#cow itch vine

[faguscarolinensis]

Campsis radicans / Trumpet Vine at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC

[thebotanicalarcade]

TheForagersDaughter

[noseysilverfox]

July 2024

Trumpet vine or trumpet creeper, also known in North America as cow-itch vine or hummingbird vine (lat. Campsis radicans).

A perennial, fast-growing vine, it does not have a definite smell, but the flowers give a lot of nectar. The length of an adult vine can reach 8-10 meters in height, and in some varieties even 15 meters.

Кампсис укореняющийся (лат. Campsis radicans).

Многолетняя, быстрорастущая лиана, не имеет определенного запаха, но цветы дают много нектара. Длина взрослой лианы может достигать 8-10 метров в высоту, а у некоторых сортов даже 15 метров.

[curiositydooropened]

Wildfire • Inferno

The last march into the Ether is fraught with uncertainty. You stumble forward, partner and friends by your side.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Chapter Wordcount: 10,887

Warnings: This chapter contains gore and horror, including character injury and allusions to character death. • enemies/rivals to lovers, second chance romance, slowburn, unrequited love, so much pining, blood, gore, character death, best friend!disabled!Eddie Munson, character injuries, trauma, PTSD, hallucinations, drowning, concussion, hurt/comfort, fire, panic attacks, insomnia

Fic Masterlist • Navigation • Masterlist

Chapter Six: Combustion

---

THEN

May 1988

The woods sprawled forever, rows of monotonous chaos stretched to a sunless sky. You scrambled through, boots squelching in inexplicably moist soil as you toed over the twist of vines and fallen limbs. A shock of orange guided your way, a light in the greyscale abyss, just out of reach, dipping into underbrush and up the hillside.

You’d made this trek through dozens of times, the steady climb from Roane County Farms to Mary Hill Lane. Countless nights of your youth were spent feeding cows apples from your pockets and scurrying home before the sun crested its final valley. 

You knew the resemblances were eery. The first time you’d stepped into this horrible place, the first time you felt the pull at your navel and the spin in your skull, you’d been nauseated by the carbon copy version of the town you called home. Grocery stores and public libraries crumbled beneath the weight of disembodied tentacles. City sidewalks crumbled beneath your feet. And even after all this time, after countless trips through the portal into the Hellscape, the similarities to your childhood never ceased to unsettle your stomach and itch like anxiety in your chest.

A different panic clawed there now, making the ascent more difficult. Your pack weighed you down, and your mask hung from your throat, lungs burning with strain and inhaling toxic air.

“Vickie!” You cried out for her again, your voice hoarse and cracked. A handful of mulch fell away to make room for your boot, and you pulled yourself up through the tree line and onto Mary Hill Lane.

The asphalt was torn up, a pot hole down the center of the little lane, right where they’d patched it that summer you turned 8. You used to take turns jumping it on your bikes. Once, Vickie hit the lip, and her frail little body went flying over the handlebars. You watched the blood ooze from her knobby knees in horror, and admitted delight, and helped her limp her bicycle two doors down to her house.

A wave of orange flickered in your periphery, and you steeled your breath. Two houses down, with pale yellow siding and a metal storm door, was your best friend’s childhood home. It hadn’t changed since her family moved to the little neighboring town of Hawkins. The tree out front was a little taller, the grass a little sparser, and of course the entire facade was succumbing to the overgrowth of demonic vines that curled and whipped beneath the shutters and peeled back the roofing tiles.

There was a residual off to the Ether, the dip in your stomach that never left once you’d crossed the gaping maw threshold, but now, staring up at a home you grew up in, the off settled into your ribcage like a bad breakfast. “Vickie,” you whispered, following your feet to her driveway. “What the Hell are you thinking?” 

You reached over your shoulder to remove the flamethrower from its holster. Your hands shook around the cold metal. You tried to even out your breathing, panic clinging like condensation to your neck. 

Bang! Something large smacked against the garage door, rattling the whole thing on its hinges.

You scrambled backwards, foot slipping on a rogue bit of gravel. You gasped, catching your fall before you heard another loud thwack to the door.

Then you saw her. Grimy, fogged glass lined one of the garage panels, through which you caught the terrified look of your best friend, a shock of orange and pale skin. 

You called out to her, ran to the door, smacked your fingers against the glass. 

“No,” she shook her head, slamming her hands into the other side of the wall. “Get out of here! Run!” 

“Vick? What’s going on?” You shook your head. “Are you trapped? Stand back, I’m going to torch it.” You squared up, readjusting the trigger behind your forefinger.

“No!” She cried out again. “You don’t understand. You need to run.” 

“Is there something in there?” You asked, trying to peer between her and a stack of boxes to look within the confines of the garage. 

“Yes.” She said. “Me.” 

She disappeared for a moment before she lifted the garage door, one strong push to expose herself and the rotting boxes abandoned beside her. 

“What the Hell is wrong with you?” You growled, dropping the weapon to your side.

“She’s stronger than she looks,” she said, stance square. There was something in her eye that tickled at the base of your skull, sent a shiver down your spine.

“Vic?” 

“Really, your friend held on for so long. She really tried to fight. The two of you had years of good memories for me to lose her in.”

Years of training stalled your reaction, running through your mind in reverse, hours spent on the Scorch course echoing in your skull. You raised your weapon again, and her name left your throat in a whisper. 

“You wouldn’t burn sweet, innocent Vickie would you?” She took wide strides your direction, hands in the pockets of her pants. “Not here. Remember when we called this place home. You and I?” 

You scrambled for the walkie on your shoulder, hands trembling. “Team Lead to Scorch team, requesting emergency evac.” 

“Yes, yes, bring in the troops,” she smirked, something miserable and uncanny, something so un-her. 

Steve’s voice echoed through the speaker, startling you. “Where are you?”

“Roane County, Mary Hill Lane. Quarantine required.”

“Her old house? Is Vickie okay? Vickie?” Robin’s voice called out before Steve cut her off.

“Copy that. We’re on our way.”

“R-Robin?” Vickie’s voice broke, and you noticed a distinct change in her demeanor. Her teeth were grit, fists clenched and shaking at her sides. 

You caught her gaze, eyes filled with terror, and took a few steps closer.

“NO!” She cried out, holding a hand up to stop you. Tears welled in her eyes, spilled over, tracked through the ash on freckled cheeks. She whispered your name, bottom lip trembling beneath her two front teeth. “You have to do it.” 

“Vickie, no. Just hold on. Steve and Robin will be there soon. We’ll take you back and -” 

“It’s too late,” her voice cracked. “He’s in here, and I can’t hold him back much longer. You know I love you, right?” 

“Vickie, stop it.” You shook your head, tasting salt. You didn’t realize you’d started crying as well. 

“Please?”

You shook your head again, obstinate, every bit of you fighting the pleading look in her eyes, fighting the sad smile on her face, fighting the way she said your name.

—

NOW

October 1988

Your blindfold was made of wool, something thick and itchy against your nose and the tips of your ears. You scratched at it, exposing a sliver of light, and you hand was promptly snatched away.

“Will you stop that?” Steve huffed, voice a warm rumble to your left year.

“I’m not going to take it off,” you grumbled. 

Your anxiety had peaked the moment he put it on, relieved only temporarily when he pressed his lips against yours. Then, you were promptly carted down the clanging elevator and shoved past a sea of whispers until a heavy steel door was opened, and brisk autumn air caressed your cheeks.

The familiar rumble of a truck bed chattered your bones, knees knocking against various others’. You sat in silence, sensing a handful of watchful eyes. You were desperate to ignore the gnawing at your brainstem, the villain clawing himself to the surface, desperate for air, for a hint. You focused, instead, on your breathing, on the warmth of Steve’s hand in your own, of the buzz in your fingertips and the weight of something that had been strapped to your back.

Steve’s grip tightened as you came rolling to a halt. Engines idled. The smell of diesel fuel burned at your nostrils. Your stomach churned. 

Your partner pulled you upright with a strong hand beneath your armpit, and you teetered on your feet as the balance shifted with each body that jumped from the bed to the dusty ground below. 

“Wait here,” he muttered, and then released your hand. 

Panic curled into your organs. You reached out for him again, listening for the fall of his feet. Cold replaced him beside you. The ground shifting beneath you. You extended your toe until it hit something, a wheel-well, by the sound of it, maybe a tailgate.

A hand found yours again and pulled you to the cool metal. The machine trembled beneath your clammy fingertips. 

“Sit here, swing your legs over. I’m going to catch you, okay?”

“I don’t need to be caught,” you scoffed, though you followed instructions, feet dangling over the bed’s ledge until you slid into Harrington’s strong grip. 

“Shut up,” he grumbled, gentling setting your feet to pavement. 

You shoved at his chest, and promptly chased him until his hand slipped firmly into yours again. 

“Dudes!” A familiar voice called from not-too-far away, and you felt yourself led toward them.

A fist tapped your shoulder, and the sickly sweet smell of marijuana filled your senses. 

“Argyle?” You smiled.

“You got it, dude.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey, remember that time we played those pranks on Munson?” 

The levity of his sentiment didn’t match the intensity of the situation you were all stepping into, and it caught you off guard. Your memory strained to strum up images of hiding Eddie’s notebook and replacing it with a replica you and Argyle had doodled crude images in. That felt a lifetime ago, when you were all just kids caught up in a war you didn’t understand. 

“Well, that gave me the idea to doodle a dick on the dragon on his new notebook.” Argyle spoke it like a confession, whispered to you from around your veil, words muffled by the thick fabric.

You crinkled your nose. “You did?” 

“Yeah,” he barked out a laugh. “So you’ll have to come back to see the look on his face when he sees it.”

The fear that had settled like a pit in your gut fluttered a little, a glimmer of a heartbeat added to the future you weren’t certain you’d have. 

“Deal,” you choked out, and you felt a hand reach into yours to shake on it. 

“Harrington!” Someone yelled from a few yards away, and you free hand was tugged with careful instructions to follow. You bid Argyle goodbye and stumbled after Steve, slow steps dragged along dusty streets. 

You couldn’t tell the direction, though something deep in you longed for them. Something wondered if you could peer beneath the blindfold and make out a location based on the stones you kicked along with the steel toes of your boots. Something sensed the wind caressing your cheeks, your chest, wondered if it blew in an Easterly direction. 

Another warm body pulled up beside you, blocking the wind. Your shoulders fell in gratitude. You hadn’t realized you’d hiked them up.

“Mind if I lean on you?” Byers muttered, wrapping a soft hand against the crook of your elbow.

You shook your head and accommodated for his weight. You noticed a limp in the sound of his walk, slowed your gait to match his. Another spring of panic fluttered at your chest. “No offense, Jonathan, but… should you be going on this mission? How’s your leg?” You squeezed Steve’s hand on your other side.

He squeezed back.

“Remember that day we took bets on the mats? The one where you wiped the floor with Harrington?” 

“Alright,” Steve huffed on your other side. 

You snickered, remembering the flow of cash into the hands of your best friends. High fives were exchanged. Munson had set up a hydration station in your corner to fan you off between rounds. 

“I won like five hundred bucks thanks to you, you know?” Byers spoke softly beside you, breath a little labored. 

“Oh yeah?” You swallowed back a lump. “Sounds like a deserve a cut of that.” 

He laughed at that, Steve too. “Yeah, you do. Here’s the deal. You kick major ass in there, I’ll give you three hundred.” 

“Double or nothing?” Steve said over your head. 

“Deal,” Jonathan chuckled and squeezed again at the meat of your bicep. “What do you say?” 

“Yeah, okay, deal.” Your voice sounded hoarse. When Jonathan released you, you nearly halted your walk to stay with him, but Steve tugged you along with a firm grip, and you stayed in line with the footfall all around you.

You kept your eyes squeezed closed, resisting the temptation to gain some sort of bearing. You thought of Argyle’s doodles and Byers the bookie and tried to push back the emotion clawing to escape you. 

Then you felt it, the pull. You’d felt it before, dozens of times, that warped tug of gravity that started from behind your navel and led you onwards and upside downwards. It had to be close. You felt the pulse of a gaping maw as if it were your own, the steady thrum-thrum of a heartbeat. Or two heartbeats, in tandem to the pulse you felt in Steve’s wrist against your own. Or three heartbeats, the rhythm of dozens of soldiers falling into line.

A familiar voice called your name from up ahead, and you heard the stamping of feet as someone approached, others moving out of their way. “Hey,” Wheeler breathed. “Have you figured out what we’re doing yet?”

You couldn’t respond, overcome with emotion and terror, that call of the Ether drawing you closer with each step.

Nancy fell in sync beside you. “Remember our first run in the Scorch course? Me, you, Vickie, Robin?”

You remembered being terrified at the prospect of setting monsters ablaze. You remembered spying an intimate “good luck” between Steve and Nancy before she went in with you. You remembered Vickie and Robin exchanging nervous smiles. You remembered sweaty palms around a weapon you’d never used, and you remembered the heat that licked at your skin. 

“We did it in record time, and they were still extinguishing three hours later.” 

“Nancy, I…” You weren’t sure what to say, exactly, couldn’t understand the meaning.

