he knew crumbling. Merlin—his Merlin—was a sorcerer. Had been lying to him every day for years.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question came out broken.

"And say what?" Merlin's laugh was bitter. "Hello, I'm Merlin, your father made me your manservant because I saved your life using the same magic for which he would see me burn at the stake?”

Arthur’s breath hitched. “Even then?”

“Of course even then!” Merlin said, exasperation and hurt in his tone, even as his eyes finally overflowed. He angrily scrubbed the tears from his face with the cuff of his sleeve. “You think it was coincidence that a chandelier just happened to fall on that woman after she’d already put everyone to sleep? You think I’m naturally quick enough to race across the room and pull you out of the way of the dagger that would have killed you?”

Arthur opened his mouth, but no words emerged. Well, when he put it that way…

“I wanted to tell you so many times, Arthur.” Merlin said quietly, still wiping ineffectually at his face. “You have no idea how much I wanted to trust you with this."

Arthur shook his head and looked down, struggling to parse all this information. "But you didn't," he said.

"How could I?" Merlin moved closer, his voice desperate. "Your father had children drowned for showing signs of magic. He burned men and women whose only crime was brewing healing potions. And you—you believed what he taught you. I watched you agree with him, watched you hunt down sorcerers—"

"They were trying to kill me," Arthur protested. He couldn’t defend all of his father’s actions, but they weren’t completely without reason.

"Not all of them." Merlin's voice was quiet, sad. "Some were just scared. Some were angry at what had been done to them. And yes, some were evil. But magic itself isn't evil, Arthur. It's just... it's just what I am."

Arthur looked up, found Merlin standing before him, tears now tracking unhindered down his cheeks. He looked young, vulnerable, nothing like the secret sorcerer who'd apparently been defending Camelot from the shadows.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"When you were king," Merlin said, his voice wet, strained with the sound of a hope yet to materialize. "When you could change the laws, when it was safe. I promised myself I'd tell you then."

"And if I'd had you executed?"

Merlin's smile was heartbreaking. "Then at least I'd have died as myself, not hiding anymore."

Arthur shot to his feet, unable to bear the resignation in that voice. "You idiot,” he said. His chest felt tight; his heart pierced, and not with the sting of betrayal. “You complete idiot. Did you really think—after everything—"

He couldn't finish. Too many emotions were within him—anger at the deception, grief for the trust broken, but underneath it all, a desperate relief that Merlin was still here, still breathing, still his.

"Arthur?" Merlin ventured uncertainly.

"I need time," Arthur said roughly. "To think. To... process this."

"Of course." Merlin moved toward the door, paused. "Arthur, I am sorry. For lying, for... for all of it. But I'm not sorry for protecting you. I'll never be sorry for that."

He left before Arthur could respond, the door closing with quiet finality.

Arthur stood in the center of his chambers, feeling more alone than he could remember. Everything was different now. Everything had changed.

Except...

Except Merlin was still Merlin. Still the man who brought him breakfast and nagged him about sleeping. Still the one who stood between Arthur and danger without hesitation. Still the person Arthur trusted above all others, the one whose opinion mattered most, the one whose smile could brighten Arthur's darkest days.

Magic hadn't changed that. If anything, it only proved what Arthur had always known deep down—that Merlin was extraordinary.

The thought was terrifying in its implications.

Night fell over Camelot, bringing with it a sense of expectation, like the air before a storm. Arthur stood on his balcony, watching torches flicker to life across the city. Somewhere out there, Merlin was probably in his chambers, wondering if tomorrow would bring execution or exile.

"Idiot," Arthur murmured to the night. As if he could ever—

A commotion in the courtyard below caught his attention. Guards were running, shouting orders. He could hear sounds of crashing armor and cries of pain.

Arthur grabbed his sword and ran, taking the stairs three at a time.

He burst into the courtyard to find chaos. Blue flames licked at the walls, impervious to the water the servants threw at them. A multitude of ravens circled overhead, croaking and cawing.  At the center of it all stood a figure in dark robes, hood thrown back to reveal a gaunt face marked by desperation.

"Arthur Pendragon!" the sorcerer called out. "Face me, or watch your kingdom burn!"

Arthur stepped forward, sword raised. Around him, his knights were converging, drawn by the commotion. He saw Leon organizing the guards, Gwaine and Percival flanking him, Lancelot and Elyan moving to cut off escape routes.

And there, emerging from the shadows like he always did when Arthur was in danger, was Merlin.

Their eyes met across the courtyard. Arthur saw the question there, the readiness to act tempered by fear of exposure. He gave the tiniest shake of his head. Not yet. Let me try.

"I'm here," Arthur called out to the sorcerer. "What do you want?"

The man laughed, high and unstable. "What do I want? I want my sister back, but your father burned her. I want my home back, but your knights destroyed it. I want justice, but there is none to be had in Camelot!"

"My father is not—" Arthur began.

"I know about the king!" the sorcerer spat. "Broken in mind, useless. But you... you're just like him, aren't you? The son following in the father's bloodstained footsteps."

"I am not my father."

"Prove it." The sorcerer raised his hands, the circling ravens cried in unison, a terrifying cacophony, and the blue flames leap higher. "Show me you're different. Show me there's hope for change, or I'll reduce this castle to ash and bone."

Arthur stepped closer, lowering his sword slightly. "What's your name?"

The sorcerer blinked, clearly not expecting that. "What?"

"Your name. And your sister's. If I'm to understand your grief, I should know who you mourn."

"I... Aldric. My name is Aldric. My sister was Anya."

"Tell me about Anya, Aldric."

For a moment, the flames flickered lower. But then Aldric's face hardened again.

"Words," he snarled. "Just words. You want to understand? Feel what I feel. Loss. Despair. The knowledge that someone you love is gone forever."

He pulled something from his robes—a stone on a leather cord, black as midnight but pulsing with sickly green light. The ravens shrieked, and the air was filled with the sound of wings.

"Someone offered me coin to test you, Arthur Pendragon. To humiliate you, prove you to be the weak figurehead you are and, better yet, provided me the means to do so." His smile was terrible. "I'm going to steal the soul of the person you most value. Let's see how you handle real loss."

"You can't—" Arthur started forward, but Aldric held up a hand, muttered an incomprehensible word, and an invisible force slammed into Arthur's chest, holding him in place. The ravens broke from their circling formation and settled on the stone roofs and battlements, gazing down at the courtyard, their sudden silence even more unnerving than their noise.

"Can't I? This stone is older than your kingdom, boy. It hungers for souls, and it never misses its mark." He looked around the courtyard, taking in the knights, the servants, the guards. "So many to choose from. But it will know. It always knows."

"Everyone here is under my protection," Arthur said firmly. "Everyone here is equally valuable. You want a soul? Take mine."

Aldric laughed. "Maybe it will! The stone chooses based on your heart, not your words. It will take whoever you value most – even if it’s yourself! -- and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Arthur!" That was Gwaine, sword drawn, but the blue flames formed a barrier between them.

"Although," Aldric continued, studying Arthur with bright, mad eyes, "if it's not you it takes—if someone else here more valuable to you than your own life—then perhaps you're not fit to be king after all."

Arthur's heart was racing, but he kept his voice steady. "Every person under my rule is valuable. Every life matters."

"Pretty words," Aldric sneered. "Let's see if they're true. Let's see who Arthur Pendragon can't live without."

He gripped the stone, speaking words in the old tongue. The green light pulsed brighter, spreading out like seeking fingers. Arthur fought against the invisible bonds holding him, but couldn't move.

He heard a familiar voice call his name, and he turned his head and saw Merlin, who was shoving his way through the crowd to get to him, all caution tossed aside.

