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saudadeonly · 4 years

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burn my heart out: rewrite the history pages (Chapter 4)

Read on ao3. Part 8, consisting of 4 chapters.

Death Eater!Sirius Black AU

Lord Voldemort wages war on Hogwarts but he is unaware of the years-worth of battle fought against him.

(or, several instalments following the Battle of Hogwarts with Sirius Black standing on the wrong side)

In which the House of Black tailors the tapestry of fate.

Word count: 6425

___

James’s knees have gone out from under him, the words streaming out of his mouth far, far away from English or any spells known to man; they’re his mother’s prayers, ancient and further away than the possibility of their survival. It’s only thanks to Marlene’s quick swish of her wand that James doesn’t end up on the floor and remains upright, half-standing, half-floating instead, but the book he was holding isn’t afforded the same luxury. It falls to the ground and slams open, revealing familiar handwriting curved over the pages, covered by an ever-moving picture of James, Lily and Harry; James pressing a kiss to Harry’s wild hair, Harry grinning and Lily’s mouth pressed to Harry’s chubby hand, all of them swaddled in thick, winter-coming clothes. Remus used to read pages-long letters in that handwriting; it’s burned to the back of his eyelids and the words the letters used to convey are the first ones he remembers when he wakes up. He doesn’t know how the picture he took got into the hands that loop their letters this way.

“James,” Remus whispers, stepping in close to take on James’s weight. He doesn’t dare look at the book or the picture again. “James,” he repeats, louder this time, as he presses his fingertips to the sweep of James’s ribs, where he was always sensitive, “we have to go, we have to –”

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. He doesn’t know how to help them get out of this one. Lily and Harry were supposed to be safe. He saw them out as far as he could and kept them protected as far as the Invisibility cloak would allow him to. It was his idea to use the passage underneath the Whomping Willow, even if Lily said that they shouldn’t, but there was nowhere else to go. If it was his idea that got them captured – or worse, by now – he will never forgive himself.

“Yeah,” James says anyway, nodding as he rights his glasses on his drained face, “yeah, let’s go.”

They rush out of the Great Hall, the two of them and others Remus cannot, for the life of him, think of right now, and they go down the corridor, through the side door of the Entrance Hall and out into the torch-lit courtyard. There is a shadow that passes behind the colonnade on the side but Remus sees the group of dark-robed figures next and he can’t look away.

Lily struggled. She is still struggling even with a stream of blood from her temple down the side of her face but her efforts are futile against the strength of the woman holding her against her chest. Aubrie Rostami, he remembers with vivid clarity, the young leader of a werewolf pack he talked to on Dumbledore’s orders. A lifetime ago but she told him his, as well as the other side’s, efforts were in vain and he believed her. Now, with Lily’s wand tucked into the belt around her narrow hips, his naivety about her words adds insult to injury.

“You have come to watch,” Voldemort says, a cruel smile playing at his lips. Beside him, Harry is caught in the arms of a masked Death Eater, who doesn’t seem to be struggling with keeping him in place. Harry has his Padfoot plushie hugged to his chest and probably doesn’t sense the danger drawing down over him. “I hoped you might.” He swishes his wand.

It’s too unexpected to counter, too sudden to make a grab for their wands – they all go up in the air, suspended in it but still able to move until Voldemort points his wand at them again and adds, almost lazily, “Immobulus.”

A desperate sound escapes Lily. “James,” she says, an apology, a plea, as Aubrie drags her little ways to the side, toward the tattered part of the group, leaving Greyback the only werewolf not standing with the Death Eaters. “James, I –”

“It’s okay, Lily,” James says, tears in his eyes. “It’s alright, I love you, I love you.”

“Touching,” Voldemort sneers. “Unfortunately, we have other things to do than to listen to you desperate lovebirds.”

“Please,” Lily says, tears running through the dirt streaked across her cheeks, voice strained through the pressure across her neck, “please, not Harry, take me instead, please.”

She must have said it a thousand times over during their walk up to the castle, begged each one of the cold, hidden faces for the life of her son; it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking.

The Death Eaters don’t stir. They all have their masks on, except for Bellatrix who has covered her face with manic delight instead and Narcissa with her bright head bowed at the very back, but Remus doesn’t see the one he’s always looking for. If Sirius, even masked, were among them, Remus would know him by the easy way he moves, the way his spells cut cold and precise to the others’ wicked delight. It is for the better, perhaps, that Sirius is not here; Remus wouldn’t be able to stand knowing that when faced with the choice himself Sirius would easily give Harry’s life away.

Bellatrix is the only one that reacts. “My lord,” she murmurs as she turns to Voldemort with gleaming eyes, “if the Mudblood wishes so –”

“You’re right, Bellatrix,” he says, gaze flicking towards Lily as he runs the tip of his finger down the length of his wand. “There’s no harm in a little entertainment before we go on to the next part and Nagini has not properly eaten.” His eyes, red as blood, slide to Aubrie, the Death Eaters behind him chuckling. “You,” he snaps. “Bring the Mudblood here.” A scornful glance at Lily, his face cold. “Don’t worry, I will be more merciful than I was with your dear Severus.”

Remus’s stomach turns at the remark. Snape’s body turned up months ago, mangled and tortured beyond recognition, with scores down his face and sides, his bones broken a hundred times over; it is not a high bar of mercy to clear.

“No,” James shouts, his body straining against the magical restraints, to no avail. “No, don’t hurt them, please!”

Aubrie glances at the colonnade across from her then looks back at Voldemort and nods, her expression steeled. Remus follows her gaze but there is nothing there but dust and shadows, dancing with the flickering lights.

Aubrie tightens her grip on Lily, then, when they take a step forward, stumbles over the ground and ends up pushing Lily away from her, far away from the reach of her or the other werewolves’ arms, nearly to the foot of the staircase of the side entrance, where Hogwarts’ students, pale-faced, are now beginning to gather. Lily gasps out a breath, two, and stays, heaving, on the ground.

“You imbecile!” Bellatrix screams, pointing her want at Aubrie. “Do you half-breeds know how to do anything right?”

Aubrie smiles, guilelessly, at her. “Oops,” she says, tucking her hands behind her back, the lines around her eyes and mouth cut in marble. “Stupid werewolf, me.”

Bellatrix exclaims, the curse flashing out of her wand too familiar to warrant any kind of actual words. Except a purple curse slashes through its trajectory, away from Aubrie, and the combined force of the two spells slams into a wide pillar to the side, sending up a flurry of dust and debris.

Among the surprised exclaims that break out, Bellatrix looks toward the source of the second spell and finds, as the rest of them do, a masked Sirius Black strolling out from behind the columns on the opposite side. “I would appreciate it, Bella,” he drawls, hands in his pockets, “if you didn’t break an alliance I worked for months to obtain.”

“Sirius,” James gasps out, the sound more relief than anything else if it weren’t for the hope filling it up, “Sirius, you have to –”

“Silencio,” Sirius says, flicking his wand at James, whose mouth remains open around the non-existent words and eyes wide. Marlene a few paces behind him is pressing her mouth into a pained frown. Remus doesn’t want to know what she was about to tell him back in the Great Hall or how many more seeds of hope that would now be crushed she would have planted with it.

“Sirius,” Voldemort drawls with a tilt of his head, eyes narrowed, “how wonderful of you to join us.”

Sirius, positioning himself next to Aubrie, dips his head into a quick, precursory bow. “The Hogwarts grounds are vast, my lord,” he answers, his voice muffled enough it betrays no emotion. It doesn’t make sense, any of it, his book in James’s hands or his name in James’s mouth, inflected like an orison, because there was nothing he had to gain from it if this is the side he’s chosen now. Remus has never understood him but he never thought he’d let them get so close to the brink. Not ever and especially not after they saw each other in Hogsmeade, when Remus thought a line had clearly been drawn: not Harry.

Voldemort’s face doesn’t clear but he inclines his head and moves his gaze to Aubrie. Sirius’s hand reaches behind her, to where exactly Remus can’t really see but Aubrie tilts her chin up.

Before Voldemort can exact his fury over Aubrie, however, there’s a rustle among the students and they part to the side to let a tall, thin figure steps past. His blond hair reflects reddish in the torchlight as he pauses only for a second by then moves forward. Lily pulls herself to her feet with the help of a student’s extended hand instead but when she tries to follow after, an invisible wall seems to stop her.

“Barty,” Voldemort says, echoing the name murmured among the students, teeth bared the tiniest bit in an appropriation of a smile, cold as death. “You should have been back long ago.”

Barty Crouch moves toward the crowd of Death Eaters with a sort of fluidity Remus wouldn’t expect of someone who was just addressed in such a displeased tone by Voldemort. His robes are ripped at the top of his left sleeve and his leg is dusted with white so he might have an excuse but still, Remus can’t imagine he’d be that confident. He bows before Voldemort but his eyes flick toward the glowing sphere Voldemort’s snake is floating in. “Forgive me, my lord,” he says. “I got held up.”

Voldemort considers him and the robes lying out of place. “No matter now,” he answers, waving him off, “if you found it.”

“I did, my lord,” Barty says as he straightens and pulls a pouch out of his pocket. The Death Eaters around Voldemort quiet as Barty pulls the top of the pouch open and fishes out a mangled, dull silver piece that Remus recognises to have been some sort of tiara once. “I took the liberty of taking care of it.”

There is a second of stunned silence, the tiara’s remains falling off the tip of Barty’s finger as he reaches behind him and pulls a silver dagger out instead. He turns his wrist, the torchlight glinting along the blade, flashing poison-green, and chucks it directly at Nagini.

The dagger flies through the air, its trajectory straight, and Remus knows he’s witnessing something important, something monumental, like a dice roll moments before a jackpot or bankruptcy, like a ship on top of a wave before it breaks; he holds his breath, the air in his lungs stilling before it rushes out of his lungs as the dagger hits the sphere. It bounces off and clatters to the ground, only inches away from the broken tiara. Nagini curls inside the sphere with gleaming eyes, her tongue slipping out her mouth, unharmed.

Voldemort yells, wand lashing out, and Barty flies back, arms flailing around, his shout not as surprised as it should be. Except it’s not Barty that skids across the ground several feet away; his hair has bled into black, his skin tanned and when he looks up, a wheezing sound escaping him, his features have angled into the face of Regulus Black. It takes Remus a second to recognise the sound as laughter, breathless as it is, out of sync with the sharp, emotionless face he last saw. Linsy told them but, even now, Remus doesn’t quite believe it, cannot reconcile the dawning of Regulus’s death with the man that just took a hit at Voldemort.

Across the courtyard, Sirius is indiscernible under the mask, the knot of his Adam’s apple bobbing the only sign he’s even noticed. His hands are buried deep in his pockets. Otis Shah, the leader of another werewolf pack Remus talked to what seems like years ago now, pushes to the front and keeps his steady eyes on Sirius.

“You.” Voldemort’s skin has gone paler than possible, eyes wide. Even Bellatrix is silent, left out from the stream of murmurs that rises up among the Death Eaters. “You’re dead.”

“I guess not.”

There is a short scream of pain when Voldemort points his wand at Narcissa. “Bring me that,” he orders, gesturing to the pouch fallen from Regulus’s hands. “Restrain him, Bellatrix.”

Bellatrix obeys while Narcissa steps forward, straight-backed, but picks up the pouch with unsure fingers. It seems that an aeon passes before her soft-footed steps bring her close enough to Voldemort to hand it over. As soon as she’s done so, she slinks back to Lucius’s side, her eyes passing between Regulus’s face and Sirius’s motionless form, the silver mask secured over his expression nearly the same shade as her cheeks.

The courtyard stands still as Voldemort pulls out several charred objects: a leather-bound book, a golden goblet, a ring. A moment of silence passes. Then a scream tears out of Voldemort, so violent it echoes in Remus’s bones, so cruel it turns into the only thing it could have: “Crucio.”

Regulus trashes into his standstill, body convulsing of its own accord with nowhere to run and Remus cannot stand the sight of him but it’s not a pain he’d wish on him or anyone. He is Sirius’s brother but he is more than that; he is someone who grew past him, bigger than him, who turned against Voldemort, the only thing Remus has ever wanted for Sirius to do. Remus cannot bear to look at Sirius’s reaction, if there is any at all.

Regulus stills, chest heaving. “I’ll keep the locket as a keepsake,” he says hoarsely, staring up at Voldemort with deep, Black-grey eyes. Inexplicably, Remus wishes it were someone else’s eyes proclaiming their defiance, someone else’s words drawing a line of sure-fire stance.

Someone clears their throat and everyone turns to look at the source of it. In one smooth movement, Sirius pulls off his mask and flings it onto the ground. It fractures, almost exactly down the line of the constellations, silvery bits smashing around. He has his wand pointed at Voldemort in the next split second, his face forged into single-minded determination, as familiar as coming up for air after diving down to the bottom, his simple movement an act of war for itself. “Avada Kedavra.”

Not pointed at Voldemort, Remus realises belatedly but at Nagini, still caught in the glowing sphere. He can’t imagine why killing Voldemort’s pet is so important to Sirius and Regulus but he’s willing to concede their already-questionable sanity must have chipped away by now.

A large chunk of stone flies up in front of Voldemort and Nagini and explodes into green fire, the sickly light washing over the astounded faces all around. Sirius Black, the most loyal of supporters, going against Voldemort himself. An alliance built for years, thrown away on a dime for the one person Sirius has always been most protective of: Regulus.

The explosion and the astonishment give him a few precious seconds but Sirius doesn’t use them to go to Regulus. Instead, he shouts, “Now!” and fires his next spell at Bellatrix and her manic-gleaming eyes. She was the only one who didn’t stop to gawk and whose wand summoned up the chunk of stone in front of Voldemort.

The clash of their spells, a knock of wordless curses, cutting and precise, lights up the night and through it, Remus sees Otis Shah punch the Death Eater holding Harry. His fingers break with the impact but the Death Eater pitches to the side and Otis doubles down, unflinching as his bones splinter. “Run, boy!” he yells at Harry, who lands, sprawled and scraped but ultimately unharmed, on the ground.

Sirius has taken on both Bellatrix and Voldemort in that time, not sparing a glance for Regulus trying to get out of the magic binding him or the werewolves jumping the other Death Eaters, but seems to be holding his own until his wand slashes through the air a split second before Bellatrix’s, confident in its motion, infallible in its target. Bellatrix is knocked back, gasping for air as she rolls across the ground, her wand falling away from her.

“Crucio!” The word out of Sirius’s mouth revibrates with a strength that makes Voldemort’s knees go out from under him, his mouth open in a sky-slashing scream but Sirius doesn’t keep it longer than a second. Instead, his eyes go to Nagini, then to Regulus. At the very end, they follow the small figure prickling through the battle.

Harry has picked himself up and is running across the cobbled courtyard but his short legs aren’t fast enough to get him away; Greyback, throwing off another werewolf, leaps through the air and is at his heels in a matter of moments, his sharp, yellow nails brushing over the top of Harry’s black hair, the sound of his footsteps reaching up to grab at Remus’s throat.

“Harry!” Lily’s hair is a beacon in a sea of black and brown but she might as well be across the world for Harry, separated by a mountain of danger and fire that he cannot brave alone, and he dashes away from them. “No!”

Harry ends up throwing himself into Sirius’s arms instead, from where Sirius has half-braced himself to catch him, just as Greyback lunges after him and, unable to stop his momentum, slams directly into the two of them. They go tumbling back, Sirius’s body like a shield around Harry’s as he takes the brunt of both Greyback’s force and impact with the stones. Remus’s breath catches in his throat, traitorously, stupidly, not only because it’s Harry, but because it’s Sirius’s arms that are secured around him.

The movement in the courtyard stills as the three of them end up sprawled across the ground, Greyback across Sirius’s legs, Harry’s dark head tucked against Sirius’s shoulder.

Otis crosses the few feet between them and pulls Greyback off Sirius with his good hand, aiming a kick at his stomach and another one at his ribs, leaving him gasping out. The last kick, centred directly at his face, breaks his nose and makes him go still.

Sirius’s lips are moving, the words they’re shaping inaudible, and Harry is nodding reluctantly as they slowly pick themselves up, Sirius getting his knees beneath himself. He draws himself up, his hair a halo of black and dust framing his face, arms firm around Harry, a silver ring glinting on his finger. His wand lies a few feet away, snapped in half. This is how tragedies go, Remus knows, an inevitable fall from grace, a turning point; the beginning of the fifth act, a certain bitterness in the fact that there isn’t any other way this could have ended.

A sob rips out of Lily. “Harry.”

Only a meter away from Remus, but still too far away, James’s face is drained, slashed open with grief and fear. “Please,” he murmurs, the sound dragging over Remus’s skin, skimming down his spine; suddenly, he is standing back in that Muggle town, years removed, his life going to pieces around him. “Sirius, please.”

“Sirius,” Voldemort says as he gets to his feet, batting away the offered help of a Death Eater and reaches out a hand, pale and unwavering. It’s obvious what he’s about to offer: a redemption for the havoc he wreaked, a way out of his predicament. “Bring me the boy.”

Sirius looks around, the grey of his eyes bottomless, incomprehensible with the way he’s caged his heart so fully. They flit over Otis, still standing over Greyback, stop momentarily on Regulus, now motionless on the ground but with his eyes wide open, and pass over Narcissa’s pale, pinched face; they settle on the phoenix feather stretched thin between the two halves of his wand. When he looks back at Voldemort he swallows and says, “No.”

The word hangs in the air, descending slowly upon the faces of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but it settles somewhere deep in Remus’s chest, pressing up to the shape of, That was ours, that Remus made space for so carefully in the outskirts of his heart two years ago. Harry, with James’s face and Lily’s eyes and Remus’s heart, is theirs, down to the bone; but he is Sirius’s too, his choice and his redemption.

“Give me the boy,” Voldemort says, voice a bit lower, those ruby-red eyes narrowing.

Wordlessly, Sirius nudges Harry out of his arms and behind himself, arms forming a protective brace around him as Harry clings to his back. The Death Eaters have spread out, forming a wall of bodies between the two of them and the Order and Hogwarts’ residents. Between Harry and his parents.

Sirius keeps his eyes on Voldemort but his calm and even words are only for Harry as his hands tighten on Harry’s torso. “It’s alright, pup.” He glances at Otis. “Now would be a good time to make your exit.”

“And miss all the fun?” Aubrie says loudly, grinning as she looks at Bellatrix, who’s picking up her wand off the ground, with gleaming eyes. An incline of her head and the werewolves get behind Sirius and Harry, their backs to Voldemort. Only now it becomes apparent to Remus that, trough the entirety of the battle, no werewolf looked to Voldemort for instructions. An alliance I worked for months to obtain, Sirius’s voice echoes, pushing a sudden realisation that whatever this was for Sirius it certainly wasn’t an impulsive decision if he had offered the werewolves something even Dumbledore hadn’t. “I rather think not.”

“Better future, didn’t you promise?” Otis adds, moving in line with the other werewolves. Bone sticks out from his fingers, blood pooling around. Still, the brace of his mouth is nothing but firm.

Remus’s throat burns; brave as they might be, dedicated and fierce, they will be no match for the Death Eaters once they decide to use their wands. Sirius must know it, too – that they are willing to die for this. For Harry.

“It’s waiting for you,” he says.

“Only if it’s waiting for you, too,” Aubrie shoots back. She pulls Lily’s wand from her belt and arcs it high above the heads of Death Eaters, all the way to the barrier keeping Lily and the students at bay. Lily’s fingers grapple for it.

“You, Sirius?” Voldemort asks, the soft, silky sound dragging through the air. “Not Regulus, not Severus. You.”

Sirius inclines his head. “Snape did betray you,” he says, the cadence of his voice a slow, agonising dance of death, a promise of, I won’t get out of this alive but neither will you, “but I wasn't yours to begin with.”

“Traitor!” Bellatrix hisses but the sound carries, her face white with rage, her wand pointed directly at Sirius. “I’ll kill you.”

“You can do better than that, Bella. Didn’t Aunt Walburga ever teach you?”

“No, Bellatrix.” Voldemort levels his wand at Sirius, pale hand steady. “I will do it.”

“My lord, such betrayal requires pain, he played us for fools for years –”

“He has the boy,” Voldemort cuts in smoothly, face a grimace. “I do not wish to lose more time. These dramatics have gone on long enough. Besides,” he adds slowly, “the greatest pain for him will be knowing that he leaves all the others here at my mercy.”

Sirius swallows, his eyes blinking closed for a moment, but he lifts his chin and doesn’t budge. Perhaps that’s all Sirius has left to give of himself: a last sacrifice, a declaration of love and lies and apology, laid bare on the cobblestones of Hogwarts, poured through the cracks of the ground it’s built on, raw with how final it is, fragile with the way it was for nothing at all; the act of a dying man, a reminder that even now he would rather crawl home than walk among them. Still, Remus wants to tell him, still it mattered. It will matter.

“Please,” Lily whispers, her voice hoarse. “Please, don’t – take me instead, please –”

Sirius, in his last moments, turns his eyes to Regulus, who is shaking his head in desperation, the pained sounds crawling up from his throat ripping a black, bleeding line into the meaning of devastation. “Guess even the two of us playing together wasn’t enough, huh?” he says, soft between him and his brother, something untouchable spread out in front of them, pulsing. “Désolé, Reggie.”

“This is your last chance, Sirius,” Voldemort murmurs. “No matter your motivations, you have been a good subject. See reason now and all will be forgiven.”

“Easy now, Harry,” Sirius says and Remus’s heart might rip its way out of his chest with how painfully it’s tugging, knowing that Harry is Sirius’s last thought. Harry sobs and curls closer. “It’ll be alright, little one.”

“So be it.”

The motion of Voldemort’s wand, the incantation falling from his lips, the flash of blinding green light; all of it is familiar, achingly so, and it leaves a bitter taste in the back of Remus’s mouth.

“No!” Regulus moves, breaking through the strain of magic around him, and Remus sees it as if time has slowed down; the scrambling off the ground, the desperate, rushed strides towards his brother, his hand, closing around the dip of Sirius’s shoulder, Sirius’s own hand coming up to wrap around Regulus’s fingers. Two brothers, one a Gryffindor, the other a Slytherin, different in everything but that which matters, both so brave, both so clever. Neither moving to save the other from death and take it on himself, but remaining next to each other. To die side-by-side. Together.

The light hits them – Remus can’t tell who it hits, because they are one, these brilliant boys; they are the stars they are named after, they are Blacks, with magic in every nook and cranny of their being, they are brothers, in blood and in name, in everything that they hate – and someone shouts. The world erupts in motion, rallying, wild, fierce, but Remus stays still, unable to watch, unable to look away, and wonders if he is the only one that can feel the magic, old, old magic, sizzling through the air, the taste of it pungent, its sound buzzing in his ears.

But even the Blacks, with their stories written in the stars, are mortal and when Regulus and Sirius collapse, their hands still linked, Remus thinks that the worse sound he has ever heard have to be the screams that rip out of McGonagall, out of James and Lily and Marlene. It’s not until Voldemort moves forward that Remus realises: he was screaming too.

There is no time to let the action sink in, however. The werewolves have surged forward, a tide of beaten bodies and broken spines, fighting for a future that may never come, their edge of surprise lost – the first retaliating spells cut a quarter of them down. The students follow their lead, firing off spells at random but their magic is nowhere near enough to get any of them to Harry.

“Fools,” Voldemort says and waves his wand as he steps past Sirius and Regulus’s limp bodies, towards Harry, who still stands, petrified, next to the safety Sirius tried to preserve for him. Nagini drops down from her sphere and curves her body after him. “Goes to show that even the greatest bloodlines can be tainted.”

Bellatrix points her wand at Sirius and says, “Crucio!” and Sirius’s body flails through the air, silent as only dead men can be. Her triumphant laugh echoes around the courtyard, drowns out all the other sounds in it, followed by a chorus of others’ as the werewolves continue to fall.