“Us girls have to stick together.” She stuck a bony elbow to your side, then she shouted. “Ready? Let’s go. Battle stations, everyone. You know what to do.” 

You heard the unsettling squelch of vines, the clearing of a membrane from the jaws of the gate, and the tug of your arm halted you. “Steve?” You muttered. “What’s going on?” 

“We’re going in,” his breath was warm against your ear, and he brought your hand to his chest. His heartbeat was rapid, racing your own to the finish line you couldn’t see, couldn’t fathom.

Your mouth was dry. Things within you battled: the urge to turn heel and run and the urge to go diving headfirst into the Ether, into the frigid embrace.

“I’ll never forget the first time you pinned me to the mats,” he spoke soft, catching you off-guard. You could feel his smile against your ear, the upturn of his lips. “You knocked the wind clear out of me, had me seeing stars, and then you leaned over me to help me up. You had this big, beautiful grin on your face, like you’d never had more fun in your entire life. Robin was doubled-over laughing in the corner.”

“Steve,” you breathed, clutching at the soft fabric of his shirt. 

“But when you asked me if I was ready for round two, that’s when I knew I was in love with you.”

“Harrington,” you grit your teeth, slammed your eyes shut. The pulse compelled you. Vines like tendrils slithering beneath booted feet to find you.

“Because I knew you were resilient, and any bullshit I could throw at you, you could survive. Are you listening to me?”

“Steve, are we ready?” Nancy called from several feet away, voice drowned by the thundering in your ears.

“You have to fight him, okay? I promise I will protect you, but you have to promise me you’ll fight back, that you won’t give up. Do you promise me?” He was holding your face now, large hands on either cheek, and you longed to see his brown eyes again, that furrow between his brow.

“I promise,” you nodded, and his lips were against yours, hot and soft, and then they weren’t, and you were chasing for his touch. 

He hooked something into your belt, and you felt cold plastic, with a long cord attached. “Whatever you do, don’t take your blindfold off, or these,” he tugged headphones over your head, the foam around the ears amplifying the pounding of your heart. “I will stay as close to you as I can, but you just need to trust that I’ll be there to protect you. Are you ready?” 

Again, the opposing forces within you pulled in separate directions. All at once, your senses will filled with pop music and panic that you had to swallow back as Steve took you by the hand and led you once more toward the door between worlds. 

—

The Ether smelled damp, like mildew, the rotting flesh of vegetation left to spoil. It tasted of ash and ruin. Static lingered in the air, clung clothes to your skin. The music in your ears was muffled, somehow, like there was too much room for sound waves to travel, so they thinned out and became tinny. The blindfold itched at your nose, and you stood alone, cold, in a void. 

You tried to focus on the happy memories your friends had presented to you, but with every chill that wracked through you, all you thought of was her. 

That shock of orange had been extinguished, had vanished into the grime of this Earth, had smoked out. Happy memories of her turned to ash at your fingertips, laughter to choked screams. 

Then, you smelled gasoline, sweet and strong. You were used to the fumes, that chemical after burn with each torch of the flamethrower, but this was stronger. This stung at your nostrils, made your mouth water. You took a few steps forward to ensure you hadn’t stepped in it and were waiting for someone to light a match.

You felt dizzy with it, that wobble as you walked. You called out for Steve, unable to hear your own voice though the music. You received no response, felt no tug on your arm, no warm hand to your waist. You were only cold, and you were all alone. 

He’d left you. He made a promise he couldn’t keep, just like Vickie had, and you supposed like you had to them. 

Then came the rumble, that slow wave of nausea that drifted from far-off, from mountain tops and Great Lakes, that cosmic sway of land that chattered your teeth and sent you off-kilter, to your knees. You caught yourself on a hand, feeling the snap of your wrist beneath your weight as the Earth continued to rock beneath you. You cried out, though you couldn’t hear it over shrill music.

Then you felt it, the searing agony of torched vines, every vein and nerve ending ablaze, punching the air from your lungs. Screams rippled through you, not yours but the screams of others, of them, agonizing, writhing in horror, screams from gaping mouths with rows and rows of jagged teeth, and you were them and they were you, and you felt it all.

You thought you might rip in two from the pain, maybe you already had, and you lie prone against a cold, hard ground, willing your body to push it away. Everything in you scorched, and everything in you begging to fight. How could you fight fire? How could you fight an unseen force?

Desperate for air, you ripped your blindfold from your face and stared up into a storm-filled sky. Bright red lightning flashed inside a black, billowing cloud. Your eyes ached at the orange glow, and when you turned your head, you came face-to-face with an entire forest ablaze. 

It caught like wildfire, an inferno that scorched the Earth. Beautiful bright whites and yellows, oranges and reds painted the night sky, casting the forest in silhouette as limbs groaned and trees crashed down upon an army of soldiers. 

You sucked in a breath, sputtering to the sand as you rolled over to gain your footing. Your wrist cried out under your weight, but your vision had shifted again. 

It was as though you ran through the woods, double time, rushing to escape the fire. It was as though you flew through smoke filled skies. Your targets wore tactical attire and carried flamethrowers on their backs, and millions of teeth sunk into them, filling your mouth with the taste of their blood.

Something found your ankle, a thick vine that wrapped itself there and pulled until you slammed back into the pavement. You squeezed your eyes shut and kicked at it until you felt the satisfying squelch, the burst of ice cold liquid, and you scrambled away until another could find you.

Then your eyes were on him: Steve torching the wood. His face was tanned, dripping with sweat and grime. He picked up a barrel and threw it into the trees, shielding his face from the explosion as Nancy cocked her rifle and hit her target. Only, you were looking at Steve from an odd angle, and you reached out a clawed hand toward him. 

“Steve!” You cried out, but it was too late. The demogorgon’s claws pulled through his chest to the bone.

Nancy fired rounds into the creature until it had backed into a truck. From there, it was blown to pieces. 

You watched them now, from a few yards away, unable to lift yourself from the ground. She tended his wounds, and he staggered, glancing your direction. Tears stung in your eyes. Somewhere nearby, a song echoed through tattered headphones. Behind your eyelids, allies were being ripped open, guts spilling to the forest floor, but the fire raged on. 

—

The pain subsided, and all was numb and black and void. 

You sat at a desk, sunlight filtering in through a window overlooking the woods. You had a pencil in one hand. Times tables were etched into the paper in front of you. The lines of the numbers flipped and blurred, and you stuffed your tongue between your teeth in frustration. God, you were so stupid.

Your mother called from down the hall. Dinnertime. 

You set your pencil down, and it rolled across the desk top before halting against a terrarium. 

You stood and stretched, rubbed at bleary eyes. You pulled your sweater from the back of your chair and swung it over bare shoulders. 

You crossed to your door, traced the wallpaper in your hallway with fingertips like you did every evening.

Dad’s chair was empty as you passed the living room. The television played something dull and quiet, reruns. 

You rounded to the dining room, table stacked with food for two. Dad must be on another work trip. 

Light filtered in through the sliding glass door. Winter had just begun. The leaves had all browned and fallen. The trees stood like soldiers, all limbs and armor.

You took your seat at the table and sipped the carbonation from your soda. The bubbles fizzed at your nose, and you itched at it before dumping a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes to your plate. 

A slam at the glass door startled you, and you looked up to find Vickie. She looked different, old and grizzled. Her jaw was sharper, the muscles in her arms more defined. She rolled her eyes and peeled the door open. It rolled on its track, and she let herself in. 

“This is where he’s keeping you?”

“Wh-what?” You blinked back at her, wondering if the times tables had messed with your head. 

“Vecna, come on, idiot. You’re flayed. He’s got you by the strings, and he holed you up in the third grade for some reason. Do you have any idea how long it took me to find you?” 

Her words processed like sludge, letters mixing and swapping like they had on the page. 

She leaned over to dip her finger into the bowl of mashed potatoes. She tasted it and blanched, spewing the soft white back onto your plate. “Jesus, there are some tricks he really can’t master. Now come on, we don’t have much time. You need to snap out of this.” 

She tugged at your wrist, and you cried out, a sharp pain zipping through you. You stared down at the tender and bruising limb. 

“That’s a good start,” she nodded. She glanced out at the backyard, forehead creasing in thought before clicking her fingers together. “Quick, think about Steve.”

“Who?” You winced, nursing the dull ache in your wrist with a gentle touch. 

“Harrington. You know, big brown eyes, floppy ears, a tail that wags when you pay him attention.” 

“What?” Everything felt fuzzy, a slog of jumbled words that fell from soft lips and onto deaf ears. You hadn’t remember Mom giving you cough syrup, but perhaps you had a cold.

With a groan, Vickie grabbed you by the shoulders and lifted you from your seat. She shook you a little. “Come on, damnit, remember. You aren’t here in your mom’s kitchen, you’re in the Ether. The Scorch Team is blowing it up. A demogorgon got Steve, and I have a feeling he’s going to die if you don’t snap out of this.” 

“Steve?”

You saw a flash of him staggering toward you, Kevlar shredded, blood tainting the inner corners of his perfect lips. 

“Steve!” You cried out, but you were back in the dining room. The breaker had been flipped, everything dark, everything caked in a layer of rot and decay. Everything but Vickie. 

“Nicely done,” she grinned, yanking at the sliding glass door. “Let’s get out of here!” 

You didn’t hesitate to follow, staring up at the sky scapes of your mind as they began to implode. The woods beyond turned to the craggy, rocky shores of your grandmother’s beach house, and as you stepped through the bog water that had filled your backyard, everything turned to concrete and asphalt and tar.

“Yeah, this’ll do,” Vickie’s sneakers slapped against the tarmac as she ran toward the compound. 

You took off after her, wind sweeping at you like wispy tendrils, desperate to hold you in place. “What do we do now? How do we trap him?” 

“I don’t think we do,” she responded. “It’s kind of like a lucid dream. You’re in charge in here. We just have to get rid of all the places he can hide.” She bypassed a passcode to unlock a familiar steel door and held it open for you to go inside. 

You entered the small hallway, floor-to-ceiling munitions lockers. “And how do we do that?” 

“Well,” one locker opened with a creak, “they’re blowing his shit up on the outside. Maybe it’s time to turn the heat up in here, too.” She reached in and procured a flamethrower.

—

You scorched the Earth. You set fire to the Roan River bed where Vickie had tumbled. You set fire to the little covered bridge and all the horrors that lay within. You set fire to the little farmhouse where you lost her. You set fire to the woods that surrounded your childhood home, to the little fenced in backyard, the rope and plank that swung from the oak down the street. You torched the roof and watched it crumble inward over mashed potatoes and the tv turned to static in the corner. You watched the pages of a times table curl and fall to dust. 

“Making record time,” Vickie grinned, slapping a hand to your shoulder. “Just like Nancy said. Us girls really do make a good team.” 

She turned from you and began to jog down the little lane, pack bouncing, light on her feet as though the world wasn’t crashing down around her. 

When you didn’t follow, she turned, fire lighting her eyes, and gestured for you to join. “You coming or what?” 

The flames made no sound as they consumed your house, a dreamscape of embers in reds and oranges and yellows to the ringing in your ears. The roof fell first, like the house that nearly ate Steve, and then the windows burst and the walls came next. As the fire spilled out across the front yard, chewing at tires and overtaking flowerbeds, you stumbled backwards to join Vickie in the lane.

“One last stop,” she promised, intertwining her fingers in your own. 

“How do you know that’s enough?” You asked with a frown, wheezing a cough into your free hand. Your wrist ached, and the purpling bruise was beginning to crawl up your arm. Your chest felt tight, and the faster you ran, the harder it felt to breathe. The smell of gasoline filled your nostrils.

“We’re running out of time,” she smiled sadly and turned into the driveway of her own childhood home, the place you found her, the place you watched the life leave her eyes. 

“Vickie,” you warned, screeching to a halt just at the end of the driveway, where concrete turned to rubble. Looking to your left, you saw the pothole. To the right, flames had spilled to the neighbor��s house. 

“Don’t be a baby. This is his favorite place to hide. We have to make it uninhabitable.” She explained, stacking lawn furniture to a pile between the garage and house. 

It was his favorite place to hide because it was your worst memory, the place you refused to go back to, the truths you kept hidden under lock and key. 

Something went boom far in the distance. Your ears rang again, and they hurt. Something hot and wet splattered your right cheek. You reached up to find blood spilling from your ear. “Vickie!” 

“Hurry!” She removed her pack, added it to the pile.

“What’re you doing?” You crossed the driveway as she opened a can of lighter fluid from beside the grill and began trailing it across the closed garage door. She splashed some onto her shoes. The cuffs of her pants were soaked in it. “Be careful!” 

She looked up at you then, a sadness behind the mischief in her eyes, and she shook her head. “Don’t you get it? It’s me. He’s hiding himself in me. I’m the safe space for him. He knows you’ll never touch me. You’ll hide from him in the good memories: the pranks with Eddie, the bets with Jonathan, the sing-a-longs with Robin. He’ll hide from you here, with me.” 