The light touched each person in the courtyard—guards who had tried and failed to stop the sorcerer’s approach through the lower town. The people who had followed, out of foolish curiosity or lack of self-preservation. His knights, Leon, Gwaine, and Percival. Gwen and Gaius, who had appeared in a doorway. The green light passed over them like they were nothing. It swirled, searching, hungry.

Then it found Merlin, just as he emerged from the crowd and stumbled into the courtyard. Arthur realized a moment before Merlin did, because, as the sickly light streaked toward him, Merlin was too focused on Arthur to realize the danger he was in. There was only a moment for their eyes to meet before Merlin noticed the light that was racing straight at him. He raised his hand in defense, and Arthur saw his eyes flash, a brief, strange glow--

The light struck Merlin like a physical blow. His eyes went wide, the glow extinguished, a strangled gasp escaping his lips, and then he was falling, crumpling to the stones like a marionette with cut strings.

The courtyard went utterly silent.

"What?" Aldric stared at the fallen servant, then at the stone, which now pulsed with a contained light. "That's... a servant? Really?"

"What did you do?" Arthur's voice came out raw, desperate. The invisible bonds had released him, and he was across the courtyard in seconds, dropping to his knees beside Merlin's still form. "What did you do to him?"

"I... I took his soul," Aldric said, sounding bewildered. "The stone takes the soul of whoever you value most. But why would it choose a servant? Unless..."

Merlin's chest rose and fell with mechanical precision, but his eyes were closed, his face slack. Arthur touched his cheek, found it cool.

"Merlin?" No response. Arthur grabbed his shoulder and shook him. "Merlin, come on. This isn't funny."

Merlin blinked his eyes open, and Arthur was so startled by the bright gold of his irises that he jerked back, as if burned.

Merlin sat up, staring blankly ahead.

“Merlin?” Arthur’s voice broke hoarsely. “What—what are you—” He stopped as Merlin turned his head slowly to look at him and Arthur felt his blood run cold. Merlin’s glowing, golden eyes were open but empty, like windows in an abandoned house. There was nothing there, no spark of recognition, no warmth, no Merlin, even as his servant – his magic-using servant -- sat up and slowly got to his feet.

"Oh," Aldric breathed, looking at the pendant that now pulsed with bright, golden light. "Oh, this is bad."

Merlin raised one hand, and his eyes burned brighter, the glowing gold of his irises bleeding into pupil and sclera.

On the battlements, the ravens shrieked and took to the air, dispersing as quickly as they came.

The temperature in the courtyard plummeted. Frost spread across the stones in spiraling patterns. The blue flames went out like candles in a hurricane.

"This is very bad," Aldric said, backing away. "You should run. All of you should run."

"What's happening?" Arthur demanded, standing but not moving away from Merlin. "Why are his eyes like that? What's wrong with him?"

"Don't you understand?" Aldric's voice was high with panic. "Look at him! Really look! That's not human magic—that's raw power. He's not just a sorcerer. He IS magic."

Merlin tilted his head, studying Aldric with those terrible golden eyes. When he spoke, his voice was hollow, emotionless. "You are a threat to Arthur Pendragon."

"No, wait—" Aldric threw up a shield, but Merlin's hand cut through the air, and the shield shattered like glass.

"Merlin, stop!" Arthur commanded, but Merlin didn't even pause. Another gesture, and Aldric was lifted off his feet, choking.

"I surrender!" Aldric gasped out. "I yield! Please, I'll return his soul, I'll—"

Merlin closed his fist. There was a sound like breaking wood, and Aldric crumpled to the ground, unmoving. The stone fell from his lifeless fingers, still pulsing with that contained light.

Then Merlin simply... stopped. He stood perfectly still, hands at his sides, staring at nothing.

"Merlin?" Arthur approached cautiously. "Can you hear me?"

No response. The glow of his eyes faded until only his irises burned gold, but they remained empty, unseeing.

"He has magic," someone whispered.

"So not the problem right now!" Gwaine said. He approached slowly, waving a hand in front of Merlin's face. "Hello? Hey, Merls? Anyone home?"

Nothing.

Gwen pushed through the crowd, Gaius close behind her. The old physician staggered when he saw the evidence of Merlin’s magic writ plainly in front of everyone in his blazing blank eyes, and he looked around, fearfully seeing all the witnesses still gathered, still witnessing this crime against Uther’s laws that bore but one punishment, but then his gaze was drawn to the pendant on the ground, the black stone pulsing with golden life, and he paled.

"No," he breathed. "No, my poor boy."

"Gaius?" Arthur's voice was sharper than he meant, but he needed answers now. "What's wrong with him?"

Gaius moved to examine Merlin, checking his pulse, looking into his empty eyes. His hands shook.

"The stone took his soul," he said quietly. "But Merlin... Merlin isn't like other men. He's..." He paused, seeming to age years in seconds. "There are prophecies. Ancient texts. They speak of Emrys, the most powerful warlock ever to walk the earth. Magic incarnate, born to restore the balance."

Arthur opened his mouth to ask how that was even possible, but before he could speak, Leon asked, with no small amount of awe, "Wait… Merlin is Emrys?"

Gaius nodded. "Yes. And without his soul, without his humanity to temper it, he's just... power. Raw, unlimited power, with no will but to serve his purpose."

"Which is?" Arthur demanded.

Gaius looked at him with infinite sadness. "To protect you, Sire. The prophecies say Emrys exists to ensure Arthur Pendragon becomes the Once and Future King. Without his soul, that order is all that remains."

Once and Future King? Emrys? None of that made any sense, and Arthur didn’t care for an explanation. He stared at Merlin—his friend, his servant, standing without his soul, and apparently powerful enough to kill a man with a twitch of his hand—and felt his world tilt further off its axis.

"How do we get him back?"

"I don't know," Gaius admitted. "The stone still holds his soul, but with the sorcerer dead..."

Arthur snatched up the stone, the leather cord still warm from Aldric's grip. The golden light within pulsed steadily, like a heartbeat.

"Then we break it," he said.

"Sire, no!" Gaius caught his wrist. "Breaking the stone might destroy the soul within. We need knowledge, research—"

"Then get started," Arthur ordered. He looked around the courtyard, taking in the shocked faces of his people. "Leon, double the guard. Gwaine, Percival—help me get Aldric's body to—"

"Sire," Leon said quietly, "perhaps we should continue this inside. The people..."

Arthur looked around, saw servants and guards all staring at Merlin with mixtures of awe and fear. Word would spread through Camelot like wildfire—the prince's manservant was a sorcerer.

"You're right. Leon, have the body taken to the vaults—we may need to examine his possessions. Everyone else... go home." He raised his voice. "What happened here goes no further. Anyone who speaks of it outside these walls will answer to me personally."

Murmurs of agreement, though Arthur knew it was futile. By dawn, all of Camelot would know, and Arthur would be all that stood between Merlin and arrest and execution.

Arthur walked up to Merlin until they were standing face to face. He stared into those empty eyes, trying to see something of his friend in their eerie depths.

“Merlin,” he said.

Merlin didn’t respond, or acknowledge him in any way. His face was blank, peaceful in a way that was deeply wrong. Merlin's face was meant for expressions—exasperation, fondness, that particular smirk when he thought he was being clever.

"Merlin… Do you recognize me?"

No response. Arthur felt thorns of dread twisting in his chest. “Do you even know who I am?”

Merlin focused his gaze on Arthur for the first time. "You are Arthur Pendragon. Crown Prince. King Regent. The Once and Future King."

Again, that nonsensical title, but he didn’t care. At least Merlin was talking to him. "Do you know who you are?"

A pause. "Emrys."

"No.” Arthur resisted the urge to reach out and try to shake some sense into him. “Your name is Merlin," he said firmly. "You're my—" He stopped, unsure how to finish. Servant seemed insufficient. Friend felt too small. "You're Merlin."