Only one doesn’t follow her lead and through the carnage, Remus catches sight of the blonde head bending down behind Bellatrix, the trembling hand that closes around the handle of the dagger that Regulus, minutes away from death, threw. Narcissa Black Malfoy draws herself up, eyes trained on Nagini, now freely slithering across the ground a pace behind Voldemort, toward Sirius and Regulus’s bodies, and moves. And then the end of the world comes bathed in green light.

It begins with Lily’s scream, unearthed from the deepest parts of her chest, thrown out into the world that seeks to take her son; it continues with Narcissa’s hand coming down in a quick, steady arc, with Nagini’s body convulsing and then stilling on the blood-splashed stones; it ends with Voldemort’s wand falling from his limp fingers, his body following a moment, a blink of a second, later. His vacant eyes, like the blood spilling from Nagini’s body, receive no mercy from the dark sky.

There is a moment of utter stillness, of complete silence and then Harry’s wails shoot over the entire battle, over the werewolves that push harder, over Lily and James that break free and dive for him. Remus finds himself among the ones that raise their wands against the furious onslaught of Death Eaters, the words, wasn’t enough, huh, beating out of his chest with the knowledge that it was; it was, Sirius, it was.

“What have you done?” Bellatrix half screams, half gasps out, turning on Narcissa, raising her wand towards her sister.

Narcissa has none of Bellatrix’s strong, ferocious features but she lifts her chin in the same haughty manner, the way Sirius and Regulus did, prepared to go down if that’s what it takes. “I have lost my sisters, my cousins and my husband to him,” she says, her jaw set, as she lets the dagger fall down and grabs her wand instead, pointing it directly at Bellatrix. “I will not lose my son, too.”

“Fool,” Bellatrix spits out, slashing her wand at Narcissa, who parries it with a quickness Remus wouldn’t have expected of her. It devolves into a fierce back-and-forth but Remus is forced to look away when a curse comes flashing his way.

He ducks out of the way and sends a retaliating one, pausing only for a moment to make sure it hits home. He turns and finds Otis half-heartedly ducking out of the way of white spells. While the Death Eater isn’t focused, Remus sends a Stunning Spell his way and doesn’t wait for him to hit the ground before he spins his wand on another one.

A part of Remus doesn’t want the battle to be over because when it is, there will be no way to keep the fresh memories at bay. He is nearly lost in it, in the dodge-and-shoot rhythm, when a familiar throaty shout reaches him.

“Lily!”

Heart thrumming up to his throat, Remus turns and sees, to his and James’s horror, Lily facing off against Bellatrix and deflecting a curse that would have likely finished off Narcissa, who is pressed against a column with no wand in hand. Her stance is sure, feet spread wide apart to keep her steady, and the sheer fury carved into her face gives even Remus pause. The best duellist of their generation, back on her feet, and ready to make a lasting impression.

The spells shoot out of their wands in rapid succession, far too dangerous to disturb from either side and it makes all the others pause and watch. More than once, they have to dodge out of the way of a redirected spell. Lily's sleeve darkens with her blood; Bellatrix's leg buckles every few, unsure steps.

“Is that all you have, Mudblood?” Bellatrix taunts, with none of her previous delight; her voice is full of rage and if she had had time to think about it, Remus is certain there would be grief there as well.

Lily jumps out of the way of a red streak, hair flying, and twists her arm through the air, making her wand only a blur of light wood. The purple spell hits, right over Bellatrix’s heart and she falls much like her master did: with none of the ceremony that seemed to have been reserved for her in life, the way all mortals fall.

“No,” Lily says, pushing her hair out of the way, face stripped of all anger and slowly washed by exhaustion. She crosses the space back to James, who is kneeling with Harry, and folds herself into his arms. Remus hears her murmur, “This is all I have.”

Half-lost, he steps forward to join them but a sharp cry makes him look up instead. Fawkes has appeared in the sky, gleaming gold and red, with Dumbledore holding onto his long tail. They land in the middle of the courtyard, Fawkes unharmed and Dumbledore with a charred beard but their presence seems to be enough to make the rest of the Death Eaters concede. Lucius Malfoy, kneeling by Narcissa’s side with his fingers over her cheek, is the first one to throw his wand to the ground.

The rest of the happenings seem like peculiar snapshots to Remus: the able picking up the injured, checking the dead, Dumbledore binding the Death Eaters, Fawkes bowing low over a few bodies, the werewolves slowly coming together. He can only watch, pain spiking up every time he breathes.

When everything settles like dust, McGonagall is the first one to move, limping and with dirt-smudged robes, almost toward Dumbledore until she steps past him – to Sirius and Regulus, Remus realises with a painful tug that begins in his lungs and ends somewhere around his liver. “Sirius,” she says as she drops down beside him, her hand gentle over his slack face, painted in dramatic, torchlight-falling lines: high cheekbones, arching brows, sharp jaw. Remus’s eyes burn. He thought, for a moment, that he might get to look into his eyes again and tell him – tell him something, anything, that would have crumbled away this bitter ache; now he can’t even scream. “Sirius, I’m sorry.”

The words seem too familiar for someone so far removed from Sirius, from the pain he caused and the bridges he burned. She had her fondness for them in their school years but to be so openly mourning the death of someone she must have thought was a Death Eater less than an hour ago seems – it seems –

There’s a familiar presence in his space, a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. He faces Lily, who has Harry in her arms and is looking up at him with glassy eyes. Her lips are twisted down and her eyelashes dotted with tears, the side of her face crusted with blood. Remus draws her against him, pressing his cheek to the top of her head, and hopes her warmth makes it down to all the parts of him that have frozen over.

“Hi,” he breathes when Harry reaches for him suddenly, small fingers grabbing over his shirt. He takes him from Lily and wraps his arms around him as Harry clings to him, just like he clung to Sirius. Blood soaks his fringe, pooling around the new wound across his forehead, and Remus uses his wand to Vanish it away for the time being, then draws him tighter against himself, thankful despite everything that it isn’t this small body that’s lying among the motionless ones strewn across the courtyard. “Hi, little one.”

There’s a sob behind him and he turns to see Marlene crouched down with her hands pressed across her mouth, shaking her head. Her eyes are focused on Sirius and McGonagall but she leans into Dorcas when she kneels beside her and hugs her to her chest. It’s not unlike how she was all those years ago on a cold December night, crumpled in on herself on the floor of his small apartment, begging them to tell her it’s not true. Remus’s heart wants to go out to her but it is shackled by its own pain.

James’s approach is slow, the antithesis of a man rushing to his friend’s side, desperate to find out if his heart still beats; his steps are heavy with the knowledge that no life is waiting to greet him. He folds his knees underneath himself and reaches for Sirius’s hand, his face contorted into anguish, brown skin sallow. Remus has seen the expression on his face too many times throughout war and aimed at the face beneath his even more than that. Only Sirius, Remus think with more painful humour than he feels, could have broken their hearts over and over, years after they were supposed to let him go.

“James.” McGonagall looks up at James with big eyes, her forehead creased up. Her hand shoots out and wraps around his wrist, quick enough it makes even James look at her in surprise. If it hadn’t been such a strange day all together, Remus might have thought McGonagall to have truly lost her mind. “Tell me I’m not imagining it,” she says, voice hoarse, as she brings James’s hand to Sirius’s neck and presses his fingers there.

James lets out a low, breathless sound and bows down to press the side of his face to Sirius’s chest. “It can’t be,” he whispers.

“What is it?” Marlene asks, drawing herself up, swaying on the balls of her feet. “James, what is it?”

McGonagall lets go of James and Sirius to push herself toward Regulus and feel against his neck, too. She stays silent for a few moments, chest heaving with quick, shallow breaths. Then she faces back to them, her lips curved up into a near-smile. Her laugh comes out sudden and small, disbelieving and out of place among the downtrodden winners, but it makes something in Remus’s chest bloom up.

“They’re breathing.”

___

A/N: To the tumblr anon who asked me if they could write "so and so finds out about Sirius": please don't let the fact that this part of the story is done discourage you from writing the rest of your ideas. I'd still very much love to read them.

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spiltscribbles · 4 years

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prompt: It’s not that you’re wrong, exactly, you’re just extremely not right.

Notes: Thank you SO much Mariana darling! You are so lovely and wonderful, I hope you like this

From This List | A Reblog Is Worth A Thousand Stars

She smells like citrus.

It was the first thing Percy noticed about Annabeth after meeting her once hired in the mayor’s office nearly half a year ago now. She smelled like citrus and her ponytail was pristine and she had the most intense gaze that’s ever been leveled at him. He’s just thankful that she’s on team good because Percy was sure at first glance that she could take a bite of the world if she so wished.

He’s still positive in that conviction, knows that it’s true. It’s true because Annabeth is a force of nature all her own. She’s the smartest person he’s ever met, and the most competent member of any government that has ever stood. She’s the one who single handedly got passed a bill for the city to be carbon neutral by 2040, and lead the largest women’s march to date in the heart of Brooklyn in the dead of January, and taught Percy how to get a free Snickers bar from the third floor vending machine.

Okay, erm, maybe the latter point isn’t up to par with everything else about her, but still it stands to reason that Annabeth’s the most miraculous person he’s ever known. Percy thought he was lost on her underneath the florescent lighting and amidst non stop ringing from the phone lines in Mayor Beckendorf’s office. But well now— when they’re on some common ground— Now Percy doesn’t even have a word for it.

He thinks it’s something like smitten.

They’re all getting a celebratory drink after the passing of the bill they’ve been lobbying on behalf for literal months. It’s Percy and Annabeth and the other core consultants for the mayor and his deputies. It’s fun and raucous and an all around good time. Piper— the all star head of the media team and Percy’s roommate who hooked him up with this gig in the first place— is off in some darkened corner getting handsy with the perky blonde working in the housing sector, Jason—. The Stoll twins are competing against who can take the most shots while Rachel takes score and Katie is watching exasperatedly. The rest of them are playing a round of pool, but Percy— Percy can’t take his eyes off Annabeth, doubts that’ll ever change.

Her pale curls are spilling down her shoulders— easy and uninhibited as she takes another swig of her Long Island, looking like the glossy cover of a magazine without even realizing it. God she’s beautiful, and god he can’t believe she’s here sitting besides him, laughing with him, indulging him with her riptide smile and impossibly bright eyes.

“What are you trying to say Chase,” Percy prods absentmindedly, still keeping up their wage of words while silently wishing he could just hold her hand.

“It’s not that that you’re wrong exactly, just that you’re extremely not right,” Annabeth tells him with a leer, dipping closer to him so that he could hear her over the chatter and music. His toes curl with the proximity, the way her hot tendrils of breath skirt against his ear and neck like a whisper of something more.

“Sorry Cali, but the Atlantic puts the Pacific to shame,” Percy sniffs, faux aggrieved, as he signals for the bartender to top off his drink, pretends his insides aren’t singing with want.

“We have better waves!” Annabeth squawks in disagreement, slightly tipsy but also more than a little indignant. “And weather too.”

“You guys are all show,” Percy goads, can’t stop marveling at how the soft light from above caresses her features in an achingly tender way, can’t help but think she’s something heavenly, something out of reach— strung together by sunlight and cicada songs and the lapping waves against the shore. “The Atlantic has character, history Annabeth. I thought you of all people would like that nerdy stuff, Magellan and the Mayflower and all that jazz.”

“History’s not nerdy Jackson,” she laughs.

“Sure it is, you aught to just embrace it,” he advises sagely, loves the way she looks so golden when she’s not stressing about her next great accomplishment.

“You can be such a prick,” she says loftily, humor dripping from her every word, and unbridled glee glittering in her pretty eyes.

“Only for you sweetheart,” he says, there eyes catching for a moment. Percy feels equal parts breathless and buzzed by that look alone.

“Your eyes are the same color as the ocean,” she tells him, blunt and tactless, not ordinarily her style but Percy can’t help the fond curling of the lips and the way her simple observation makes his face go flushed. “On the pretty days, when everything is calm and lovely.”

“Oh yeah?” He asks, a bit teasing with a kinked brow.

“Yeah,” Annabeth says, casts her gaze to where Leo’s making a fool of himself dancing atop one of the tables, looks like she’s trying to muster up some level of confidence in the taught space between them.

Percy’s about to ask if she’s alright, already pressing his pinky against hers where it is lying besides his hand on the counter, but then Annabeth’s features smooth out and she’s looking straight at him once more.

“Let’s go out to dinner Saturday night,” she says without any fanfare, though it still causes Percy’s insides to compress into a searing ball right in the center of his stomach. I’ll listen to your stories about Montauk because I’m nice, but then I’ll proof to you that I’m right, as per usual.”

Percy doesn’t let a beat go by before answering readily with three yeses in a row.

The corners of Annabeth’s mouth curve upwards, endeared looking, before she takes the extra step to finally lace their fingers into one another’s— he can just spot Grover giving him the thumbs up from across the way.

“Cool,” Annabeth breathes out, as if she were somehow amazed he had agreed, how ridiculous of a notion.

They clink their glasses together and Percy begins to count down the minutes till Saturday night comes around, wonders if his heart will ever stop racing.

Percy seriously doubts it.

#PJO #PERCY JACKSON #ANNABETH CHASE #PERCABETH #percyyoulittleshit #SPILT INK #sorry i suck #rip

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the-lonelybarricade · 3 years

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darling dearest, i am in need of some advice and you were the first person i thought to ask (your fanfics are so deep, you have unrivaled wisdom. also you are an adult, which is very useful right now)

so, acting means a lot to me. in fact, it means the world. one of my first coherent sentences as a baby was, "mommy, i want to be on tv," so of course i developed an interest in theater.

it's my first year of high school, and my first thespian convention, and it's 500 dollars. for some context here, my parents had their first kid in high school. my mom never graduated, my dad joined the army instead of going to college. and then they had four more. on top of that, my dad's retired so we're all around dirt fuckin poor hahah. in other words, no one in this family has 500 dollars to send me (except for my middle sister, but that really is too much to ask for).

except for me! i had the money! only, it's in my college fund (which is 660 right now, no one set up a college fund for me as a baby--i only started saving two years ago). like i said, we're dirt poor and no one has the money to put me through college. my sister is a lawyer and has been practicing for years, and is still 200,000 dollars in debt from student loans. i'm having to rely on being smart to apply for scholarships and grants, and if i'm really special, i can get into harvard for free. which is such a huge deal, and one i'm kind of counting on.

even if i don't go to college, i need the money for when i ditch my home state and live in the big city for my big shot at being a successful actress. i can't do this every year. i've already decided to drop cheerleading and adv math next year so i can get a job (i'm not allowed to get one until i can drive). but i don't know if 3yrs of work will even be enough if i want to do normal teenager things and still go to college. chances are, i'm not getting into harvard, much less for free. i'm not gifted like i was as a little girl, and i think the stress would be too much. my mom says she'd help but she's saving for her own house and already getting me my own car, and she doesn't have money either. i don't think i can ask her for that.

thank you for even bothering to read this, thank you times one thousand if you respond.

Goodness lovely, I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this. This is such a big burden to carry and I know it must be really intimidating to think your future is restricted because of money. But take a deep breath, we're going to talk about some things, okay? I'm still new to being an adult myself, I'm in my final year of uni and money is hard.

So first let's talk about this $500 for your Thespian Convention. First, if this is a school event, a lot of schools do wave or reduce fees like this for families that can't afford it. They also may offer scholarships. I would look into seeing if that's possible, but otherwise let's talk about covering that cost from your college fund. I'm assuming from your language that you're American, which means that if you're earning the federal minimum wage (7.25/hr) it will take 60 hours of working to pay that off. That could take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month to work off if you're working part time, so you need to ask yourself if you feel like the thespian convention is worth a month of work that you could be putting towards your college fund. (Also, I know you said you can't get a job until you can drive, but maybe see if there's anything local you can do for extra money, like maybe tutoring or babysitting?). And if you can't go to this Thespian Convention, see if theres a less expensive alternative you can pursue.

Another important thing to consider is that, if acting is definitely what you want to do, you don't need to go to college to be a successful actor. Leonardo Dicaprio, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, there's plenty of major A-list actors that skipped college alltogether to pursue their careers. Here's a list. And if going to college is something you really, really want to do, you also don't have to go to college immediately after graduating high school.

This is something they didn't push a lot when I was in high school, and this would have been mind blowing for me when I was a freshman. In my high school going to college was like the expectation for families that could afford it. And they also offered great support for struggling families and first generation students. But I did something super unconventional for my town and I took a gap year. And that gap year changed my life. So my love, you don't need to worry about 3 years being enough time to do normal teenager things while working your butt off to pay for school. You can give yourself as many years as you need to get that money together, or to pursue your acting career or both. College is ready for you when you're ready for it. There's no set timeline. And I wish they told high schoolers that more often. I wish I was told that sooner.

But let's say that you really want to go to college and you really want to go as soon as you graduate high school. That's totally fine too! Let's talk about your options. Getting a full-ride scholarship is competitive and a lot of pressure to put on yourself. I say go for it! Go for as many as you can and apply for every scholarship available! But also give yourself the breathing space to think about other options. This is a list of no-loan colleges in the US. These are schools that will meet 100% of your financial need if you get accepted. Now the tricky thing is you still have to pay for your EFC (estimated family contribution) and sometimes your FAFSA (federal application for student aid) grossly overestimates how much your family can actually contribute. But it will definitlely eat a big chunk of that money away and there are still loan and scolarship options for that remaining sum. Also when applying for these schools a lot of them do offer an application fee waiver for families that can't afford it.

There are also loads of private scholarship available options from various companies. Talk to your high school counsellors, they *should* have great resources for finding this kind of stuff. I wish I could remember where I found all of my scholarship info, but it's been almost 5 years since I've done that research. I think maybe fastweb was something I found useful? And I also found this website and this website after a cursory google search just now. I'm sure you'll find good sources too! Freshman year is not too early to start applying to private scholarships. A lot of them are directed at seniors, but there are all kinds and sometimes they're just fun contests with small rewards, but it all adds up!f

You can also try killing two birds with one stone! See if there are any acting jobs available either in your local area or even just online! Maybe set up a fiverr and read scripts for people, or see if you can work as a counselor for a theater camp in the summer. My first job was as an acting job as a dancing penguin at a local summer festival when I was 14.

Okay and now I feel obligated to tell you something. You don't need to go to college in the US. This probably sounds outrageous as a freshman, it definitely would have to me. But I'm literally typing this from where I now live in the UK, after taking that gap year and realizing that american school is ridiculously expensive and way less cool than european schools? Do your research, there's lots of options available to you and the US is not your only one. I've saved loads of money going to school here and I'm happy as a clam. Here are some fun links.

Anyway my love, I know that was a lot of information and I'm sure none of it magically solved your problems or took that burden of your shoulders. But take a deep breath. Everything will happen in its own time and there will always be opportunities for you to pursue being an actor. There will also always be the option to decide to go to college at any point in your life. The biggest and most important thing is to just not give up. Focus on the here and now, focus on your grades, and the rest will follow. You got this, I know you do. And please, always feel free to come to me with any questions or even if you just need to rant in my inbox, I'm here <3

#Big love to you #I know it will all work out in the end

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imagine-that-one-thing · 4 years

Text

Her Majesty. || 7

If You’re A Bird, I’m a Bird.

♔♔♔

I’ve been in and out of sleep for a few hours, my mind is unable to cease thinking about what my mother has said, and I’m still under the weather. I thought I was doing fine but this summer cold is proving to be a pain in my ass.

I feel Anna’s body move between the sheets and I feel her begin to move with more energy.

“Anna?” My voice is hoarse while I cock my head to the side to gaze at her.

She’s still asleep.

I watch her settle in her sleep and I adjust the sheet over her shoulders before I get comfortable and fall back to dozing in and out of sleep.

It’s an unexpected gasp, and shift in the bed that alerts me immediately. I open my eyes and notice Anna breathing heavily with her hand gripping the covers. “Hey,” I softly whisper, moving closer as she sits up. “Bad dream?” I question the only logical explanation for her sudden lack of breath and sudden jolts.

Anastasia nods her head. I caress my hand to her back and rub soothing circles. I’m not quite sure what to do. I’ve never been with her when she has had any sort of bad dream. Whenever I have a bad dream, I usually roll back over and go to sleep, but I can see that she’s quite startled by her dream. “Harry…” Anna begins with a heavy breath, “Where’s Henry?”

“I don’t know… Would you like me to get you some water?”

“No… I want you to find Henry.”

”I can’t, I’m a bodyguard, not a detective. Matthew is handling it. Has he gotten you all worked up again? He won’t find you. He’s harmless.”

Anastasia shakes her head, “I don’t know about that.” Anastasia grimaces while she sits up a little further and takes in a deep breath.

I lean over and turn my lamp on, the dim glow illuminating the room immediately and causing Anastasia to groan. “Here we go,” Anna mutters unhappily. I know this isn’t going to end pleasantly. She hates when I do this, but I can’t help it… I can’t act like I don’t care.

“You’re in pain.”

“And you’re under the weather. We are both avoiding the obvious.”

“Christ sake,” I shake my head, tired and irritated with her.

I know she hates when people fret over her, but it’s my job to do so, literally. Her life is in my hands at the moment, whether she likes it or not, I can’t just turn a blind eye. And as her boyfriend, I can’t go back to sleep knowing that she’s worried over a piece of shit Prince and hurting because she fell off a horse and doesn’t want to have doctors up her ass. “It’s either you tell me or I have to call your doctor. You parents were strict on this rule, and right now, I don’t want to piss the King off. He’s already pissed, and I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Why is he pissed with you?” Anastasia questions, somewhat shifting the subject.

The king is pissed off with everybody, he is taking his frustration out on all the staff, right now, he’s having his best go at the security team. Right now, Matthew and I are on the firing line. The king wants Henry’s location, but I’m here; I can’t do much. Matthew can only do so much in a few hours while also being in charge of other security staff. The king is taking his wrath out on everybody— yesterday it was the maids and housekeepers— today it is myself and Matthew— tomorrow it’ll probably be Anastasia again.

I contemplate telling Anna the truth, I have to draw a line between work and our relationship.

There are some things I keep from her for her own sanity. “Your Dad is mad at the world, I’m trying to defuse situations. So, what’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry… This whole Henry thing was my fault. It’s all escalating and snowballing.”

“Anna, stop deflecting.”

“My side hurts, nothing new.”

“Can I take a look?” I softly challenge, wanting her permission.

I know she despises when I have to do this, but right now I’m attempting to be her boyfriend. I genuinely care. It’s just a plus that my job has me trained for taking care of her. Anastasia rolls her eyes and lifts her pyjama top up, revealing the side of her body when she took the hardest hit.

“Doctor wasn’t joking when she said you’d have bruising. Looks like you definitely have bruised ribs. Why must you be so stubborn?”

“Same reason why you keep trying to cover the fact you’re unwell and still more worried about me. Please, don’t make a big deal of this.”

“Anna—“ I begin but I stop myself, “Okay,” I sigh, “But if it gets worse, you’ll tell me?”

“This isn’t a life or death situation. Let’s go back to sleep.”

“If you insist.”

“Can you really not find Henry? I feel uneasy about him.”

“It’s not my field of work. Matthew is working on it. I know a PI and I’ll call him in the morning.”

“Aren’t they expensive?” Anna questions and I can’t help but chuckle to myself.

The woman who literally has no reason to worry about money or the cost of things is concerned a PI expensive but doesn’t seem to take into consideration that half the jewellery in her possession is worth thousands of dollars.

“I’ll handle it and pay for it, stop worrying about things you don’t need to fret over. It’s my job to worry.” I respond.

I kiss her cheek and move away from her, dismissing the conversation and settling back down into the bed. Anna doesn’t hesitate, instead, she shuffles closer and rests her hand on my chest as she gets comfortable. I stare up at the ceiling, listening to her breaths while I allow my mind to wander.

I won’t hesitate to find everything I can about Henry. We should have done an intense search on him when he first came into the picture, but the King was adamant that he knew better and knew the family. Sometimes, the king isn’t always right. I should have listened to my gut instinct. Now, all I can do is keep an eye on Henry and keep Anastasia safe and sound. I don’t want her to worry about anything, and as much as I hate to admit things, Henry makes me uneasy as well. I don’t like how he seems to have gone off the deep end over something as small as losing a bet on a horse. It’s almost as though losing a bet and money triggered him to lose the plot. Perhaps, I’m overthinking things, but from the way Anastasia is acting and reacting, I think she feels the same way.