Another boom rocked the world around you in ripples. Scratches clawed themselves into your right side, your cheek, your chest, your arm as shrapnel lodged itself within your skin. 

Vickie rushed to your side, wiped blood from your cheek with a thumb. “Hey, I love you, and I will always be with you in your heart and your good memories, but this?” She gestured to the pile of furniture, to the scorch mark in the drive. “You need to let this go.”

You wheezed another cough, violence that clawed at your insides, squeezing every drop from you. 

“Go back to Steve. Get yourself out of this Hell hole, as far away as you can, you hear me? Get married, have a dozen babies. Follow your dreams. Live the life I didn’t get to. Promise me?” She touched her nose to yours. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” you managed, though tears blurred your vision and smoke choked at your lungs. 

She kissed your forehead and took ten paces back, until her feet were touching the spilled can of fluid that had begun to weep down the driveway. “You promise?” She called. 

You nodded, hands trembling as you lifted the flamethrower. “Promise.” 

“Good,” her face lit with that mischievous grin, a smile of peace and of love, and she maintained it as the flames engulfed her.

—

Your ears rang, and your body thrummed, and every nerve in your body stood at attention. The smell of burning flesh and gasoline stung acrid in your nostrils. You blinked your eyes open, expecting the bright oranges of flames and finding only grey, only smoke, and then two big, brown eyes. 

Steve came crashing into focus, and you pulled him into you with desperate hands. The side of his face was torn and bleeding. Thick, dark red spilled down his jaw and throat to gaping cuts across his chest and abdomen, but he was crouched over you, and he was mouthing something. No, maybe he was screaming. 

He looked beyond you before he covered you with his body, and you felt the rain of something down on top the both of you. 

After a long moment’s rest, you shoved at him, desperate to find his eyes again, and he sat up and looked around before he pulled you both to your feet. 

The Ether was chaos all around you, a cloud of smoke and ash. Soldiers and monsters alike disappeared and reappeared through the cloud in flashes of thunder-less lightning and the splatter of blood.

You ducked into the crook of Steve’s arm and followed his lead as he ran, both of you a little wobbly, dodging vehicles and bodies. 

He tripped over a vine, and you caught him under the arm, pulling him upright again so you could continue your journey. He stopped, peering around once more, shouting into the smoke cloud with a hand over his mouth until he was doubled over in a wheezing cough. You covered your own mouth with the crook of your elbow, but the smoke was too much, and the oxygen too small.

You threw yourself to the ground and pulled him too, breathing what air lie between particles of sand in the empty lake bed.

 Steve lie beside you, eyes fluttering with exhaustion and defeat, and he leaned sideways to thumb blood from a stinging wound on your cheek. 

That’s when you noticed the vines. Thick, black, oozing with ichor and something fouler smelling than the ash and smoke, these vines were reaching for something, crawling for air of their own. 

You yanked on Steve’s sleeve and pointed to them, and the two of you crawled after the vines to the edge of a gaping wound in the sandbar. 

The membrane had been popped and water bubbled below, steady waves that brought forth the prospect of life, of fresh air, of home. 

Steve threaded his fingers through yours and nodded, spoke words you couldn’t hear. “I won’t let go.” 

You nodded and took as deep a breath as you could muster before diving headfirst through the portal to the waters below.

—

Righting yourself felt different without gravity, the weightless tug of your body that begged to be back on the other side, back where up was up and down was down. But here? In the void of frigid cold and screaming wounds, of empty lungs? Your body and your brain couldn’t comprehend anything but out and now.

Steve’s hand remained in yours, though you couldn’t see past the blur of dark and sting in your eyes. So you just kicked and pulled at the space around you, weightless and yet too heavy all at once.

Something wrapped itself around your ankle, but you just kept kicking, feet as paddles and anchors. 

You wrist ached, the numbing pull of something as Steve tried to yank you upward, and then you felt his arm around your waist and then your knee, and he was fighting something off, and then nothing. Then he was gone and his warmth and his weight, and your body was surging you upwards and outwards and now as fast as you can.

It hurt. Everything hurt. Your lungs screamed and your soul ached and your heart hurt, but when you burst through that surface and through your head back and filled your lungs at least that was right again.

You slapped your hands to the surface in an effort to stay afloat, and you gasped and sputtered and took in the fresh, clean air. 

Starlight glinted above you, miles and miles upward, not shying beyond clouded skies. God, you’d missed them. 

You floated for a moment, on your back, body screaming for rest, exhausted, eyes drifting closed while you drifted like a log on the water’s surface. Alone and weightless, but free and alive and alone.

Alone. You sputtered, coughed out water that spilled in through your nostrils, and when it had cleared, you looked frantically around you for Steve.

Your distress caused ripples in the water, ripples in reflected starlight, ripples alone.

You took a deep breath, weak, lungs pained, and dove. Your eyes stung and the darkness filled everything below the surface, so you reached out with frantic arms until your lungs couldn’t take it anymore and your body rocketed you back up for another gasp of air.

You cried out for Steve, a wheezing sound that had you coughing again. Your teeth chattered. You could barely hear your own voice above the ringing in your ear. 

You dove again and again, dives decreasing in length each time until you finally surfaced, gasping for air and screaming for someone to help, screaming for Steve, screaming at Vickie, at Vecna, at the world for doing this to you, and that’s when you found him.

Several yards off, face down, like driftwood bobbing along the shoreline. 

You swam to him, one stroke at a time, aching legs kicking until the tips of your fingers met the back of his head, and you turned him to face you. Liquid poured from his open mouth, the sweet curve of his lips. 

You pulled him under your arm and dug in hard to the silt and soil, pulling him up and over the banks where cattails bloomed and crickets chirped. You pulled yourself up too, both of your bodies scraping the sand. 

“Steve,” you wheezed, straddling his body. You tilted his head back. “I promised Vickie. I promised her we’d get married. I promised her we’d have a dozen babies.”

You ripped open what was left of his shirt, bits of material sticking to his shredded skin. You held back a cry and interlaced your fingers. Your wrist screamed, bruising crawling to your elbow. Gingerly, the palm of your hands found his sternum, and you began compressions. 

“You have to stay with me because I love you, and I can’t do this without you.” You tried to keep time to the adrenaline thundering your heartbeat in your skull.

More liquid spilled from his lips.

“No!” You cried out. “Stay with me. Damnit, Harrington!”

You clenched your jaw until something snapped, a tooth, maybe his ribs, maybe your arm, but you didn’t stop, you couldn’t stop.

—

Your throat was so dry, a swallow that burned down your esophagus like sand paper. Your insides smarted with it. Everything was red, too bright, vicious like wildfire. You winced, turned your face to shield yourself from the light. 

The beeping got louder, a steady rhythm that matched the thump-thump of your heart in your skull only fuzzier, dials turned down, a bit of static ebbing and flowing like waves, a current.

Then you heard a mumble, or at least, it sounded like a voice. No, two voices muttered to one another from over top of you, one louder, clearer, the other soft, strangled, too-far away. 

“Have you been here all night?”

“If they try to pull me away from this bedside, I’ll kill them.”

“Have they woken up yet?” 

“Not yet. No one can tell me if that’s good or bad. Do medical charts make sense to you?” 

“Let me see.” 

Something clattered beside you, too close to your head, and your reflexes startled your eyes open. You winced to find everything was no longer red, but stark white and too bright, and your eyelids were crusted over and burned. You groaned and shielded them with a hand wrapped in gauze. 

“Holy shit,” someone spoke your name. 

“Should we call the nurse?” 

“Hold on a second. Sweetheart, are you awake? It’s me, Eddie.” A soft hand reached for yours to pull it from your eyes. “Hit the lights, will ya?” 

Stark white dulled to softer blues and grays, and you lowered your hand from your face. Your eyes adjusted, room and faces blurred until the sweet, sad face of your best friend came into focus. 

Munson smiled back at you, hair swept back over his shoulders, black t-shirt hugging his chest. His body was pressed to yours, butt pinching the wires that were jabbed into your hand and the crook of your elbow. “Bet those drugs are feeling really nice right now, huh?” 

His voice was sweet and low, like molasses, and it buzzed through you warm and soft. You hummed, but the dryness in your throat cracked until you coughed and sputtered and gasped.

“Okay, I’m calling the nurse.”

“You want some water?” Eddie scrambled, snapping his fingers at something on the other side of you, and you turned your head to find Robin with a clipboard under one arm, frantically pushing a large, red button that hung on a cord beside you. 

You tried to say her name, but once again the wheezing and sputtering halted your attempt, so you reached for her instead.

“Water? Yeah, here,” her voice trembled, and her hand as she lifted a large plastic cup from the bedside table and held the straw to your lips. She looked scared, frantic, and tears brimmed in her big, blue eyes.

“I got it,” Eddie took it from her, holding the straw steady for you to drink. 

The cold water soothed your throat, and your eyes closed in the relief. You were exhausted. Your entire body sunk further into the soft cloud you laid upon and wanted to stay there. 

“What’s going on in here?”

“You fall back asleep on us?” You felt the rumble of Eddie’s chuckle, and the tug of a smile played on your lips. 

You peaked one eye back open, and the nurse who stood in the doorway dropped her arms from where they were crossed over her chest. “Well, good morning, sunshine. How’re you feeling? Don’t talk, but give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.” She pushed into Robin’s space to jiggle the tubes attached to you.

You managed a thumbs up, the world still a little fuzzy around the edges. 

Eddie snorted. “Yeah, I bet you’re feeling good.” 

“Your vitals are looking good, but you should probably rest. It’s the fastest way your body can heal.” 

Yeah, rest sounded lovely. You nodded and closed your eye again, sinking farther into the warm cloud embracing you. 

“I’m going to go check on Nance,” Robin muttered from beside you. “You going to stay here?” 

“Try and stop me,” Eddie said, and it pulled another smile to your lips as you drifted off to sleep.

—

Seventeen gates had sealed themselves over night, leaving naught but severed vines and wet patches of pavement. Bits of equipment and body parts slowly began to wash up on shore, but when the lake beds were dragged, no gates had been found. 

Your drug-induced dreams had been void of smoke and screams, void of ash and ruin, void of that shock of orange and the chill in your spine. 

You’d gotten to your feet faster than any of your comrades, despite being one of the last living recovered by the Evac team. You joked about your competitive nature through wheezed coughs behind your cast. 

You and Munson raced walkers down hallways. Much to your chagrin, he let you win. 

Weaning off the drugs, your body ached, bones stiff. The stitches around your cheekbone and shoulder and hip itched something fierce. Your voice came back after a few days, scratchy and raw, but your hearing never returned on that right side.

You begged Eddie to read you the novel he’d been writing every night as you drifted off to sleep. You played card games with Jonathan and Argyle during the days, stuffing aces into the bright blue plaster of your bandaged arm. 

Hopper visited when he could, cursing at a nurse under his breath when she came in to tell him to put out his cigarette. He did so in your abandoned jell-o cup, and before he left, he squeezed the fingers of your hand and said, “I’m proud of you, kid.”

Nancy’s recovery came along quickly, always two steps ahead, and you spent evenings distracting her while her bandages were changed. Burns covered half of her slender frame, but she grit her teeth through the agony. You helped her to her feet when she asked and held her hand to the bathroom and back to her bed. 

Robin came bearing gifts smuggled from the outside, warm socks and soda in glass bottles, a record player and later, hummed tunes. She tried to teach you French one night, Russian another, and if she hadn’t fallen asleep at Nancy’s bedside, she was slumped onto Eddie’s shoulder, the two of them wide-mouthed, snoring out-of-sync. 

Some such nights, you’d sneak out, carrying your IV so the wheels didn’t squeak, the pads of your feet cold against stark white linoleum. You’d bypass the common room, illuminated by the vibrant colors of candy wrappers from a vending machine, and tiptoe down the hall past the nurse’s station. You’d slip into a room two doors down, on the left, masked under the faint blue glow of a heart monitor and sidle up beside the patient there.

You didn’t like the blue, cast across hard features like the frigid chill of a drowned man. You much preferred the warmth of sunshine pouring in through easterly windows. If you stayed long enough, you’d catch a glimpse of that, honeyed light caressing soft skin, tousling the golds in his hair.

You glanced at his heart rate on the monitor, the steady but slow rise and fall, and then you slipped your fingers to the pulse point on his wrist to double check. “Harrington, I’m always saving your ass, aren’t I?” You tutted. 

You tugged his torso to warm exposed shoulders, careful not to drag the material against the plane of his chest, where skin had been grafted together with vicious knots of needle and thread.

You pressed the back of your hand to his forehead, taking solace in the warmth of life, and swept hair from the wrinkle in his brow.

You pulled up a chair and tucked your hand into his, resting your elbows and head beside the dip of his thighs, listening to the subtle beat of his heart until your eyelids felt heavy and your rhythms matched with his.

—

May 1990

Sunlight dappled the landscape in pale yellows and vibrant greens, pouring in from between the limbs of trees and spilling onto the grass like paint to a canvas. A breeze brew through, sweet florals on the wind. You helped it sweep fallen, wilted petals and debris from letters carved into stone. A petrified bouquet was replaced with a fresh one, and you primped rose petals and wiped lily pollen off on a pant leg. 