No response. Those empty eyes stared through him.

“Gaius.” Arthur turned to the old healer, who was staring at Merlin with a soft, sad horror. “Do you have anything that can fix this?”

“I will do everything in my power to restore Merlin’s soul to him, Sire,” Gaius said gravely, and with enough conviction that Arthur felt a small spark of hope. “I will start with the books and scrolls in my chambers. I have encountered records of the Stone of Souls before, and, while I do not recall reading of any way to undo this enchantment, it will at least be a place to start.”

"Then I will help you,” Arthur said. “Merlin, follow me." And, to his relief, Merlin obeyed.

They made a strange procession through the castle—Arthur leading, Merlin following with measured steps, Gaius hurrying behind. Servants scattered from their path, eyes wide.

Once safely in the physician’s tower, Arthur closed the door firmly. Merlin walked to the middle of the room and just stopped and stood motionlessly, while Gaius began going through the books on his shelves.

Arthur did not like the way Merlin was absolutely motionless, like a statue. "Sit," he said to Merlin, gesturing to a chair.

“I do not need to sit,” Merlin said blankly.

“Ugh,” Arthur groaned, as apparently Merlin was as disobedient without his soul as with it. “Just… do as I say, will you? You are my manservant, after all.”

“I am your protector,” Merlin corrected. “Sitting provides no benefit to my ability to protect you.”

“It will bloody well protect my peace of mind,” Arthur snapped, as he genuinely wondered if this was what it felt like to go mad.

Merlin looked at him with those terrible, empty eyes for a long moment. Then he walked over to the chair and sat.

Arthur heaved a sigh, and ran his hands through his hair. "Do you need food or water?"

"No."

"Do you need anything?"

"No."

“What—” He swallowed. “What happened to you?”

“My soul was removed and trapped by the Stone of Souls,” Merlin said, as calm and emotionless as if he was commenting on the weather.

“You said your name is Emrys.”

“Yes.”

“So what—how--” Arthur gestured to him, struggling to articulate his question.

Merlin blinked. “I am what remains. I am Magic. I am Emrys.”

Arthur took a deep breath. “And Merlin?”

Merlin pointed to the pendant, its leather cord still clutched in Arthur’s white-knuckled fist. He looked down at it, at the golden light trapped within the black stone.

“You mean,” Arthur said hoarsely, “that there is nothing left of Merlin in you, somewhere deep down? That everything he ever is and was, is in this?”

“You are correct that there is nothing left of Merlin in me,” Merlin said. “But we are meant to be the same, I in him, and him in me. We have been sundered in a way that was never meant to be.”

Arthur swallowed. “If you’re the magic, do you know how to… to break the enchantment on the stone and free your soul?”

“No. It is ancient, dark magic, and the enchantment is tied to many anchors that cannot be undone without proper ritual.”

“Do you know the proper ritual?” Arthur asked.

“No.”

“Do you know who does know the proper ritual?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“No.”

Yes. This was definitely what going mad felt like. “If you’re magic; if you’re raw, unlimited power like Gaius said,” he said, gesturing to the physician who had stopped rummaging through his shelves to watch this exchange. “Isn’t this something you should know?”

Merlin gazed at him with expressionless, golden eyes. “I am confined to this flesh, and thus subject to many of its limitations. It is within my power to release myself from this body, but then I would return to the earth, sea and sky, and would be unable to continue as your protector. This body would die, and my soul would remained trapped in the stone.”

The words hit Arthur like a blow. Angrily, and without another word to the magical husk that wore his friend’s face, he hung the pendant around his neck so that the stone rested next to his heart. He turned to Gaius, who was already setting books out on one of the tables.

"Tell me everything," Arthur demanded. "About Merlin, about this Emrys. About his magic. Everything you've kept from me."

Gaius sank into a chair, suddenly looking every one of his many years. "I've known since he first arrived in Camelot. The power in him... it was like nothing I'd ever seen. He could move objects with his mind before he could walk, could speak to the earth itself as a child."

Arthur scoffed. “Oh, is that all.” He turned and strode toward the window before turning back quickly. "And you never thought to mention this," he exclaimed.

"Would you have listened, Sire? Or would you have followed your father's laws?" Gaius's eyes were steady, challenging. "Merlin could have left at any time, and yet he stayed in Camelot for one reason—to protect you. Everything he's done, every lie he's told, has been in service of that destiny."

"Destiny," Arthur spat the word. "I don't believe in destiny."

"Then believe in choice," Gaius said quietly. "Because Merlin chose you, every day. He could have been a king in his own right, could have ruled through power and fear. Instead, he chose to be your servant, to hide his gifts, to suffer in silence so that you might one day bring about a kingdom where magic and non-magic folk could live in peace."

Arthur looked at Merlin, sitting perfectly still in the chair. "And now?"

"Now he's been reduced to his base purpose. Without his soul, his humanity, he's simply the instrument of prophecy. He'll protect you, serve your destiny—but the man who chose to do those things is trapped in that stone."

Arthur’s hand reached up to the pendant and pressed the stone against his breastbone, golden light streaming from between his fingers.  Was Merlin aware inside the stone, alone and afraid? The thought was unbearable.

"How do we free him?"

Gaius opened a large, leather-bound tome, its pages yellow with age, and shuffled carefully through the pages. "The Stone of Souls is ancient magic, predating even the Old Religion. Legend says it was created by those who feared love, who saw it as weakness.” He turned pages carefully, then stopped on a page where Arthur could see a drawing of the pendant. Gaius scanned the page, and said, "There are stories of those who tried to break such stones. Most ended with both souls destroyed—the trapped and the trapper."

Arthur frowned. "There has to be a way--"

A knock at the door interrupted him. Arthur called out an irritated "Enter."

Leon stepped inside, his expression grave. "Sire, forgive the intrusion,” he said, glancing at Merlin who sat unmoving, staring off blankly at nothing. “There's something you need to know."

"What now?"

"The attacking sorcerer—Aldric. We searched his belongings as you ordered. We found letters." Leon held out a sheaf of parchment. "He told the truth, he was hired, Sire. Someone paid him to attack Camelot, to test you."

Arthur took the letters, checking them quickly. No names, no identifying marks, but the intent was clear—humiliate the young regent, prove him weak, sow discord in Camelot.

"Double the patrols," he ordered. "And I want to know who is behind this.” He met Leon’s gaze and knew that his First Knight’s thoughts echoed his own on who was the most likely culprit: Morgana.

It had been over three months since she had attacked Camelot and overthrown the citadel with Morgause and her immortal army. And while Morgause had sustained a possibly fatal injury, it was still long enough for Morgana to regroup and plan another attack. Perhaps even a plan where she hired sorcerers to attack with devastating magical artifacts that stole souls.

But rather than voicing their fears, Leon simply bowed and said, “Yes, Sire,” before walking out and closing the door behind him.

Arthur turned to Gaius and, with an enthusiasm he did not feel, clapped his hands and said, “All right, where were we? Research! We’d best get to it. Where would you like me to start?”

Gaius handed him an ancient, heavy tome from the increasing pile, and he sighed.

They read and researched well into the small hours of the morning, until Arthur’s eyes burned and the words on the pages began to blur, and the next thing he knew, he was woken by the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. He jerked upright, noticing with some chagrin that he had fallen asleep at the table. Someone had draped a blanket over his shoulders, and a quick scan of the room showed Gaius asleep in his cot. Thin, grey morning light seeped through the windows. He turned and saw that the noise that woke him was Merlin standing from his chair.

"Merlin?"

Merlin’s head tilted to the side as if listening to something only he could hear. "There’s danger approaching," he said in that hollow voice. "There’s magic coming from the north. More than one source. They mean harm."