For now, it’s my job to worry, not hers. I won’t hesitate to take her worries and pain, and I’ll do everything to keep her settled through chaotic storms. I can’t help but feel like the storm is just starting to brew and it’s about to get worse.

♔♔♔

I find Anastasia relaxing in my mother’s garden, enclosed by the summer flowers that flaunt their beautiful colours even in the moonlight.

I wander closer to her sitting figure, offering her a modest smile when she stares up at me. Unfortunately, she doesn’t give me her usual grin, instead, she offers me a fake smile that indicates she’s hiding something.

“Been looking for you for a minute,” I begin, wanting her absolute attention.

“Sorry,” Anastasia gazes away from my gaze, “Jus’ needed a minute.”

“What’s wrong?”

Anastasia grows withdrawn for a moment and I grasp the silence as a time to step closer and sit beside her. I caress a kiss to her cheek before I arrange my arm around her, “You know, whatever has you down won’t last forever. Things will be okay.” I decide to go with words of encouragement, mainly because I know that she is more than likely stressed over more things than I’m even aware of. I know she was working on a few royal duties this afternoon while it rained, I assumed she was responding to letters or keeping up to date on public, political, and cultural affairs. Her job never truly stops.

Anastasia heavily laments before resting her head on my shoulder, “My father is losing the plot, Harry.”

“How so?” I challenge.

I have to admit, I’m not wholly surprised. He seems to have been on a steady decline since last year when word got around that he needed to pass down the crown.

I have yet to figure out why he is determined to pass the crown down to Anastasia this year or early next year, nobody has heard of a thorough reason. The house staff have their own conspiracy theories, one being that he wants to leave the crown to Anna so that he doesn’t have to handle royal duties anymore. I don’t think that’s the case. I believe there would have to be a solid foundation for what he’s doing. After all, only one British monarch has ever willingly abdicated the throne, and the King wouldn’t make the second unless it were for a better reason than simply not wanting to do royal engagements. He won’t abdicate. He will likely give Anna the title of Princess Regent, putting her in charge of his official duties while he’d get to keep his title as His Majesty the King— of course, that’s if he wants his title.

“My Dad is being a prick.”

I chuckle modestly, “Sweetheart, that’s because he’s the King.”

“That’s no excuse. Are you saying he has always been a prick?”

I become withdrawn for a minute, debating my answer. “Well… kind of…” I nod my head, “It depends on the day. There’s a reason why the Palace staff don’t enjoy being on his service.”

“Is that why you’re never on his service?”

I don’t know how to answer Anna. It isn’t that I’m never on his service because he’s a prick, it’s more that I just don’t savour being on his service. He can be a very arduous man to keep a watch over. He tends to go against the books and plans on purpose. He doesn’t desire any of the staff listening to too many conversations and will deliberately strive to throw me off his whereabouts. I wouldn’t necessarily say he has secrets, but he definitely likes his privacy and isn’t a fan of me doing my job. “Matthew and I just agree not to have me with your Dad unless he requests me, which is rare.”

“So, the staff don’t like him?”

“I don’t think we should discuss this. He does have a say in my wage.”

“I’ll ask my lady’s maid then,” Anastasia mumbles, “That’s of course if I haven’t been abolished from the monarchy by the time I get home.”

“What? What happened?” I immediately challenge, uncertain of how she can be abolished from the monarchy. Although, it could work in our favour if it occurred.

“The King has threatened to take away my title and to make sure I don’t become Queen.”

As much as I desire to relish in the thought of Anastasia being stripped of her title and not under the thumb of the royal family and monarch, I know that she’s probably upset to hear her father threaten such things.

“And I know I shouldn’t care and that I don’t really want to go through all this but at the same time… He is being an outright prick for no reason. This Henry situation isn’t my fault.”

“First of all, sweetheart, the King has no legal authority to alter the succession to the throne. That would require an Act of Parliament,” I inform Anastasia, reminding her of what she already knows.

“I told him that, he responded with ‘we will see about that.’” … “Henry seems to have my father in a rage.”

“Is he threatening this because you won’t date Henry or just because he can’t fire palace staff?” I curiously ask, unaware of whether he’s serious or just taking his anger out on Anna since there’s nobody else. I haven’t heard anything from Matthew but I’m also somewhat off the clock, so Matthew won’t bother me unless it’s urgent.

“I don’t know.”

“And unless there’s a secret love child, you’re the only one who is eligible for the crown. He can’t do anything,” I continue to explain.

As bitter as it is, no matter what, Anastasia has no choice but to take the crown. There’s no other heir, she’s the only child of the King and Queen.

Even if she did want to abdicate for us to be together, where would that leave the monarchy?

In the hands of a distant cousin or relative?

Almost every living English citizen is somehow a descendant of an early monarch.

“I don’t know, Harry. I think Parliament would decide to whom to offer the crown. But surely there has to be someone else in line, I don’t think I can do this. This is becoming a mind game, it’s driving my father insane and it’s stressing me out.” … “I wanted a nice weekend away from it all and it followed me. Are you sure you don’t want to run away together?” Anastasia asks me and for a brief moment, my mind wanders to the ring in my pocket that wants to make an appearance, but a proposal right now isn’t the right time.

How can I ask her to marry me when she’s gradually going down the rabbit hole of self-destruction because of a monarch who relies on her when she isn’t even Queen.

“Where would we run off to, my dear?”

Anastasia lifts her head off my shoulder and stares at me with glossy eyes, “I’d go anywhere with you. Just say the word.”

She is on the verge of tears and it breaks my heart.

“Well, you said after this Henry charade is over you wanted to come forward with the relationship…”

“I’d rather run away. We could go to Greece?” Anastasia continues to look at me, wanting an answer. I can’t tell if she’s half-serious or not. “Let’s go to Skopelos.”

“Anna, I don’t even know where that is.”

“The small Greek island of Skopelos. Nobody would find us.”

“You just want to run away without even being married? What would I do for a job? What will you do? The monarch won’t pay for us.” I’m trying to logically process what she’s saying. There’s a small part of me that wants to bring that ring out and propose but logically how could we pull this off?

We can’t just run off together and fall off the grid. Her father would have everyone looking for her and would presumably kill me with his bare hands.

“I’m sure there’s a small church somewhere. We could make it all work.”

“We’d need residency permits and a Greek tax-file number, running off to Greece is going to be just as hard.” I think my girlfriend has lost her marbles.

Anastasia shakes her head, “Never mind,” Anna whispers, a tear managing to fall down her cheek.

“Hey,” I breathe out, pressing the pad of my thumb to the warmth of her cheek, “Don’t cry, we will work it out, I promise.”

“How can you promise me that?”

If only she knew about the damn ring. Things would be different.

“I just can,” I respond. Every part of me wants to propose right here, right now. But she deserves something better than a proposal while she is upset. She deserves something nicer than this. “I promise that things will be okay. You and I will work it out.”

“What about the monarchy?”

“All due respects, but fuck the monarchy. Right now, you are my priority, not everyone else. Darling, I will make things right, have faith in me.” I wipe a few more tears away from her cheeks and she grants me a small smile. “How about we go inside? Play some Scrabble? Watch a movie? Something?” I offer, gesturing towards the house.

Anastasia nods, standing to her feet, waiting for me. I stand up and I take her hand before I gently lead her inside the house.

It’s when I step inside my mother’s house and let go of Anna’s hand so she can make her way towards my mother, that I realise, there is a chance Anastaisa and I may not get the chance to have a small, ordinary house together. If we get married and she is the Queen, we would be living the high lifestyle, living in the Palaces. There would be no ordinary home that could use with some fixing up. We wouldn’t do mundane things. Life would be different, that’s for sure.

Would we manage to live life together by the rules of the monarch?

Would she manage to have the best of both worlds and balance a sense of normalcy?

♔♔♔

Anastasia’s POV.

The cool breeze from the ceiling fan taps against my skin and I nestle further into the delicate covers of the bed. I leisurely open my eyes, a dull ray of sunshine peeking through the curtains. I tilt my head to the side, Harry’s still fast asleep. It’s rare that I’m ever awake before him. He’s usually out of my bed by five in the morning when we are at the Palace, for obvious reasons. And even when he has no reason to hurry away, he still tends to be the first one awake.

I know he’s exhausted, dealing with the palace isn’t the easiest of tasks and having to look after myself and anyone else isn’t easy. He’s constantly working without much of a break. He’s still under the weather, as much as he hates to admit it. It’s nothing major, but it is still enough for him to need the extra sleep. I’m not quite sure what time he came to bed last night. After a quick game of scrabble, we started a movie, unfortunately, after twenty minutes, his phone went off with a call and he excused himself. I can only assume Matthew was the one calling. Matthew has a knack for calling at the most inconvenient of times. I tried to wait up for him but by the time he got off the phone, I was already in bed. I’m not sure what happened after his quick kiss goodnight.

The man that lies beside me, peacefully sleeping, is wholeheartedly the best thing to have walked into my life. I’m not sure where I went right to deserve him. To be honest, sometimes I don’t think I deserve him. Somehow, he never takes the easy way out, he stays. He has seen me at my best, he has seen me at my worst, and has yet to run for the hills. Most men by now would have thrown in the towel and found someone else. By the grace of God, Harry stays.

I spend the early morning helping Harry’s Mum with the animals, giving them their morning feeds and making sure everybody has water before the day gets too hot. I don’t assume I was much help, but I did try.

I wander into the bedroom just as Harry is placing the last pillow on the bed, he turns to glance at me and raises a brow, “What happened to you?” He gestures up and down, taking note of my mud-covered jeans and grass-stained t-shirt. “Please tell me you didn’t take a fall.”

I shake my head, “Did you know horses like to nibble on clothes? I didn’t…. Also, the goats… uh… they’re not charming at their morning feeds.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just a bit of mud. The princess is fine, relax.” I inform him, with a nod. I understand he just cares, but he needs to relax, a little mud never hurt anyone. “I was wondering if we could leave the house? See where you’re from?”

“I assume my mother put you up to this?”

“She may have mentioned some nice places.”

“Hmmmm, I don’t know, Anna.” Harry responds with uncertainty to his voice, “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“We are in the middle of nowhere; what could possibly happen?”

I am aware that anything could quite literally happen, it is me we are talking about, I do not have the best of luck with things. It would be my luck something out of the blue happens and pushes me into some sort of lockdown.

Harry rubs his temples and looks at me before dropping his hands to his side, “Let me have my coffee first and then we can figure something out, okay?”

“You said we could be normal.” I remind him of the fact he specifically said I could be normal out here. I had it in my mind that we would be able to be more free, we could walk in and out of stores, go to parks, the beach or really anything.

Harry nods his head, “I know, let me have coffee and then we can decide on where to go, okay?” Harry presses a kiss to my forehead, “I love you.”

“Do I get a say in this or are we still doing the whole Princess act thing?” I question with furrowed brows, irritated that the normal weekend I have been promised is consisting of my father pulling strings from the palace and Harry acting as though he’s still on duty and my bodyguard.

Harry sighs. “Darling, please, just let me get some coffee… I promise we will leave the property today.” … “I am not trying to be a prick, I am not trying to be your security guard. I just… I just need coffee.” Harry continues to emphasize his need for coffee.

I nod my head, dropping the subject as I turn on my heel and walk out of his bedroom. I decide to get a head start on getting him his coffee, it is the least I can do for him. I know he was up for most of the night working, and I know it probably isn’t easy being all the way up here while his security team is back home. I know there are a lot of things that could happen that probably runs through his head. I also know I am not always easy to deal with.

I stand in front of his mother’s coffee machine, bewildered on how the contraption works. I tilt my head to the side, suddenly feeling like a privileged idiot; I have never had to make my own coffee before, nor do I even know how to. It is always poured for me or made for me. I place a cup under where I assume the coffee pours from and I hold my breath as I press one of the button in hopes that it brews coffee. I am out of my element.

I hear chuckles from behind me and I turn around to see Harry smirking as he sits upon the stool at the counter. “Don’t mind me, just sitting, love,” Harry informs me, trying to hold back his chuckles.

I bite my lip and heavily sigh, watching as the brewed coffee fills the coffee cup, but I don’t think he wants straight coffee.

“At the risk of sounding like a privileged princess, Harry, I have never made coffee,” I begin with a soft voice, embarrassed as I look at him.

He holds back his chuckles and nods his head, promptly removing himself from his position at the counter and walking around to me. “Sweetheart,” Harry begins, pressing a kiss to my forehead, “What are you trying to make?”

“You a coffee… I just… Where does the milk go? What do all these buttons do? What happened to just having tea? Do people not just make a pot of coffee?”

“Some of us need a little kick of caffeine in the morning. Some, not all. Here, to make a cappuccino you froth the milk like this,” Harry takes the stainless steel container holding the milk, showing me how to froth the milk like they do in coffee stores.

“Why is this contraption a thing? Is this a normal thing?”

Harry laughs, “For some, it is normal. The palace has one, your mother loves it. Convinced me to buy this one for my Mum.” Harry gestures towards the expresso machine as Harry works his magic. “Glad that you still live in the old times of no expresso machines.”

“I thought they were only in coffee shops.”

“You need to leave the palace more,” Harry comments, placing the stainless-steel container on the counter. “Here, you can pour the milk into the cop. Gonna have to teach you how I like my coffee,” Harry winks playfully, “Or, perhaps, we will leave it to me to make morning coffees,” Harry gently pokes fun at me.

I roll my eyes at him and I pour the milk into his cup, quite proud of myself for not managing to make a mess of things.

♔♔♔

The warm breeze whistles through my hair and the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore becomes music to my ears. It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to stand on the beach without a care in the world, and without having to look over my shoulder to make sure nobody is taking pictures. For the first time in quite a long time, I have a sense of being normal. The sand nestles between my toes, I take a deep breath of the salty air as I tilt my head to the side and glance over at Harry.

A smile spreads across his pink lips and he stares at me with awe in his eyes. Lord, I’m one lucky girl to get to stare back at the man I’m entirely in love with. We may have our ups and downs, we might not have a conventional relationship, but there’s no other man I’d want to be with, there’s nobody else I’d want to be standing on a beach with.

Harry takes my hand and we wander closer to the water’s edge until the tip of my toes finally hit the tepid water. I let out a heavy breath, more so relieved and belatedly, happy. “I’d give anything to be able to feel like this more.”

“Feel like what?” Harry questions, guiding us to stroll along the water's edge.

I grin to myself, taking note of the birds soaring high over the ocean, “Like a bird,” I chuckle to myself, well aware my description is not ordinary, then again, I’m not ordinary either, “Free and happy,” I respond. “There’s no restraints, no duties, no photographers, I could run into the ocean with my clothes on and nobody would give a damn,” I gladly smile.

Harry smirks and lets go of my hand, “Well, go on.” Harry gestures towards the water, “By all means, darling, enter the water with your clothes on, be a bird.”

I shake my head and gesture for him to join me as I step into the water, loving the way it feels to have the sand move under my feet and the water dance around my calves, “Harry, join me.”

Harry shakes his head, “Not a chance in hell, love.” Harry chuckles, his hands in his pockets as he stands at the edge, the water barely missing his toes.

“Do you think I could've been a bird?”

“Oh, god. No. Don’t—“

“Say it! Say I'm a bird,” I insist, well aware of what I’m doing.

Harry brings his bottom lip between his teeth and he glances around.

“Anastasia, you, my darling, are bonkers.”

“Say I’m a bird!”

“That would mean admitting I’ve watched a romantic movie.” Harry shakes his head, watching me as I shrug my shoulders and walk further to the sandbar the tide has exposed.

I spin around, allowing my dress to dance around me. I glance over my shoulder and see Harry shuffling closer, his hands still in his pockets.

My feet dance at the edge of the sand bar, thoroughly relishing the freedom, “Tell me.”

“Tell you, what?” Harry questions, stepping closer to me.

“Quote my favourite movie.”

Harry rolls his eyes playfully, “I’d never do such thing.”

I gasp, stepping away from him with a laugh escaping my lips, “Darling,” Harry laughs, reaching out and wrapping his hand around my wrist, causing me to laugh louder as I playfully attempt to pull away from him. Harry tenderly tugs on me and forces me to face him, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” Harry recites the line and I draw my hair away from my face, still giggling like a schoolgirl. I beam at Harry and he smiles back at me, his eyes bright and full of more love than I could ever imagine. “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird. Anastasia, I’ll be anything you need me to be, and I’ll go anywhere I need to go. I’d walk to the end of the earth if it meant being with you; I’ll do everything that it takes, I’ll fight any battle thrown at me, I’ll fight for you and for us. I’ll protect you, at all costs. Darling, I love you, and I honestly couldn’t imagine this life without you.” Harry’s sweet words take me by surprise.

Harry clears his throat and bites his lip as he gets down on one knee.

I stare at him, stunned. Is this— is this happening?

“It won’t be easy, but I promise to love you through everything. Princess Anastasia Annette Leanor, Duchess of Edinburgh, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

As the man I’m madly in love with opens the ring box, I can’t help but think about the fact that it would be MY honour to marry him. He is my knight in shining armour, in more ways than one. He’s everything to me. Perhaps, I haven’t always been gracious to him, nor have I always made things easy. The monarch doesn’t make things easy, but this isn’t the monarch's decision. This is mine. For the first time in a long time, I feel free, and for the first time in a long time, I’m going against all traditions and rules; I’m going against the monarch.

“Yes… Of course. Yes. Harry.” I can’t contain my excitement; how could I ever say no to a proper proposal?

Harry slides the ring on my finger and for the first time in forever, everything is perfectly right in the world. Before I can blink, I’m wrapped in his arms and he’s spinning me around, “I love you,” he whispers, bringing me to a stop and placing me down.

“I love you,” I whisper, gazing at him like he has hung the stars in the sky and moved all the oceans just for me. I lean up and kiss him, slowly and sweetly— nothing else in the world matters.

#harry styles imagines #imagine harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurbs #harry styles prompts #harry styles fanfictions #harry styles fic #harry styles one shots #harry styles preferences #1d imagine #imagine 1d #imagine one direction #harry styles fanfics #fanfic one direction #one direction fanfiction #one direction fan fiction #one direction blurbs #harry styles blurb

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robronfic · 5 years

Note

Could you pls do a Big Bang fics round up of sorts? Would be so helpful to find them all in one place. Thanks

swings & roundabouts by dvs/@dvswraatins

summary: “life can be unfair, robert. that’s just life though, innit?” aaron said, matter-of-fact, a kind smile on his face. “but…sometimes it can be good too. it can give you things you weren’t even looking for.” 32k.

[a wonderful and joyous and absolutely brilliant story that will make you feel so much love your heart may be in danger of bursting! you will fall in love with robert and aaron all over again, and twice as hard - oh - and you will adore the very alive sarah! a fic for a rainy day.]

serve me your black hand by littlelooneyluna/@littlelooneyluna

summary: after a failed attempt at his life by a very much not dead client, hit-man robert sugden is given an uncertified bodyguard to protect him on the job. 37k.

[you’re not ready for this fic. you’re just not. it’s intense and angsty and compelling and completely worth losing sleep and shedding tears over. but it’s also soft and delicate and loving and everything robron are - i mean, what’s not to love?]

breath of ember by some_mad_lunge/@some-mad-lunge

summary: in a society where you are defined by your element, aaron dingle has been marked by the rarest of them all: fire. still, he has built a contented life for himself even as he wages a war with the flame within him. that is until robert sugden, a mysterious air, blows into his life and binds them in an attachment unlike anything anyone could have expected.

and like nothing aaron could have ever prepared for. 19k.

[i’m quite literally still speechless from this fic so finding the words to explain my love for it is proving difficult. but, just…. wow! what a brilliant and unique story! reading this will make you feel like you are aaron and robert and their emotions are yours - that’s how well their feelings are portrayed. just… make sure you have tissues at the ready, okay?]

aftershocks by illgetmerope/@illgetmerope

summary: aaron is a mutant working undercover for the sugden family as robert’s bodyguard. jack sugden is writing the bill that will inform how the world responds to mutants, and robert is the resistance’s only hope. can aaron convince him to help the cause? 68k.

[an utterly wonderful and unique fic that will make you feel all the emotions you’ve ever felt x1000. look out for the club scene because that will give you all the feels! you can cut the tension with a knife and can feel the chemistry right down to your fingertips. save this fic for when you want your heartbreaking and putting together again.]

secrets kept, secrets told by raelee514/@raelee514

summary: robert and aaron have always had a connection. 74k.

[this fic has everything you could ever wish for - from a whirlwind of angst, to a generous flurry of love n softness and a whole heap of emotions. it’s an impressive 74 thousand words or pure brilliance. if one fic will make you believe in soulmates, this is the one.]

you only live twice by anythingbutplatonic/@robertsvgden

summary: robert sugden is agent 007, living a life of luxury as MI5′s most prestigious and coveted agent. but when his increasingly reckless behaviour threatens to put his job and his title - not to mention his life - at risk, madame secretary is forced to assign him a new assistant to help him toe the line. but aaron dingle is unlike anyone robert has ever worked with before, and the threat he poses to his place at the top of her majesty’s government might just be the one thing that ends up keeping both his feet on solid ground. 33k. wip.

[there’s nothing quite as beautiful as watching a story grow and blossom and unfold right in front of your very eyes, especially a story as beautiful and brilliant as this one. it’s intense and intimate, yet tender and warm - aka everything you could ever wish for. lorna has created the most fascinating and captivating world here, and i guarantee you’ll be checking ao3 each day for updates!]

love, aaron by dingletragedy/@dingletragedy

summary: sometimes i feel like I’m stuck on a ferris wheel. one minute i’m on top of the world, then the next I’m at rock bottom. for the most part, i’m you typical 19 year old boy. i have a less than normal family, spend my weekends watching footie and drinking more than i can handle, and can’t wait to finally escape this damn college. but i have one huge secret. nobody knows i’m bisexual. sometimes I wonder if I really am all alone in this, or if there’s others out there who feel the same, trying to get by being half of the whole they know they could be. red.- or: a love, simon au with a twist. 43k.

[this one is kinda alright. i suppose. maybe. maybe not. idk. don’t ask me.]

heaven is a place on earth by sugdingles/@sugdingles

summary: aaron meets robert in san junipero in 1987. how will their relationship progress and is everything really as it seems? black mirror au. 20k.

[a brilliant and imaginative story that will leave your heart aching in the best way possible!!! it’s magical and unique and so, so amazing. it’s just… all the emotions! one hundred percent the kind of fic that’d you want to stay awake until 4 am reading - and you will not regret it one bit!]

run over by robronsnuggles/@robronsnuggles

summary: robert sugden has reached a high point in his life. born rich beyond his wildest dreams, owns a successful business, engaged to a beautiful woman, everything is just perfect for him, and yet something is just off. what he doesn’t expect is for his life to take a turn for the worse and with a car accident and just a few words from a certain handyman, his life turns upside down.

“i can’t believe he doesn’t remember me. everything’s gonna be ok. now.... i am your husband. my name is aaron dingle”. 23k. wip.

[i mean, who doesn't love an amnesia fic - especially one with so many twists and turns that you’ll find yourself gasping and begging for more! another fantastic work in progress that we’re lucky enough to get to watch grow and blossom and unravel - how exciting is that? such a brilliant and captivating story - you’ll be bookmarking this one!]

worse than strangers by escapingreality51/ @escapingreality51

summary: as a young businessman, robert sugden meets and falls in love with aaron dingle, a young, passionate rugby-hopeful. however, when aaron wants to make their relationship public, robert freaks out and breaks up with him. robert has been buried in his work and his family life for the past five years, focusing all his energy on work after never truly recovering from his loss. when aaron returns to emmerdale unexpectedly he is a changed man; rich, famous, and he has not forgiven robert for what happened. will robert and aaron find each other again with five years and so much pain between them? 27k.