Robin crouched beside you, freckled nose red and eyes bleary. She kissed a beaded bracelet before wrapping it around the little vase with the others like it.

You stood before her, helping her up by the hand, and both of you kissed your fingertips and placed them to the tip top of the headstone.

“You ready?” You muttered, giving her hand a squeeze. 

She sniffled, nodded, and you began your trek up the dappled hill toward the parked car. 

“Give a kiss for me too?” Eddie asked as you approached, frown etched between his brows. You sunk into his embrace, buried your face in the warmth of his throat. He smelled of the cigarette he’d stamped out on the asphalt. 

“Always,” Robin muttered into his other shoulder, burying herself there too. 

You pulled away with a sad laugh, mopping the tears from your cheeks to slide into the arms of the man beside him. 

“Hey, Harrington, you doing okay?” Steve’s voice rumbled against your cheek, his lips pressed to the shell of your ear. He hadn’t stopped calling you that in months, and you delighted in the way his honeyed gaze lit up when he said it.

You swatted at his middle, fighting back the grin that tugged on the corners of your lips. “I’m changing my name back,” you argued.

He hummed a protest, rocking you back and forth, large hands tracing circles of comfort up and down the length of your spine. He felt safe, a tall drink of relief, calm tides after a storm.

“Well, I think I’m ready for brisket,” Eddie clapped Steve’s shoulder, and you reluctantly peeled yourself from your husband’s embrace to help your friend into the back seat. 

Robin rounded the car to join him, and you accepted Steve’s sweet kiss to your temple before he climbed in behind the wheel. 

With a sigh, you turned to cast one last look down the hill at Vickie’s grave. Light poured down sweet and soft. This place had never felt like her, a disconnect between the girl you knew and loved and the monument for soldiers fallen. 

“Steve,” you turned to see him, big brown eyes staring back at you. 

“Yeah?” 

“Can we make one stop first?” 

“Of course.” 

—

The new owners painted it blue, still pale, but it matched the sky now. The garage door had been painted stark white like fluffy clouds, and a mini van was parked out front. Toys and bicycles spilled out onto the yard like it had when you were young. Someone paved over the pothole in the lane.

“Want me to come with you?” Steve mumbled, fingertips to your wrist as you opened the passenger side door. You noticed his glance in the rearview. 

You shook your head. “I’ll only be a second.” 

The wind ruffled the trees, forest curving downhill toward farmland and beyond, but you turned your back to the trees and took cautious steps up the driveway to the garage door. Two daisies had been chalked beside a hopscotch course. 

You closed your eyes and breathed in all of the memories from childhood: running back and forth from your house to hers, her incessant humming, the sound of her laughter, dancing in circles in a thunder storm, the feeling of her slender fingers between your own, her nose to yours. 

With a smile, you opened your eyes again and turned to go back to Steve’s idling car. That’s when you saw it, a shock of orange out of your periphery that ducked between slats on the porch and flew directly at you. 

Your breath caught in your throat, anxiety clawing at your chest, when you felt the wrap of tiny limbs around your knees, knocking them together.

“Baby, what are you…? Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Honey, let go!” A woman launched herself from the front door.

You looked down to find a child, no older than three, with bright red hair and a toothy grin etched upon freckled features. You smiled back, tears welling in your eyes, and patted her little head. “Hi, sweetie,” you chuckled. 

“I’m so sorry. We just learned what hugging is,” the little girl’s mother reached for her pudgy little hand to pry her off of your legs.

“Oh no, she’s okay,” you let out a wet laugh. 

“Thank you,” the woman huffed. “Can I help you with something?” 

You waved her away. “Oh no, my um… my friend used to live here, before the Earthquake. I came to check in on the place. We um… we used to play hopscotch just like this.” You fumbled for a reason to be stood there, in this stranger’s driveway. 

“Oh, I see,” the woman’s face fell in understanding. “Would you like to come in? I might have lemonade.” 

“That’s alright,” you smiled at the girl in her arms. “Your little one gave me just what I needed. Thank you. Have a nice day.” 

“Bye-bye!” The girl waved before hiding, shy, in her mother’s hair. 

“Bye.” Emotion swelled with a lump in your throat, but you turned to find that wash of relief in your partner, who stood, leaning over the hood of his car, knowing smile stretched across handsome features.

He waved at the mother and daughter behind you and waited until you were safely inside before getting back in himself. A large hand came to squeeze at your knee, two others squeezed your shoulders from the backseat. 

“That baby was pretty cute,” Steve mumbled from his seat, shifting his car into gear to start rolling again.

“Yeah,” you smiled, letting the groans of your best friends fade into the background as you watched the colors of your childhood roll on by.

---

[[A/N: And here we come to the End. I'm a bit emotional here, and would like to, if I may, wax a bit about how much this story means to me.

I haven't written a story this long (haven't finished a story like this) since November of 2019. Like most of us, 2020 took a toll on my mental health, my physical health, my self-esteem, my confidence as a writer, and I think this year, with your help, I'm slowly gaining that confidence back. This story really proved to me that if I put myself into it, my values, my fears, if I truly tie myself to a piece of work, I can do it again.

Wildfire will always be my baby, my favorite, the reader and Harrington and Vickie and all of them mean so much to me, much more than even I know, I'm sure. And I really want to thank all of you for sticking along for the ride with me. I'll never be able to express just how much your words of encouragement have meant. So thank you, so so much, for reading xo]]

[i-will-not-be-caged]

Free Books!

It's Stuff Your Kindle Day(s), so a bunch of romance authors have stuff for freeeee today. I've read some of what's being offered, so I figured I'd give you a list of recs. And I'm even gonna put it below a cut to save your dash

The Endgame by Riley Hart When an out-and-proud Senator from California sets his sights on a beautiful man in a bar, he has no idea he's a closeted professional football player from Atlanta. Between texts, phone calls and secret meetups, the two men fall in love. The odds are stacked against them, but this is a game both men plan to win. Keywords: sports romance

My thoughts: this is one of my absolute all time faves. Seriously, I've read it so many times now. I don't even really know why, there's just something about it

Lost Touch (Mismatched Mates) by Eliot Grayson After a year of imprisonment and experimentation, Ash is finally free—but not unscathed. Amnesiac and unable to feel pleasure or pain, he’s at the mercy of his rescuer: an alpha werewolf who promises he’ll protect Ash no matter what. But if Drew can’t control himself, Ash could suffer a worse fate than the one he escaped… Keywords: M/M, alpha werewolf, knotting, no mpreg

My thoughts: I don't remember a ton about this series, much less this particular book, but that's par for the course for me. I liked it enough to read the whole series, so take that for what it's worth.

Egotistical Puckboys by Eden Finley and Saxon James Ezra and Anton are doing it "for the team" in this rivals to lovers hockey romance. With a price as cheap as our guys, see where it all starts for the PR nightmares of the NHL. Keywords: Hockey Romance, Enemies-to-Lovers, Teammates

My thoughts: if you read hockey romance, you've probably heard of this author duo. Their stuff is always fun and funny, and definitely not the most inaccurate hockey books I've read.

Devil's Dance (Rebel Kings MC, #1) by Garrett Leigh Opposites attract. The outlaw biker and the accountant. Straightlaced vs straight to hell. Strap in for this bestselling angsty MMM romance. Keywords: Biker romance, MC romance, poly romance, MMM romance, MM romance

My thoughts: I'm not often in the mood for angst, but when I am, Leigh is my go-to. While labeled MMM, most of the full triad relationship is actually in the second book, so it might be helpful to know that going in.

Pick Me (Sunday Brothers) by May Archer A laugh-out-loud rom com about a lumberjack-loving, cow-phobic human ray of sunshine who moves to small-town Vermont for a temporary gig at an apple orchard… only to find himself falling for the quirky town and a certain gorgeous, grumpy man who’s got “permanent” written all over him. Keywords: mm romance, small town romance, grumpy/sunshine, age gap

My thoughts: if you like small town shenanigans with quirky supporting characters, May Archer's Sunday Brothers series is for you. Think Stars Hollow, but gayer

Right As Raine (Aster Valley) by Lucy Lennox As the first openly gay professional football player, I can’t afford to make any mistakes, on or off the field. And the absolute biggest mistake I could make right now would be to fall for Mikey Vining, my best friend, employee and, more importantly, Coach’s baby boy. I might fantasize about Mikey at night-—every night—but actually touching him would be a serious personal foul. Keywords: mm romance, football, forbidden romance, sports romance

My thoughts: another one where I don't remember a ton of details, but I've never regretted picking up a Lucy Lennox book

The Necromancer's Light by Tavia Lark Lonely, touch-starved necromancer Shae will die without human touch. His new paladin bodyguard didn't know cuddling would be part of the job. MM High Fantasy Romance. Keywords: m/m, gay romance, hurt/comfort, huddling for warmth, grumpy/sunshine

My thoughts: I'm obnoxiously picky about gay fantasy and Tavia Lark's stuff scratches the right itch. I didn't like this series as much as her Perilous Courts series, but it was still good.

Natural Twenty (Roll for Love Book One) by Charlie Novak A gruff florist falls for an anxious bookseller with a broken heart in this low-angst contemporary MM romance featuring Dungeons & Dragons, secret flower language bouquets, steamy dreams and sofa smut, and melt in your mouth sweetness. Keywords: Contemporary M/M romance with a low-angst HEA, spice and sweetness.

My thoughts: Novak does low-angst SO WELL. This whole series is just a warm hug.

Shades Of Lust (The Carnal Tower Book One) by E.M. Lindsey Stone is well aware he can’t mix business and pleasure, but when August comes to him with a proposal for a trade—seven paintings for seven nights with Lust—he can’t say no. Not when it means he’ll be able to have August exactly the way he wants him. Stone has every plan to strip August down to his very soul, but the longer the week goes on, the more Stone comes to realize that August might very well be his undoing. Keywords: Virgin Hero, Disabled Character, Bisexual Awakening, Mental Health Rep, M/M

My thoughts: not my favorite series of Lindsey's, but their disability rep is always on point and the writing is top notch

And here's the ones I'm downloading, all because I've enjoyed other stuff from the authors:

Favor (Forever Family Trilogy Book 1) by Kiki Clark Jeremy knows better than to fall for the hot guy doing renovations on his house--especially since that guy's his brother's best friend. And most likely straight. Except... why is the smokeshow of a contractor smiling at him like that? Keywords: m/m, bisexual romance, brother's best friend, blue collar character

Lacuna by N.R. Walker Lacuna is a 92,000-word MM love story of swords and sorcery, action and adventure, and fated romance. Two kings in a game of chess they were never supposed to win. Keywords: Fantasy, gay romance, fated lovers, swords and alchemy

Between the Pipes (Watkins Glen Gladiators #1) by V.L. Locey Between the Pipes is a low angst, age gap gay hockey romance that features an outgoing young goalie, a cautious older race car driver, two families who are not above meddling just a bit to see their loved ones happy, lots of on-ice and high-speed action, and a straightaway sprint to a happy-ever-after. Keywords: Hockey romance, age gap, low angst, family, M/M

Go forth and read!