Arthur's blood ran cold, and he stood, pushing himself away from the table, the blanket falling from his shoulders. "Can you tell how many?"

"Seven. They will be arriving within the hour."

"Seven sorcerers?"

"Yes."

Arthur looked upward, as if accusing the heavens. Was it only yesterday morning that his biggest worry had been enduring the council? Since then, he had discovered that Merlin was a sorcerer, complicating his already complicated feelings for the man, then he lost Merlin to a magical artifact wielded by an idiot sorcerer who didn’t even know what he was doing, and now his troubles had multiplied sevenfold.

Gathering himself, strode to the door, opened it, and called for the guards. A guard raced up the stone steps of the physician’s tower. “Sire?”

“Fetch Sir Leon,” Arthur ordered. “Sound the warning bells. Inform the captain of the guard that I want every guard armed and ready for an attack. Evacuate the lower town to the citadel. If you see Sir Leon, send him to me."

"Yes, Sire!" The guard quickly ran to obey.

“Sire, what is happening?” Arthur turned to see Gaius awake and easing himself out of his cot as quickly as his old bones would allow.

Arthur nodded his head at Merlin, who stood impassively. “He said danger is on the way in the form of seven sorcerers with evil intent.

Gaius paled. “Oh dear,” he said. “An attack so soon after the first bodes ill.”

The sound of the warning bells began to clang loudly, and Arthur could hear shouts of alarm from outside. “I need to get Sir Leon and muster the knights,” he said. He looked at Merlin, who remained standing, unaffected, and turned to Gaius, frowning. "Can he defend himself? Like this?"

"He's more powerful now than ever," Gaius said quietly. "Without his humanity holding him back, without fear or doubt...”

They both turned as Merlin suddenly moved and walked toward Arthur. “I will fight and destroy the enemies of Arthur Pendragon and Camelot,” he said without inflection, and something about that made Arthur’s heart clench.

“You are not a weapon,” he said firmly. “And I will not use you like one.”

“It is what I am for.”

“No!” Arthur turned and grasped Merlin by his shoulders. He could barely stand to look into those empty eyes, but he refused to let anything happen to Merlin, even if it was just his physical form. “No, you will stay here, with Gaius, until it is safe, do you understand?”

“I cannot effectively protect you if I stay here,” Merlin said. “I will come with you.”

“No! You utter—” Arthur tightened his fingers around Merlin’s shoulders and shook him lightly. “Listen, you… you cabbagehead, if you serve me, you have to do what I say, and I order you to stay here during the battle!”

Merlin didn’t even blink. “I will always serve your best interests,” he said. “Staying here during a battle where you could be harmed or killed is not in your best interests.”

Arthur released Merlin’s shoulders abruptly, leaving him swaying slightly before he once again stilled, and growled in frustration. He glared at Gaius, who was watching the exchange with wide eyes. “He might not be Merlin,” Arthur snapped, “but he is just as disobedient and infuriating!”

Gaius’s gaze darted between Arthur and Merlin. “To be fair, Sire,” he said carefully, “Merlin has always protected you, usually from the shadows. If he goes to battle with you now, the only difference will be that he will be out in the open. And, as he is now, I have little doubt of his ability to protect you, and Camelot.”

 “But Gaius, using him like this, like a weapon—"

"I know," Gaius said gently. “You don’t know how many times I wished for him to be safe and free of this burden. But he is the only genuine protection against magical threats. He always has been. You need him. Camelot needs him."

Arthur rubbed his hands over his face, then turned to Merlin. “Are you still capable of helping me into my armor?“

“Yes.”

“Fine. With me, then. Gaius?”

“I will prepare for casualties, Sire.”

Arthur nodded grimly and strode out the door, Merlin keeping pace behind him.

The castle was abuzz with activity as the warning bells continued to ring out. No one attempted to stop Arthur and ask for an explanation, though many stopped to stare at Merlin and his glowing, golden eyes. Knights ran to their posts, servants secured valuables, children were hustled to safety.

When they reached his chambers and Arthur closed the door behind them, he moved to his armor stand. Merlin moved without being commanded and began strapping on pieces with practiced efficiency, helping with buckles and straps, anticipating needs with eerie precision.

Arthur contemplated his soulless manservant as he continued to help him with his armor. “You know,” he said, “I can lock you in here to keep you safe.”

Merlin didn’t even pause in his work. “I cannot be contained by locked doors,” he said, securing Arthur’s pauldron in place.

Arthur nodded, thin-lipped. “Of course not,” he said through gritted teeth. “And that actually explains a lot.”

When his armor was in place and secure, Merlin handed Arthur his sword. Arthur took it, sheathed it in its scabbard, and sighed heavily. "When this is over," he promised, "we'll find a way to bring you back. I swear it."

Merlin stared at him, hollow-eyed, and didn’t respond.

As the warning bells continued to toll across Camelot. Arthur strode through the corridors, Merlin at his heels. Leon met him in the main entry and fell into step beside him.

In the courtyard, his knights were assembled. Gwaine's usual levity was absent, his face grim. Percival stood like a mountain, unmovable. Elyan was checking the edge of his blade while Lancelot spoke quietly with the men.

"Seven sorcerers approach," Arthur announced. "We don't know their purpose, but given recent events, we must assume hostile intent."

His knights glanced at each other, uneasily.

"And why is he here?" Gwaine asked, jerking his head toward Merlin.

"Apparently he fights with us," Arthur said sardonically. "Explicitly against my will. I can explain more later, though I will happily give ten gold pieces to anyone who can convince him to stay inside during the battle."

The knights leaned forward as one to look at Merlin. He looked back at them, standing more motionless than humanly possible.

No one moved.

"Right then!" Arthur continued. "Leon, take archers to the battlements. Gwaine, Percival—you're with me at the main gate. Lancelot, Elyan—"

"Movement on the north road!" a guard called from the walls.

Arthur ran up the steps to the battlements, his knights behind him. In the distance, he could see them—seven figures in dark robes, walking unhurriedly toward Camelot. The air around them shimmered with power, and behind them in the air, an unkindness of ravens flew in haphazard patterns.

“Well,” said Gwaine, looking at the ravens, “that explains why we are being attacked again so soon. I’d bet even odds that those birdies are spying for whoever is behind all this.”

“You are correct,” Merlin said. “The ravens are being used as vessels for scrying.”

Arthur frowned, remembering the ravens that watched on, witnessing as Merlin’s soul was stolen from him, and then Emrys’ ruthless retaliation.

"Confident bastards," Elyan muttered.

"Perhaps they think us weakened?” Lancelot asked.

"Are we?" Percival asked quietly.

Arthur glanced at Merlin, who stood perfectly still beside him, those empty eyes fixed on the approaching threat.

"Let's find out.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Merlin, can you stop them from here?"

"No. The distance is too great for precise targeting. Collateral damage to the surrounding forest is unacceptable."

And Arthur felt the tight knot of fear and anxiety coiled in his gut loosen just the slightest. Even soulless, he wouldn't harm the innocent. Some part of Merlin remained, buried deep.

"Then we meet them at the gate," Arthur decided. "If they want Camelot, they'll have to go through us."

They descended to the courtyard, taking position before the main gates. Arthur drew his sword, the weight familiar in his hand. Around him, his knights formed up, shields raised, faces set with determination.

The seven sorcerers stopped just beyond arrow range. One stepped forward, lowering his hood to reveal a scarred face and cold eyes.

"Arthur Pendragon," he called out. "We've come for the sorcerer Emrys. Surrender him, and Camelot need not burn today."

Wait, they had come for Merlin?

"Any sorcerer under my protection stays under my protection," Arthur replied. "Turn back now, and you can leave with your lives."

The scarred sorcerer laughed. "You would die for a servant? For a creature of magic?"

"I would die for any of my people."