[everyone’s favourite jane austen book combined with everyone's favourite yorkshire soap couple, wrote by one of the most talented writers around - pure perfection! this story is intense and brilliant and gorgeous! another one that will break your heart and then put it back together twice as full!]

#robron #fic rec #anon

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prorevenge · 5 years

Text

Abusive mom is ruined and wanted

It's a rough story to start, so I'll just go chronologically.

The first exmaple of how evil she was my older brother told me. Back when I was really young, my dad was in the Army and managed to score some leave (vacation time) from Desert Storm to surprise my mom for her anniversary. When he knocked on the door, all my mom said was "Why aren't you dead, I need the money." Her new beau then started backing out of the garage in my dad's mustang cobra.

He got revenge, but that's a story for later if you guys want.

The divorce was pretty much what you expect, mom got custody of me. My dad later tricked her with some money and got me for a visit, then filed for custody since my mom had warrants out for her arrest.

A few years later my dad remarried to your typical evil stepmother who doted on her daughters and hates her stepson. For example, for Easter my step sisters got huge baskets of candy and chocolates, a couple toys, etc. I got an old soup can with my name painted on it (poorly) that "I could use for pencils."

This witch managed to talk my dad into sending back to my mom, and here the story begins in earnest.

Where my mom was living was an old two bedroom, one bath house. My sister's shared one room, my mom and stepdad shared the other, my brother got the whole basement, and I got a "room" so small that I could touch fingertip to fingertip each wall, and it was double that long. I had a curtain instead of a door.

I got nothing. I hated life there. I was one of only a few white kids at school, so I got beat up alot for being white, it was low income area in Michigan, so I was the one who always had to shovel, rake, mow, and then my mom would "rent me out" to the neighbors, and they all just paid her. I did all the chores and was "grounded until she felt like ungrounding me." I basically sat on my bed for six years anytime I was not in school, cleaning, or making her money.

I learned this later, but my mom was "extorting" money from my dad. She would demand $3000 for a school photo, and he willingly paid $700 a month in child support, even though there was no need to. (He worked in the oil field business after he retired, on a corporate board). She would make stuff up like "Our car broke, etc" and demand money. My dad had to fork over $12,000 for me to go visit him for a week. He couldn't take me in at the time, he wasn't home enough (lots of travel) and he was single, but I found out he was sending me Christmas and birthday gifts every year, and I later found out from my brother she pawned them all. He bought me a brand new Color Gameboy, which was promptly taken away because "I was grounded." She pawned that too. She would often hit me for stupid reasons, like when I once put the dishes away a bit damp or if I managed to get a chocolate milk from the school cafeteria. Once I got fed up and pushed her, she called he police and he chided me.

In short, it was hell.

Meanwhile my sister's got upgraded to a private school and lots of amazing toys. She took custody of my grandfather who had MS from the waist down and couldn't even use the bathroom by himself. She got power of attorney and took all his money and blew it, as well as taking half his pain meds (like Vicodin) and giving them to my brother to sell. This will be important later, kinda.

Now the revenge part. This is going to be a bit long, so I apologize in advance.

In my junior year of high school, I got to working in the library. My teachers were amazing and supportive, and knew my situation. I got my dad's email, and we started planning. He figured once I finished high school, he would personally come up and get me. Finally when my mom decided to have a "graduation party" for me, complete with inviting all her friends and none of the like, two people I could call a friend, a couple days before my graduation ceremony. About two hours before the party was going start, my dad pulls up. I invite him in, and he looks around, looks confused. He leans in and asks me "Where is she?" I point. She was right in front of him lying on the couch. He screwed up his face, and said he'd wait in the car.

While I was gathering all my stuff in a single garbage bag, my mom finally realized who this stranger was, and lost her shit. She tried everything from bribing me with Nascar tickets (I hate Nascar, she liked it but I knew she didn't have any) to physically obstructing me. She had pulled out all the stops for this party, spending a couple thousand and lots of time cooking, err making me cook. I get outside, throw my stuff in the truck, and we take off.

(Side story. We get halfway down the street and my dad has to pull over. He laughs uncontrollably for awhile. I asked his what's up, and in his Texan accent says "Boy, when I was a kid I always wanted to marry a movie star. I just didn't think it be Jabba the Hutt." Evidently they didn't recognize each other at first, she put on ALOT of weight after they divorced.)

We get to his place, and it starts. I get updates from my sister in law. The party was f*****d. She was humiliated. Since she didn't have me, my dad stopped sending money. They had months worth of unpayable bills. She had to pawn her jewelry, pull my sister's out of the private school and back into public school, sell one of the cars she had. Soon she started calling for money claiming someone stole the mail all the time so they couldn't pay their bills and needed money to replace the mailbox so they wouldn't steal it anymore.

It was refreshing knowing I was free, and I could say no with no repercussions. I was happy to live and let live. I vowed to leave her be and let her sink or swim by her own hand. I was elated to be free, and had no desire to look back at that part of my life.

But she wasn't done with me.

I decided to follow my dad's example and join the service. I decided the Navy was the place for me. My job required a top secret clearance, so they do a very thorough background check, to include a credit check. Turns out I was delinquent in mortgage payments, I was receiving social security, and I owed a power company alot of money among other credit card debts. That b****** stole my identity and ran me into debt since she couldn't get anymore money. I knew about identity theft, it just never occurred to me that a parent has everything they need to do so.

This couldn't stand. After I finished basic training and my technical school, I spoke to my Chief (supervisor). Chief was awesome. She managed to wrangle me a "temporary assignment" to a recruiting station in my old town where my mom lived so the Navy would buy my plane tickets. I spoke to the police and filed a report. One by one I managed to clear most of the debts from me and send all the debt collectors after her.

Then I made a visit to the social security office. I was in uniform at the time, and spoke to a clerk about how I was somehow getting payments when I never got anything. She looks up the account, and boom. My mom was here. She claimed I was permanently mangled and disabled in an accident and I was physically unable to sign, giving her permission to cash my checks. The clerk read that last part out slower as it dawned on her that I was clearly more than able. She opened a case. For the monolithic bureaucracy that was the government, they move pretty fast when someone's stealing money from THEM.

Turns out when they went to investigate, she had already skipped town. They issued warrants for her arrest and she is on the run.

I got cut a check for $20,000, the amount that was garnished from my wages for what she stole from the social security administration, and she now owes that much to Uncle Sam.

So this was ten years ago.

So evidently my brother found out that not only am I doing great, I am very successful. I recently left the service and I am starting an even more exciting job. So he told Mom, and she came crawling out of the woodworks via Facebook for money for a "doctor", but I told her prison gives free medical care, and it felt good. Turns out when my aunts (her sisters who lived in another state) found out about how she treated me, she was cut out of everyone's will, to include my grandmother. Unfortunately we didn't get to my grandfather before she cashed in on him.

So heavily in debt, with no family to turn to, no way to get a job, with fraud on her record as well as selling prescription medication, and warrants out for her arrest, my mother, Jabba the Hutt, is receiving hers.

I got cut a check for $20,000, the amount that was garnished from my wages for what she stole from the social security administration, and she now owes that much to Uncle Sam.

Sorry if this is the wrong sub, but I thought I'd share.

(source) story by (/u/Admiral_Bismarck)

#prorevenge #by /u/Admiral_Bismarck #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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Stake Through the Heart (Branjie)- athena2

So this is based on an amazing prompt from @writworm42: “If anyone is looking for a prompt of late, a branjie fic where Brooke is an Extremely Serious vampire hunter who hears legends about Vanessa and turns out Vanessa is an ennui-filled, sarcastic, chaotic good vampire (a la what we do in the shadows) who is Not At All afraid of Brooke would be complete and total poetry xx.” I hope this is at least somewhat what you imagined, and I hope you like it!

Brooke first heard about Vanjie when she was 12.

A year after her parents were killed and she went to live with her grandmother.

A year after she was drafted into a war she had been groomed for her entire life, a war she quickly became an honored soldier in.

“The Mateo clan is one of the oldest, most dangerous clans of vampires in the world,” her grandmother had explained early in her training. “Some say they go back to the 1400’s.”

“Vanjie is one of the most feared. She’s the last of the line. She’s been a vampire less than a century, but she’s killed more than those three times her age. Four hunters have been killed by her in the last year alone. None have ever managed to kill her.”

Brooke shifts in the shrubs, eyes narrowing as a figure approaches.

The brunette is yapping on the phone, parading through the cemetery like she’s at a party. Doritos fall out of a bag as she walks, a trail of fake nacho cheese breadcrumbs. Her wavy brown hair flows behind her, shining in the moonlight.

Hand on her crossbow, Brooke stands, ignoring her screaming muscles, sore from 15 years of hunting.

Gotcha, she thinks.

—

It’s not the first time their paths have crossed, though neither of those times went according to plan.

The very first time, none of Brooke’s careful training could prepare her for finally seeing Vanjie. It was probably some sort of vampire charm, but Brooke couldn’t take her eyes off Vanjie and her smooth skin, mesmerized by her big brown eyes. By the time Brooke recovered her mind enough to take out her stake, Vanjie had already disappeared without so much as flashing her fangs.

She’d taken on Vanjie with junior hunter Plastique last winter, Brooke barely escaping with her life after Plastique knocked herself out with her own crossbow, but not before it misfired and an arrow lodged in Brooke’s chest, dangerously close to her heart.

The pain must have made her hallucinate, because she thinks she remembers Vanjie putting Hello Kitty Band-Aids over a scrape on her arm, then vanishing right as an ambulance Brooke didn’t call for arrived.

It was probably just a hallucination.

Though she never was able to explain the Band-Aids.

The arrow wound took months to heal and the scar tissue still twinges when she moves wrong.

She went back to working alone after that. She should have known it was dumb to take someone under her wing; she’s better on her own, has been since she was a kid. She threw herself into extra training, extra research. She won’t fail again.

Third times the charm, and all that nonsense.

—

“I know you in them woods, Blondie. Want some Doritos?” Vanjie’s voice sounds like a gangster from the movies.

Brooke stills, heart thudding painfully. A vampire had never been able to pick out her hiding place. Vanjie was as good as the legends said.

“Come on out,” Vanjie continues. “I don’t bite. Well, not on the first date, anyway.”

Brooke tightens her grip on the crossbow and moves silently out to the gravestones.

“You here to kill me? You could at least buy me dinner first. Seriously. Minimum wage is shit. A bitch is broke.” Vanjie stands with her hips cocked and inspects her crimson nail polish.

Brooke doesn’t say a word. She inches closer, her finger on the release. She should have already pulled it. Why hasn’t she? And why aren’t Vanjie’s fangs out?

“Am I supposed to be scared of you?” Vanjie demands. “You pretty impressive, I’ll give you that. But you can only be so scary when you smell like lavender. Are you, like, 90?”

Well, the lavender body wash was supposed to be calming, not that it’s working considering the way Vanjie is making her blood pressure skyrocket right now.

Vanjie sighs. “Look, if you’re gonna kill me, can we go to my apartment first? I should be allowed a last meal.”

This is against the rules. This is wrong. But this is the closest she’s ever been. She can feel it in her blood. Brooke shrugs. “Lead the way.”

—

Brooke was always a good student, bringing home A’s as soon as she was old enough to get letter grades. She didn’t go into her hunting career unprepared.

She started at 18, the earliest they would let her, though she’d been training and studying for 6 years. By then, she was too late to avenge her parents: the two heads of the Mateo line died mysteriously when she was 16, no hunter taking the credit for it.

But Brooke still worked. Within months, she was a top hunter, killing vampires that had been around for centuries. Each one was just practice, an appetizer before the feast.

Last year, after months of studying the Mateos, she set her sights on Vanjie.

She knows Vanessa Isabella “Vanjie” Mateo was born October 1930, the youngest of the Mateo line. She had been turned in the summer of 1958, when she was 27. She’d bounced around Puerto Rico and the United States, currently residing in Toronto.

Brooke’s heard the legends, the stories of horrible vampires and the brave hunters that fought them in her ear since she was a child tucked into bed with stuffed animals. Vanjie’s were always the most gruesome stories, the ones that made her stay up all night fearfully clutching her stuffed rabbit as Brooke vowed to become the thing that vampires feared.

According to legend, her kill count is in the thousands.

According to legend, she ate the hearts of those she’d killed when blood wasn’t enough.

According to legend, no hunter to engage in combat with her has ever walked away alive.

—

Brooke’s hands sweat. She’s not following the rules. She’s certain no hunter has ever been to a vampire’s home. But it’ll be worth when she gets revenge for her parents. When she kills the most dangerous vampire in recent history. When she becomes the brave hunter in the stories parents tell their kids.

“You mind if I change first? I always say my job is gonna be the death of me, but I’d rather not die in this thing.”

The blue polyester polo is ugly, though Brooke thinks it looks unreasonably good on Vanjie.

“Okay.”

Brooke takes in the messy kitchen with its checkerboard floor. Takeout containers are piled in the sink. None of the chairs match; one is a rocking chair, one is shaped like a giant hand, and one has ornate trim and red velvet lining. A goldfish swims in a soda bottle filled with water, while mysterious green liquid bubbles(?) in a fishbowl. The refrigerator has stickers reading “Meme Wall”, and is hidden beneath cut-out pictures of people and quotes even Brooke admits she can relate to. Strings of Pokémon cards serve as a pantry door, a lava lamp glows purple on the table, pink streamers hang from the ceiling light, just brushing the floor. Brooke forces her eyes down on the floor before her head explodes.

Something doesn’t add up. Where was the creepy dungeon stuff Vanjie had in the legends? This place looks like a bunch of stoned college kids decorated it. And why was Vanjie being nice to her? She can’t let her guard down. This is probably all a ruse; how Vanjie lures hunters in before she kills them.

She is still standing, bow slung over her back, stake in its thigh holster, when Vanessa comes back in black leggings and a sleeveless shirt made of flowy red silk.

“Stay a while, Blondie. Sit down and relax. You always so tense? Let me loosen those shoulders for ya.” Hands unclasp her bow and nudge her into a chair before clamping down on her shoulders and massaging out the aches.

“I don’t–I’m not–my shoulders are none of your business!” She splutters, wriggling her shoulders until the hands leave, refusing to acknowledge how nice they felt. She stays in the chair, the velvet one, which smells like Sour Patch Kids mixed with wet dog. “I’m here to kill you, if you haven’t noticed!”

“So do it. I’ll even give you an open shot.” Vanessa pulls aside her shirt, exposing the smooth skin over her not-beating heart, and Brooke forgets how to breathe. Vanjie definitely has some sort of charm power.

She makes no move for her stake.

“That’s what I thought.” She covers her skin, breaking the spell.

“I will. Eventually,” Brooke promises. “I want answers first.”

“You want coffee?”

“No. It makes me jittery.”

“Good, ‘cause I don’t have any.” Vanjie reaches for a bright orange Frisbee, dumping in cereal and milk before crumbling chocolate Pop-Tarts and Fritos over the top.

Where was the blood of her enemies? The hearts she ate for dinner? Brooke thinks she’d rather watch Vanjie eat a heart than this monstrosity. “Who the hell puts that in cereal? And why are you eating out of a Frisbee?”

Vanjie drops into the rocking chair across from Brooke before speaking.

“Don’t judge me. I work retail and I deserve this. One, it makes Cocoa Puffs more chocolatey, and chocolate’s my main reason to live. Or well, to not die. Plus you get salty-sweetness. And two, A’Keria’s slacking off on the dishes.” She slurps up milk. “Why’s it matter? Who says cereal has to be eaten in a bowl? You know the shit I’ve seen? The earth is dying, bees are dying, who gives a flying fuck what I eat out of? You do. I bet you eat Raisin Bran with bananas.”

“Strawberries, actually.”

“So little soldier girl can tell a joke.” Vanjie grins.

Brooke has to hold her own smile back. She’s here to kill this bitch. She’s never broken procedure like this, ever, and she has to remind herself she’s only going along with Vanjie’s nonsense because she’ll do whatever it takes to kill her.

“So, why?” Vanjie asks abruptly.

“Why what?” Brooke sighs. She wishes this bitch would shut up already so she can kill her, because the more Vanjie talks, the farther away Brooke’s stake feels.

“Why do you hunt? Gotta be a reason,” Vanjie challenges with a smirk.

“My parents and grandparents were hunters.”

“Ah, family tradition. Hear that one a lot.” She crunches on a Frito.

“Your parents killed mine.” Shit. She had a strategy. She had plans, she had notes. She wasn’t supposed to blurt that out yet.

“Well, shit.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Brooke’s out of her chair before she knows it, stake pressing against Vanjie’s chest. “My parents died! I…I was only 11!”

Vanjie wraps her hand around Brooke’s wrist, her skin tingling. “I’m sorry. Can you give me a minute to explain? I know you’re all noble and stuff. Please hear me out.”

Brooke sighs and settles back in her chair, holding the stake tightly.

“I’m sorry about your parents. I really am. That must have been hard. You were just a kid.” Vanjie’s voice is impossibly soft and Brooke finds her grip loosening. “But you need to know, I was never part of their whole murder thing. My parents…they cut ties with me decades ago. I wasn’t what they wanted. I like girls, first of all. And I wouldn’t kill. I only drink animal blood. I’ve never killed anyone.” She takes a breath. “Well, except for them.”

“What?” She drops the stake. This could all be a lie, and Vanjie could kill her any second, but she believes her.

“Yeah. They said I could get back into their graces if I found myself a male companion or killed a newborn baby to prove my loyalty. You know, just basic things you do for your parents to like you,” she mutters acidly. “I just fucking had it. So I killed them.”

“Holy shit.” Vanjie’s voice is deadly calm and serious, eyes dark, and Brooke knows she’s telling the truth.

“Yeah.”

“But-but the legends about you! You killed more hunters than anyone! You’re one of the most feared vampires in history!” She shakes her head frantically. How could this all be going so wrong?

“My parents made that shit up,” Vanjie shrugs. “Couldn’t have people know their daughter was a disappointment. It wasn’t like anyone was gonna fact-check ‘em.”

“I don’t think you’re a disappointment,” Brooke says quietly.

Vanjie bites her lip and smiles sadly. She pulls her shirt open again. “So, we gonna get this over with?”

“Do you, like, want to die?” Brooke asks, making no move to hurt Vanjie, her mind still buzzing.

“I mean, I’m not exactly having a good time in this hellhole.”

“Maybe you should talk to someone.”

“That’s your advice? A fucking therapist?”

“Sorry. My grandparents made me go to one. After, you know.”

Vanjie nods. After a few seconds of silence she stands up and leans in, placing her hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “Did you heal up okay? After your little friend got excited and shot you? Too bad I didn’t have enough Band-Aids to cover all of you.”

“You-” Her eyes go wide. It wasn’t a hallucination.

“Yeah, I remember that night. Not everyday someone knocks themselves out with their own weapon. Couldn’t forget those eyes of yours, either.”

Vanjie’s hand slips underneath Brooke’s black T-shirt, fingers ghosting over the raised skin where the arrow pierced her. Brooke looks up at the exact second Vanjie looks down and then their lips meet.

Vanjie’s lips are surprisingly soft and strong, pressing Brooke firmly into the chair. Vanjie’s hands roam all over Brooke’s chest and Brooke hesitantly lifts hers up to Vanjie’s back. There is no heartbeat pulsing beneath her fingers but Vanjie’s body feels infinitely alive as Brooke’s hands move to tangle in her hair.

They break apart after what feels like years and Brooke tries to remember how to breathe.

“That was pretty impressive, Blondie.”

“Brooke. Not Blondie.”

“Vanessa. Not Vanjie.”

They both look at each other awkwardly. “So I guess that means you’re not gonna kill me?” Vanessa asks in a small voice.

“No. I’m not.” She gathers her bow and slips her stake inside its holster.

“Leaving so soon?”

“Yeah. I-I should go.”

Vanessa nods. She gives Brooke a quick hug, hand steady over Brooke’s jacket pocket. Over her heart.

“Mind the streamers on your way out. It’s some jellyfish costume Yvie’s trying to make.”

Brooke feels something inside her jacket pocket once she gets home. She pulls out a tiny piece of paper with a phone number on it.

She falls asleep with the paper clenched in her hand.

—

The next day she dials the numbers that are unfamiliar to her but that she hopes become second nature.

“Vanessa? How about that dinner?”

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #vampire au #angst #athena2 #tw mild mention of homophobia #tw implied depression #concrit welcome #submission

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jaeminlore · 6 years

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Always Return | Jeno

summary: it sparks up the fire, a flame that still burns. Oh, it's to you i'll always return. [inspired by this post by @jenobyeol] words: 13k+ category: pirate!jeno x fem!pirate!reader, fluff, angst, adventure warnings: alcohol, blood, blades, fighting, the word "bastard" appears a lot lol, jealousy, mention of past abuse, minor character death

You are eight years old and your father sets you down in a nunnery just before he and his crew begin their raid. It's a precautionary decision he's made with this town in particular, one that keeps both you and the nuns safe. They protect the only child of the most terrifying pirate on the sea, and in return the crew does not steal from the convent.

You are eight years old when a new crew of pirates trample upon your father's territory. It's frightful, watching so many buildings burn and men slaughtered. You aren't sure how they managed to find your father— he's usually so stealthy. You aren't sure why anyone would try to defeat the great man whose entire reputation was built upon the bodies of the innocent.

Yes, he was a terrible, terrible man, but you were protected from everyone else while under his care.

There's a nun whose name you've forgotten who runs out into the courtyard and pulls you closer to the door. "They could climb the hill," she warns, "it's best we stay out of sight."

The doors lock with a loud click behind you, and as you walk the woman puts out each torch along the way. "We mustn't make a peep. If they've come all the way here then they must want something."

You can't remember where you've landed, but you're too frightened to ask. You wish your father had let you stay on the ship, where your small sword was. Here, you are weaponless and alone, a mere child in the sight of God.

The convent is silent for some time, enough to make you want to fall asleep. However, a terrified shout comes from the east yard, and you watch as a few nuns scurry outside, lighting torches as they do. "It's a child!" One of them call. "Open the doors! Let him in!"

As the west door opens wide against the dark and chilly night, you can easily see the sisters' mistake. There's a crew of men standing on the other side, and it doesn't take long before everyone — including yourself — is tied up and held hostage as the entire convent is looted for its goods and offerings.

One of the women sputter. "You're stealing from God!"

Another prays loudly, an unsteady flow in her voice.

You try to wriggle free.

It takes nearly an hour before your father's crew arrives, and there's great blood shed upon those stone floors. You wonder if the convent is cursed now; filled with the angry spirits of pirates who died far too early. Surely the convent will be removed, or cleansed by the priests that established it here years ago.

Once you are back on your father's ship, safe from harm and out at sea once again, you creep into the captain's quarters. Your sleeping shirt drags across the splintered wood. "Father? Who were those people?"

The captain picks you up and sets you on his knee. You notice the tiredness of his face as he rubs the space between his brows. "Seems this new captain has a son willing to trick innocent nuns. Jeno... a kingly name for a bastard. I'll train you to kill him. You must fight as hard as me now, for two pirates are after our loot; our crew. If they find the siren's treasure before we do, it's over. My life's work is nothing."

You have nightmares of burning crosses and desperate prayers that night.

You are ten years old and Jeno offers you a horse figurine to play with. You've been captured on his father's ship; held for ransom of whatever sum you can't add up yet.

The captain locks you in his quarters with Jeno, and the two of you find yourselves at a loss for how to speak to each other.

"I'm Y/n," you say quietly, wondering if you're even allowed to talk to the boy. "My father says I'm not supposed to be friends with you."

Jeno smiles, and it makes his eyes curl up into little crescents. He doesn't look very scary at all. "I'm Jeno. My father says I'm not supposed to be friends with you, either."

You walk the horse figurine over to him, where he had a wooden knight grasped between his fingers. "We can still play together, though."

Jeno giggles when you make the horse nudge the knight. "Sure!"

You are twelve years old when you have your first proper fight with Jeno.

You are at a marketplace, just a few stalls from the shabby inn you were staying at while your father and his crew traded in a few goods.

You meet Jeno there, practicing his swordsmanship in the courtyard square, away from the curious eyes of merchants and pirates alike. "Your feet should be pointed toward your opponent, not outwards like you have them positioned."