[violettesiren]

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but poison ivy along its shoulders, hunched into fields, once stripped, clear back when the Black Angus herd intervened; sold off to cover a single semester of college tuition, their rasps of papillate tongues became meat, sliced in rasping bawls, no longer licking

all those leaves of three, let them be in the lane, witness the itch, down deep green the gloss of encroachment on hallowed ground in fricatives vining, chafing up every tree, every gasping gap of old fenceline, edging the lane to a climax, choking

the blackberry canes that used to be in the lane, where we lapped all the summers’ juices, lavished for us to grow and sing, young glistening things facing the fall and cull, another year older, we’d run that quarter mile stretch to catch the school bus, slick

potholes to dodge in the lane, the grey mist before day, while the cows would wake and aggregate, round flanks and eyes shining, dark as blackberries, to curtail the poison ivy, close-cropped; later, quietly ruminate the cud— so tender the release

Blackberry Hush in Memory Lane by Jennifer Fair Stewart

[hannahfrankmusic-lyrics]

Hell is Failing Me

Looked at my watch it was 6:06

Looked up from my shovel digging that ditch

I looked at the moon and saw a witch

Sweat on my back was starting to itch

I’m a grave digger working all night

burying my fear and my fright

I have no lantern I have no light

I work in the pitch black night

Oh hell, hell is failing me

Got to dance with the devil and the deep blue sea

but even though I sold my sold

the Devil says I still owe him gold

Oh hell, hell is failing me

I’m a saint on the mountain top

Reading the scriptures that I bought

The grapes on the vine are starting to rot

and I’m smoking the leaves like pot

I picked up a shovel and started to dig

Put on a skirt and a black wig

slaughtered a cow a horse and a pig

when you’re going to hell, you got to go big

I robbed from the bank I stole from the store

I stuffed my face until I couldn’t any more

but now it seems I reap what I sow

chaos is here delivered in a bow

Oh hell, hell is failing me

Got to dance with the devil and the deep blue sea

but even though I sold my soul

the Devil says I still owe him gold

Oh hell, hell is failing me

[thechasefiles]

Cow-itch vines growing on empty lots have been creating major headaches for some schools across the island and President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell wants landowners to have the offending lots cleared and maintained. He has complained that cow-itch is becoming a “nuisance” as several schools have been affected already for this school term. One teacher who had a serious allergic reaction, was ordered by her doctor not to return to the school to which she was assigned. Lovell charged that some of the offensive lands may even be owned by the State. “This is a serious matter. The Barbados Union of Teachers is imploring, begging, beseeching, whatever word you want to use, landowners who have lands adjacent to schools that are harbouring cow-itch to clear the lands. This is becoming a nuisance and several schools have been affected. This term alone, Daryl Jordan Secondary, Grantley Adams Secondary, Gordon Greenidge Primary have been affected. “Now I am getting complaints from Mount Tabor Primary, I am getting complaints from Blackman and Gollop Primary, from Thelma Berry Nursery, and this is just to name a few,” Lovell said. He said that the Ministry of Education has been working to address the vexing issue, but admitted that they could only do “so much”. When contacted, Minister of Environment and National Beautification, Adrian Forde, told Barbados TODAY he would be contacting the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Wellness to investigate the environmental concern being reported by the BUT. “I would talk to the Minister of Education and find out what the concerns are. I know the Environmental Health offices under the Ministry of Health can also activate certain legislation under the Health Services Regulations as it relates to properties. So it would be a collective effort,” Forde said. Meanwhile, Lovell said the union believes that landowners have a social responsibility to ensure that their lands do not pose any threat to persons in surrounding areas. The president said this is why the BUT is encouraging landowners who know that their properties are overgrown with bush, to clear the lots. Source: BARBADOS Today https://www.instagram.com/p/CowqiAFuSTXEeutj_UJoK27fsZ6A95uhvXSnoE0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[life-around-me-yura15cbx]

Campsis × tagliabuana (Madame Galen) is a mid-19th-century hybrid between Campsis radicans (American trumpet vine) and Campsis grandiflora (Chinese trumpet vine). It produces trumpet-shaped, orange to red flowers up to 3 in (8 cm) long that appear in loose clusters of 6 to 12. It is a woody, clinging, perennial vine that attaches itself to structures and climbs vigorously with aerial roots like those of ivy.

The Latin specific epithet tagliabuana commemorates the 19th-century Italian nurserymen, Alberto Linneo and Carlo Ausonio Tagliabue.

Campsis radicans, the trumpet vine, yellow trumpet vine, or trumpet creeper (also known in North America as cow itch vine[4] or hummingbird vine), is a species of flowering plant in the family Bignoniaceae, native to the eastern United States, and naturalized elsewhere. Campsis grandiflora, Ка́мпсис крупноцветко́вый, commonly known as the Chinese trumpet vine, is a fast-growing, deciduous creeper with large, orange, trumpet-shaped flowers in summer. It can grow to a height of 10 meters. A native of East Asia, it is less hardy than its relative Campsis radicans.

99 Remuera Road, Remuera, Auckland 1050

4QGJ+MMV Auckland

-36.8732610, 174.7816860

[rabbitcruiser]

Contrasts

What do you think about my pic?

[that-crazy-scorpio-man]

[faguscarolinensis]

Campsis radicans / Trumpet Vine at the Juniper Level Botanical Gardens in Raleigh, NC

[thebotanicalarcade]

n7_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: The language of flowers Boston :De Vries, Ibarra,1865. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/58374487

[mydisasteracademia]

Random LOV Headcanons

• Repeating something from my book “Did My Time”, due to the damage to Dabi’s body, he needs to use eyedrops multiple times a day. The amount depends on whether or not he uses his Quirk a lot; if he uses it more, he’ll need to practically drown his eyes with special medicated eyedrops to help with the dry-eye.

Adding onto this, due to his body’s natural affinity for the cold, he prefers cold things more than hot, because he has a worse reaction to hot/spicy things compared to other people (just like his mother). Yes, this means I HC him to absolutely never get brain freeze. The others are always jealous of him whenever he chugs a Slurpee in one go.

His burnt, scarred skin is extremely sensitive, especially to scents and scented lotions. He’s found that ointment works to keep things moist, but that also means he needs to be constantly re-applying it every time it dries, given that his Quirk is constantly drying out his skin to the point of damage. Every time his staples tug, even a little, it’s really painful and he’s prone to bleeding.

He does have a bit of a protective instinct, but only over those he deems weaker than him (and let’s be honest, he already has a lot of trouble with his own self-image, so that list might be shorter than you’d think). Definitely has an ‘irritated older sibling to hyperactive younger sibling’ relationship with Toga once they start to get closer. Gets unnecessarily competitive with others he considers stronger than himself, even if he himself doesn’t immediately realize what he’s doing.

Due to his Quirk being dangerous to himself, he can smell off, and he gets very touchy about it. Having grown up in a wealthy family, he can get very insecure at his bedraggled appearance and smell. He literally smells like burnt flesh all the time, and it lingers on his own body and his clothing. Due to this, he always hits up a laundromat to wash his clothes a few times a week, using money he’s picked off of wealthier victims of his. Really lays on the cologne to mask his natural corpse smell (and usually ends up smelling like pine trees, smoke, and something vaguely rotting).

Dabi is incredibly touch-starved, given that most people look at him and recoil in horror. He’s more like a cat, though. If you give him too much attention, he gets annoyed, but if he happens to rest his arm on your head or shoulder, that’s his way of subtly asking for positive attention. Depending on who’s doing it, he won’t immediately shove someone away if they decide to hug him. He’s a bit iffy with touch, and the fear of accidentally hurting someone he’s close to with his own Quirk messes with his head a lot. He can be a bit of an attention whore, given his fucked-up childhood, and when he gets praise it can put him in a good mood for a while. He really internalizes negative attention and can brood about not being good enough for a long time though. Won’t admit it, but he lives for headpats. Please give him headpats. He deserves headpats. Just watch out for the hair dye.

• Shigaraki’s Quirk does affect his body, though not by quickly decaying him like he does other things. Instead it’s more of a ‘slow-burn’ decay, and his constant itching is one side-effect of that. Since his body is constantly breaking down (his scratching gets rid of a lot of dead skin on the surface), his skin is incredibly sensitive and he can’t use most face/skin products because it damages him even more and he reacts horribly to it. So far he hasn’t found a brand that can help with his marred skin. Adding to this, he can’t stand spicy foods because it aggravates his decaying body.

Since his body is in a constant state of death and dying, this means he can smell off on even good days. It could be described as musty or ‘stale’, and since he’s extremely sensitive to scents and lotions/creams, he can’t exactly just use any old cologne to mask it.

Sometimes his throat gets super dry and he chokes on debris from his own mouth and throat. He needs to constantly hydrate to keep things from getting a bit too dusty. This means he prefers wet/moist foods over dry, and if he eats anything dry he’ll have a drink to go with it. At Kurogiri’s insistence, he always has a few bottles of water in his room at a time so he doesn’t have to get up in the night to go to a working sink for a drink.

This boy is so touch-starved. Whenever someone of the League hugs him, he acts huffy about it, but he doesn’t shove them off (unless it’s Dabi giving him a noogie, then he threatens death, much to the taller one’s amusement). He secretly craves touching other people. He’s terrified of accidentally dusting someone he cares about again (his family’s deaths haunt his dreams more nights than not), but if someone hugs him he just kind of melts into it. Someone please hug this boy. He needs headpats and positive reinforcement.

• Spinner absolutely loves sunning himself on rocks during summer. Whenever the weather is hot and it’s sunny, if he has a day off you’ll find him chilling outside on a rock just soaking up the sun.

Adding onto this, he really loves humid, hot weather. While the rest of the League (especially Dabi) is suffering, he’s just vibing with the weather.

And he sheds. Usually a few times a year, but it’s not uncommon to see large swaths of translucent white patches left behind. This can annoy the League, but to his credit, Spinner tries to keep it on the down-low. More than once he’s tried inconspicuously rubbing his arm or cheek against Shigaraki to try and help get the dead skin off. (He gets really irritated, but it helps with the itching a bit, so he doesn’t really complain unless he’s trying to concentrate on something.)

• Compress will casually swipe up random items that the League leaves around and later might give them back depending on what it is. The other members can get varying levels of annoyed at this, but they don’t get too beat up about it considering Compress’s Quirk and personality. (This is how Toga lost her favorite lip gloss. She didn’t stop pouting for a week until Twice bought her another one.)

When he gets anxious or bored, he often resorts to simple hand tricks to keep himself entertained: fiddling around with his marbles, practicing simple card tricks, or practicing magic.

• Toga loves horror. Almost any horror. Especially guro. During movie nights with the League, as long as the movie has some form of mutilation and/or blood, she’s giving it her full attention. Adding to this, she really loves anything written by Junji Ito and has read Tomie about twenty times. Despite this, she has a soft spot for cutesy things and her aesthetic is Gurokawa. She definitely has a Gloomy Bear plush or two.

She definitely has a fondness for beauty products, given that she’s still just a normal girl despite her Quirk. This fact can make her really insecure, and she’s prone to depressive episodes just like anyone else in the League where she does herself up real pretty just to try and feel more ‘in tune’ with her femininity and less like the monster her parents saw her as. Magne helped with this a lot in the past, but now that she’s gone she relies more on the others to help cheer her up.

She is not above forcing the other League members into spa days. Shigaraki is the only one who doesn’t have to get a facial, though she does insist on painting his nails and doing his hair.

• Kurogiri’s mist/fog can get blown away quicker than he can create more, but only by a very strong wind. It’s hilarious. Shigaraki can’t stop teasing him for it.

Is not above using his Quirk to forcefully separate two squabbling parties, especially in the bar hideout.

When he’s bored, he does bar tricks, much to Toga’s delight.

Since quite a few League members are under drinking age, he always makes sure to have sparkling cider on hand.

He carries snacks and a first-aid kit every time the League goes out on a mission -- especially when it’s Shigaraki heading out. He really does care for the man and will be the first to hand him ointment whenever his skin gets really crumbly or damaged.

Has come to reluctantly see the League as people he worries for. That’s the closest to “hm yes these are my children now I must protect” that you’ll get.

He misses Magne for how sensible she could be. He appreciates Compress’s overall chill vibe and his being the voice of reason among their little group of mass murderers.

• Kurogiri and Magne were the League’s parental figures. You can’t fight me on this. (Kurogiri reluctantly, Magne enthusiastically.) Compress was more like the outgoing uncle that has a sense of humor nobody can really understand at first and was definitely a theater major in college.

• Shigaraki and Dabi love chicken nuggets. Every time someone brings home fast food, you can bet your ass they’ll have ordered like a fifty-piece chicken nugget meal from wherever sells that. Constantly have to deal with each other trying to swipe the other’s nuggets when they finish their own.

• Twice loves Vine compilations and can recite a worrying number of them from memory. He gets a kick out of the “A Bagel, Two Bagels” one for how much he relates to it.

• Before she died, Magne loved when Toga begged her to help her with makeup. It helped with her dysphoria when Toga would doll her up.

She loved window-shopping and imagining herself wearing some of the stylish clothes in shop windows.

Despite her cruel persona towards her enemies, Magne had a soft spot for elegant-cute things, kinda like Toga but a little less bloody.

• Muscular always challenges the other League members to arm-wrestling when he’s around. He always wins. The others have learnt not to accept his challenges, lest they want bruises/sprains.

• Mustard is very childish in his tastes. He loves chicken nuggets and mac n’ cheese. Provokes people by pulling his lower eyelid down and sticking his tongue at them. I can definitely imagine him muttering “Eat my shorts” or “Don’t have a cow, man” whenever another member is angry about something.

• In this household we pretend that Moonfish does not exist.

• If the League had Switches, you bet your ass they play Animal Crossing on them.

Toga would go for a ‘Aika Village’ aesthetic, all gloomy and creepy but with an undeniably cute element to it. Definitely wears pastels and gothic-themed clothing.

Shigaraki models his after his favorite RPG and hunts down NPCs that fit the personalities of the various characters. His favorite characters tend to be dogs. Will not hesitate to kick out any animal who fails his ‘vibe check’. Surprisingly, this game can calm him down almost as well as an RPG. Joycon drift is the bane of his existence.

Compress uses only the most glamorous, expensive items on his island. Outright refuses to use dirt paths. Uses only Snooty villagers.

Dabi wants his island to look the best and is uncharacteristically stern about how his island looks. Everything is very neat and streamlined (and he has an outdoor gym near his player’s home). Will physically fight anyone who tries to ruin it by littering or messing around on it. He has a rivalry with Compress about whose island looks the best.

Spinner doesn’t really care about how his island looks. He just wants to max out his encyclopedias. Shigaraki once caught him up at 3 AM because he was trying to catch a spider crab.

Kurogiri doesn’t play it that often, so his island is fairly undeveloped. Doesn’t really care about it, considering his responsibilities to the League overpower a video game.

Muscular doesn’t care about it at all and doesn’t play.

