#everything feels kind of like it's in slow motion or like time's distorted somehow

[thethingything]

so the migraine has calmed down a lot now and we mostly have postdrome symptoms and it's fucking wild to me that we basically had like 3 or 4 days of 8/10 pain without meds and 5/10 pain with meds, culminating in about 2 hours of 10/10 pain before suddenly being like yeah that's it it's done now.

usually if we have a migraine that gets really bad it starts off with the worst pain and then eases off over the next few days but nope

also though I feel so spaced out and like, brain foggy but a different kind of brain fog to usual. I'm very lightheaded and our brain is processing things very slowly and I feel kind of floaty and weird with it

[pollenat]

ITZY and A moment of sadness

➛ Trigger warning: angst. The concept resolves around the reader going through a depressive phase and the members’ reactions to it.

Dark and provoking. Somehow, the world feels worse than immortal killers from cult classics. It’s much more relentless in its pursuit after your peace and it’s not even trying.

You wonder, have you always felt this way, or was there a time when the world didn’t seem as bleak as it does at this moment. Everything looks fruitless. What’s the reason for passing days? What about the changing seasons? How does one go on with a reason? The world does nothing and yet chooses that form of an attack on you. It’s effective.

A knock resonates. Jumping in place, because you were drowning in pain, until the sound, like a rope, pulled you towards the surface, the real world of now, you welcome it with a little bit of hesitation. Who? What? Why? Like a sleepwalker, you walk towards hallway, slow, terrified, blue. The anxiety raises, and you wonder whether it’s not too late to turn back. Pretend you’re not home. After all, there is no emergency to take care of, is there?

The knocking resonates once again, a stark contrast to the silence and calmness of your small apartment. It feels dead although you’re the most living creature that could ever inhabit the four walls. Not even a fly to join you. Just you and the terrorizing knocking on the front door.

A breath in, a breath out. You’re not sure about opening the door even when your hand catches the locking mechanism. The crunch of turning metal travels through a crack in your chest, like water does through split glass. There’s a silhouette outside, one that you instantly recognize as...

YEJI

Though you’re sure she will start scolding you any second now, a sigh breaks through the plush of her lips.

“(y/n)-” accompanies a soft smile of comfort.

Yeji isn’t mad, though you think she should be. Any other person would be furious at you for avoiding them. But not Yeji. She understands and offers her presence. Always. So in the end - you’re at fault here. For making her worried, hurting her by avoiding contact and being so thoughtless towards someone who’s still by your side. No matter how many may have left you, Yeji would never do such thing. The thought makes your eyes burn. All you had to do was tell her.

She doesn’t wait for you to speak, or cry your eyes out. Yeji’s arms open and lock you in a tight embrace. As she clings onto you, you’re pushed deeper inside the hallway. The sound of closing front door is just a sound. Yeji smells of familiarity and promise that things will be fine. Eventually. Perhaps, with her around it may seem so. Once she’s gone, the spell will break and you’ll return to the spiral of self-pity. It’s a wonder she hasn’t grown tired of you already.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” says Yeji. Her tightening embrace seems to be an answer to your similar motion.

Your fingers dig into the common material of her coat. It’s cold from the temperature outside. Her helix, leaning against the side of your head suffers the same fate. You were the reason she had to endure it - the cold. Guilt instantly fuels your imagination. You think of her frozen fingers, shaking teeth, teary eyes and itching skin - all of which you’re the reason for.

“Are you overthinking?” She waits a moment until, lying, you shake your head no. “Don’t ever think that I could be mad at you for being sad.”

Her statement is not just any reassurance. It’s her proving how much she cares about you. So much that she knows you’re on a self-guilt spree. Like always when feeling down.

“How-” You still want to ask, but the pain in your throat seems life-threatening.

Her hold weakens, so she can lean back and look at you properly. The avoidance of her gaze doesn’t discourage Yeji. As little as you want to show, her still smiling lips are pushing themselves into your view. Like magnets, they summon your eyes to appreciate the show. It doesn’t last long enough. She pouts, head nodding at somewhere behind you.