"How noble. How foolish." The sorcerer raised his hand. "Take them."

The attack came like a thunderstorm. Lightning split the sky, fireballs rained down, the very earth cracked beneath their feet. Arthur raised his shield, felt the impact of magical force nearly drive him to his knees.

Then Merlin moved.

He stepped forward, raised both hands, and the world went silent. Every spell, every attack, simply... stopped. Frozen in midair like insects in amber.

"I have evaluated the threat," Merlin said calmly. And then he retaliated.

He pushed, and the frozen spells reversed, hurtling back toward their casters. The sorcerers scrambled to defend, throwing up shields, diving aside. Two weren't fast enough—they fell, their own lightning turning against them.

"Impossible," the scarred leader breathed.

Merlin tilted his head. "You are incorrect." He gestured, and the leader was yanked forward, held suspended by invisible force. "State your purpose."

The sorcerer struggled, but couldn't break free. "We came for you, Emrys. The prophecies speak of your power. With you, we could remake the world, bring magic back to its rightful place."

"Magic's place is in service to the Once and Future King," Merlin replied tonelessly. "Your goals are incompatible with what I was made to do."

"You're enslaved! Can't you see? They've bound you, reduced you to a pet!"

"I am not bound. I am focused." Merlin's eyes flashed gold. "You will leave. Now."

"Never! We came for Emrys, and we'll have him!" The sorcerer spoke a word of power, and his fellows attacked again.

This time, Merlin didn't hold back.

The air itself seemed to bend around him. One attacker's flames turned to ice mid-flight, shattering harmlessly. Another found the ground beneath him had become quicksand. A third simply... stopped, frozen in place by invisible bonds.

It wasn't a battle. It was a demonstration.

In seconds, five sorcerers lay unconscious or restrained. Only the leader and one other remained standing, and they were backing away, terror replacing arrogance.

"You're not Emrys," the leader whispered. "Emrys would never... You're something else. Something wrong."

"I am what I need to be," Merlin replied. He raised his hand again.

"Merlin, stop," Arthur commanded, fearful that he would be ignored if Emrys didn’t consider this in his best interests.

Merlin paused, hand still raised.

Without letting the immense relief he felt show, Arthur stepped forward, addressing the sorcerers. "You've seen what he can do. What I could order him to do. Leave now. Tell others what happened here. Any who threaten Camelot will face the same."

The leader stared at him. "You command Emrys? You dare?"

"I don't command him," Arthur said, though the words tasted like ash. "But the fool who attacked earlier today removed and trapped his soul.”

The leader’s gaze flicked to Arthur’s chest where a golden light strong enough to penetrate chainmail and plate shown through, and his face turned grey.

Arthur smiled grimly. “That’s right,” he said, “this is your doing, and until his soul is returned, I'm all that stands between him and the world. Would you rather face him with my conscience guiding him, or without?"

The sorcerer paled further. He grabbed his remaining companion, and they vanished in a swirl of smoke, leaving their unconscious fellows behind.

The ravens immediately dispersed.

"Secure the prisoners," Arthur ordered his knights. "Gently—they're defeated."

As his men moved to comply, Arthur turned to Merlin. "Are there other threats?"

"I’m checking." A pause. "No."

"Good. Then..." Arthur hesitated. What did one do with a soulless all-powerful sorcerer? "Return to my chambers. Wait for me there."

Merlin turned and walked away without a word. Arthur watched him go, his chest tight with something that might have been grief.

"That was..." Gwaine started, then stopped, apparently at a loss for words.

"Terrifying," Elyan supplied.

"Efficient," Leon corrected, though he looked shaken.

"Not Merlin," Lancelot said quietly, and that summed it up perfectly.

Arthur sheathed his sword, suddenly exhausted. "Have the prisoners taken to the cells—the comfortable ones. I want them treated well. Maybe one of them knows something about the stone."

He started to turn away, then paused. "And thank you. All of you. For standing with him. With us."

"Always," Gwaine said, and the others nodded agreement.

Arthur made his way back to his chambers slowly, dreading what he'd find. Merlin was exactly where he'd expected—standing in the center of the room, motionless, but he immediately turned and helped Arthur divest himself of his armor without being asked.

With is armor gone, Arthur reached up and carefully removed the pendant with the Stone of Souls from around his neck and set it gently on the table. Merlin’s soul shone like a small sun within the black stone.

"Sit down," Arthur said tiredly, gesturing to a chair by the fire. “You must be cold."

"The temperature is acceptable," Merlin replied but sat anyway. Arthur wondered if it was done solely to protect his peace of mind.

Arthur sank into the opposite chair, staring at his friend's empty face in the firelight. Just yesterday, he'd discovered Merlin had magic. Had been angry about the deception, hurt by the lies. Now he'd give anything to have that Merlin back, lies and all.

"Do you remember anything?" he asked. "About before? About... us?"

Silence. Then, "I do not understand the question.”

Arthur's throat burned. "Do you remember being my friend?"

"I have no memories prior to my current state. I possess the knowledge necessary to protect you. Personal experiences are... absent."

"But you knew about the approaching sorcerers. You know how to use your magic."

"I am magic. But I have no memory of time before my soul was removed. I know Arthur Pendragon requires protection. I do not remember why."

Arthur closed his eyes. Somewhere in that stone, Merlin's soul held all those memories—of shared adventures, quiet evenings, inside jokes, and unspoken truths. Everything that made him Merlin rather than just Emrys.

"I'll get you back," he promised. "Whatever it takes."

Merlin didn't respond. The fire crackled between them, casting dancing shadows on empty walls.

Outside, night deepened over Camelot. In the cells below, five sorcerers nursed their wounds and wondered what they'd stumbled into. In his chambers, Gaius pored over ancient texts, searching for hope. In the tavern, Gwaine bought rounds and didn't make jokes, while Percival sat silent and Elyan sharpened a blade that didn't need it. In Gwen’s house, Lancelot sat next to her and held her as she wept into his shoulder.

And in the prince's chambers, two figures sat by the fire—one wrestling with newfound knowledge and feelings he couldn't name, the other empty of everything that had once made him human.

The stone pulsed on the table between them, golden light steady as a heartbeat, holding a soul captive.

Holding Merlin captive.

"I need you," he whispered to the hollow shell wearing Merlin's face. "Not Emrys. Not magic. You. The idiot who can't polish armor properly and makes terrible jokes and always knows when I need someone to tell me I'm being a prat."

Golden eyes flickered in the firelight, but remained empty.

Arthur settled in for a long night of watching, of guarding what remained of his dearest friend, of planning how to achieve the impossible.

He would get Merlin back.

He had to.

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

Feedback and constructive criticism welcome and appreciated! :D

[metamorphesque]

Accept and forget difference or desire that separates and leaves us longing or repelled. Why briefly return to play in broken places, to mock the ground, to collect infant shards, coins, fossils, or the familiar empty canisters and casings that glint from poisoned roots in the blackened dust? We make bad ghosts, and are last to know or believe we too will fade, just as our acrid smoke and those strange flakes of skin and strands of hair will, into largely undocumented extinction. Lie down, lie down; sleep is the best thing for being awake. Do as we’ve always been told and done, no backward glances or second thoughts, leaving sad markers buried in the sand. Sleep now, dream of children with their heads still on, of grandmothers unburdening clotheslines at twilight, of full kettles slow-ticking over twig embers. Ignore boneless, nameless victims that venture out on bitter gravel to claim remains while we rest. Pay at the window for re-heated, prejudiced incantations. Take them home and enjoy with wide-screen, half-digested, replayed previews of solemn national celebration. Then sleep, by all means; we’ll need all the energy we can muster for compiling this generation’s abridged anthology of official war stories, highlights of heedless slaughter, to burnish our long and proud imperial tradition. At some point, by virtue of accidentally seeing and listening, we may find ourselves participating in our own rendering. Few of our prey will be left alive enough to water the sun with their modest, time-rubbed repetitions, to rephrase their particular, unifying laws. Our version of events has already made its money back in foreign distribution and pre-sales; all victory deadlines must be met. It can get so quiet, with or without the dead watching our constant deployments. From our tilted promontory we may see one last woman scuffle away across cracked parchment of dry wash beneath us, muttering to herself—or is she singing at us? —as she rounds the sheared granite face and disappears into a grove of spindly, trembling tamarisk shadows lining the main road. We’ll soon hear little other than our breathing, as shale cools and bats rise to feed, taking over from sated swallows. Night anywhere is home, darkness a cue for turning inward, quiet an invitation to review our expensive successes before morning extraction from the twin rivers of our common cradle.