Mustard made his island look like something out of Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley; a town area, a forest, and even a beach.

[mnemememory]

better to scream

yasha is too tired for this shit. 

critical role pacific rim fusion au (part 1 of 2)

.

Over the years, Yasha has heard of ghost drifting.

Of course she has. In this profession, rumours are almost always more reliable than whatever new strange thing the scientists have cooked up to try. With such experimental technology, it was a safe bet to trust the instincts of those who had gone before rather than simply hoping for the best.

Beau complains about it all the time. How she always has Jester’s voice in her head telling her about her latest prank, or how cute Fjord looks. Fjord always rolls his eyes. Jester just laughs because “of course I have their voices in my head, where else would I keep them?”

When Molly dies, there is nothing but silence.

.

The man is a stranger.

It’s fitting, almost. Yasha tells herself that she wasn’t expecting anything different when she walked off that helicopter, but she’s always been a bad liar. It’s probably for the best. She doesn’t know if a familiar face would have broken her or not.

“Good evening,” the man says with a placid smile. He is taller than her, which is unusual enough to warrant attention, with pastel pink hair and cow-soft eyes. “My name is Caduceus Clay. My sister is the one in charge of fixing Necrotic Shroud.”

Yasha clenches her jaw and says nothing.

Caduceus Clay doesn’t seem too put off by her standoffish presence. He simply gives her another vacant look and gestures her towards the door.

It’s raining. Yasha walks over wet asphalt, boots heavy in the puddles. It hadn’t been so obvious from above, but from ground level everything has a distinctly rough edge to it. Yasha may not have been here for the first building blocks, but the whole building complex had been new and in good condition upon her abrupt departure. A lot appears to have happened in two years.

They wait a good ten minutes for the elevator which never comes, so Caduceus Clay ushers her towards the fire escape just a few feet down the hall. Their footsteps echo in the hollow metal chamber, the light casting a sepia tone over the surroundings. Caduceus Clay’s skin is painted in orange heughs, his eyes gleaming yellow.

Yasha looks away.

They eventually make it down to the correct level – number seven, Yasha notices with detachment – and step out of the stiflingly warm confines of the staircase to something far colder – and familiar. Yasha feels an unpleasant chill run across her skin as she walks out into the hanger room. There are ghosts here, in Yasha’s head, but they’re not the right ones.

“This way,” Caduceus Clay says. Yasha doesn’t move.

The first time she ever came to the Shutterdome, the sky was bleached white-blue and the ocean sparkled green. Molly was next to her, talking. He was always talking. Yasha followed him through the throngs of people who were gathering around the stairwell. They were all looking up at the overhanging railing with clear expectation.

“This place is amazing,” Molly said.

Yasha shrugged. It was certainly big.

“There are so many people here,” he said. “This is so much bigger than the circus. There are – what, a thousand people? Two thousand? I can’t imagine what it would be like to perform for so many people.”

That cracked a smile across Yasha’s face. “You weren’t a performer,” she said.

Molly’s grin was sly as he flared out his uniform-noncompliant multi-coloured cloak. A few people dodged out of the way of the flowing fabric.

“They don’t know that.”

“Miss Yasha?” Caduceus Clay says. He patiently waits for Yasha to blink her way out of the memory before urging her to the side so as to not disrupt the trickling flow of traffic.

A thousand people? Two thousand?

Try twenty.

Yasha eyes the skeleton staff with no little wariness. They all look a shade short of exhausted, with hair pulled up and bruises around their eyes. As she watches, one of the engineers stumbles off to the side and collapses against the wall, the palms of his hands pressed tight to his temples. Another engineer breaks off to check on him, but quickly gets back to work when he waves her off.

Caduceus Clay follows her eyes. “We’re a bit short-staffed at the moment,” he says easily. “But Clarabelle’s people are good people. They’ll get things up and running in time.”

“Clarabelle,” Yasha says. “Your sister.”

“I’ll introduce you two later,” Caduceus Clay says. “She probably won’t thank us for interrupting. I’ll show you where you can put your things and then we can get something to eat.”

Yasha gives the hanger one last casual glance before turning around and looking at what she’s been avoiding ever since she entered.

Necrotic Shroud is a tomb of a thing, black and grey and matte. It towers above the other Jaegers lined up. Yasha’s eyes run over the armour plating, the deceptively delicate lines of its hydraulic musculature, the thickened gauntlets. Her lady is in mourning; the paint no longer bares Molly’s distinctive paintwork. He would sit on Necrotic Shroud’s shoulders for hours at a time and drive the engineers to tears with the paint fumes.

Seeing her like this, naked, is a punch to the gut.

“Hey, beautiful,” she whispers. Her voice manages to come out steady, which is a pleasant surprise. Everything else about Yasha is shaking.

“She’s the last Mark II in existence,” Caduceus Clay says. “She’s one of a kind.”

Yasha thinks of Molly’s paintings, the way feathers and vines flowed their way messily along Necrotic Shroud’s ribcage and spiralled out from the shoulders. She always was, she wants to say, but she’s so tired.

“Who else is here?”

Even with the Jaegers filling up the open space, there’s something hollow about the Shatterdome. Maybe it’s because this place was built for so many more. Yasha can see empty bays that have been repurposed into scrapheaps, where busy engineers scavenged and discarded pieces.

Caduceus starts walking. After a few seconds of hesitation, Yasha decides to follow him.

“Here, we have Converging Fury,” he says, waving to the Jaeger set up in the bay next to Necrotic Shroud. It is compactly built – a Mark IV, if Yasha can read the specs right – with a massive metal staff with a circular knob at one end secured alongside it.  The sleekness of the design makes Yasha absurdly uncomfortable – compared to Necrotic Shroud, the plating looks flimsy and useless, sacrificing armour for manoeuvrability.

How many hits will this take before crumbling? Yasha wonders. It’s a design strategy, she knows, and yet. And yet.

“She’s piloted by Keg and Nila, who should be around here somewhere,” Caduceus Clay says. “Well, Nila should be here somewhere. Keg is very good at showing up in unexpected places.”

Yasha nods.

“They’re from around Shadycreek Run way,” he says. “Northeast of Zadash. Twelve drops, twelve kills. Nine of those were solo. They’re a good team.”

“Sounds like it,” Yasha says.

Caduceus Clay moves on.

“This is Dragon Slayer,” he says, gesturing to a frankly haphazard Jaeger. Half of its torso is covered in uniform black scaled armour, while the rest of a patchwork of whatever had been made available at the time. Yasha can see the corpses of at least three Jaeger’s that she’s served with stitched into its skeleton, and her stomach squirms uncomfortably.

Caduceus Clay glances at her, reading the hesitation in her body.

“We had to get creative when things started to get decommissioned,” he says. “Some of these are spare parts, but some were ripped wholesale off whatever we could save. Well” – here, he ducks his head – “I say we. My sister is the engineer in the family. I’m just an administrator.”

Some administrator, Yasha thinks, eyeing the whipcord muscles underneath his skinny frame.

“In any case, this beautiful creature is piloted by Twiggy and Calianna. They were originally stationed out by Nicodranis, but they moved basically anywhere they were needed. Towards the end, that was basically everywhere. Now they’re here.”

Yasha can read between the lines. They’re needed here, because this is it. We’re being shut down. It’s now or never.

“And here, we have –”

“YASHA!’

Yasha braces herself just in time. She stills rocks a little on her feet as Jester’s body rams into hers, arms flung around Yasha’s torso.

“Jester,” Yasha says, looking down at the smaller woman with a smile. She still looks so young.

“Yasha! I can’t believe you’re back – I mean, I absolutely can believe it, but also I didn’t think you were going to come? It’s been a very long two years. Caleb didn’t think you were going to come, but I told him that you would.”

“It is very nice to see you, Jester,” Yasha says, giving her an awkward squeeze. Jester just beams harder, snuggling into Yasha’s soaked hoodie.

“You’re back.”

It almost hurts worse than seeing Necrotic Shroud, the way Beau’s voice comes out so flat. Yasha stiffens before she means to, head jerking up and heart in her throat.

She looks the same. Well, the same, but more tired. Thinner. The softness has been filed away. Beau’s cheekbones stand out like knives across her face, hair pulled up in an exhausted mess. She’s half-in and half-out of her black under-armour, the shirt peeled back and tied around her waist. Yasha’s eyes linger a touch too long on her bare arms, the dusty contours of her muscles.

“Beau,” Yasha says, cautious.

“About time,” Beau says, and walks away.

.

Yasha can’t sleep.

That in itself isn’t unusual. Yasha has never been very good at beating off the darkness of the night, now more so than ever. The spacious quarters are a painful reminder of just how cramped it would have been with another person present. Yasha’s eyes keep lingering on the bare walls, on the empty bedside table, on the unmade upper bunk.

It’s cruel to put her here. It isn’t the same room as the one she had previously shared with Molly, but it’s close enough to itch.

The third time that Yasha looks over to see that barely ten minutes has passed, she gives up. Rolling out of bed, she shoves her bare feet into her sneakers and pulls on a sweatshirt over her leggings. Phone stuffed into her bra, she slips out of the room and into the silent hallway.

There aren’t many people in this area of the Shatterdome. Caduceus Clay had been kind enough to complete the tour by informing her of their greatly reduced numbers, and – consequently – the gradual spread of living space. Yasha’s area is running on rechargeable batteries. They aren’t connected to the main power grid anymore.

Her breath mists in front of her as she moves deeper downwards. If she closes her eyes, she could trace out her path by route. Forward, left, forward, forward –

The kitchens open up in front of her. At this time of night – well, morning – there aren’t many people around, save for those unlucky enough to have been rostered on for preparing breakfast. There’s a pot of something foul-looking but decent-smelling bubbling away on the stove, but Yasha bypasses it completely for the refrigerator.

As she inches the door open, one of the people cooking turns to glare at her. “Excuse me,” she says, hands planted firmly on his hips. “I’m afraid that you can’t –”

“It’s okay, Adeline,” a familiar voice says. “She’s with me.”

Adelina falters. “Mister Fjord –”

Fjord steps out of the shadows like the creepy overdramatic bastard that he is. Yasha glares at him and then goes back to rummaging around the refrigerator for anything unopened. Fjord can explain, if he wants to stand up for her. Yasha is too tired to deal with anyone today.

Adelina eventually leaves to go and check on something on the other side of the kitchen, though she doesn’t look especially happy about it. Fjord sidles over to where Yasha has gathered some cheese and a few leftover eggs. She’s already mixing them together when he comes to sit next to her.

“Long time no see,” he says.

Yasha ignores him.

“Mind if I had a taste of that when you’re done?” he says. “I was feeling a little bit peckish myself, which is why I came down here.”

“This feels like an ambush,” Yasha says, looking around for a microwave. Fjord handily points it out to her.

“Not an ambush,” Fjord says. “I don’t like eating in the cafeteria either. Getting it straight from here is – safer.”

Yasha grimaces, stabbing at the buttons with more force than it probably warranted.

“How was the Wall?”

“Cold,” Yasha says. “And wet.”

“So no different from here, then.”

“It was a little different,” Yasha says, and then hesitates. “How have things been here?”

“Cold,” Fjord says with a smile. “And wet.”

“Fjord.”

“It varies from day to do,” he says with a shrug. “We’re all working to get things done. Did you see the massive clock in the hanger? They’re counting down the days between each attack.”

“Fourteen,” Yasha says.

“Our brainiacs in the science department don’t think it’ll be much longer,” Fjord says. “Have you met them? Caleb and Nott.”

“Nott?”

“Don’t ask, she doesn’t like talking about it,” Fjord says. “But yes, that’s her name.”

The microwave beeps. Yasha opens it up to look inside, and then scrambles the goopy mixture up with her fork and puts it in for another forty seconds.

“How much longer, then?”

“A week,” Fjord says. “If we’re lucky. Three days if we’re not. That’s why everyone’s on high alert at the moment.”

“I noticed.”

Fjord flashes a bright, tired grin her way. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m not sure if I’m back,” Yasha says. “I don’t have anyone to Drift with.”

“There are a lot of good kids training here,” Fjord says. “Not as many as in our classes, but a decent selection. You’ll find someone.”

“I might not,” Yasha says. Three seconds before the timer runs out, Yasha stops the microwave and tests the eggs. She’s managed to overcook them, so they’re a little rubbery, but edible compared to what she’s used to eating these days. “I might not want to.”

Fjord regards her steadily from where he’s sitting at the table. “If you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t be here.”

Yasha shakes her head and deposits the plastic bowl on the table in front of Fjord, offering him her spoon. “This place is dying,” she says. “The Wall won’t work.”

“The Marshall has a plan,” Fjord says. “We need all the Jaegers we can get. That includes Necrotic Shroud. Beau and Jester and I, we can only do so much.”

“And those other pilots,” Yasha says, stealing the fork back and taking a bite.

“They’re good,” Fjord says. “But we haven’t been on a run with any of them. I know you. I trust you.”

Yasha’s fingers clench around the cool metal of the fork. “You shouldn’t.”