“Shh. I’ll make you something to drink, alright? I bought chocolate and other things. Chose the weirdest snacks I could find in the store-”

Yeji’s hands slip down your arms to lock on your fingers. You’re pulled along to kitchen, the usually irritating light of a lamp you hate, no longer as terrible. Frankly, it’s hard to pay attention to anything other than the young woman in front of you. Yeji is a bright star of good vibrations. Just a look at her and you’re feeling lighter, as if the sadness could be weighed and abandoned. You don’t need the chocolate-sized portion of dopamine. It won’t last, though you don’t plan on completely omitting it.

“Good thing I remembered to buy milk, right?” Yeji’s eyes almost close, unable to fight with her raising cheeks. “What would you do without my grocery shopping sense?”

She’s talkative, putting the day’s history into words. You’re listening, eager to catch onto every syllable, focus on something that’s worth your attention. Chocolates are small and last a single bite. But Yeji? She’s a lifetime of dopamine.

LIA

Before you can recognize the visitor, her hand lands on the door to push it farther. Jisoo has a solemn look on her face. She quickly passes you and closes the entrance, as if she was scared of something awaiting outside. The palms of her hands are flat against the door’s surface. Curtains of dark hair cover her profile, to keep you away from whatever her face may be painting.

You’re trapped in long minutes of uncomfortable silence, filled with thoughts of scary possibilities. Did you do something wrong? Maybe something happened to her? The reminder of many missed calls passes your mind, like an accusatory finger pointing at the main suspect. You want to ask her what’s going on, but words are too difficult to come by.

After what feels like forever, Jisoo turns to look at you. The solemnity falls, so a picture of worry can take its place. She looks as if guilt was chewing her ear off. As if she was the one with a string of bad choices following her.

“Sorry.” Her voice is small. “I was worried you’d- you’d close the door in my face.” A huff of disbelief follows. She seems amused by her own way of thinking.

Unsure how to tackle her behavior, you just nod in understanding. Lips feeling dry, you dare a look around the room you see on a daily basis. Just like you imagine yourself - it’s a picture of pure misery. Slightly embarrassed by the mess, you scramble to collect abandoned belongings. Otherwise Jisoo will surely scold you.

A jacket you had no strength to hide. Shoes you didn’t care for. A jumper you randomly abandoned. In the past they didn’t matter. Now, they’re an irritating distraction.

“What are you doing?” Jisoo catches the jumper’s sleeve.

“Cleaning.”

She clicks her tongue and pulls the material out of your hands. It’s neatly folded and placed on the nearest surface, so you’re no longer bothered by it. But the need to hide it in a closet raises in the place of irritation. You’re staring at the jumper, indifferent to Jisoo’s hard gaze.

“Seriously,” She steps in front of you, taking all of your sight for her. “don’t you think there are more important things than stress-cleaning?” Jisoo’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Embarrassed, you attempt a sigh, but instead of frustration, it’s a sound of a broken heart. Distorted and miserable. Out of what exact reason? Who knows, because surely not you. One moment you were existing, the next one you were feeling guilty for breathing.

Jisoo’s right hand wipes your cheek, probably to get rid of a stray eyelash you haven’t noticed. It’s a kind reminder of the good things, you’d kill to get a hold of. To forget for a moment and focus on something else, other than your mental state. Like the jumper. You want to put it away. Out of sight, out of mind as they say.

“You ignored my texts, calls... Just a single word back would do.” Though you’re the one with dark clouds hanging over your head, Jisoo sounds like she’s in actual pain, all caused by your stubborn silence.

“I’m sorry. I just don- didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

“And that’s fine. But always let me know you’re around, okay? No talking. Just a yes, or- I don’t know.”

Perhaps it’s the pressure of your terrified gaze. Perhaps the useless silence pushes her into action. Or, perhaps, it’s Jisoo’s own overpowering feelings that make her embrace your middle. She doesn’t look like someone who wants to let go and her tightening grip only proves the assumption. For the first time this eveing, her smile shines with honesty.

RYUJIN

She looks annoyed. The opening of your front door has her head falling back, a deep breath escaping, eyes closing. You watch her chin, somehow relieved it’s her, somehow more scared it’s her.

“I thought-”

Her raspy voice is terror-inducing. Under other circumstances, you’d love catching onto the rougher parts when she reaches the lows. But now? Now you’d rather tune it out so she doesn’t speak more, so she doesn’t get a chance to say something that may cut through your fragile shell.