"Back to Babylon", Viggo Mortensen

[bowieandqueen11]

Monkey D. Luffy Confessing His Love For You Would Include...

Request: Hi! I absolutely loved your Straw Hat Birthday post 💖 genuinely didn't fancy Luffy until I read that and now can't stop thinking about him! I saw you wanted to write another post for him so how about a classic How Would Luffy Confess/Show His Feelings for you? I just know he'd be an absolute clingy weirdo about it 🤩 thank you!!

Awww thank you lovely!! SO glad to be sharing the Luffy love, and you're so right, he would be so clingy!! :)

Imagines always take a lot of planning and time to write, so comments are much much appreciated!!

(I do not own One Piece or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @general-cyno.)

☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°

Look, Luffy HAD to release his feelings for you. Right now. If not for the fact that every time he was in a ten centimetre radius of you his whole body shook with such perfervid vibrations he's nearly left a gaping hole in the deck, Zoro's clenched jaw was dead giveaway that he was ten seconds from lobbing his Captain off the side of the ship.

If he had to hear about it one more time. It was bad enough Mr. Curly Brows finding his way to butt into every conversation: placing down his whisk so he could clasp his hands to his cheek and turn to Luffy with such pulsing hearts catapulting out of his eyes at the mere thought of romance. Even worse was being subjected to Luffy's tireless campaign; the incessant drilling of Luffy in trying to make sure every crewmate knew his every inner, cogitating... sappy thoughts about you was starting to eat into Zoro's much needed nap time.

On second thoughts, hearing solely Luffy talk about romance was far better than hearing both he and the waiter prattle on about it.

Zoro placed his palms over his eyes and tried to block out the way the cook had begun fanning himself with the bottom edge of his apron. 'You need to woo them, Luffy! Make them feel like they're the most stunning person in the whole world- the most important crewmate on this ship!'

Luffy took a break from tearing apart the third plate of roasted beef and fresh bread poor Sanji had spent all afternoon sweating in the kitchen to bake to glance down at the meat quizzically. No - not quizzically, much to Zoro's chagrin. Luffy's eyes widened; his head tilted as he rubbed his fingers together and let his meal clatter back onto the plate, his eyes brightening as if he were burnishing all the world's sunsets between his hands.

He looked yearning.

What Zoro didn't understand - heck, what even Luffy himself didn't understand, was how long this long-held devotion had been balling in the pit of his stomach like gilded butterflies, trying to flutter out through his ever-growing smile. After his dejection at Shank's departure from Dawn Island, you had been the only person left in Luffy's life whom he still felt hope from. The only person, besides the kind Makina, who didn't treat Luffy and his dreams like a whimsical joke.

When you had found him on the shore of the coast that day: his legs shivering as he ignored the chill splash of the tide soaking over his legs, his straw hat hanging sorrowfully over his eyes, you knew immediately that all Luffy needed was a little bit of optimism. A little bit, as you stepped over the shards of splintered wood that you could only make out as the remains of a makeshift mast, of belief. As you folded your legs down on the sand and settled next to your friend and gently took the torn Jolly Roger flag from his clenched hands, that what Luffy really needed was your unwavering devotion.

Little did you know, as Luffy turned with bleary eyes and that - god - that still so tender smile twitching at his lips when he spots you, that he was thinking exactly the same. As you grasped his hand between your own and pointed out to the horizon, promising that one day the two of you would sail away underneath that spot: right there. That one! That little spot: those wavering streaks of shimmering gold that lay like a transcendental passage underneath the orbed sun, you could never have realised that Luffy would only reflect your adoration tenfold.

'Wherever we go, we go together right? You won't leave me?', Luffy has asked, wiping his snotty nose with the back of your intertwined knuckles.

'Of course! I promise, Luffy', you had recoiled with a laugh, wiping it off on his vest.

Luffy's so uncharacteristically still, so silent for a moment, that Zoro's almost tempted to shout for Chopper. 'They are!', he finally shouts, nearly making the table clatter onto its side with how fervidly his knee jolts. For a moment, Luffy looks almost sad as he drops the last piece of beef back onto his plate, but his spine is quick to shoot as straight as an arrow again: his wide grin blooming across his face like roped starlight when he remembers what he had been so busy thinking about mere moments before. And every hour before that. And every single day before that as well. You.

You had always been an integral part of his dream, and now he was beginning to understand why.

'I can't stop thinking about them!', he declares, much to a chuckling Sanji's delight and a groaning Zoro's annoyance. 'They're more beautiful than all of the meat in all of the entire seas!'

Zoro pinches his temples lightly before rubbing his hands down his face and crossing them stoutly over his chest. Sanji's quick to scowl over at him. Leaning back on his stool, the first mate sighs as he watches Luffy whip his head between his two cremates like a puppy whose just been tossed a juicy bone.

'What do I do now!'

'Just... don't... don't say that to them. The beef part. The rest of it's fine.'

Sanji clucks his tongue at the swordsman, desperately trying to hold back a seething retort. Instead, he turns his attention back to his Captain, coming to clean up his plate and reassuringly pat his shoulder at the same time. 'Don't worry, Luffy. You just need to show them that you care! Spend some quality time with them, shower them with gifts, offer them your hand when they're disembarking the ship... ', Sanji's eyes glaze over as he bites his bottom lip, and Zoro tries desperately to restrain himself from picking up the bowl soaking in the sink and dumping it over the moron's head. 'Such beautiful creatures should be treated with the upmost devotion.'

The only problem with Sanji's advice is, that Luffy somehow manages to become a thousand times clingier when he finally realises he's in love.

You'll be minding your own business: trying to eat dinner with your friends when you'll sense something sprightly and warm barrelling towards your side. Before you can even register why Nami's stopped chewing on a chunk of torn bread to wiggle her eyebrows facetiously at you, the jut of Luffy's chin weighs down on your shoulder. You flush, trying not to embarrass yourself in front of your crewmates (and losing your bet with Nami to see whether you or Luffy will cave in first and kiss the other one silly), you pretend to be intently stabbing at your carrots. Definitely not squirming your legs together under the table at the feel of Luffy's jean shorts riding up the edge of your thigh. Definitely not inadvertently hitching your breath as the harsh edge of his knee bumps against your own, his leg resting heavily as he your Captain nearly climbs on top of you. And definitely, definitely not feeling your hands go clammy with the intensity of Luffy's puppy dog eyes fixedly contemplating the faint splatter of blush on the cheek nearly pressed against his nose: as if mapping out the intricacies of your body was the most interesting thing he'd ever done.

'Y/n!', he finally starts, making you jump up. Nami was not impressed when your leg reflexively kicked out and hit her shin, but you Luffy was more than delighted when you slunk it back with an apologetic smile and hit the side of his big toe. Without a second thought, he wrapped his foot around your ankle under the table and nuzzles his forehead against your jaw. 'You've been training so much with Zoro lately, I saved you some of my meat so you can get big and strong like me!'