As if to prove your point, Jeno topples over and just barely manages to catch himself before he face plants into the cobblestone. He turns to glare at whoever interrupted him, and then stops and raises his eyebrows once he sees who it is. "Oh. It's you."

"It is me," you say haughtily, "and I'm offering you good advice, so you should take it."

Jeno ignores you and turns back around, jabbing his rapier at an unseen force. His feet have suspiciously been drawn inward, as per your instructions. "Father says I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"Then don't talk," you roll your eyes, "just defeat me."

Jeno grunts in surprise when you leap forward and draw your own sword to match his speed. The sound of steel resounds through the courtyard as you pelt Jeno with blow after blow.

After awhile, you begin to shout instructions at him, and in the heat of the fight, he listens. Suddenly his footwork is better, and he realizes that looking into your eyes will help him catch your next move. It's a proper fight now, you realize with glee, lips drawing into a smile.

Jeno is zealous in his fighting. It matches your enthusiasm evenly, so that the fight goes on for what seems like hours before you are finally disarmed.

You huff. Reaching to pick up your weapon, you address Jeno. "You only won because I'm such a good teacher."

"No way," Jeno relents. He sheaths his own sword and glares at your defiant smirk. "I could've killed you just then."

"Why didn't you?" You say hotly, friendly competition disregarded as blood heats up your ears. "That's what our father's want, huh? For us to try and have at each other? Just kill me if you're so good."

Jeno backs down. His gaze flits to his boots. "I-I can't say I want to take it that far."

There's a gentleness in his voice that makes you angry. He wasn't raised to back down from a fight, and neither were you. "Don't be such a coward," you spit. "One of us will have to do it one of these days, if we want to be in our fathers' good wishes."

You walk back to the inn, angry at yourself for letting him go. Your father would've been so proud of you for bringing him Jeno's sword. For taking away the boy's life.

You'd never admit it to Jeno, afraid of being called a coward yourself, but you didn't want to take it that far either.

You are fourteen years old and have bargained your way to riches. Every month you come back to the trade market with an item worth more than the last, and a spirit that wanes under no pressure.

You are fourteen years old and Jeno argues that he's made more money than you. Often the two of you will see each other, especially at trading posts where your fathers trusted only their children to trade their best goods for all they're worth.

It had become somewhat of a tradition to wait at the trading posts until you saw the lonesome boy. Then the bargaining would begin, and you'd get a secret thrill at the way even Jeno seemed compelled to give you his items.

Today it's a sword; one of old that has a king's seal on it. Your father found it in an abandoned tomb, and told you not to take any less than five thousand shillings for it.

You reckon you can get ten thousand.

You're prideful at the marketplace. It's not hard to figure out that this is where you shine in your adolescence. You know better than anyone here how to cheat a man of his goods.

Only Jeno can compete with your skill, and that's because he often uses his father's name to scare men into forking over Jeno's required amount.

You meet him at the dock, a sack of clanking goods heaved over your shoulder, identical to his. "Jeno."

He gives you no emotion, only staring you down with a straightness in his posture. He should loosen up a bit, you think. "Y/n."

Your laughter rings through the docks as the two of you walk towards the trading grounds. His foot falls heavier than yours, in longer strides, but you manage to keep up with the quickness of your feet. "My father said you had some earrings rumored to be from Atlantis. I want them."

Jeno turns to you, a sardonic reply at the top of his tongue. His own golden earrings catch the glare of the morning sun. "Fat chance. I've got three women from the brothel willing to give up their entire wages for these things."

"The brothel?" You scoff. "What have they? Pieces of eight? Sell to the merchants at least but don't sell yourself short."

"How much do you reckon they're worth?" He says it carefully, like he's trying to keep a secret. But Jeno is as obvious as the great ship his father sails upon, so you know he's trying to get you to admit bargaining secrets.

"I'd pay triple what anyone here offered," you let the lie slip easily off your tongue. "If the pearls are truly from Atlantis as the legends say, they are priceless. Sirens could've worn these as they pulled men to their demise." There's a quick suggestion in your speech that you're sure Jeno doesn't catch.

His eyebrows furrow at the obvious change in tone. "Are you suggesting dragging me to my demise?"

Your smile is quick. "Of course not, sweetheart."

His lips quirk up into a little smile at the name. It seems to have the opposite effect of what you had originally aimed for: to annoy him. Instead, he seems rather pleased at your formality. "Would you like to see them?"

You hold to your intimidating gaze, but Jeno only ignores it as he pulls a small wooden box out of his bag. Upon opening them, you can see the shine of mismatched pearls: one pink and one white. They're beautiful and unique, and even you feel as if they would've once belonged to a siren. To royalty of Atlantis. "How much?" It almost sounds desperate, nothing like your normal bargaining voice, but right now you feel drawn to the treasure.

"It's siren magic," Jeno says in awe, supplying a reason for the way you're feeling. "I'll use that to my advantage and get a ton of money for it."

You wonder if Jeno is playing dumb or if he truly doesn't know that these earrings could bring him closer to the siren's treasure. You need them before he sells them off to some stupid merchant who has no idea what magic that jewelry possesses.

"Or..." he smirks, "You can give me all your earnings today for them."

You feel like he has something up your sleeve, but you can't be bothered to care. Those earrings will get you and your father ahead. They could be your true saving grace. Now it's only a game of outsmarting Jeno. Beating him to your father on the other side of the shore, away from his own rival.

You left him at the docks and began your bargaining with the ugly men of the market. They give in easily, and you use your father's name to get more gold than necessary. Two can play a game of threatening.

By sundown, Jeno is found outside of an inn, his still-high voice bribing the bartender for a sip of rum. "I've got the money."

You drop the noisy bag of coins onto the bar.

Jeno turns his attention to you, and the bartender takes this time to replace his mug of rum with cider. "Great," he grabs the bag and stands up. "Goodnight, Y/n."

Your hand goes to your sword hilt. "You aren't giving me the earrings, are you?"

Jeno leans forward, till his lips are centimeters from your ear. His lips feel warm, as does your stomach, but you can't fathom why. "My father is just upstairs, love. Should I upset him by ruining our best chance at the sirens? And can you risk your own reputation by drawing your weapon at an inn? I doubt it."

You want to scream and yell and fight, for your father won't take this news well. Neither will you. But Jeno is right; even as a known pirate, the marketplace is a place of peace. These people are bandits and thieves just the same, and they'll kill you without a second look for threatening their business. So you walk out and find the place your father told you to stay until his crew can come to get you.

It's a small hut hidden behind the blacksmith's forge. They let you sleep there as long as your father gives them business whenever they visit.

You don't think Jeno knows anything about it.

Which is why you are so surprised to see a small burlap bundle under your pillow. Inside are the two pearl earrings, pink and white.

You are fifteen years old, and Jeno never told you that he had replicas made so that his father would think he had the real earrings.

You've thought about him a lot in the past year. Mostly, every time you put on those pearl earrings. You think of what kind of sacrifice Jeno made, for you of all people. It makes you wonder why. It makes you want to ask him.

There's a pink silk gown covering your body, draped over the petticoat and corset your father coaxed you into wearing. If you can sneak into this royal ball, you can open one of the back entrances for a small raid. You can get some royal memorabilia that would gain trunkfuls of gold from the market.

"Remember," you father says, eyes meeting yours through the dirty looking glass that hangs on the ship's walls. "Be as inconspicuous as possible. But if a noble takes interest in you, don't be afraid to follow them deeper into the castle. You could loot a few bedrooms up there."

You press your tinted lips in a thin line. Your father seems to forget that you are just a child, not a woman fit for a royal party, and certainly not a woman who follows a nobleman up to his room. But you should know better than anyone that your father cares about nothing but collecting and hoarding gold like some sort of dragon elder from the mountains.

He doesn't know about the earrings, because you haven't told him. Something tells you it'd make matters worse, make the fighting worse, make your missions harder and scarier.

Besides, your father had to give someone up to the sirens if he wanted to entire their territory, wouldn't he? You wouldn't put it past him to offer you up.

The crew sneers and whistles at you when you leave the boat. You cover your face with a parasol and keep walking until you blend in with the crowd that moves towards the castle.

You purse your lips anxiously. You aren't even sure where you are, much less the names of any royals here. All you can hope for is that no one asks any questions.

Getting inside the ballroom is easier than you thought it would be. The grandiose of everything is so different in contrast to your father's dirty ship — it makes you imagine a life as a princess with no worries. How they must live life in luxury with their beautiful gowns and delicious foods.

You glance at one of the servers as they walk past you, glasses of champagne balanced on a tray. "Would you care for a drink, Madame?"

His voice is familiar. The accent is not. "Jeno?"

The boy in question looks up, eyes wide like he's been caught red-handed. "Huh. Small world."

You place you hands on your hips and follow him as he offers drinks to random guests. "If you think for a second your father is going to get the loot my father has been planning for then you are sorely mistaken."

Jeno places the tray on a table and steals a silver spoon off of the table in the same movement. He holds it up and glances at his reflection. "Wonder if they'll catch the shine through the window."

You snatch the spoon out of Jeno's hand, placing it back on the table as the boy laughs. "Lee Jeno, this is serious. My father will be angry if he doesn't get this loot."

Jeno scoffs. "You think you're the only one with daddy issues? Think again."

You sigh and look around. The party is in full swing, and the live band is distracting everyone from one of the back entryways. You get an idea. "If we both signal them at the same time, but on opposite sides of the castle, they won't know about each other until they get inside. It won't be our fault."

Jeno's eyebrows lift as he catches on. "We must be docked on different sides of the harbor anyway, considering neither of us knew the other would be here."

"Right!" You say, "So we'll signal them and meet up at a rendezvous spot."

"The balcony? In the left wing? We can wait until they get back to the ship, and pretend we got caught up fighting each other!"

"Yes!" You grab Jeno's wrists in the excitement, only to quickly release them once you realized what had happened. "Uh, sorry."

Jeno licked his lips and smiled that same dumb crescent-eyed smile that he had when you were kids. "It's okay. We aren't fighting until we get to the balcony anyway, right?"

"Right," you say, feeling a tingle in your heart.

Jeno is fifteen years old and he can't figure out why you look so mesmerizing compared to everyone else in the room. It's been a mystery he's been struggling to solve all night, but the more he thinks about it the more stumped he gets.

And then you're standing across from him on the left wing balcony, hands pressed against the railing as you watch the far away sea start with quiet activity. "My father's crew are on their way."

Jeno pulls a pocket watch — albeit rusty and unreliable — out of his pocket and checks the time. "It's nearly midnight. Mine will be on their way too."

The sound of you tapping the railing fills Jeno's ears, and he tries to focus on that instead of the way you look so much more grown up than the last time he saw you.

He's trying to focus on anything but the stray curl that falls onto your forehead, brushing your nose and making you scrunch your face in discontentment.

"Here," he mutters softly, wondering if his touch will scare you away. He's only fifteen after all; he's not exactly sure what he's doing.

He takes the stray curl and tucks it behind your ear. He does it slowly, because he likes how warm your skin feels, and the way you're looking at him makes his own skin feel just as hot. "I- uh- there you go."

"Thank you, Jeno." There seems to be a tone of embarrassment to your voice, and Jeno thinks maybe he isn't the only one affected tonight.

"No problem."

You are sixteen years old and Jeno doesn't tell you that his father is sick, and wants to find the siren's treasure before influenza takes him.

You are sixteen years old and Jeno doesn't know where you are, only that his father intends to kill yours, and there no way of warning you.

He sees your ship, laden with panicked men as they head to the canons. And you, in the crow's best, watching everything with fearful eyes. Your sword is drawn, and when you lock eyes with Jeno, he feels almost compelled to put his sword down.

But Jeno's fear of his father is much stronger than his strange fondness for you, so he covers his relieved sigh with a cough and gestures for his father's men to protect the ship as best they can.

It's the first battle of the many you and Jeno will command. Rain clouds gather in the sky, perhaps to watch a downfall of two great captains — two feared captains — both overcome with natural sickness.

You blame the rats onboard. Jeno blames the wind.

You want more than anything to be with your father, instead of outside in the pouring rain, calling out for orders and throwing fallen crew members overboard. Your heart stings painfully as your sword blade clinks against Jeno's.

He doesn't look like a boy anymore. He looks like a true captain, ready to command his ship at his father's sudden illness.

In return, you feel weak and sick and wonder briefly how on earth you'd ever captain a ship on your own. If mutiny came upon your ship, what would you do? Where would you go?

Jeno grunts as you nick his arm with your rapier, "My father is dying. As is yours. Perhaps this is the day we make peace."

He says it as he jabs his sword at your side.

You dodge the blade and glare at him. "Perhaps. It'd be fruitless though, and I do not wish to be haunted by my own father for not following with postmortem wishes. I doubt even you would like to face the wrath of an angry spirit. No, I'll find the siren's treasure myself and kill your entire crew."

"And me?" Jeno huffs, backing away from your blade. His footwork is quick, almost like a dance. "What will you do with me?"

You think of your father, sick and dying. You wonder what he'd say. "I'll tie you to the prow and let the mermaids have you."

"What?" There's sweat running down Jeno's face. He wipes it off and continues to parry your strikes, looking exhausted but determined, and slightly intrigued.

"Didn't your father tell you? Sirens often require a sacrifice if you want to escape their waters. Once I find the treasure, I'll offer you up to them. They don't take kindly to men anyways."

You say it out loud, but you don't feel it in your chest, only in the pit of your stomach where it sits like fermented cider. It's distasteful and strange.

Jeno almost notices. Instead he smirks. "Then I call a truce for tonight. We have captains to bury and strategies to form."

He doesn't sound very happy about anything he's just said.

You think you know exactly how he feels.

You are seventeen years old, and the siren's treasure is heavy on your mind. Jeno is also heavy on your mind, though it's hard to figure out just why you think about him so much.

In your father's absence, your crew has gotten dirtier and tougher in their way of talk and action. No longer do they fear your father's blade, so they openly talk about him as if his spirit doesn't haunt the ship. You hear angry words shared about him, but also about Jeno.

One of them makes your blood boil far great than the other.

The next time you see Jeno, he's sitting in a tavern. His eyes are bloodshot from what looks like lack of sleep, and his nose crinkles every now and again from the smoke of his mate's pipe.

You're in a trading town, letting your crew take the week off of water to trade their own goods and invest in some homes or businesses. Some have families to visit.

You don't have anything to trade or anyone to visit, so you stay in the tavern, where an inn is located in just the floor above.

Seeing Jeno is sort of a blessing in disguise, and you gesture for him to follow you as soon as he catches your eye.

The room you've bought is small, but the cotton sheets and clean wash bin are certainly welcomed after months at sea.

Jeno follows you in and slumps down onto the bed. His vest slips off his narrow shoulders as he leans his arms back to hold himself up. "Long time, no see."

His voice is quiet, a murmur that spreads through your veins like warm cider on a cold night. You aren't sure why you've missed it so much. Perhaps the familiarity of it all. Yes, that's it.

"How are you fairing?"

Jeno shrugs. "The crew is more or less cooperative with me. Things could be worse. I'm ready to sleep for the night without forty men snoring right beside me, though."

"Haven't you got a captain's quarters?"

Jeno shrugs. "I don't really like sleeping in my father's old room."

"Stay with me," you blurt out, eyes wide at your own daring words. "I mean, it'll save money. And I don't snore, by the way."

Jeno stands up and smiles softly just before walking over to his carpetbag and taking out what looks like nightclothes. "Well, that's a relief. I'd have to kick you off the bed."

You gasp, "But I'm paying for the room!"

Jeno pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it onto the floor. The sudden glimpse at his torso makes your mouth feel dry, so you lick your lips and avert your gaze. "Besides," you continue, ignoring Jeno's knowing smirk. "No one else knows you're in here. If you kicked me off the bed, I'd have a perfectly valid reason to kill you."

When you turn back around, Jeno is fully clothed again. He crawls into bed and burrows himself under the covers until only his forehead is peaking out.

It's quite endearing.

You turn out the light and slip under the covers as well, finding that it's a much tighter fit than it looked before. You can't rest comfortably without your shoulder touching Jeno.

He doesn't seem to mind. Instead, it seems to be the opposite. He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you close to him, to that your face is against the crook of his neck.

You feel something soft against your forehead, and your mind just registers it to be Jeno's lips before you slip into a deep sleep.

You are eighteen years old, and have shed your fair share of blood. No longer do the screams haunt you at night; no longer are you afraid. You feel like an immortal spirit, shedding blood to protect your youth.

You are eighteen years old, and Jeno mocks you for your unadulterated courage.

He has become more subdued since his father's death: deadly in the most graceful way, while you are unlawful in your charges, unwilling to give anyone a second chance.

Even your crew begins to fear you and your bloodlust. It isn't that you love to kill, but the more you do, the more numb you become to it all.

The crew wouldn't really understand anyway. They can't hear your father's voice like you can; a spirit passing through your soul and leaving nothing but a chill in it's wake. They can't hear him get louder and louder every day until you're begging him to be silent.

They don't see the visions you have at night, not of innocent victims but of your own father, berating you for letting his ship sink; for letting his crew fall; for losing the treasure he gave his life for. They'll never know why you wake up screaming in the night, fear blanketing you in a thin layer of sweat.

And, oh, how you hate the sunrise. You've come to look at it every day, heartbeat still stuttering in panic from your reoccurring dreams. You wonder briefly if any of your crew cares that you seem to be in pain every night.

You already know the answer. It doesn't really come as a surprise when mutiny is declared, and you're suddenly on a rowboat in the middle of the ocean.

You hate the sunrise, but Jeno loves it. That's why he's the first to see you — not that he knows it's you yet — laying low and unnoticeable at the bottom of the rowboat.

You don't stir or move, and it makes Jeno feel fear. "Hey, we got a straggler! Get the ropes!"

The first mate looks down from atop the crow's nest. "I've got eyes. Drop the anchor and get that person onto the deck. Someone bring food and dry clothes!"

Everyone gets into place, and Jeno leans over the side of the ship as a few members of his crew row out to help the stranger.

There's a bit of commotion down at the boat and Jeno finds himself shouting, "What's wrong? Are they dead? Bring them up!"

One of the crew members snort and shout back. "Like hell. That's the cap't of the golden ship. Let the devil rot like her father before her!"

Jeno snaps his head towards the boat and notices for the first time your hair peaking out from under your purple bandana. "There's no threat! Seriously, let Y/n up."

It's difficult to get the entire crew to listen, but Jeno finally manages to get you aboard. Your skin is ashen, lips chapped and pale from dehydration. "We need water!"

The crew all murmur their disagreements before someone finally hands Jeno a leather flask.

"C'mon, Y/n," he whispers. He places the mouth of the flask to your lips. "C'mon, you'll be okay."

You cough once, twice, three times before lulling your head against Jeno's chest. "I... I can't... I'm dead..."

"You aren't dead," Jeno says.

"I am." You blink and look up, eyes catching on his. "Mutiny, you see."

Jeno places his hand over your mouth and hisses, "Don't let my crew hear, okay? We'll figure this out... I'll help you."

You nod, obviously still delirious. "Sure, Jeno."

Jeno tethers you to the base of the mast, because nothing else would appease his crew. Hands tied above your head and torso pressed against the splintered wood, you growl at anyone whose eyes linger too long.

Jeno finds comfort in the fact that you haven't lost your bite. He nurses you back to health himself, ignoring your jests. "You're sunburnt," he mumbles quietly, dipping his fingers in a bowl of aloe vera. "This should help."

"Just let me go at the next port," you say, ignoring the pain that strikes your peeling skin.

"Hush," Jeno chides. He presses his fingers against your lips and brushes the aloe across the expanse of the reddened surface. "The more you talk, the longer it takes to heal."

You sigh through your lips — most likely in frustration — but Jeno only feels your hot breath on his fingers. He glances up, wondering if you can sense what he's feeling. After all, your faces are pretty close, and he can't help but lean in whenever he applies more balm to your skin.

You kick him in the shin. "Are you done or do I have to keep looking at your big nose?"

Jeno balks. "It's not big."

He listens pleasantly when a laugh escapes you. Your shoulders shake and you hide your face in your overhanging arm, wincing at the obvious pain of smiling through your sunburn. "You look like a child, Jeno. Don't get so defensive over cosmetics."

Jeno wants to argue with you. Mostly because it's the only way you'll talk to him. He would gladly let you point out all of his flaws if it made you smile like you are now. He wants to think he could make you smile under other circumstances.

"Are you that offended?" you say tauntingly, noting Jeno's change in behavior.

He could thank Poseidon right now for your poor people-reading skills. After all, if you knew anything about reading people, you'd know that Jeno likes you, and has for years now.

You'd realize that's he's risking mutiny himself for taking you in and taking care of you.

You'd realize that he's been on your side all along.

Jeno is eighteen years old when he decides you're more important than the sea. It makes sense once he sits down and thinks about it — actually thinks about it and doesn't brush his feelings under the rug like his father always told him to.

Once his father left, Jeno was surprised to find that he didn't grieve much at all. If anything, relief filled his chest at the realization that he was finally free to choose his destiny, whether it be the siren's treasure itself... or just you.

You've always been there, in the back of Jeno's mind. Like an immortal song, passed down through the ages and never forgotten— treasured even.

Still you are like that. You're untouchable. Jeno knows that even at eight years old, you knew what you were doing. You knew how to fight. And even now, when years of death and money should be clouding your vision and turning you into your savage father, you were fighting. Perhaps a different fight than your father wanted, but Jeno thinks it's admirable. He's fighting the same fight to somehow keep his morality despite the blood on his hands and demons in his mind. He knows it's hard, and it would be so much easier to give in.

But he doesn't, and neither do you. Jeno is proud of you, and he's proud of himself.

He scratches his wrist and sits up in his bed. The branded P on his arm still hurts sometimes, though he reckons it's more of a phantom pain than anything else. He wonders if he'd ever be free from it; this strange life. The brand wouldn't get him far on land. They'd hang him before he could recount his loyalty to the sea. Not that he would.

You have the brand too. Jeno notices it when he sneaks on deck in the night to relieve your arms for a bit. "It must be hell to have them up for so long."

He's eyeing the stark white P that was pressed into your skin long ago. His eyes trail down your arms, and scan your face. Your lips are pale and chapped, so he tells himself to bring you water.

Your scowl turns into a whimper when you yank your arms down too quickly. "You bastard," the curse escapes you in a cough.

Jeno's lips lift into a smile. "Do you ever worry that your hard feelings towards me will one day backfire? I don't have to help you, you know."

"Ah," you grin, "but you certainly wouldn't leave an old friend to die, so I'll risk it."

"Hold on, and I'll get you water," Jeno mumbles, wondering if he'll ever get anywhere with you and your stubborn heart.

You guzzle the water down quickly, till it escapes the mouth of the canteen and drips down your chin. Jeno wants to tell you to slow down — you'll get a stomachache — but sunlight is only hours away and he needs to talk to you now. "What's this about mutiny? They've let you live?"

You let the canteen fall into your lap and wipe your mouth with the back of your shackled hands. "They told me I was turning into my own father. Which is true, I suppose, and once you're that scared, I reckon leaving the sea to do your job isn't a bad deal."

There are tear trails breaking through the dirt on your cheeks. Jeno doesn't mention it. He pulls a semi-clean handkerchief out of his belt and gently wipes your face. "You think you're like your father?"

"What else can I be?" you whisper, eyes wide. Your lower lip quivers and you bite it, perhaps to still the motion. Jeno can't really look away, no matter the reason.

"His spirit haunts the ship. I know it does, because I've never wanted to fight and raid and pillage so badly. I... more blood has been spilled these few years than ever in my life, Jeno. I'm a monster, alright? I carry my father's memory— I carry his violent traits..."

"No, you—"

You don't seem to hear him as you continue. "He was nice to me, of course, always nice to me. But the crew was never safe. You had to be on your toes around my father, you see. I never had to— I got out scotch free every time. The crew hated me for it then and they still hate me now. Once I became captain it was okay for a bit, but maybe I let his spirit take me. Maybe I became him. That's why they booted me off my own ship. They didn't want another captain like my father."