“I was seriously worried.”

Without any other courses of action left to take, you open the door wider. It’s only polite to allow the guests in and you have no answer to her statement. But Ryujin doesn’t seem ready to step in, or even look at you. She’s facing the hallway’s wall, sorting out emotions that are a total mystery to you. There’s more to her state than serious worry.

“Why didn’t you answer the phone?” Her question isn’t a surprise. It’s a fact you want to push out of your awareness. Phones are scary. Answering questions is scary. Seeing irritated Ryujin is scary.

“Sorry-” You tell her, lost on words.

Her face finally turns towards you which you answer by looking down at your feet. You haven’t noticed how irritated the cold made your skin. White lines of drought cross your blueing skin tone. Toes drum against a dirty doormat.

“Just a text would be enough.” She says in a much softer tone. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Though eager to, you don’t allow yourself a look at Ryujin. Who knows how much more heart break you can accept, even if the previous reasons weren’t directly caused by you. Is your head you, or is it a different being? These days, it rarely seems to be an ally, more an enemy.

Steps are taken towards you. Ryujin’s heavy boots stand next to your naked feet. You want to step back and let her inside, but hands catch your cheeks before you can move away. Chin is lifted up. You’re staring at Ryujin and she’s staring back. Into your soul, someone could think. But the thing is, you’re aware she must know now. Her sudden softness is enough of a proof. You’re fragile and Ryujin knows how to deal with characters in your state.

“Did something happen?” She comes closer, so now her warmth is shielding you from a draft.

Hesitation holds you silent for few long seconds that Ryujin bravely faces.

“No.”

“So nothing happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“So you’re sad?”

A bite on your lower lip answers her. Ryujin nods, dropping her eyes. She doesn’t speak for a longer time, until cold wind’s blowing makes you shudder. At that, a guilty smile crosses her fingers and without turning away, Ryujin kicks the door closed.

“We’ll have to do something about that then.”

CHAERYEONG

A picture of pure worry. Chaeryeong looks like a puppy that has done something wrong and now feels guilty. But she did nothing to feel guilty of. You’re sure of that. As always, the fault is all yours. Why would she even choose to care for you? Obviously - aside from the kindness of her heart. And now, in a spot right next to the uselessness, you’re struck with guilt.

She wants to say something, but decides to search your face before speaking. Lips close, then press into a thin line. Her eyes drop down before looking at you again. You’re not sure how to answer her unclearly asked question. There’s no clear explanation to your state.

All wordless, you take a step to the side, allowing her inside. Chaeryeong hesitates only for a moment. She’s such a natural view, you’re weirded out by her being frozen in place, unresponsive to your motion. An invisible switch has to be turned on for the pieces to match. Her steps inside are small, anxious. Remind you of her first time at your flat, back when things were alien. But they’re not anymore. Chaeryeong knows everything about the four walls you inhabit, from the most comfortable spot on your couch, to where you hide socks. She’s seen it all. Your gloomy days are where the blank territory rests. Best couch spot won’t help with that and Chaeryeong knows it.

After closing the front door, you turn around to catch her facing you. Dark eyes hang under wrinkles of a strained forehead. For a moment you forget yourself. Fingers, as if having their own mindset, reach forward to flatten her skin. It’s soft and warm, unlike the rooms you’re closed in.

“Don’t do that, or it will stay that way.” Chaeryeong’s frown deepens for a second, but she smiles. You do as well, though the corners of your lips ache.

Her hand doesn’t swat yours away, like it tends to do with a little bit of a joking undertone. Instead, it weakly grabs your wrist to invite you into a hold. Her bright smile doesn’t falter like yours. Chaeryeong’s face remains an anchor, the last reminder of good feelings you’ve once possessed.

“Can we watch a movie?” Her question takes you by surprise. It’s careful, but also so outside of the range of possible topics, you’re not sure whether to be glad or doubtful.

“I mean- Sure?” The smile widens, though it seemed impossible a moment before.

You’re pulled straight on the couch, with no possibility of standing up in sight. Chaeryeong’s hands circle around your arm, her body coming as close as possible, making you wonder whether she has applied glue in-between your sides.