*Cue the shocked gasps from Usopp and Sanji, the controlled exhale from Zoro as he tilted his head back against the porthole and closed his eyes, and the self-congratulatory smirk from Nami.*

'I also borrowed some cookies from Sanji! They're super chocolatey. I tried a few to make sure that you'd like them!'

'Hey, those weren't for you!', Sanji bites his tongue and flops his tea towel down onto the table, but Luffy's too busy inadvertently ignoring the cook to care. His sole focus is on the sweet delight that blooms across his face at the thoughtful gesture as he fumbles some half-broken cookies out of his pockets.

'Sorry', he murmurs as he places them into your hand. 'I got a bit hungry and ate some of them.'

'On your way from the counter to the bench?', Usopp asks.

'Yeah, what is that? Like, ten steps?', Nami teases, but the words don't even register in Luffy's whirring mind. He's far, far too busy trying to stop his heart from pouring out of his gaping mouth like choking saltwater, he's blubbering so much. His fingers shake as he splits the last cookie from his vest in half and - as gently as he can - prods it against the plumpness of your closed lips. Once you've started chewing, you decide to return the favour; you barely half to lift the other half of the cookie before Luffy's nipping at your fingers like an energetic snapping turtle. When your pointer finger accidentally enters his mouth though, and brushes against that warm velvety spot lining the inside of his bottom lip, he freezes; the faint taste of sugar of toffee melts off your skin and against his tongue, and the usually so assured man forgets, for a second, how to breath.

It's only when your finger pulls back to wipe a few stray crumbs away from his Cupid Bow that Luffy finally springs.

'Y/n, let me get your crumbs too!' He leans forward with crinkled eyes almost closed painfully tight and pursed lips. Whether he was going to kiss or lick the crumbs off your face you'll never know, because at that exact moment Sanji tackles Luffy to the floor before he could get any closer.

Just want to warn you in advance: if you want to sleep alone, you'll have to bribe Nami into keeping watch outside of your room every night. Or you'll have to sneak off and try and stowaway in some old oaken kipper barrel under deck (although the stench is so bad you couldn't sleep anyway, and Luffy went wandering around the pantry for a midnight snack that he lifted the lid and found you anyway.) Because the only preparation you'll get before being launched into your hammock is the pounding of his sandals making the gunwales shake, and the slight pant of his famished breath before your door is kicked open.

'Y/n! I can't sleep! Can I come snuggle with you? Captain's orders!'

You don't mind though, and even if Luffy can be incredibly clingy, if you told him no he would feel sad, but he would always respect your wishes. It would be the worst thing in the world for him to hurt you in any way - seeing you upset feels like his heart is being clawed out of his chest, because in a way it is.

There's barely any time to plop your book down onto the floor and hold your hands out to Luffy before you're flung into the air like a ragdoll, his rubbery arms wrapping five times around your abdomen as if he were growing sunflower roots from his fingers: winding the roots around to kiss your body, rooting his blooms within your skin. Embedded together until you were almost sharing the same breath, Luffy passes out almost immediately; he spends the whole night snoring with his nose squished just under your eye, but you can barely sleep with the way he keeps rubbing butterfly kisses against your cheek every so often. It doesn't help that he keeps whining desperately in his sleep - his already clenching and unclenching fingers leaving their home in your side to claw at your thighs and lift them closer to his bellybutton. His dragging lips left a wet trail against the pulse point as he burrowed himself further against you, only settling again when the heavy weight of his legs squirm in between your own.

One time you were spending the afternoon wandering through the delightful market square of Seahorse Shore: the sweet smell of jasmine blooms woven between sun streamed lattices was matched only by the warm sound of Sanji's friendly chatter as he walked beside you, stopping from time to time to pick up and squeeze a rare fruit.

You froze when you heard something: an echoing pounding, like an elephant stampeding away from a wild hurricane that whipped at its tail, before someone jumped on your back.

You were about to toss the guy head over ass onto the ground, when you heard the delighted shrill of Luffy's frantic voice ringing against the shell of your ear.

'I missed you so much today! Mmmh, you smell so good, like meat and flowers!'

'Luffy, how did you get back here so quickly?? You were at the opposite end of the island!'

'He followed his nose back to you.' Zoro just turned around, deciding to take his chances getting lost down the billion white sun-bleached cobblestone alleyways on this twisty island than to stay watching the two of you be all lovey-dovey for another second. Gosh, by all the seas even Sanji yelped when he you stumbled forward, steadying yourself by wrapping your fingers behind the raised kneecaps Luffy had haphazardly thrown around your hips. The man hugged onto you like a koala bear backpack, because he had been apart from you for... hmm... twenty minutes?

He's always dragging you off for some big, wild adventure, I don't know, there's just something about the two of you sitting under the speckled shade of an orange tree with interlocked arms, a few fireflies beginning to peek their heads out from between the stout leaves, like honey dripping down from bowed boughs as you leaned against each other, watching the sunset. You were here. You had made it. You were free.

And most importantly, you were together.

Luffy lunges for your hand and starts pointing at the grass swaying between your shoes, excitedly telling you about all the bugs and beetles running around the soil (to Luffy, a big part of love is trying to share what you're passionate about with each other.) He does lift up a stag beetle at one point and places it on your hand, but he starts to panic when the insect frantically starts scurrying up your arm. Somehow you end up face down in the dirt with Luffy leaning over your back; the buttons of his Hawaiian shirt sway over your spine as his chest heaves, his lips dangerously close to being only a few centimetres away from landing on your shoulder blade. You would have blushed at the proximity if you weren't too busy picking grass blades out of your hair, and trying to help Luffy's stretchy arms unloop themselves from under your armpits.

When Luffy gets to flop his head back down into your lap though, feeling you card your fingers through his hair, all is right in the world again. For a while, the two of you just exist: watching the sunset brew violet and lilac gleams across your eyeline, talking about your latest adventure against Captain Kuro at Syrup Village and playing with each others shaky fingers. Its only when you take a break from stroking his curly hair against your palm that he stops and pouts, blinking rapidly up at you. When you lean forward though, tickling that soft spot between his earlobe and the cute freckle by his jaw using your free hand to pluck a daisy from behind the rim of his hat and tuck it through the loop, a bashful burn shines across his face.

Before he can think twice, he musters his courage and determination, squeezes his eyes shut, and lifts his spine up so he can plant a wet kiss against the tip of your nose.

Your eyes flash as you pull back, tenderly rubbing your nose against his. Cupping his cheek, you press a kiss against his forehead and fold your enclosed hands against the rapid pulse of your heart. Your eyes never leave his, and his eyes trace your path in... confusion?

I mean, the two of you have been in love with each other since you were ten years old, and this is the first time Luffy's brain has stopped to think: 'Hey! Maybe Y/n likes me too!'

The real time he surprises you though is when he plops his hat on top of your head. You'd been caught up fighting some Marines off the coast of the Conomi Islands, and had unfortunately been struck down by a rather forceful cannon ball to the side of the Going Merry's railings. When Luffy bust down into the Medbay, you'd never seen such clouds thunder across his face. His whole body seemed to sag once he spotted you, his eyebrows unfurrowing as he almost tripped over his own feet in his desperation to get to you.

'I... I was so worried. I saw that Marine hit you, and I-

For once, Luffy stops talking. Instead, he takes his hat and places it over your tired eyes, hoping you won't see how flustered he looks when he leans down to press his lips against the top of your bandaged arm.

'You- you promised', his voice wavers as if he's about to start sobbing, but he hides the noise by wiping his nose with his forearm. 'You promised you'd stay with me. Always.'

'I meant it Luffy - I'm a Strawhat Pirate, you can't get rid of me that easily. What would my helpless Captain do without me?', you smile, brushing the back of your knuckles languidly down his the growing tearstains of his cheek, despite how much your whole body screamed at you to rest.