You're silent after that, so Jeno takes the time to wipe whatever tears escaped through your story. He shushes you when new tears flow. "Hey, you're okay. Your secret is safe here. As far as my crew knows, you escaped from the west port after the townspeople tried to hang you for piracy. Alright? Don't talk to anyone on my crew unless I am with you. We'll get out next trading port."

"Wait," you sniff, "What?"

Jeno tries to smile, he really does. "You know, my father wasn't a good man either. Only he took his frustrations out on me, and he let the crew take their frustrations out on me as well. You think I'm captain of this ship, but in reality my entire crew is trying to find a way to get me killed."

"You have something over their heads," you whisper. "They would've killed you already if you didn't."

Jeno reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind your ears, so that the glittering pearl earring can catch the light of the moon. "I'm the only one who knows you have the real ones. So, in a way, we're keeping each other alive. How interesting."

"Indeed," you murmur, eyes fluttering shut as Jeno's fingertips trace down your jaw.

Your senses awaken when his calloused thumb presses against your bottom lip. "You're really pretty, Y/n."

You blink. Jeno's face is close to yours now, so your breath catches in your throat. "W-Why would you say that?"

"Because I don't think you've ever been told properly," Jeno says, just an inch away from you, "And you deserve to know."

He mumbles the final word against your lips, and then his fingers are gently threading through your hair, as tangled and dirty as it is. He catches your bottom lip between his own and presses so close that your head is now against the mast. You gasp in surprise, barely registering Jeno's hurried apology before his lips are back on yours again, his warm mouth open in a slow and drawn out kiss that has your mind blanking for a moment.

You realize you aren't moving when he grunts in frustration and begins to pull away. You stop him; your hands pull at his shirt, drawing his body closer to yours, maybe to keep you warm, or maybe just to feel him against you.

He's kissing you in a way that makes you feel like he's wanted this for a long time. It's slow, the way he gently nips at your lips and then runs his tongue along the aggravated surface right after.

You press your palms flat against his taunt stomach and sigh at the feeling. Jeno's always been beautiful, always been wonderful and attentive and sweet, always been just two steps out of reach, but now he's here, and he's giving you all of his attention.

It feels like for once, the two of you can agree on something.

So you kiss him back more fervently and try to memorize the feeling of his hot mouth on yours.

He sighs your name just as your teeth graze his bottom lip. It's less of a sigh and more of a whine, so your cheeks heat up and you feel warmth pool at the bottom of your stomach.

You clear your throat and turn your face to the side. Jeno's lips brush against your cheek and it makes your heartbeat quicken. You want this so badly, but this isn't the time or place. "We shouldn't, Jeno. We're already in danger. Add in... whatever this is, and we'll never get off this ship alive."

Jeno hangs his head. It's silent for a moment, and the waves that lap against the ship seem to roar against your eardrums as you wait for an answer. "I shouldn't have tried anything. That was stupid— sorry."

"Don't be," you say softly, still willing your heartbeat to calm down. "Just... we need to be careful on this ship if we're going to get out alive."

"I have to tie your hands up again," Jeno says apologetically. "It's nearly sunrise."

"I understand." You still wince when your arms go up. "See you tomorrow?"

Jeno chuckles when you kick at his shin. "Yeah. I'll bring you an extra orange around lunch."

The time to escape comes a week later, and it's the middle of the night again. Jeno wakes you up and unties you. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, saddened at the rope burn around your arms.

"'S okay," you say, still half-asleep. "What's wrong?"

"We're leaving now," he says, grabbing your hand. "I don't think they'll go looking for us once they notice we're gone, but we need the distance just in case."

You notice then that Jeno is dressed up. He has an extra layer over his coat despite the warmth of the night. You assume it's for you once you both get on land.

Jeno lets the rowboat sink as soon as the two of you are on the dock. Better no one in the town knows there's any new villagers for the night, especially ones who came from the sea. "Here." He pulls off the second coat and wraps it around your shoulder. "Pull the sleeves over your wrist. Then hold my hand. Our brands will be harder to notice."

The town is dark, lit by lanterns and the scattered guard. You freeze. "They'll notice. Jeno, we'll be hanged."

"Just let me do the talking," he whispers, giving your hand a squeeze. His hand is warm and rough. Then, "Sir!"

The guard turns and looks at the two of you suspiciously, "It's a bit late for a young couple like you, isn't it?"

Jeno smiles at you, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He's acting. "Yes, well, me and my wife thought we'd go for a midnight stroll, you see. We got married just a town over and wished to explore. Only we've gotten lost, and we're hoping there's an inn nearby to wash up and rest. Just before we return in the morning?"

The guard nodded, "Yes, there's an inn just down the way. Go quickly. It's cold out, and there's an unknown ship spotted by our watchmen. Better to stay inside tonight."

"Yes," Jeno nods. He pulls a shilling out of his pocket and hands it to the guard. "Thank you for your time, then."

The two of you walk for a time till eventually you reach the inn. "In here," he whispers, opening the door for you and pushing you in.

It's not a nice inn at all, lit by torches and ruined with the smell of rum and vomit. Jeno pays the keeper for a room close to the back entryway just in case a quick escape is needed.

"Shouldn't we keep traveling?" you hiss, shutting the room door behind you as Jeno lights a candle.

"It's no use right now. With the ship in their sights the entire town will be on high alerts for suspicious activity. We'll have to change our clothes and leave under the same clause from whence we came."

"Married," you say, "Oh, what a turn our lives have given us."

"Yes." Jeno presses his lips together. "Well, it's hard to suspect a young couple in love, isn't it? At most, they'll think us clueless. Stupid, even. It'll protect us. By the way, give no one our names."

"What shall we go by?"

"The Blacks. That's our last name. Any first name is no ones business, but if you give one, let me know. Our lies need to match up or they'll suspect."

"Perfect," you say. You shrug out of your jacket and tighten your belt around your waist. "Then I'll go find us some clothes. There has to be some drunken couple who left their door unlocked."

"Y/n," Jeno calls just before you open the door.

"What?"

"Be safe, please. Come back before the hour's over."

"I will," you say before leaving.

You are eighteen years old when you leave Jeno there in the inn and head out for the open air.

You twist the pearl earrings still secure in your ears and sigh. You're a lot more like your father than Jeno thinks.

You are nineteen years old and you've met a boy named Na Jaemin. He's tall and chatty and seems to fill the entire room with his presence. He owns a shabby tavern that balances between the eastern and southern border. You fled there soon after leaving Jeno, and he was kind enough to give you a job in your emotional state.

He thinks it's cool that you are a pirate, and he makes you promise to add him to your crew once you find a boat. You tell him he'll be outcasted; he says he already is, but that's all he has to say on the matter.

You tell him about the siren's treasure. The two of you could find a new life out on an island somewhere— some port of call where P doesn't mean pirate and no one will give either of you a second look.

You tell him about Jeno too, and how you often wonder where he is. "He probably hates you," Jaemin says casually, wiping down a pint with a rag. "After leaving him and all that. Stupid decision, leaving a pirate friend like that. Who's to say you didn't make a new enemy."

"I don't care, okay? Jeno wanted a different life. He didn't want to be a pirate anymore. I can't settle down like that." You grab a rag and begin to clean a glass.

"You loved him though, yeah?"

The glass in your hand breaks. You curse and wipe the glass off of the counter with your rag. "It's none of your business, really. We've just been through a lot, okay? Let's put it at that."

"Do you regret leaving him?" Jaemin asks, this time with a softer tone to his voice.

You sigh, and your mind goes immediately to the feeling of Jeno's hand in yours, and the adrenaline you felt when he sighed your name against your lips. "Yes, I do. But my story with him is over now. He's probably off and married by now, looking for a job as a sailor. He wouldn't give up the sea for good."

"Maybe we'll see him one day," Jaemin remarks, "At one of our stops."

"You aren't joining my crew, Jaemin."

"I absolutely am! How else do you think you're gonna find enough money to get a ship?"

You give him a long stare. "What do you mean?"

Jaemin always looks like he has something up his sleeve, but now he looks even more mischievous, and it gets on your nerves. "I'm saying we sell the tavern and get out of here. Let's get that siren's treasure."

You ignore it until that night, when you are getting ready for bed.

Jaemin has his face close to a looking glass, drawing a razor-blade down his chin. "Have you thought about what ship you'd like? Personally, I think that the Peribat is a good choice."

"Jaemin, what are you doing?"

Jaemin takes a circular brush and dips it in a white foam. "I'm shaving, Y/n, haven't you ever seen a razor before?"

You try to think back to your crew of men with scratchy beards and dark arm hair. "No..."

Jaemin grins and his eyes meet yours through the looking glass. "Well, here it is! I have to keep a smooth face for all the ladies that visit the tavern."

He wiggles his eyebrows and you find yourself giggling. "None of them are sober enough to care what you look like, Jaemin."

He goes about drying his face, and it leaves you with your thoughts. They drift to Jeno, and you try to remember if he ever had any stubble on his face. You wonder, if you ever saw him again, if he'd have a bit of scruff on his cheeks, just enough for you to feel when you held his face in your hands.

Your skin heats up and you look away. "Let's, uh, go to sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow."

Tomorrow comes drearily, blanketing the town in cold rain and a dark atmosphere. Townsfolk find solace in the lantern light of the tavern, causing you and Jaemin to constantly pour more mead and rum to heat up their chilly bones.

You rub your eyes with your sleeve as you listen to a man — too drunk for mid-afternoon — sing an old shanty that brings back memories of an old crew your father used to vehemently hate. They'd sing the song to alert their enemies of their arrival, mostly to mock them.

Your eyes snap open at the realization. "Jaemin, get down."

Before he can question you, you grab the boy's sleeve, pull him behind the counter and press him against the wooden beam. "Keep quiet," you hiss. "Don't let anyone know you're back here."

Jaemin's eyes widen. His lips tremble, not from fear, but from the cold chill that has just seeped into the tavern thanks to someone swinging the door open. "What's happening?"

"It's a raid," you say.

There are heavy footsteps approaching the counter. With one last warning look towards Jaemin, you shoot up and lean your elbows on the counter. "Gentlemen! Long time no see, aye?"

The captain isn't the same as the one when you were a child. This man is younger, but much bigger, with intimidating muscles and a long black beard strung with beads and braids and what looks like a little dried blood. There's a strange mark under his eye; it looks like an "x", and for some reason it frightens you. You don't know who this man is. The crew is somewhat recognizable; a bunch of drifters you've seen in and out of crews. Irresponsible men who can't stay loyal.

You see a few from Jeno's old crew and your heart jumps. You crane your head around and try to see if he is there. Maybe this is just an intervention. Maybe Jeno's been looking for you.

"Where are they?" The pirate's voice is gruff and almost echoes in the silence of the tavern. Your customers are frozen in fear, hoping to get out unscathed. Knowing that there hasn't been a raid in this town for years, and only now is there danger because of you, makes you feel overprotective of the people.

However, you still have the heart of a pirate, and there's still business to attend to.

Thunder booms overhead. One of the maidens shrieks at the sudden noise. You remain calm. "I don't have them anymore."

"You have to," he says. The sound of steel resounds through the air as he unsheathes his sword and presses it against the center of your neck. "Or tell us who you gave them to."

"I can't remember," you say steely, looking him in the eye. You can't remember feeling so hyped on adrenaline. If only you had your sword; you'd surely start a fight in the middle of the tavern.

The captain swings back his sword. You don't flinch, knowing the tactic well. He'll act like he's going to kill you in the hopes of you blurting out your secret. Your father used the tactic all the time. But you're the only one with knowledge to the whereabouts of the earrings, so you will be kept alive.

You don't flinch.

Jaemin does. He bolts upwards and pushes you out of the way. "Wait! Don't hurt her. I'll do anything."

You close your eyes and sigh. May Davy Jones curse Jaemin and his need to play the savior. "You idiot," you hiss.

The captain only smirks. "Take them both to the ship," he commands his crew. "And hurry, before another crew tries to take what is ours."

You roll your eyes and growl when one of the men grabs your arm too tightly. "I'm going, you bastard."

Jaemin doesn't look too afraid, if anything, he looks curious and almost excited. You feel like punching him.

Your boots are permeated with sludge-filled rainwater. It soils your shoelaces and emits a sound of disgust from your lips as your socks squelch inside your shoes.

Jaemin giggles from his spot beside the porthole. Rainwater belts his clear face for a brief moment, but it doesn't take his joyful expression away. "At least they're good singers."

He's referring to the loud and drunken voices of the crew as they search through whatever loot they've raided from your town. They've been drinking and sifting through chests of junk for hours now, trying to find any remnants of the earrings you refuse to open up about.

They'd never find them; they were hidden in plain sight. Even the holder of them had no idea where they were. He'd never know.

Jaemin shivers and draws his coat closer to him. "So... reckon we can escape while they're drunk?"

You nudge him aside and glance out the porthole. "We're still docked, which means the captain must still be out. The entire ship can't be drunk if there's still the threat of land."

"Well we can't escape at sea," Jaemin says.

"I know," you mumble. "Just... let me think of a plan. And button your coat; it's getting colder down here."

Jaemin does what you say just as a shout is heard overhead. "We're leaving," he guesses.

You groan in frustration and kick the wall of the ship. "New plan. We escape at the next port or try to flee ship if there's a battle. Just be ready. And be careful about your health. It can take weeks or even months to see land again."

The two of you push a few barrels together and sit atop them. You take off your boots and tie them 'round your neck, upside down so the water will drip out as you sleep.

Jaemin does the same and then pulls your body close to him, shivering. "This is quite fun," he whispers teasingly. "Being pirates and all that."

You roll your eyes and elbow him. "Go to sleep."

Secretly, you're quite happy to share a cell with someone, even if it is Na Jaemin.

You awaken to the sound of a cannon firing. This time it's Jaemin who pulls you down to the floor. Your shoulder hits the shallow pool of water from last night's previous storm. Shrapnel flies overhead as a cannonball shoots through the wooden planks.

Jaemin laughs against the shell of your ear. His arms are right around your middle. "That was quick."

You push him away and get on your knees, "We can escape to the other ship. C'mon."

The cell is still intact. The large padlock hasn't moved even with the commotion and attack on the deck above. You curse and shake the bars, hoping to weaken whatever hinges are there. "C'mon," you say, straining, "This boat has got to be old, right?"

When the chains don't budge, you curse and turn around, glaring out the porthole for any sign of the rival ship. "It must be on the other side."

The chain jingles, followed by Jaemin's gasp. "You're letting us go?"

You whip around. There's a man with a key, working his way through the lock. His face is covered by the captain's hat, but he's a lot smaller than the captain, so you balk. Taking a captain's hat is disrespectful. This man must be from the other ship. You walk up to the cell door and hold onto the bars. "Listen, if you think for a second we are going to follow you to your ship just to become your prisoners, you've got another thing coming."

The man looks up and smiles. It's a familiar smile you'd know anywhere. "Still as feisty as ever, I see."

"J-Jeno?" You step back, studying the boy. He looks the same, though maybe a bit older. His eyes are sharper, the brown of them magnified by smudged black kohl under his eyes. There's a cut atop his cheekbones that causes a surge of anger through your veins. Your gaze hardens. "Who are we fighting?"

"He calls himself and his ship Mortem." Jeno says, glancing from you to Jaemin. He stares at Jaemin for a lingering moment and then shakes his head, as if getting rid of a thought. "You have some explaining to do, but we need to get to my ship first."

He sounds upset, but you can't blame him for it— not after the way you left him.

He hands you a dagger and passes a knife to Jaemin. "Find your way to my ship and show them your weapons. They'll take you to my quarters."

You do as Jeno says, and Jaemin surprisingly holds his own as the two of you fight your way to the top. He's a bit clumsy with his knife work, and you know he'll have hell to pay with his sore muscles tomorrow morning, but he isn't useless. That's a good sign.

On the deck of Jeno's ship — a small one you've never seen before named The Amare — the crew is filled with men you've never seen before. Their kind smiles startle you, as does the black cat the suddenly winds itself around your soggy socks. Your boots are still around your neck. You hold out your dagger. "Er, Jen—Captain Jeno said to show you these."

The fight dwindles down until the man called Mortem is left with nothing but his ship in flames. Jeno and a few other men swim to The Amare and are let up on ropes.

You stare at the captain as he walks towards you and the remaining crew.

Jeno eyes Jaemin. "Take the boy below deck and treat his wounds. I need to discuss something with Y/n in the map room."

You follow him to the small room just beside the captain's quarters. "Who is that? The boy with you?"

He says "boy" with such disdain that it makes you think he realizes that Jaemin is around his age, he just doesn't care.

"That's Jaemin. He owns a tavern back ho— in the town I was docked at."

"You were going to say home," Jeno's jaw clenches. He takes off the tattered hat and tosses it onto the old map that stretches along a mahogany table. "So you left me to live on land with someone else? Not even to continue being a pirate?"

"That's not it," you roll your eyes. "Jaemin had offered me work at the tavern so I could save up for a ship."

Jeno licks his lips. "You don't understand how angry I am at you right now."

"I was saving up for a ship!" You argue. "You wanted a life on land and I didn't! What else is there to discuss?"

Jeno steps forward until he meets your eyes. You have to tilt your chin up to look at him, and the defiant fire in your eyes almost makes him back down. You can tell by the way his shoulder flinches.

But his glare only gets darker, and you think he's finally learned something about being out at sea. "You could've talked to me. You know we could've talked about it."

"I didn't want to talk about it," you finally say through gritted teeth. "I knew you'd be a pansy and follow me wherever I wanted to go. I wanted you to make your own decision for once."

Jeno narrows his eyes. "Don't call me that."

You know you're pushing him, you know you're hurting him, but you just want him to finally snap and fight back. You want him to remember that his father is dead. He can finally do what he wants. He doesn't have to be under anyone's command anymore. So you push him a little harder. "Call you what? A pansy?"

Jeno pushes you against the wall and grabs your waist, keeping you in place. Before you can tease him any further, his hot mouth is on yours in an open-mouthed kiss. He's not holding back his anger at all, and it shows in the way he nips at your bottom lip. You feel his hands come up to your hair, and he's twirling the tangled strands through his fingers and tugging them until you're gasping, mouth open just enough for him to press his tongue against the roof of your mouth and out again.

You hold onto his face and pull him closer until the kiss is heated and messy. There's saliva on your jaw but you can't push him away because you haven't been near Jeno in a year, and now that you have him you don't want to let him go.

You can feel the stubble on his cheeks. It's hard and scratchy and nothing like you thought it would feel like, but you find yourself liking the way it scrapes against your own smooth skin.

Jeno takes his lips off of yours to press a kiss just behind your ear. He bites your skin hesitantly; you feel him smirk when you gasp out his name and reach for the strings of his shirt in an effort to untie the knots and feel his skin against your palms.

And then the smirk is gone, and the kisses are gone, and Jeno is standing back. He presses you against the wall still, but this time it feels like he's trying to keep you away from him. "I can't— I cant do this."

"Jeno, I'm back. It's okay." You say, reaching up for his face again.

Jeno flinches and moves back. "No! It's not okay! You left me, Y/n!"

"I was scared," you argue, but it feels wrong coming out of your mouth.

"Scared? Ha!" Jeno steps back and runs his fingers through his hair. He steps towards the table and leans atop his palms so that his back is facing you. You can see the tension in his muscles as he struggles to speak. "You think I wasn't scared the moment I realized you weren't coming back? You think I wasn't scared when I walked out into the village alone and asked around for my "wife"? You think I wasn't scared when I thought that maybe you had tricked me off of my own ship to take it over? How do you think I felt, Y/n, when we promised each other we'd work together and you broke it as soon as you had your doubts? You think I wasn't scared? Terrified, even?" His voice cracks then, "And this is almost worse! You've been in a tavern with a boy, doing exactly what you and I had planned. So what is it? Does he fight better than me? Does he kiss better than me? Does he treat you better?"

"Jeno—"

He doesn't seem to hear you. "And I'm not a pansy. I don't do everything everyone tells me to. You were different because I love you, and I'd give up the sea or the land to be with you, Y/n. I thought you knew that."

He looks angry with himself for revealing so much, but he turns around anyways and waits for your reply.

"Jeno, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay?"

Jeno growls under his breath. "I don't want to hear it. Not anymore. Not until you mean it."

"So what? You're going to ignore me?" You cross your arms over your chest. "That hardly seems productive."

Jeno snaps his gaze to you. The kohl under his eyes is smudged by a few stray tears. "Let's put it this way: until I can talk to you and not feel the pain of heartbreak, yeah, I'm ignoring you."

The door bursts open. "Captain, the boy's injuries have been tended to. Shall I get our guests a change of clothes?"

Jeno sighs. "Yes. Thank you. And put them on belowdeck duties. I want them out of my sight until further notice."

You wrinkle your nose and follow the unnamed man out of the room. "Captain Jeno isn't as nice as the Jeno I used to know."

The man shrugs. "He's a morose man. I wonder what he was like when you knew him?"

"Doesn't matter," you say, and a painful reality hits you. "I stripped that away from him when I left."

So far, Jeno has snapped at three different crew members, and it had only happened when you came on deck for some air. You resolve to stay below deck because of it, as does Jaemin. Though, he has no real problem with it because he's found a friend in the ship's cook and has a great time playing cook's apprentice.

You, however, feel like a prisoner again and find yourself longing to be on deck, where the sea spray can kiss your face. A bigger part of you just wants to see Jeno again.

You know you need to apologize, you just don't know how. How do you tell someone you care about that you thought they could do better? That you thought you'd become like your father, and he'd grow to hate you?

When you talk to Jaemin about it that evening, he pulls out a bottle of rum from who-knows-where and offers it to you.

You don't drink more than a few gulps, but Jaemin is chugging the wood-tinted drink like it's his last day on earth. "Slow down!" you warn, taking the bottle from him.

"Sorry," he whispers, drawing out his words slowly, as if you wouldn't understand them otherwise. "I just feel bad. I didn't mean to make you and Jeno fight."

You have a hard time explaining to him that your fight is much bigger than jealousy, and Jeno knows you weren't lying when you said you weren't in relations with Jaemin.

In the end, you drag the boy up to the deck in the hopes that a few gulps of fresh air will help him sober up enough to sleep soundly. "Here, sit against the mast."

Jaemin ignores you and decides to lay spread eagle on the deck floor. "The sky 's pretty. 've never seen it like this before."

"Yes," you say, "look at the sky, Jaemin. Just for a few minutes and then we'll head back down."

You decide to lay beside him and focus on the sky as well. Your breath catches at the beauty of the twinkling stars. You had almost forgotten how clear they appear to be at sea. The constellations seem to be smiling at you— cheering you on.

"What's going on?" Or maybe not.

You sigh and close your eyes. "Nothing, Jeno. Jaemin is drunk so I brought him out for some fresh air." You crane your head back to see the captain dressed down in a maroon cotton shirt and brown pants. He's rubbing his eyes; maybe you woke him up. "Come look at the stars with us. They're really pretty tonight."

Jeno looks like he wants to go back into his quarters.

"Jeno, please?"

He groans and lays on the deck, shoulder a few inches from yours. "Oh," he says softly, "they are quiet bright tonight, aren't they?"

Jaemin giggles from your other side. "Jeno, you rhymed, like, thrice."

A chuckle escapes Jeno's lips at the younger's words before he turns his head to face you. "He isn't... I mean... not that you can't choose him over me, but just to be clear..."

You slip your fingers in between Jeno's and look straight into his eyes. "Just to be clear, I choose you."

There's a ruddiness to Jeno's complexion that wasn't there before, and it makes you think that maybe things will work out on their own.

Jeno is nineteen years old and he finds it hard to fall out of love with you.

Maybe it's because he's spent every day of the past year hoping and praying that you'd find your way back to him, like you always have before. Maybe it's because he was only angry at himself for making you think you ever had to choose between him and your love for the sea.

Maybe he would've succeeded if you hadn't returned soaked to the bone, in a holding cell with a boy far too pretty to be a pirate.