“Next time,” The TV clicks. “just text me.”

Though you’re basically glued to one another, she doesn’t dare even a stray look in your direction. Chaeryeong’s eyes are focused on the screen. You know she’s not watching the random episode of Family Court.

“Text you what?”

“You know what!”

Your question seems to offend her somehow. One of Chaeryeong’s hands slaps your abdomen, but frown is quick to disappear as she lays a cheek on your arm. Only now you notice the warmth she emits, like a human-shaped heater. Comforting, inviting, overtaking. You cannot resist the magnetic pull. Skin rests on her velvet-like hair. Maybe next time you will find the courage to text her, so the smell of her strawberry shampoo fills your senses and pushes everything wrong out.

YUNA

“Ah, you really couldn’t be bothered to have phone on you? Seriously, who does this now? We’re living in the XXIst century!” Yuna babbles on, eyes staring at you, but not really. She’s so taken by the monologue, your state passes her judgement unnoticed. Knowing her, the speech was in the works her entire way to your apartment. “And to think you usually never let it go out of your hand! But today, you just had to ignore me? What am I to you?”

“Hm?” Her eyes widen, a sign you read as I didn’t meant that last sentence. It was the heat of the moment and, frankly, you don’t care about words today.

Yuna doesn’t continue her rant. Your passiveness is much more interesting to her than the personal feeling of anger. A little dumbfounded, she finally takes her eyes off of you to stare at your front door. She may be lost in thought, but you realize it’s not good to keep the guest waiting outside. Weakly, the door is pushed wide open. Your feet take you back to the couch you occupied earlier.

It takes her a moment to gather thoughts before you hear her stepping inside and closing the door. Then she struggles with the fabrics. You haven’t noticed her current choice of shoes, but you imagine her pulling boots off of her feet. Yuna sighs in discomfort. The noise isn’t meant to be loud. It’s the silent apartment that takes it on a run through every nook and cranny.

A stray pillow occupies your fingers. Yuna walks inside the living room. Her hesitancy is obvious. She may be quiet, but the atmosphere is screaming. Another material is pulled, probably a scarf. Feet pad against naked floor. She stands next to you, staring at where you’re tormenting the poor pillow, before she dares to sit down. Yuna is not good with these things. You know they make her uncomfortable. That’s why you avoided involving her in the first place.

“Are you-” She jumps a little at the volume of her own voice. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’ll be okay.” Then, so she doesn’t have to wonder, you add “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Well-” The paint comes off of the pillowcase’s zipper. “You should worry me with things. You know, when you’re feeling bad and all that- All that stuff.”

There’s an attempt at humor - a huff you don’t understand. Probably meant to portray her powerlessness. You’re aware there’s nothing Yuna hates more than the thought there’s nothing she can do. It’s an energy-consuming parasite that feeds on your anxiety and her inability. So the silence continues, stretched into long minutes. Every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out of it. Every time you move a little, she jumps in her seat. As if your movement could hurt her.

“Really, you can go home. I’ll deal with- this.”

She doesn’t answer. Not initially After a moment of hesitation and analyzing your features, Yuna dares to scoot over, so your thighs are touching. The lack of sudden movement on your side gives her all the encouragement she needs. Arms are quick to embrace you. Their hold is tight, but maybe not tight enough. The thought isn’t voiced.

“But I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with you. Keep you company. I know I’m not that good with these things, but- I want to be better at it. So just tell me how can I help, or if you don’t want to talk, then I’m fine with not talking too!” Her passionate words land on the back of your neck in a series of rapid breaths. “Just- don’t push me away, alright?”

➛ pollenat’s list of headcanons

➛ pollenat’s list of shorts

➛ pollenat’s list of scenarios

[noelliza]

Looking Through Distorted Lenses - Anderperry

Hey guys! I wrote this little drabble in my creative writing class today, and as I was writing it, I realized it was sounding like Anderperry. @poetrusicperry insisted I post it, so I edited it and changed the characters to Neil and Todd. You can also read this on ao3 here. Enjoy! :)

Summary: Todd has a hard time understanding his own worth, and he doesn’t understand what Neil sees in him.