'Promise?', he asks, his voice shaky.

'I promise.'

He didn't have to say it. You both knew. You had always known. There was no one without the other. There was no dream without you.

So when he clumsily slapped his hands on either side of your cheek, smushing them together so you looked like a blabbering pufferfish, you weren't surprised. When he nearly sent the stretcher you were perched on rolling across the room by standing between your legs and pressing his torso up against your chest, you didn't blink. When he smashed his lips against yours, leaving kitten licks against the inner seam of your mouth as if he were trying to eat his way into your tongue, you didn't think twice.

All you did was kiss him back, the unwavering devotion that had always tied your lives together finally finding freedom by flooding into your hearts.

[fashion-from-the-past]

1865-1867

[logarithmicpanda]

The Burnished City (Davinia Evans)

I feel like this series is so, so underrated! I have to say, it's just shy of being truly great but it is one of the most solid fantasy series I read in the past few years, consistently good. I rated the first two books 8.25/10 each, which is why they didn't appear in my "best of" lists but the series is worth its own separate review!

Also prefacing this by saying my expectations going in were entirely wrong. I somehow thought this was going to be a YA fantasy regency romance (in the same vibe as Half a Soul) but it is not that. At all xD if anything, it's adult high fantasy in a byzantine inspired setting. We follow three protagonists: Siyon, from the lower city, who is desperately trying to claw his way into the ranks of the alchemists, and Zagiri and Anahid, two sisters from the higher class who each find the restraints of high society grating in their own ways.

The most notable feature of the first book, Notorious Sorcerer, was its total lack of desire for hand holding. You're thrown into the story, and you pick the Worldbuilding up as you go, which is something I love and miss in so many fantasy books these days, but might be an obstacle for other readers who expect it to be YA. That being said, the inner workings of alchemy are left rather confusing, though I'm willing to forgive that for the sheer coolness of how the magic feels in this series haha

Without going too deep into the plot, I found each tome to have its own, separate narrative arc, while also making an overarching thread move forward. Each of the book also focuses a bit more on the arc of one of our three protagonists. The story always takes its time to unfold, but I enjoyed the balance of tension and the general atmosphere of the series. The plot managed to surprise me each time, while remaining foreshadowed in hindsight

Finally, the romance aspect of the book is truly understated. Relationships unfold subtly (and to be honest I would have loved a bit more payoff on that front) but the true depth is really in the interpersonal relationships between the protagonists and the rest of the cast, not so much as the romances. With that being said, the world of the Burnished City is queer normative in a way that feels refreshing in high fantasy (which usually tends to deal with the topic very grimly or not at all)

The last installment of the series delivers a solid and satisfying conclusion, and I will definitely keep an eye on the author's future endeavors 👀

Rounding up to 8.5/10 for the series because it is just consistently good!!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: The Knights of St. Kazvarin

There's pious and selfless devotion, and then there's whatever these weirdos have going on

Riding forth from their brooding fortress-abbey to do the will of a long dead holy man, these inscrutable warriors have long been the subject of rumour and suspicion. It's not an undeserved reputation, as apart from looting tombs for ancient relics or ominously observing the goings on of the common folk these forboding knights are most often acting as the hired muscle for unscrupulous nobles who have no regard for the legality or virtue of the orders they enforce.

Far more than mercenaries with a patina of piousness, the Knights use these contracts to fund a secret and sinister endeavour that they have undertaken for centuries.

Adventure Hooks:

While delving through a dungeon the party follow a trail of slain monsters to a gravely injured knight and his thoroughly overwhelmed young squire. The boy will introduce them as Tilaen and Ser Darrik respectively and ask for their aid in tending to his master's injuries, before the dour Knight chides him for speaking on his behalf and tells the party to be about their way. Ser Darrik wants no help from "the faithless" and is willing to use the last of his strength to get violent about it. If cooler heads prevail, the party will learn that the two were after a rare manuscript hidden somewhere within the dungeon, and the offer of collaboration might be explored. If the party don't help, they'll find the squire waiting for them at the dungeon's entrance, requesting their help to bury his master and guide him back to their order's abbey. It's only after a few days of travelling together will realize that Squire Tilaen is muchabused by his sect, and that steering the boy away or outright adopting him might be the real kindness.

Acting as a stern and imposing shadow to whatever asshole noble or callous merchant the party have recently pissed off, the towering and always helmed Ser Gelceiras has "Bossfight" written all over him. However when the adventure's final confrontation looms the party find him cleaning off his massive axe, his employer's head in a bloodsoaked bag waiting to be delivered to them. "We got what we wanted from him" he rumbles as he exits, " you can have what's left. no hard feelings."

Just a new threat encroaches on the settlement, a mace wielding bruiser in burnished armour rides up and pledges to fight alongside the party in its defence. Ser Portia's skill as a fighter is sorely needed, perhaps enough to overlook whatever agenda it is that drew her to the settlement in the first place. Shortly after the final battle is fought and the dust clears, the party will realize Portia is nowhere to be seen... having escaped sometime during the aftermath after inexplicably kidnapping one of the locals.

Background: Before he was a sacred corpse, Saint Kazvarin was a necromancer of great talent, having dedicated his life to the study of thanatology and the many loopholes around death. This earned him great renown and wealth in his day, amazing the masses with seances while charging the powerful dearly for cut-rate resurrections. He amassed generous patrons and fanatical followers, only to have it all fall apart when the Raven Queen took an interest.

Kazvarin had and constructed his own bootleg afterlife, a place where his most loyal followers would rest forever in glory before being called back in time of greatest need. Atleast that was the sales pitch, in reality the "saint" had stopped just short of lichdom delving into the shadow to create a demiplane where his own soul would reside undeminished after death, sustained by the faith of his followers as the realm hollowed them out.

Such villainy inevitably created it's own downfall in the form of a young woman who's family were taken in and exploited by Kazvarin's cult. Though her name was not recorded by history, she was marked by the Duskmaven for greatness when she swore to tear down the saint who would conquer death, years later succeeding along with some allies in not only killing the necromancer but cursing him with a most ironic fate. Denying him the afterlife he had so meticulously constructed, the raven queen cursed Kazvarin with reincarnation, forcing his soul to live out a new life where it would forget all he knew and be remade.

It would have been a perfect punishment had the Saint's followers not been so fanatical. Though their organization had been shattered by their "benevolent" leader's apparent assassination, the most loyal of his inner circle poured through his research, finding the spells nessisary to seek out his soul in its new vessel. Thereafter they engaged in a grim hunt, crossing the realms to ritually sacrifice the youth their leader had grown into and pulling free his undigested soul. This is the cycle Kazvarin's followers have been following for generations, spending decades hunting for signs of their leader's return before using murder and necromancy to forcibly deincarnate him. Thereafter Kazvarin has a few months or years to act freely before he is swallowed back up by the tide of souls and the hunt begins again

Future Adventures:

Though they begin as a comparatively minor oddity, the knights become a true threat to the campaign as soon as they figure out who Kazvarin's current incarnation is and manage to wrest his soul out. Ideally this should be someone the party knows, to make it all the more tragic that they were sacrificed to bring about the villain's return.

Though it is much deminished, Kazvarin's demiplane (called the Howling Basilica) still traps the souls of those who have sworn their lives to him, acting as a vault from which he can pull rank upon rank of shadow-maddened spirits to his bidding. His most loyal retainers are allowed to keep their skills and individuality while being deprived of their will, meaning he has a backlog of highly skilled Knights just waiting for new bodies to possess no matter how many times the party defeat them on the field. What's worse is that the saint still remembers how to manipulate people with the offer of offbrand immortality, and will likely begin reaching out to powerful individuals shorty after his return.

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