Fjord sighs. “Is this about what happened? Because Jester and I –”

“It’s not only about that,” Yasha says. She isn’t hungry anymore. She hands the fork back to Fjord. “Not fully. Molly had to pilot the Shroud for almost an hour before anyone came to help. I was useless.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Fjord says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yasha says. She doesn’t say, but it is, because that would be counterproductive. “It’s going to affect anything I do in the Drift. My new partner might not even be able to connect.”

“Molly –”

“Molly was a blank slate,” Yasha says. “He was silence in the storm. I’m never going to get anything like that ever again.”

Fjord closes his eyes and takes a bite of overcooked eggs. “I can’t imagine it,” he finally says. “If I lost Jester or Beau.”

“That won’t happen,” Yasha says.

“Big words,” Fjord says. “You gonna back those up?”

No. Yes. Maybe. “I guess we’ll see tomorrow, won’t we?”

.

Caduceus Clay says, “I was opposed to reinstating you as a Ranger.”

“That’s fair,” Yasha says. She’s just been given an empty room with no internal heating. The blankets that are folded on the end of the mattress look worn but serviceable.

“I don’t mean to be personal,” Caduceus Clay says. A brief look of discomfort flashes across his serene face, but it’s gone too quickly for Yasha to be sure. “But I advised that you were too unpredictable to be brought back into a combat situation. Considering what happened last time – and how you reacted to it –”

Yasha bares her teeth into a smile. “I understand,” she says. “I wouldn’t have reinstated me either.”

.

“One, four.”

Yasha rolls to her feet and offers her opponent a hand up. She’s sweaty, but not sweaty in the right sort of way – this sweat is from the monotonous repetition of tasks, rather than an actual workout. There’s no challenge to this. Block, deflect, attack.

Yasha can feel her moves going stale with every blow she doesn’t bother to dodge. The flashy man in front of her smacks his staff against the ground in what appears to be an intimidation tactic, but Yasha just gives a small sigh.

“Begin!”

The man moves, and Yasha waits for him. What else can she do? There are only so many matches she can follow through with before things start to get old. When the man reaches the limits of her patience, she puts him on the ground. Rinse, repeat.

On the other side of the room, at the door of the Combat Room, Caduceus Clay stands with a clipboard in hand next to Marshall Shakaste, the Duchess an ever-present distraction at his side. After a few more matches, Yasha can’t hold back her frustration and rounds on them.

“Alright, what is it?” she says.

“What is what?” Shakaste says, but it’s Caduceus that she’s looking at.

“You,” Yasha says. “Every time I beat someone, you have this look” – she tries to imitate it, but probably only ends up looking constipated – “like I’m doing something wrong.”

Caduceus blinks slowly. “Well, you are doing something wrong.”

Yasha’s voice is flat. “Really.”

“You took hits you shouldn’t have,” Caduceus says. “It’s obvious that you could have finished the fight quite a bit more easily than you managed. You’re not taking this seriously. Since my sister was the one who spent most of the past year of her life fixing the machine that you’re going to be piloting, I’d prefer if you didn’t screw that up.”

Yasha bares her teeth. “You think you could do better?”

“Probably,” Caduceus says. “It’s not like you’re trying very hard.”

Shakaste lets out a low chuckle and takes the clipboard away from Caduceus. Yasha obligingly steps back onto the mats and sweeps her staff low and inviting.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to give me a few minutes to warm up,” Caduceus says. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to be fighting today.”

“You’re certainly dressed for it,” Yasha says. Caduceus’ clothing is tastefully green and loose, the shade going well with his hair.

Caduceus just smiles. Yasha is really starting to hate that look on his face.

There are too many people in the Combat Room for Yasha to really feel comfortable. She’s better at fighting behind closed doors, where no one can see how ugly it can get. Jester is in the corner, next to Fjord. Yasha can’t see Beau anywhere, but she’s got to be here somewhere. No matter how much has changed over the past few years, there are few things that Beau likes more than a good fight. And regardless of what Caduceus thinks, Yasha is very good at fighting.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Caduceus says after a few stretches. He’s remarkably bendy for someone who looks like he should snap in half at the first stiff breeze. Yasha tightens her grip on her staff.

“Okay,” she says, and attacks.

.

The first time Yasha crossed staves with Molly, they were already exhausted from playing second fiddle to thirty or so of their classmates.

Yasha was very good at knocking people down. Molly was very good at making a fool out of people. Neither of these things made them very popular.

“I don’t think I’ve sparred with you before,” Molly says.

Yasha shrugs.

“Well, in any case, it’s been a pleasure,” Molly says, giving her a mocking kind of salute. Yasha responds more automatically than she would have liked, but there were certain courtesies beaten into trainees before they were even allowed to set foot into the Combat Room, and respect was one of them.

Molly’s blows come in short, sharp bursts; he’s never where Yasha expects him to be. If they were going for points, he would be the winner, because he was getting more.

From the way they kept on fighting, though, Yasha knew that this wasn’t going to end until one of them was on the ground.

Half an hour later, most of the class had already packed up and were trying to leave. Yasha weathered the blows without faltering. There were going to be bruises all along her arms and across her shins for weeks to come, but she barely felt the pain. Molly was slowing down rather significantly. Whereas his initial attacks had come in rapid succession, he was being more cautious about them now, more incredulous.

“How the hell are you still standing,” he says.

Yasha shrugs, and then sends him sprawling with a single blow to the ribs.

.

Someone told Yasha, once, “You fight angry.”

(A lot of people have told Yasha that).

It’s an easy statement to make. Yasha fights like she’s going to die. Molly laughed at her for it.

Caduceus just waits.

Yasha can’t quite get the timing right. Every time she goes in for a strike, there’s something about Caduceus’ stance that makes her hesitate. She stops an inch from his throat and jumps back, fingers clenching hard around the practice staff.

“I’m not really trained for this sort of thing,” Caduceus says. He hasn’t stopped smiling.

Yasha’s staff dips. “You’re not so bad,” she says. “You just need more practice.”

Caduceus blocks her next strike. There’s an opening, but Yasha doesn’t take it. She backs off and starts circling.

“There’s not much of a chance for that around here,” Caduceus says. He’s not even sweating. Yasha’s drenched, though that could be because of her earlier bouts. It’s a little unnerving facing down someone who doesn’t waste energy on excess movement – Caduceus stands still and waits for her.

Yasha attacks. Caduceus parries but doesn’t go in for a blow to the neck, despite Yasha telegraphing the opening for a good five seconds. She narrows her eyes.

“You’re messing with me,” she decides.

“I told you I’m not very good at this,” Caduceus says. “Now you’re taking me seriously.”

Then he starts fighting back.

.

“You,” Yasha says.

Caduceus is on the ground in front of her, arms spread wide with a contented expression settling over his face. His staff is on the opposite side of the room. Yasha’s ribs ache from laughing so hard.

“Me what?”

“You’re my partner. I won’t Drift with anyone else.”

Reading the smug lines of Caduceus’ mouth, Yasha can already tell he had planned this.

.

The cafeteria food looks as unappetising as ever.

Yasha takes the offered plate automatically and then looks around for a table to sit at. Jester is very obviously bouncing up and down in the far-right corner, waving her arm enthusiastically in the air, but Yasha takes her time before ambling over there.

As per usual, Fjord is settled alongside Jester. Beau is sitting opposite to them, moodily chewing on something that might resemble lettuce if it wasn’t so – stringy. Her expression darkens when she sees Yasha coming towards them, and she hurriedly begins to scarf down what remains of her food. She’s almost made it by the time Yasha reaches them, which is impressive, considering how disgusting it looks.

“Yasha!” Jester says. She ushers Yasha to sit down next to Beau, who pointedly scoots further down the bench. “It is good to see you. Again.”

She won’t stop smiling. Yasha smiles back.

“How have you been?”

“Fine,” Beau snaps, and then goes back to picking at her food.

Fjord clears his throat. “Ignore Miss Grumpy over there. We’ve been doing as well as can be expected, really. We were just transferred out from over Nicodranis with Dragon Slayer. Have you met Twiggy and Calianna yet?”

“Not yet,” Yasha says. She scrapes some mashed potatoes around disinterestedly across her plate. “Are they nice?”

“They’re so cool,” Jester says, waving her fork around in the air. “Twiggy is always giving me her chocolate, which is awesome, and Calianna writes the best poetry –”

Fjord smiles. “I think you’ll like them.”

Yasha pushes her tray away from her. “And the other team?”

Beau bares her teeth in a smile. “Reliable.”

“Ouch,” Yasha says.

“Beau,” Jester says in a tone of profound disappointment. “We talked about this.”

“No, you talked about this,” Beau says, crossing her arms across her chest. She looks tired. They all look tired. “You’ve been gone for a long time, Yasha. We didn’t think you were going to come back.”

“Beau…”

Beau shakes her head and gets to her feet. Yasha tilts her head to one side and considers following her, but a quick glance at Fjord tells her that probably isn’t the best idea. She watches Beau leave through the door towards the hanger bay.

There’s a long, awkward silence.

“Don’t take it personally,” Jester says. Her fork is back alongside her still-untouched plate of food, and she’s twisting her fingers into anxious knots. “She was so sad when you left. She thought you were going to come back – a long time ago. Before this.”

Yasha sighs. “I couldn’t.”

“I know,” Jester nods. “If something happened to Fjord or Beau – I don’t know what I would do. Molly –”

“I don’t think this is the place for that kind of talk,” Fjord says. “We’re very. Out in the open, if you know what I mean.”

Yasha glances up. Caduceus is walking over, gait unhurried, a heaped tray of food in his hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “He’ll know everything soon enough.”

“Soon doesn’t have to be now,” Fjord says firmly.

Yasha shrugs. Caduceus sits in the empty seat next to her, beaming across the table. Jester smiles back with the same kind of open reassurance, though Fjord seems largely immune.

“Heard you’re going to be a Jaeger pilot,” he says.

“That’s the rumour,” Caduceus says, shovelling something that didn’t look especially edible into his mouth. Yasha looks over her plate, and then dumps it onto Caduceus’ tray. He gives her a nod of thanks and keeps eating.

“And how’s your sister taking that?”

“She wouldn’t stop laughing for twenty minutes straight,” Caduceus says. “Says I deserved everything that happens to me.”

“That certainly sounds like Clarabelle,” Fjord says.

Yasha glances between them. “When am I going to meet your sister?”

“You’ll see her eventually,” Caduceus says. “She’s around here somewhere.”

There’s a low buzzing sound. Fjord glances down, and then takes his phone out of his pocket. He reads the message, closes his eyes, and then glares at both Yasha and Caduceus.

“That was Beau,” he says. “Shakaste wants you two in the hanger ten minutes ago for a trial Drift.”

.

Yasha has so many scars from her uniform – there are clamps and drills and hooks that dig into her skin and down to her bone. The biggest scar she has is along her spinal column, where the suit connects directly into her nervous system.

It had required surgery. Molly had been there when she closed her eyes, holding tight onto her hand in a way that was both reassuring and terrifying. Yasha remembers breathing in and out, in and out, and waiting for everything to go dark.

Her skin aches as she puts back on the suit. Her shoulders pinch along the scars, the metal digging into her throat and along her collarbones. Yasha breathes in and out, in and out, and doesn’t jolt when they connect her spine.

Walking into the cockpit of Necrotic Shroud is a nightmare of reality. There are exposed bundles of wiring that have been taped down, cracked glass screens that are just good enough to justify their continued presence. No longer does a sleek, minimalistic aesthetic dominate the area – that has all been thrown out in favour of cheap practicality. Here’s how to save the world, a dollar at a time.

Yasha hooks herself into the harness. The tech’s try to help, but she’s done this hundreds of times before, and she’s done before they can really make much of a difference.

Molly is next to her, grinning.

No.

Caduceus is next to her, looking almost ridiculous in his dive suit. Yasha blinks away the memory of Molly’s sharp grin and tries to smile back.

Shakaste’s voice echoes through the cockpit: “Prepare for neural handshake.”

Yasha’s smile turns bloodless.

“My head isn’t a very nice place to be,” she says. “I’m either very unlucky, or cursed. And I don’t believe in luck.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Caduceus says.

Four.

Yasha closes her eyes. Molly is there, just out of reach.

Three.

“Don’t latch onto anything,” she says. “The Drift is silent.”

Two.

“See you on the other side.”

One.

.

“Hey, sleepy,” Zuala says.

Yasha shakes her head and presses further back into the pillow. It’s still dark out, but she can see the faint light coming in through the window from the streetlamp outside. She’s been meaning to install curtains above it, but it never really seems to come up.

“G’way,” Yasha says, burrowing down.

Zuala laughs. Zuala has the most wonderful laugh in the world.

“Hey, sleepy,” she says. “Get –”

“ – up. Yasha, get up.”

There’s an alarm. Yasha’s eyes snap open and she scrambles around for some kind of purchase. Everything hurts. The buildings around them are in ruins, blown apart to dust and rubble, and a storm is whipping wind and hail and dust around them.