Jeno knows Jaemin means nothing to you romantically, but he can't forget the surge of fear that shot through his veins when he realized that you might've chosen someone else. He thinks of your shocked but somewhat ecstatic expression when you first saw him. It makes him think you missed him too.

He feels his lips tingle every now and again with the feeling of yours pressed so harshly against his. He remembers the curves of your body and the quietness of your voice as you tried not to give him the satisfaction of making you moan.

He knows you're the one he wants, forever and ever until the sea takes him to his watery grave. He knows that he'd gladly stay beside you on land if you ever chose to settle down. Heck, he'd find a home in the stars if you asked him to.

Jeno's eyes water suddenly, and a sneeze pulls him out of his thoughts. "Is it the cat?" he asks, half-delirious.

He's been sick for days now; fevered dreams pull him in and out of consciousness. He thinks about you mostly, and it's embarrassing to admit when you're the one trying to nurse him back to health.

"You're still sick, Jeno," he hears your voice say. You press a wet rag against his forehead and dab away at the sweat that continues to form. "Go back to sleep, okay? Maybe you can break this fever."

There's a shakiness in your voice, like you're scared. Jeno knows there's something you aren't telling him, but his brain feels foggy and it's hard to concentrate on anything but the feeling of your hand brushing his hair off his sweaty forehead.

"Stay with me for tonight?" he asks, because that's what you do with the person you love, right? He knows the two of you are fighting about something, but he can't quite focus on anything right now other than your body sliding under the covers and pressing against his.

He's almost asleep again when he feels kisses being pressed against his jaw, down his neck, and across his shoulder. Small kisses that make him feel like he should smile, but he's too tired to do it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

"Jeno, I love you," you say, and Jeno wants to say it back, only the words feel heavy on his tongue and sleep feels thick behind his eyes.

He loves you, too.

Jeno's eyelids feel sticky when he wakes up, and it takes a few tries before he can open them fully. He groans at how utterly gross he feels, soaked in sweat that's turning cold the longer he is clothed in it.

"Jeno?" You walk into the room then, and Jeno is surprised to see tears of relief pool in your eyes. "I'm so glad you're okay."

You don't seem to mind that Jeno is covered in sweat because you wrap your arms around his waist and pull him closer to you. "I'll draw you a bath, okay? You'll feel more clean. I'll change your blankets, too. There has to be some spares around this blasted ship—"

Jeno catches your hand in his and successfully stops your rambling. "Y/n, slow down. I'm alive. You aren't getting rid of me that easily, okay?"

You nod, and that smile Jeno loves so much graces your lips. "Okay. Good."

Jeno is let out on deck three days later, after you figure he's definitely not contagious to the rest of the crew anymore. Jeno worries briefly about your own health until you remind him that you're docking soon, and there will be doctors if you come down with anything.

Jaemin asked to be let off at the same port he and you were taken from. Something about a ship called Peribat and a crew to find. Jeno jokes that Jaemin is going to become a better captain than he is. Jaemin shrugs and says he's only in it for the adventure.

You go to the dock with Jaemin and watch him purchase the ship he's lusted after for so long. Jaemin turns to you with a bright smile and hugs you tightly, saying this is all he's ever wanted.

"Go find your adventure," you say, chuckling fondly at the boy. "Oh, and before I forget, don't trade that coat, okay? I have a feeling you'll need it one day."

Jaemin looks confused for a moment, glancing down at his black coat, but nods. "Alright. I won't."

Then you're back on The Amare, eyes locking with Jeno's just before he heads into his quarters.

You follow him to see that he's getting ready for bed, slipping off his leather vest and unstrapping his gun holster.

"It's nice of you to see him off."

"Jealous?" You wrap your arms around his waist and press your face between his shoulder blades. "Because it's you I love."

He turns around in your hold, eyes tracing over the features of your face so fondly that you aren't sure how to bring up the (literal) sorry subject. "Can you stay with me? Just for tonight?"

You agree, and the anxiety is pushed down until you can barely feel it anymore, too occupied by the sound of Jeno's heartbeat against your ear.

The ship is still anchored a week later, and the crew goes out to trade a few items while Jeno convinces you to stay on the ship with him.

He knows you like the back of his hand. He knows you well enough to know that you've been trying to bring up the fight to him for awhile now.

So when you tug on his hand and lead him to the map room where it all happened, he feels a nervous ache in his chest.

"I'm sorry," you blurt out unceremoniously. "I'm sorry I let my own insecurities get the best of me. I'm sorry I ever doubted your affections for me. I'm sorry I broke your heart and then thought coming back would automatically fix everything. I know I have a lot to work on and I want you to know that I'm sorry I never realized any of this sooner. Also, if you want to kick me off the crew and never se me again, I completely understand."

Jeno blinks in disbelief. "Are you kidding? Did you think I didn't mean it when I said you wouldn't get rid of me that easily? You're stuck here forever, darling, or for as long as you'll have me. I love you."

You kiss Jeno then, and the action is so soft compared to your last shared kiss that he almost finds himself melting against your hold. He closes his eyes, furrows his brows, and when his breath hitches he grabs your waist to try and steady himself.

His lips move languidly against yours, and as your tongue licks along the seams of his lips, Jeno whines and pulls you closer against him. Your skin is warm through your thin shirt and Jeno decides he wants to touch it. He bunches up your shirt and lets his fingers explore your skin, feeling satisfaction bloom in his chest when you sigh at his touch.

"Can we be co-captains? Like, together?" He asks rather breathlessly against your lips.

You brush your nose against his and smile softly. "Sure. But we'll have to catch up with Jaemin if we want to get the siren's treasure."

Jeno furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "Wait, why?"

"Because I turned the earrings into cufflinks, and they're on Jaemin's coat as we speak."

"Huh," Jeno marvels. He slowly rocks from side to side, fingers still pressing into your skin absentmindedly. "I don't know. Maybe that's an adventure better fit for a new pirate. Maybe we should just stick to looting like we're used to."

You feel something soft press against your ankles, so you look down and see that same black cat, peering up at you.

Jeno scrunches his nose, "That's—" Sneeze! "Onyx—" Sneeze!

You giggle as Jeno struggles to fight against his allergies and hug him, pressing your nose against his neck. "Hey. Thanks for finding me."

Jeno's arms feel strong around you. Safe. "I have a feeling we'll always return to each other."

#pirate!jeno #always return au #nct fluff #nct angst #nct scenarios #nct au #jeno fluff #jeno angst #jeno scenarios #jeno au #destwrites

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365daysoftododeku · 5 years

Text

4th April 2019

Author: Rasha

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A Thousand

Izuku’s first dead memory was when he was five years old. One of Kacchan’s friends had turned into a behemoth of a monster when he pushed Izuku into the dirt. One second it was a five-year-old child with pudgy red cheeks and brown eyes. The next moment Izuku was flooded with the memories of another life, another dream.

He saw a small village filled with wooden houses. He knew exactly which one was the baker’s house, the butcher’s house, his mother’s house. Everyone in the village had a name that Izuku could just put his finger on, and that included his attacker’s name. It was Ritzu he was the butcher’s son from the next town over. He was in the market looking for a thief, a sense of impending guilt washed over Izuku’s stomach as he hid behind buildings, carefully dodging out of the way.

The contact broke and Izuku went skidding across the pavement. Izuku was back in his own time, locking eyes with the attacker.

“You stole my horse,” the other boy blurted.

“You’re the butcher’s son! Wait, why did I steal your horse?”

“I don’t know, why did you steal my horse?”

The two came to an awkward silence, trying to find the answer in the other’s eyes. The answer could have been right there if they just held out hands again, but the experience was so jarring that Izuku would have preferred not too.

Later that night he recalled the account with his mother, remembering the brief moment of an aged village and the neighboring butcher’s son. Apparently, Izuku had stolen a horse.

Inko laughed and laughed. She shared her first dead memory with Izuku about watching a Roman boy take a shit in the street before throwing it at her vegetable stand. Sometimes dead memories weren’t all too glamorous when they were dug up from the bowels of time.

It was years later in battle when Izuku experienced his second dead memory. He was carrying a young girl to safety away from a battle when the two were overwhelmed with memories. A small hole in her stockings and a burnt glove revealed more than Izuku cared to remember.

It was the bowels of London in the late 1700s. Izuku was an elderly woman with more than a penny to spare and a vacant soul. An elegant young man was calling out for his goods.

“Memories for sale,” the young man called out. “Memories for sale! A copper for a touch. Memories for sale!” Izuku had indulged, he had never seen a memory seller before and it was worth such a small coin. The two held hands and nothing had happened. They had never encountered each other before that life. But the man did not flinch, instead, he flipped back the coin with a wink.

“Pay me back in our next.”

Izuku blinked back to reality in the second he was gone. The little girl in his arms held out her hand with a serious expression.

“A deal’s a deal,” she whispered.

Izuku went back after the battle and gave her a hundred yen coin.

The third time Izuku had a dead memory was one night in the late spring. He was sitting in front of his best friend, Todoroki Shouto looking down at a pale palm. The two had been messing around on Shouto’s floor, scrolling through social media and discussing the latest hero scandals.

The hero Manuel was fighting a villain earlier that week when they touched hands and discovered that they had been married just over a hundred years ago. The fight had stopped altogether in an instant and the villain was taken to jail.

It was so scandalous to have to share your memories with others, but there was no other way to explain Manuel’s sudden win and his desire to escort the villain to jail. The two had a lot to talk about.

“It’s just so strange,” Izuku said, scrolling through his phone. “None of my memories were ever with people I was intimate with before, just a few strangers.”

“I’ve never touched anyone I’ve shared a life with,” Todorki confessed with a well-hidden blush.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve never had a shared life with my family and… I haven’t touched anyone else.”

The two sat in silence, their phones falling asleep.

“Would you like to try?” Izuku asked sitting up to look back at his best friend. Todoroki looked determined and frightened all at once. Todoroki looked serious.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Todoroki whispered, letting the darkness take the brunt of his words. “I’ve just never done it before and I… I want to try it with someone I trust.”

Izuku was honored that Shouto wanted to be his first. The two had grown close over the past few years, even moving in next to each other in the dorm halls. They were inseparable in their final year, constantly pairing up for training exercises and whispering in each other’s ears about going to the same hero agency. Their mailboxes were full of recruitment letters from similar agencies. Shouto just had one request of their future plans that Izuku accepted without a second thought, not Endeavor.

Izuku looked at Shouto’s open palm with curiosity. He had only ever seen his mother’s hands before. With the way the world tried to stay in the present, it was a rare and precious sight to see an open palm, let alone barred skin. The two were grateful to have never shared a past so they could focus on the here and now. Shouto’s hands were larger with dark brown calluses going across his palm and fingertips.

Izuku removed his gloves without a second thought, letting the thick polyester gloves fall next to him.

“What if we’ve never met before?” Izuku asked. “What if nothing happens?”

Shouto just shrugged in response, he had no clue. Likely, their shared relationship wouldn’t change. They’d still be best friends, just two friends with a shared past.

The moment that Izuku touched Shouto’s hands the two fell silent as the memories swarmed their minds.

Izuku was young, a bride on her wedding day. She had just turned 16 and her father had decided it was time to go to another house, someone more powerful and rich. Someone she had never met before. She was garbed in a deep crimson that was customary of her religion and her father was giving her hand over to her future husband. He had a kind looking face, dark earthen skin, and dimpled cheeks. The moment that their hands touched the world changed again and the two were lost in their memories.

Izuku was a soldier that worked hard for his position in the army. His life was difficult but good. He often sent his spare wages back to his sister and her family. He didn’t know what to do after the war. It was his best friend and fellow foot soldier that gave Izuku life. The two shared stories under the stars and hushed whispers of a friendship that could get them killed.

It was the last night of their leave and Izuku had to ask if Milo- Shouto- would stay away from the barracks for the night. Just one night. It didn’t take much convincing, especially when Milo’s lips tasted so sweet for their first kiss hidden behind a curtain.

Izuku was the same woman again, the one with too many coins and not enough things to spend them on. A new jeweler had opened his doors and Izuku was delighted to see what stones were for sale. A young woman stood behind the counter wiping away non-existent dust. Izuku pulled her aside and began to grill her on the wares in the store. She passed with flying colors.

It was an accident that caused them to touch. Izuku’s purse had fallen to the ground and the two both bent down to get it at the same time. They bumped heads for just a second but it was enough to transport them back in time.

Izuku was a widow with seven children sitting on his front porch. He was looking out over the grape vineyard that was his home when a young man came by. He was tall with dark blond hair and mismatched eyes. “Sir, I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I’d heard from the next town over that you’re looking for farm hands.”

“Aye.”

“Well, may I work for you? I’m very strong and I need work to support myself.”

Izuku thought for a moment long and hard. All of his daughters were off with their husbands. Only two of his sons remained around the area and came to help with the harvest and the planting. Most of his fruits and vegetables were already planted earlier in the year. But he still needed help with the soil tilling and weeding.

“I can offer you twenty francs a week. Does that sound like a fair price?”

The young man nodded, walking up to Izuku and extending a hand.

“That sounds mighty fair to me,” the man said.

The two shook on their decision and were transported back again.

Again and again, Izuku and Shouto went back memory after memory. A town crier. A baker. A thief. A prince. A knight. A solider. Again and again, the two had met in each life they had ever lived, touching each other and gasping with delight.

It was eons previously when the two’s journey ended. It was a Neolithic era, deep in the bowels of their memories. Izuku was a young hunter, not 18 winters old. Shouto was a different hunter only 17 winters old. The two had known each other for years, hunting alongside each other, keeping watch on each other’s backs. Izuku was infatuated. Shouto was enamored. They were inseparable. They were in love. The first time they touched was such a passionate kiss that their souls imprinted on one another, melding into one whole soul. It that special kind of moment that you never forgot. A first kiss was always important.

When Izuku woke up only a minute had passed, and Izuku was lightheaded. A thousand first touches were still fresh in his mind. But something was different. Izuku wasn’t sitting up, gently caressing an open palm.

Izuku was lying on his back, his fingers running through soft hair, curling and, twisting. His eyes were closed, when before they had been open. There was something heavy on top of him, a dense weight that ran across his entire body. His lips-

Izuku gasped, pulling his partner in closer. This was Elliot the farm hand, or maybe Maliek his husband. Was is Alyssa the jeweler? Milo the solider? Puta his business partner? Edward his prince? Petra, Connor, Shita, Kut, Robin, Kisha, Shouto.

Shouto.

This was Shouto the hero. Shouto his friend.

Shouto.

Shouto pulled away from the kiss and blinked owlishly down at Izuku.

“Hi,” Shouto whispered, looking down at Izuku’s deep green eyes.

“Hey.” Izuku was flabbergasted at what he just remembered. Every life he’s ever lived he can remember as clearly as the days that he had died in those lives. Some lives were short. Some were long. But each one had a fateful encounter with Shouto.

“Is it always like this?” Shouto asked, still lying on top of Izuku.

“Never,” Izuku swore. “It’s usually only a second, just the first time we touch. But this… I remember every second we’ve ever been together. I didn’t think it was possible.”

Shouto grinned. “You remember that horse?”

“Oh my god, you always bring that up! You dared me to steal it!”

Izuku and Shouto both fell into each other with laughter. Izuku wrapped his arms around Shouto, letting his soulmate embrace him. How strange that just a minute ago he wondered if Shouto could ever return his feelings, but now they didn’t even need to say it. A thousand lifetimes had already screamed it enough for the message to be clear.

“I love you,” Shouto whispered, letting his head rest on Izuku’s chest.

“I love you too,” Izuku whispered back. “I always have, and I always will.”

________________________________________________________________

Would you like your work to be featured in the 365 Days of TodoDeku Project? Apply here! (≧∇≦)/

#Story #hetawriter #TodoDeku #365DaysofTodoDeku #TodoDeku365 #365 Days of TodoDeku #tddk #Shouto Todoroki #Todoroki Shouto #Izuku Midoriya #Midoriya Izuku #Boku no Hero Academia #BNHA #My Hero Academia #MHA #Todoroki x Midoriya #Shouto x Izuku #TodoIzu #long post

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jaywrites101 · 5 years

Text

Excerpt: A Treasure Made of Death

A Light In The Darkness (full novel here)

He trudged along the dirt road in determination. The cold night bit at his nose under the hood of his cape. His eyes were focused on the dim circle of light in front of him. The darkness pressed in around him. It was heavy. The lantern held out in front of him against the wind was his only lifeline. If it went out he could easily wander off the path and be lost in the night.

A dragon's roar echoed on the wind. The damned nuisances ran rampant up here in the mountains, he knew. But not even the threat of a dragon attack could keep him from his task tonight.

He couldn’t feel his legs. In some ways, it was a blessing. His whole body was sore from riding earlier in the day. Just a little bit further and he could finally put his poor body to rest. At last! A light appeared in the darkness in front of him. It’s dim yellow glow brought tears to his eyes, tears that the wind would freeze to his face. The path at his feet widened out. What few trees dotted on either side of him dispersed altogether as he approached the promised drinking hall. The light solidified into a square pane of glass set into a rough oak wall. Little things flirted in and out of the lantern-light. Steps! A door! Oh, he was so close. One step away. One turn of the handle. His hands felt disembodied. He needed to get in fast before frostbite set in for good. His hand on the handle, the traveler paused. Music! Hearty laughter and well-natured guffaws warmed his heavy heart. He knew before entering he’d found the right place. With a renewed vigor the traveler opened the door and stepped into the hall. “What in blazes!” Exclaimed a burly man of middling ages. Seated as he was against the fire his shadow covered most of him except his long fine mustache which was at least one foot on either side. The other patrons of the hall looked up from their ale mugs expectantly. Some assessed him; seasoned veterans, no doubt. Others simply bored of him and returned to their bantering. Except for the youth in front of him and the man by the fire, no one seemed to think he was of importance. The youth in question approached the stranger. He was dressed in a simple leather tunic and rough woolen breeches. But the sword at his hip marked him as a fighter. “State your business, stranger,” he said in a voice meant to be threatening, but a slight squeak betrayed his age. “Is this the guild hall of the Ancient Magics Delvers?” The newcomer asked, pulling a flyer from his coat. “It is,” replied the youth. “What does that matter to you?” “My name is Drake Mundus. I’m a client.” The man by the fire took interest at this. “Goodness gracious man!" He exclaimed. Do you have any idea what time it is?" The youth, after a nod from the older man, guided the stranger to a roughly hewn stool by the fire. Drake accepted the seat with a gracious sigh. Warmth couldn’t seep back into his limbs fast enough. “I judge from your clothing you’re not from around here.” The mustachioed man chuckled. “From the city?” “I’m an archaeologist,” Drake answered. His own inquisitive glance didn’t tell him much about the man in front of him. Clearly, he was in charge here, the fabled guild leader Erik Musen. But from his garb, nothing could be discerned about his temperament. He was a tall man, easily seven feet and more. He wore no shirt except some kind of leather brace which showed fine workmanship. On his legs was a workman’s hardy leather pants. His arms and chest were well developed and bulged majestically from his muscles. His skin was dark and tanned. There wasn’t a hair to be found anywhere on him save his elegant mustache which was bound on either end and painstakingly maintained. “Ha! So you need a bodyguard little man.” The big man japed. Drake was no stranger to being belittled by men like him. It was standard procedure for experienced mercenaries to puff out their chests like they’re in charge. It got them better wages from more foolish clients. Drake was no fool. “Ordinarily? No,” he said sternly. “But if you know of the temple I’ve been contracted to investigate, I dare say you’d want a bit of steel behind you as well.” “We’re the Ancient Magic Delvers!” The man boasted. “We’ve been in and out of every temple in these lands. HOOAH!” He called across the hall. “HOOAH!” Everyone called back. Some of the more festive drinkers downed a mug of ale in a toast. “Haha,” the guild leader grinned as he settled back in his chair. “So tell me, what dungeon cave does your king want you to crawl through now? The Green Pyramid? The Meadow Reserve? Are you lads finally gutsy enough to take a peek inside the Haunted Hollow?” “The Temple of the Dragon Knights.” The guild master’s face paled. “That’s not funny.” “It wasn’t a joke.” “Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “No wonder you came to us. Anyone else would've refused out of principle.” Drake fetched a bundle of papers from a hidden pocket in his coat. Of them, he selected three and placed them on the bar next to his stool for the guild master to examine. “These are the official declarations. The King himself has issued one hundred thousand gold pieces to any man who can go to the center of this labyrinth and return with whatever treasure lies there. I also have the authorization to loot any rooms we come across for valuables and offer that as a bonus reward for your services.” Erik Musen looked over the papers with a hesitant eye. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?” “Of the fifty-seven unmolested temples in this country, it is considered the most dangerous. Thirty and four times expeditions were sent into the ruins and only once did even a single person return.” Drake pulled out one last paper, a clipping from the news archives praising the adventurer who returned alive. “Erik Musen, 19. The sole survivor of the 29th investigation refused high honors from the king. He has returned with an unconfirmed artifact, now his by right of law. Wherever his future lies, Godspeed,” he read aloud. Laying the article on top of the others Drake witnessed the transformation of the guild leader into a sad old man. “Is that really you?” The youth asked, pointing at the article. His face equal amounts of shock and awe. “Aye! That’s me,” came the gruff reply. “You’re mad to have even accepted this task in the first place!” “I have my reasons.” “Are they worth your death?” “They are.” “I fail to see any reason strong enough to willingly enter that nightmare.” Erik huffed. “I’m afraid there are things I cannot afford to divulge,” Drake replied. “I’m sorry, but if you mean to test my resolve, you’ll find it is as hard as steel on this.” “To enter the Temple of the Dragon Knights you’ll need a will much harder than steel,” Erik said while the bewildered youth stood agape watching the two of them. “My will is strong enough to break reality.” “A mage, eh? That sword peeking out from under your cloak says otherwise.” “Forgive me,” Drake said with a small bow to punctuate the other man’s win. “But you’ll understand why soon enough.” “I want to go,” chimed in the youth. “Absolutely not !” Erik roared. People from around the hall were taking an interest in their proceedings. No doubt, unused to seeing their guild leader in a troubled spot, his outburst at the youth’s eagerness turned heads and brought an audible gasp out of those nearby. “Father! You were a year younger than I when you set foot in there.” “And I lost my friends! All twelve of them. It was a nightmare from the very moment we crossed the threshold. I found the Knight’s Tear. Aye. It was a treasure unlike anything anyone had ever seen. It was one rock found tossed in the floor like rubbish, and yet it’s discovery opened the doors to Machination and Automatons. "Sure, I single-handedly developed those schools of magic and craftsmanship, but look at the cost! It’s not worth risking you too boy. Or any of you!” He roared to the onlookers who were sitting at the edge of their seats. “I volunteer!” A girl called out from the back of the room, much to the chagrin of the guild master. She was dressed in dark blue flowing robes. She wore a pointed hat that was embroidered with gold runes. In one hand she carried a staff, in the other a thick bound book. Her piercing blue eyes glowed with power. “Danger and mystery is my cup of tea,” She said excitedly. Drake shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but this is highly dangerous, and it’s certainly no place for a lady. Or,” he added, turning his head to the youth, “for amateurs. My intention was to hire Erik and Erik alone. There are no two people on this continent more capable than the two of us-” “Except for the two of us ,” the youth insisted. “Dela, there is no lady.” “And Junior has been adventuring since he was in diapers!” Dela added, giving the youth a playful poke. “Stop this nonsense immediately,” Erik cried. “We’re not going to chase down that deathtrap after some vague sense of treasure and glory.” “Don’t think of the treasure, father! Think of your pride!” The youth implored. “Think of your honor and the honor of your friends. You see, don’t you? This is your chance to blot out that stain! To give their deaths meaning. And to give meaning to all the people who’s died since then. This is a chance to bring closure to their legacy. Surely you wouldn’t want to be remembered as the man who refused to do the right and noble thing?” “Hell, No!” Erik spat. Drake knew the look of a man steeling himself for something hard. Erik was not happy. His bluster and confidence had run out. He was scared of that temple. But he’d been a boy himself when he went in there last. The guild watched their leader anxiously. Since it’s foundation no one had ever seen Erik backed into such a tight corner. His face was drawn, and his arms shook slightly. Even his own son looked uncertain about his father’s intentions. Erik looked at all the expectant faces in the hall and sighed. “Alright lad,” he said. “You got me on that one. It goes against me gut, but you’re right. We can’t let that ruin be the better of us. The Ancient Magic Delvers have a reputation to uphold. HOOAH!” He roared at the guild. “HOOAH!” The guild grunted back. Even Drake was caught in the moment and grunted alongside the others. It was happening. It was finally happening! All those years of research and crawling through ruins looking for clues was about to pay off. “But,” Erik said so quietly only Drake could hear. “If a single one of them gets hurt on this quest. I’ll kill you personally.”

#books #my writing #writing community #excerpt #amazon

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itsclydebitches · 6 years

Note

what are your thoughts nikosarc(.)tumblr(.)com/post/180209390472

In all honesty this is mostly just a reiteration of what I’ve been saying for about a week now, so sorry about that. But to summarize:

Is Ozpin keeping Salem’s immortality a secret “huge”? It depends entirely on what you consider most important: the morals themselves or how they change depending on the situation. Yang is someone who prizes the truth: all truth, right now, no matter the consequences. This is what she claims is important to her (and yes, that distinction is worth noting considering the secret she’s keeping - her core ethics right now are compromised) and, as stated previously, it’s a very black and white view of the world. A kid’s view. People keep secrets—big and small—for a whole variety of reasons and pretending that not telling the truth is an automatic blight on your character reads as incredibly simplistic to me.

I always favor context and try to acknowledge the complexity of an individual’s situation. If someone lies then they believe they have a reason for doing so, so what are Ozpin’s reasons here? Perhaps we don’t agree with them in the end, but acknowledging his thought process helps undermine the assumption that he’s lying solely because he’s manipulative. Or cowardly. Or just plain evil.

Since a lot of this is repetition I might as well just chuck it into list form. Reasons we know/can theorize that Ozpin kept his secret include:

The fact that knowing Salem is immortal doesn’t change the need to fight her/the grimm or that this group agreed to protect the world long before they knew about her. Their mission has not changed just because they’ve learned it’s harder than they originally thought.

The fact that knowing Salem is immortal does change their mental state and will make them panic. Like knowing about the relic attracting grimm, there’s only downsides to learning this information—especially when the monsters you’re dealing with are attracted to negative emotions.

The fact that Ozpin knows from experience that telling people about Salem makes them give up the fight completely. Not only that, but these people then started actively working against him and were responsible for destroying decades of work. He’s not in a position to risk that again right after it all happened.

The fact that Ozpin admits these reservations to the group and they dismiss his (justified) fears with absolutely no consideration, further demonstrating their lack of maturity when it comes to these matters. I’m not blaming the girls for their trauma, but they haven’t worked through it yet and that means they’re not in the right mindset to deal with such a complicated matter right now.

The fact that Ozpin is a human being who isn’t relaying dry facts but a mythic amount of trauma from his own past. Getting into Salem’s immortality means also explaining lifetimes’ worth of personal information. Take a second to think about the one thing you most regret, or the most devastating moment in your life. Now take another moment to imagine someone screaming, “Just tell me about it already!” It’s not that easy, is it? Even if the information is deemed important, that doesn’t change your emotional attachment to it.

The fact that it would be practically and emotionally difficult to info-dump all this to a big group (especially without the help of a magic HD flashback from Jinn).

The fact that Ozpin has had much bigger fish to fry lately: like adapting to another time he was murdered and then reincarnated, learning that an old friend betrayed him, getting his ass kicked in a battle, and dealing with a relic that’s now out in the open. On the list of “things we need to deal with right now,” informing everyone about Salem is nowhere near the top of the list.

The fact that he’s only just reincarnated with Oscar and probably doesn’t want to scare the kid senseless. We see in Volume 4 that Ozpin was as patient and caring towards Oscar as he could be and we see now in Volume 6 that he’s still having a crisis about his new lot in life. Chucking “Oh btw, our enemy is immortal” into the kid’s lap before he’s processed all this other stuff is kind of cruel.

The fact that when the gang demanded this information it’s in the middle of nowhere, with grimm nearby, in the presence of a complete stranger. The girls are being beyond reckless right now and it’s not exactly a smart move to hand over sensitive information when tempers are running high.

The fact that he’s known this group (with the exception of Qrow) for about two-three years and has no reason to trust them with the biggest secret in the whole world. Especially when they can’t even demonstrate maturity long enough to speak about the subject calmly and rationally. Again, the kids all have PTSD. That’s not their fault. Them lashing out is expected—but that’s also why you don’t throw even more shit at them that they then need to deal with.

The fact that Ozpin did have a plan for beating Salem (building his schools, uniting humanity through fighting the grimm, presumably then calling back the gods for judgement) and he probably doesn’t want to be forced into the position of admitting that he doesn’t have a plan now. Because that reads as more damning than it actually is… and that is exactly what happened.

The fact that subordinates shouldn’t always have all the information that their leaders do. Sorry, but you don’t win a war by handing out secrets to everyone who demands it from you. Faith is not the same thing as blind faith—and it’s the latter that the girls are asking for.

Say what you want about how “He promised to tell them the truth!” but to me that reads as a blatant simplification of the situation. (Especially since Yang cornered him a bit with that promise. There’s an undercurrent of “If you don’t agree to my terms me and my sister are walking - and we’ll take the rest of your allies with us.”) If I were Ozpin? I wouldn’t have told them either. Not until later when I knew them better, they were older, more experienced, I knew they were committed to the fight, we were in a safe place, I’d found equilibrium with Oscar, and I was emotionally stable enough to divulge my own traumatizing past.

As for the rest of the post? It’s just another misreading of the canon. We’ve seen them for weeks now.

Ozpin isn’t “throwing shit against a wall to see what sticks”—he’s always had plans. It’s not his fault his former friends betrayed him and helped destroy all that.

He is not sending ignorant people off to their deaths fighting Salem—these are all trained huntsmen who agreed to wage this war before they ever even met Ozpin. The inner circle are volunteers who further agreed to fight the Big Bad. And notably? Ozpin isn’t hunting Raven down, or Leo before his death. When people decide they’re done with the fight he let’s them leave.

Pyrrha’s arc wasn’t about “saving the world” from Salem—it was about making sure that incredibly powerful magic didn’t fall into the wrong hands. If she’d been able to become the Fall Maiden and decided that she wanted to use that power to just fight grimm and not Salem herself? I have no doubt that Ozpin would have sent her off with pride.

Pyrrha didn’t die because Ozpin told her to save the world—Ozpin told her to leave. He told her not to fight. Pyrrha decided she could take on Cinder alone. I love her, but that was her own mistake. Ozpin encouraged the exact opposite of this.

We have absolutely no evidence that he “did the same to Ruby and Yang’s mom”—That’s Hazel’s logic: if you willingly chose the life of a huntress and you die on duty? Well, that’s somehow solely Ozpin’s fault.

Absolutely none of what they’ve done is “essentially pointless”—Yes, let’s let grimm take over the world and let Salem have all the relics and give the Maiden powers to all her lackeys. If we can’t kill her that’s obviously the next best plan. Completely foolproof. Ozpin has kept humanity safe for thousands of years, safe enough that they’ve now flourished technologically and reached a point where they experienced an “extraordinary time of peace.” In what way is that pointless?

Also, even if we don’t like characters, can we please not hope that they get beat on more than they have? Regardless of where you stand on the debate, praying that Jaune “gets a good fucking hit on him” after Ozpin already got it from Qrow—especially when he’s in Oscar’s body—is just plain not good.

But yeah. That got long. And it’s late now. Peace. 💚

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #Anonymous

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woildismyerster · 6 years

Note

Hey! I love your work, and I was wondering if you could do something with Darcy?

I’ve given it a try! I hope this isn’t terrible.

When your life was primarily made up of fantasies, it was annoying when you couldn’t get the fantasy quite right. When you couldn’t get the fictional lover to say the right thing, or when you couldn’t figure out what was supposed to happen next.

It all had to be perfect, or end perfectly. If your fantasy life couldn’t be perfect, there wasn’t a point to having one. Imperfections were for real life.

The most recent person that your fantasies centered around made it nearly impossible to fantasize. Even in your wildest dreams, Darcy was too good for you. He was perfect. He was the perfect guy, and that made it impossible to imagine him wanting you.

Okay, not perfect. He couldn’t be perfect, because you didn’t know him. You knew his name, because he told you his name every day when he came to the coffee shop you worked at. You assumed he was perfect, since he had that smile and those hands and he tipped well and he checked the nametags of everybody working so he could thank people specifically.

Perfect.

Perfect, and so, so out of your league.

You could see the surprise on his face when he came into the shop one day and saw that his regular table was taken. There were plenty of other seats available, but his steps faltered when the one he always used was occupied by an older looking businessman.

“I can take your order,” you parroted.

He glanced at the menu, though he ordered the same thing everyday. He had ordered the same thing since you started working the morning shift two years earlier, and you liked to think that he would keep ordering a chai latte for as long as you were there.

“I’ll have a chai latte. The order is for Darcy.”

You knew his name. You smiled politely anyway. While you got his order ready, you gave him a stiff smile over the counter. “Shame that you lost your seat.”

He blinked, surprised, but smiled. “It is. I always liked the view of that seat. Do you think any other seats are worth a try?” He was careful to pronounce every sound in every word, and you had to bite back a broad grin. He spoke perfectly, too.

You pointed at a chair in the opposite corner. “That’s a nice spot. There’s an outlet. Or,” you added with a nervous laugh, “the counter is always good.”

He accepted his cup with a grateful grin. “Thank you, Y/N.” He settled onto a seat at the counter. “I’ll save the corner seat for a more adventurous day.”

He sipped his coffee while he read the paper, and you peeked at him from the corner of your eye the entire while. You had talked to him. More than just taking his order, anyway. You filed it all away, knowing you would comb over it later. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

It caught you off guard when Darcy came back to the counter after finishing his drink. You hadn’t really talked to him since the day he sat at the counter, weeks earlier. His face was tight and uncomfortable, and he looked embarrassed to be up there.

“How can I help you?”

He leaned in close, making sure there was nobody listening in. “Somebody vomited in the bathroom.”

“Okay,” you sighed. “I’ll take care of it.” You were halfway to the men’s restroom before you realized he was following you in. “Oh, sir, you don’t have to -”

“It’s a lot,” he said quietly. “You’ll want a hand.”

When you pushed the door open, you understood what he meant. What had the sicko done, smeared it across the walls? Christ, it reeked. “Darcy, you should go. Seriously, it isn’t your job to clean it up.”

“It shouldn’t be your job, either,” he said. His nose wrinkled when he looked at it, but he rolled up impeccable sleeves and grabbed several paper towels.

“Wait!” He jumped when you barked the word at him. “Hang on, let me get you some gloves. We’ll want some heavy duty stuff for this.”

Neither of you spoke much while you cleaned, but it was companionable silence. It would be punctuated by one of you groaning in disgust, or laughing when the improbability of it all overwhelmed.

“I wish I had time to go home for a shower,” he sighed when the two of you left the newly cleaned room.

“That wouldn’t cut it,” you replied. “This’ll take bleach. Maybe acid.”

He laughed. “For my eyes, maybe.”

“Thank you,” you said. “For helping, I mean. I’m sure my manager will kill me when she finds out, but I really appreciated it.”

“I would say it was my pleasure, but that would be a lie.” When you grinned, he smiled back with a newfound friendliness. He had always been kind before, but some horrors were binding. Projectile vomit appeared to be one of them. “See you tomorrow?”

“If I skip the bleach and acid,” you said. “Hopefully we’ll meet under better circumstances.” You would take any circumstances, as long as he was there, but you would skip the vomit if at all possible.

The next time his seat was taken, Darcy didn’t hesitate to sit at the counter. He sat down and smiled at you, pulling out a newspaper instead of a book.

You grinned. “You still read the newspaper? How old even are you?”

“It would look pretty bad if I didn’t read the newspaper I work for,” he said.

You wiped down the counter as an excuse to keep talking to him. He always wore the most exquisite suits, and you supposed that working for the media explained it. You certainly weren’t complaining. “You’re a reporter?”

“Oh, no,” he said quickly. “No, I’m in charge of the layout of the paper.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“It’s alright,” he agreed. “It pays the bills.”

You leaned against the counter. “What would you do if you didn’t have to worry about paying bills?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s why I have this job, I guess. I don’t have any better ideas.”

Another customer came in, so you hurried away to help them. Darcy waited patiently, leaving his newspaper on the countertop as he did. When you got back, he had a question waiting for you.

“Is this the job you want?”

You shrugged. “It wasn’t. This was supposed to be my post-school filler job; the job that I worked while I looked for my career. It’s been two years, and I’m still here.”

“Well, you’re good at it,” he said.

“Awe, shucks,” you said lightly. “That’s good to hear. Now I just need to find a coffee shop that pays a living wage and has customers that treat me right.”

Darcy’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply -”

You blinked, coming back to reality. “No, no, you didn’t say anything wrong. Really, it’s nice to know that I do a good job. And for what it’s worth, the customers aren’t all bad. I even look forward to some of them.”

You leveled him with a smile, and he pulled his glasses off to polish them. “Customers appreciate seeing you here, too.”

“Customers will be seeing me around for a long time yet,” you said. “Aren’t they so lucky?”

“Incredibly,” he replied, with a smile so genuine that you had to go back to the register to hide your smile.

Darcy didn’t take his seat back in the following days, opting instead to stay at the counter.

“Good morning, Y/N,” he said with a smile. “I’d like a -”

“A chai latte, I know,” you said.

“And the order is for -”

“Darcy,” you interrupted. “I know your name. You come every day.”

He grinned. “So do thousands of other people.”

“Ah, but we always remember our favorites,” you said.

His smile escalated into a laugh. “How flattering.”

“It really is,” you confided. “We arm wrestle to man the register in the mornings, just so we can serve you.”

“Really?” He looked startled.

“No,” you snorted. “I’m not strong enough to win like that. I’m here because everybody else is afraid of me.” You could practically feel the other barista rolling her eyes, but she stayed quiet. You actually got to be on register every morning because you begged the manager to give you the position. Everybody knew about your thing for Darcy, so nobody fought you on it.

“Ah,” he said. He took his cup, grinning when he saw that you drew a smiley face by his name. “I can see why.”

“I’m terrifying.”

“Absolutely.” When he dropped money in the tip jar, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “I would never give this much money if I wasn’t so intimidated.”

“Right on.” You gave him your best glower, but it was ruined when you melted at his smile.

“Never do that again,” he said, and dropped another dollar in the jar.

Surprisingly enough, knowing Darcy didn’t kill the fantasies. On the contrary, they grew in detail and number. It was easier to get him right when you learned that he only worked for the newspaper because his dad owned the place.

He gave you his number so he could text you about an article he wanted you to read.

You started playing Words with Friends again, once you realized that he loved it more than life.

He would draw pictures on his napkins, and you would write different Jane Austen character names on his cups.

He would stop by during your breaks, and you started reading the paper just so you could talk to him about it.

You learned that he cleaned his glasses when he was nervous or embarrassed. He learned to predict what jokes you would make, before you started saying them.

Instead of being your refuge from reality, fantasizing about a life with Darcy made reality more difficult to cope with. Before you started talking to him, he was out of your league because he was perfect. Once you knew him, he was out of your league because, despite his imperfections, he deserved so much more than what you had to offer.

You never worried too much about knowing that unfortunate truth, since you never thought that he believed anything different. The perceived inequality was so obvious, so predictable, that you never thought there was anything to say.

“Any big plans for the weekend?” You popped the top onto his cup and handed it over, letting your fingers touch his a little more than necessary.

“No, but I do have plans,” Darcy said. He didn’t look pleased about it.

“Do tell.”

“My dad is having some family friends over for dinner, and he wants me to come along.” Darcy looked more upset about it than you would have expected, so you frowned at him.

“What’s the problem? Friends and free food. What’s wrong with that?”

“He’s done this before,” Darcy said glumly. “He brings friends over, but only when they have a single child around my age. They’re always successful, or on the way to it. It’s like a chaperoned blind date.”

“Oh.” Oh, oh, oh. “Not interested in the date?”

“No,” he sighed. “I haven’t been interested in their interventions in a while.”

“I only see two options here,” you mused.

“I’m listening,” he said. A smile was already curling at the edges of his lips.

“Number one - leave the country. They probably don’t know potential suitors in every country.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “And the other?”

“Get a date of your own. Put yourself out there. Find someone who you’ll be happy to go out with,” you said. Not you, of course, but somebody. Somebody awesome, who had lots of money and charm and was probably gorgeous. Somebody like him.

“That’s not a bad idea,” he admitted, “but it isn’t as easy as you make it sound.”

“A handsome man like you? Piece of cake,” you scoffed.

He grinned. “If you have any suggestions, let me know.”

“Will do,” you said. You had no suggestions. You didn’t know anyone who was good enough for Darcy.

Darcy had started coming over during his lunch break sometimes, so you would take your break and eat lunch with him. You never quite understood it, since the coffee shop food was only halfway decent, but you didn’t discourage him. It was the highlight of your day.

He bit into a sandwich, already reaching for a napkin to wipe his fingers on. “Do you ever imagine living somewhere other than New York?”

“I imagine it, sure,” you said.

He looked surprised, maybe even a little unhappy. “Like where?”

“Anywhere. How could you watch a movie or read a book, and not imagine a life where it takes place?”

“The Hunger Games must have been agonizing,” he said with a crooked smile.

“Harry Potter was a miracle.”

“Lord of the Rings must have been pretty great,” he said thoughtfully. He loved Tolkien. It hadn’t taken you long to notice how often he brought up Tolkien’s books and movies, but you had never discouraged it. You reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy, just so you could carry a conversation about them.

“What about you? Do you ever imagine leaving?”

“Not really,” he said. “I like things the way they are.”

“I can tell,” you said with a smirk. “When you decided you wanted a new friend, you chose somebody who you could hang out with in the place they work.”

“What do you mean?” He looked honestly baffled, and you had to fight back a laugh.

“You’ve been seeing me at work for years, Darcy. We became friends, and your way of furthering the friendship was to come to the shop more often.” You bit into a donut, catching falling bits of frosting in the hand you cupped underneath. “We’ve never seen each other outside this place.”

He frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“That’s how it is,” you said with a shrug. “I’m not complaining, just making an observation.”

“It has to change,” he said with finality.

“It’s fine, really -”

“No, you and I are friends.” He didn’t pull his glasses off, not entirely, but he traced his fingertips along the frames. “I want to see you more often. We can actually do stuff, like regular friends do.”

You could not think of a single thing that sounded bad about it, so you agreed.

In the end, it turned out that there was a problem. The more you saw him, the more you liked him. You liked that he offered you his elbow to hold when you walked through crowds. You liked that he sometimes went to restaurants just because he wanted an appetizer. You liked that he always dressed up, even on days off. You liked everything about him, aside from the fact that he deserved more than you had to offer.

Every month, he liked to go to the planetarium. It was the only place in New York that let you really see the stars, even if they were fake, so he wanted to look. New York was always a little overwhelming, he would say, but seeing the universe that way made it easier to cope with the chaos.

One evening, while the ceiling screen was talking about the Andromeda galaxy, you felt Darcy lean over to look at you.

“What is it?”

“Do you ever think that you would leave New York, if there was a job opportunity somewhere else? Something that you knew you’d love?” You couldn’t see his face clearly, but you saw the glare of the lights in his glasses.

“I dunno. Why?”

He shifted again, pulling his glasses off to rub at them. “I just like the way things are, is all.”

“I never said that I wanted to leave,” you said with a wry grin. “I don’t even look for jobs outside the city.”

“If you did,” he said quietly, “I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

“As if you could get rid of me that easily,” you said.

He shoved the glasses back up the ridge of his nose. “What I’m trying to say is, if you tried your hand at a career somewhere else, so would I.”

You blinked at him. In the background of the conversation, the narrator was talking about black holes. “You have a career here.”

“I could transfer to a different paper,” he said confidently. “I’d follow you.”

What was he talking about? Friends don’t follow friends across the country, and they especially don’t worry about this type of scenario when there is literally no reason to. “What’s bringing this on?”

“The thing is,” he said, “I really like you. I want to be with you, wherever we are. I know you don’t like the way things are in your life, but I want to always be the good thing. Anywhere we are.”

“Well,” you said awkwardly, “I’m staying here.” He liked you. Why on earth would he like you? You hadn’t planned on him liking you. He shouldn’t.

“I want to be with you here, too,” Darcy said. You could hear the cautious, hopeful smile in his voice.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you said in a low voice.

“Why not?” There was no defeat yet; he just sounded curious.

“Because you can do better.”

“Of course I couldn’t,” he scoffed. “There’s nothing better.”

“Of course there is! You’re a handsome man with a good job. I’m a barista, with no other prospects. You have a future, and I’m lucky to have a now,” you said. You were grateful for the dark. If you cried or something, you didn’t want him to know.

“I don’t want anybody else.”

“You should try to,” you said.

“Why?”

Your answer was cut off when the lights flickered back on, conversations roaring to life as all of the patrons stood to leave. You thought through your response as the two of you left the building, hoping you would find the right words to prove your point. The point didn’t present itself until you were walking toward the subway station.

“You’re like - like a prince out of a fairy tale,” you said. Darcy smiled, but you plowed forward. If you let yourself get lost in that smile, you would forget what your point was. You would forget why all of this mattered at all. “You’re the prince, and I’m the peasant, and it makes it all really weird.”

“Peasants and princes get together all the time,” he pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” you said. “But the stories never say that they’re in love, right? It’s a business deal, or a marriage of convenience. They aren’t soulmates or anything.”

“Can’t it be both?” He pulled his glasses off and polished the lenses again. “Can’t what’s best for everybody else be what’s best for the two of them? If it ends in happily ever after, doesn’t that mean love is a part of it?”

You frowned, rubbing your face with one hand. Things were finally going the way you had hoped, and it wasn’t what you wanted anymore. At least, it was what you wanted, but it wasn’t the ending you had decided on. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think this is what’s best for everybody else, and I don’t think it’s what’s best for us.”

He gaped at you, glasses forgotten in his hand. “You don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. Do I make you happy?” His jaw was set, eyes hard. For once, he didn’t look perfect. He looked hurt and unhappy, and the imperfection wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as you might have thought.

“Of course you do,” you said. “Of course you make me happy!”

“Do you think I’ll keep making you happy?”

“Yes.” How could he not? He made you ridiculously happy, just like he always had. That didn’t mean that you would make him happy.

“There you go,” he said. He gave a satisfied, tight-lipped smile. “I’m not saying that we’ll live happily ever after, but I do think we could live happily.”

That gave you a pause. “I make you happy?”

“Of course,” he said. “The happiest.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll always make you happy.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Isn’t that a risk everybody takes when they start dating? I know you make me happy now, and I think you’ll make me happy later. I care about you, and I think that you care about me. Nothing else matters.”

“Other stuff matters -”

“No.” He stopped you in the middle of the sidewalk and put his hands on your shoulders. “I want to be with you. I won’t try to push you into anything you don’t want, but if you want to be with me, that’s the only important thing. We should give this a try.”

You stared back at him, thrown. Maybe he was right. Maybe love didn’t have anything to do with deserving. It was just love and happiness, and you really thought that the two of you could have an abundance of both. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He smiled, slow and sweet. “You want this?”

“I want this. Let’s give us a try,” you said. “That concludes this business deal, prince.”

“Right.” He pulled back a little bit, but paused. “Wait, there’s one more thing to discuss.”

“What’s that?”

He pulled you closer and kissed you. He kissed as perfectly as he did everything else, which was kind of unfair. You wouldn’t be complaining.

He pulled away and grinned. “There we go. Meeting adjourned.” Instead of offering you his arm, he held your hand. You smiled while you walked. This was better than your best fantasies.

#Newsies #newsies fanfiction #newsies x reader #darcy #darcy x reader #ally writes

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