Yasha is on her knees. Zuala is in front of her, and she’s on the ground, and she’s not getting up. Her hands scrabble weakly at Yasha’s. In the distance, as a kind of horrific background noise, a siren wails in futile warning. There’s a monster out there in the mist, somewhere, but Yasha can’t think.

“You need to go,” Zuala says. She’s shaking Yasha frantically. Yasha clambers slowly to her knees and shakes her head like a wounded dog, trying to think. The rain isn’t letting up. “Yasha, get up, you need to –”

“ – go, go, go!” Molly laughs, pushing Yasha forward. “C’mon, wake up, we’ve got a monster to kill!”

Yasha shakes her head and stifles a yawn. Even the minor pain of getting into the dive suit doesn’t wake her up as it usually would. She cracks her neck and gets into the harness, tightening the straps automatically.

“Initiating neural handshake.”

“You ready for this?”

Yasha dredges up a smile from somewhere. “Always.”

Four.

“– wake up – wake up –”

Three.

“ – wrong – Jester and Fjord –”

Two.

“– Lorenzo –”

One.

.

[peachyteabuck]

sacrifice, sacrament

summary: we only know of one duty, and that is to love – albert camus 

touches between tender lovers, unburdened by mortality or a world beyond their own

pairing: hades!valkyrie x persephone!reader

words: 2,514 

trigger warnings: angst with fluffy ending, soft sex, scissoring, tribbing, light d/s dynamics 

notes/other: 2019 goals completed: hades & persephone au. this fic also pushed me past 100,000 words written since I started posting fanfic on this blog!!

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

READ ON AO3 

 Marriages are usually a time for fan fair, feasting, festivities. The uniting of two souls is not something the mortals take lightly, each celebration grander than the last as more and more people are brought together in an eternal union.  

You tried to remember this as you’re passed off to the woman in front of you. The ghost of fried desserts and large plots of meat coat your nostrils, a small reminder of home and the life you so valiantly decided to leave behind. Phantom pains from the screams of joy from little children and your cheeks from smiling too much plant themselves in your muscles and skin, and as you step closer and closer to the altar. When your bare feet meet her shoed ones, you realized how much you truly didn’t know about your new life.

If they did not link their love into the earth, where would it go? You wondered. Would she wear shoes when you consummated the tie as well?

Vows are exchanged as smoothly as a rusted sword enters well-made armor. You choked up quickly, the occasional tear smearing the make-up you had been requested to wear. Right before the “I do”s your almost-betrothed wipes one out of the corner for your eye. She didn’t smile when you look up at her chocolate brown eyes, but she did squeeze your left hand. It was enough. Not much, but enough.

“Baby,” Valkyrie speaks lowly, her lips brushing against the bare skin of your shoulder. “Come back to me.”

You don’t pull away, one arm across your chest to fiddle with your necklace and the other at your side, the soft sheets bunched up in your hand. “I never left you, my love.”

The only witness was the mother, who was a thousand times more excited at the nuptials than her daughter.

Soon after the priest finished the rituals traditional to the wedding of gods he sent the newly-weds away, escorted by a few of the she-wolves that guard the entrance to the Underworld.

Valkyrie’s dressed, ready to start her day of judgement. The black suit is impeccable, fitting her perfectly with the matching matte tie, shirt, and shoes. “Mmm,” she pushes aside the soft, thin fabric of your nightgown to kiss further down your back. “I disagree, my love. What are you thinking about?”

“The day we wed,” you reply honestly. “How terrified I was of the life after I would become yours.”

Valkyrie doesn’t reply, and her touches have stopped. She remembers that day as vividly as you do, despite her contrasting emotions. Where you were terrified to your very core, she felt nothing but disdain. Law had it that she had to be married to someone within the first year of her crowning, and by “luck” your mother had offered you up during the social season that corresponded with the last few months of Valkyrie’s disgruntled search.

“I thought they were vicious beasts,” you mumbled. One of the large creatures sees your twitching fingers, and begrudgingly allowed you to pet their large, fleecy ears.

“Only to those who have not been allowed to enter,” Valkyrie said back with voice flat as a well-made kitchen table and just as smooth. As you enter the bottomless cave, there’s an indescribable darkness that makes your hands tense around your betrothed’s hand. “Are you scared?” She asked, still not looking your way.

“I-I…” You swallowed as something scaly brushed past your bare feet. “Yes.” “Well,” Val grumbles. “Welcome to your new home.”

The woman had intended on ruling the Underworld alone, spending eternity in sweet solitude with her cows and Cerberus. But not even she could defy the law of the gods, despite her stubborn ways.

The once-blank ceiling above the bed is now covered in deep green vines with minds of their own. As you still and tears well up in yours eyes, they reach down to curl around your limbs and wipe at the wet trails on your cheeks. The warmth from their leaves is calming, and you pet at the main stem as a small thank you.

“You know,” you can feel your wife smiling as she talks. “I still find it offensive that they don’t ever do that for me.”

You curl into her, tracing the stitching in the suit. The thick, woolen material scratches at the skin where Val’s pulled your dress has been pulled down. It’s an itch you welcome, rubbing into it while you cuddle into her chest. Valkyrie always runs cold, her olive skin always chilled when you’ve twisted your legs with hers or held her hand or, in the beginning, accidently brushed against her body as you shared Val’s large bed.

The marriage went unconsummated for months…four, to be exact. For the first week you hid in a greenhouse that had been abandoned long ago, tending to the expiring plants. You didn’t allow Val to touch you, you didn’t allow her to see you.

She knew what you felt, exactly what you felt. You were an abused puppy that had been dumped in a card box in the rain after pissing on the carpet. You weren’t mad at Valkyrie, you were petrified of her, of your new life, of your new home.

Somehow, you’re able to unbutton the first few buttons on her shirt and press your hands between her braless breasts. Val looks down at you, glaring at your innocent smile and contented face.

“Your fingers are so hot, love,” she whispers playfully. “Every time you touch me I think you’re going to burn me.”

You turn to face her, slipping more buttons back through their slits. Coyly, you lock eyes as you push off her scratchy jacket. “Is that a bad thing?”

Val smirks, untying the loose night gown you were to let it fall down your bare shoulders. The skin just below your collarbones is peppered with dark purple bruises from your escapades the night before, similar coloring smattered across your chest, inner thighs and waist. She reaches out to touch one, the tough skin of her fingertips touching the sensitive skin there. “Mm,” she hums thoughtfully as you both sit, facing each other topless. “Oh, of course not, wife, I love your calescence” she crawls over you, pushing the rest of your dress off. You get the message quickly, moving to undo her belt and zipper. “Love it when your fire stings me, when I dip my fingers into your heat and I think you’re going to set my arm ablaze. Love it when my lips drag across your skin and it feels like you’re going to incinerate them.”

You whimper as she finally removes the last of her clothing, leaving both of you naked as Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (or, you think that’s how the Christians tell it). Each time your skin meets you think there’s going to be smoke, be marks scorched across both of yours’ bodies; the touch renders you speechless.

The first time Valkyrie lured you out was with a small Highland calf that had been sacrificed but cast aside by the rest of the “better,” more “worthy” gods an account of its missing back left leg. You stepped out of the greenhouse, hands up to your elbows and feet to your calves caked in deep, rich soil.

The small animal immediately limps over to you, happy noises leaving its mouth as you pet its hairy belly.

“What is her name?” You ask, looking to Valkyrie as if you were a child expecting their mother to take away their toy at any second.

“She doesn’t have one,” she said truthfully.

You furrow your brows thoughtfully for a second as you stare at the creature before widening to excitement. “We should call her Ludic!” Val’s brain stops as she watches you play with the three-legged creature. We, she thought. What do you mean “we”?

Nonetheless, after that day, you and Val became closer and closer as the cow grew.

You gasp as Valkyrie kisses down your navel before stopping right before your center. “You evoke such feeling of a fire in the middle of snowstorm, my love,” she tells you, her flattened tongue licking from the bottom of your slit to your sensitive nub. She ignores your high-pitched whines, ignores your begs as she sinks one, two fingers into you. “Make me want to curl beside you and fuck you with fervor.”

You cry as she leaves slow licks around her fingers, which remain annoyingly stagnant inside of you. As you try to fuck yourself down onto them, her unoccupied hand presses into your hips.

“Don’t move, love,” she whispers into your inner thigh. “I’ll take care of you, let me take care of you.”

Your head is flush against the pillow, your wild hair splayed across the black, silken pillows. Val loves seeing you like this, all vulnerable and glowing and desperate for the God of the Underworld to bring her unnamable pleasures. Your mouth hangs open as you gasp at each slight curl of her fingers or press of her tongue. This woman, this deity has you at her very whim. You would walk into the River Styx if she asked you, you’d trust she’d keep you safe as you stepped into the smoking green sludge.

Your orgasm is intense, each muscle contradiction a storm, a thunder cloud wherein each breath makes more electricity spark across your skin. Valkyrie coos as your body convulses violently, her sweet shs and light kisses bringing you down from your sweet high.

Something changed after you had named the cow; Valkyrie had your world turn upside down when she chose you as her wife, and it seems in beautiful revenge she had flipped yours as well. While you still loved to spend times in the greenhouse, you began to invite Val into your room at night when she would ask if you needed anything before bed, if you were comfortable, if you needed water.

She had come to expect that you would shake your head and turn over, but that night you simply pulled back the thick covers as a wordless welcome.

Val walked forward slowly, as not to scare a wild doe in the thick of her forest. “Are…are you sure, love?”

You just nodded, waiting for her to join you before curling yourself into her arms. She seemed tentative, worried any sudden movements would scare you off. You were relaxed though, and after months of sleeping so devastatingly alone, you fell asleep quickly in the arms of the woman you had married.

“Please, more,” you cried when she pulled off you. “Please, my god my king please give me more.”

You can feel Valkyrie’s smile as she kisses at your stained neck. “Of course, my queen. You know I will always grant you whatever you wish.”

In an instant she has your legs spread open with one thrown over her shoulder and the other pressed flat onto the disrupted sheets. With both hands pressed onto your chest, she begins to rock her heat against yours in long, fluid motions.

Soon you’re both throwing your heads back in pleasure as sounds of slick begins echoing in your shared room. You try and touch Val, try and trail you hands up her torso to draw her closer.

“Nuh-uh, my love,” she coos like before. For a moment you don’t understand, don’t understand why she’s stopped touching you until you feel her remove her own hands from your chest. She links your fingers together before pushing yours into each side of the pillow next to your head, the action giving her every type of leverage. All you can do is turn your head and kiss at her wrists, mind blank apart from the pleasure your wife brings you.

“I love you,” is all you can muster. “I love you I love you I love you.”

For a moment, Valkyrie slows as she tries to find the words to reply. Valkyrie, God and King of the Underworld, is not one for off-the-cuff professions of feelings, of intimacy. With you, though, she feels like impulsiveness is always a bad thing. Maybe spontaneity isn’t something to fear, maybe your happiness grounded in playfulness isn’t childless or something to fear.

So, Valkyrie speaks, oh does she speak.

“Gods, I love you more than Icarus loves the sun, I love you more than the mortals love to pray to Zeus, I love you more than you love that stupid cow. I love you more than I love this realm, I love you more than I love black coffee,” her ruts speed up as she professes. “I would lock Apollo up in a world of water if you wanted the sun, I would drink the oceans if you wanted to walk on their floors. There is nothing, oh-­ “Val’s head falls as she nears her own orgasm. “Oh, there’s nothing you don’t deserve, my love, and nothing I wouldn’t do to make you deserve it.”

Any further sounds from either of your mouths are loud gasps and choked cries as you both meet your peak. As Val collapses next to you she slows, wide smile plastered across her face.

Breathless, you’re the first to utter comprehensible words.

“Do you love me that much?” you mutter in the sunlight room. Val turns over and peppers kisses all over your face, making you giggle and try and pushing her away.

As she succeeds, she leaves one final peck over your left eyebrow. “Does that prove it?”

You two continued like that, cuddling in one another’s beds at any time possible. Each time you both became more and more adventurous with the other’s bodies. First it was the meeting of skin – not laying on the other side of the bed as you slept.  Then came the brushing of fingertips, the lips meeting lips, the lips meeting skin, the lips meeting lips again.

You’d had…experiences…from your time on the face of the Earth. Cute little experiences with farm girls in wide fields hidden by tall grass and blossoming crops. They’d never been as awe-inspiring as your times with Valkyrie though, never been as toe-curling or jaw-dropping or leg-kicking as the early morning and late afternoon and mid-night testimonies to each other’s bodies.

There were other professions of passion, though, like when you left Val flowers on her desk or when she unties your dresses at the end of a hard gardening day.

But the love-making always topped all of that, was always the best way for both of you to express your devotion. No matter how frantic or tender, whether your wife is conquering your body or putting it back together. The electricity between you always seemed to be your greatest treasure.

For a moment you faux-consider, hmming and tapping your chin. Val fakes the offensive she takes, gasping and hitting your shoulder.

“Really? Are you going to do that?” she cries.

You shrug. “Yes.”

Val’s eyes narrow. “Yes to hesitating, or yes to the proof.”

Your smile is bright as you speak. “Both.”