Word count: 411

~

Neil beams at me with shining eyes as if he’s not burdened by me. Like I’m his whole world instead of the wreck we both know I truly am.

He looks at me like my every word is a precious gift to treasure when I’m really the one who would inevitably destroy the gift, allowing it to crumble through his fingers like grains of sand.

He would never tell me the truth, he’s too much of a good person for that. However, the one thing I know I am is self-aware.

I don’t deserve him; I never have. And everyone knows I don’t. Neil deserves everything this world could give him and more. Yet he treats me with undying kindness, always present when I’m about to collapse, somehow just knowing I’d need him.

It’s unbearable.

“I have to tell you something,” I say, swallowing harshly.

His eyebrows raise, intrigued. “Oh, what is it?”

I steady my breathing and try to ignore the pounding in my chest, which is as thunderous as a roaring stampede. “I…I..” is all I manage.

He smiles and places a warm, comforting hand on my arm, and instantly, my breathing begins to slow to a steady rhythm. Neil is almost like magic. “It’s okay, don’t worry,” he says.

I close my eyes, pleading to anyone above that Neil won’t be upset. “I couldn’t find your favorite tea at the store,” I admit, searching his face frantically but unable to read it. “I went to every market in our area and none of them had it. I’m—I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Neil doesn’t react, his warm brown eyes staring into my own, slowing down my rapid thoughts. Then his face falls, and I feel my heart slowly begin to fracture.

“Honey,” he starts, his eyes sad, “that was so sweet of you, please don’t apologize. No one has ever done something so thoughtful like that for me before, or even bothered to remember something as detailed as my favorite tea.”

Neil places his other hand on my cheek, rubbing the dark circle ever present under my eye, a motion that always dissolves my heart. Unable to resist, I indulge myself—a rare event—and I let him caress my face, enjoying the feel of his thumb on my skin. We stay like this for a moment, silent, and comfortable, until Neil whispers:

“You’re my everything, Todd Anderson.”

I close my eyes again and don’t respond. I wish I believed him.

[impishnature]

Breaking Point

Thanks for waiting guys! This was 3.9k in the end so yeah haha! Which while normal for me, isn’t going to be attainable daily throughout October. 

Imptober Prompts so far

AO3 Fandom: Gravity Falls Rating: T+ (Warning for possibly graphic details on injuries.) Prompt: Broken Down/Broken Bones. Summary: Accidents at sea happen, however careful you may be. Unfortunately for Stan, some can dredge up memories with them.

.

It was strange, quite how quickly the world could turn upside down.

All it takes is one wrong turn, a blink, an exhale of breath, and suddenly all the air is punched out of your lungs and the open sky spins like a fairground ride you never meant to take. Off kilter, ready to take you down as the ground crumbles beneath your feet.

At least, that's how it always seemed to be for Stan. The world was always ready to throw him in the deep end at a moment's notice.

He'd hoped that after everything, the universe might stop trying to push him around.

He'd been quietly humming to himself, a serene smile on his face, tapping calloused fingers on fraying trousers as he sat, staring out to sea. There wasn't a cloud in sight, the sun beaming warm and bright against his arms and back, and the small bobber on the end of his fishing line was all that really kept him linked to reality. Otherwise, his mind was elsewhere, a peaceful static drone buzzing through his blank mind, as seagulls screeched overhead, hoping to snag his catch before he did if he wasn't careful and prepared. Behind him, he could hear his brother as if in the far distance, soft footfalls padding along as he absorbed himself in whatever anomaly had brought them here in the first place.  

One moment, under the bright blue sky, Stan felt at one with the world, like all the planets had finally aligned, the puzzle pieces had fallen into place and finally he was living the life he was always meant to lead.

The next second, a loud crack tore through the air and the folding chair he'd been sitting on jerked to the side, toppling, as the boat lurched beneath him. Something hit the metal railing of the boat with a long clattering ring that ricocheted around his ears as he promptly smacked into the floor shoulder first, head bumping slightly after with another flare of pain. 

Amidst this, another softer, though no less unpleasant crunch filtered through his disorientated senses. He felt something solid give beneath his fingers, breaking sharply in two and any air in his lungs choked out of him as a flood of pain washed over him. He curled up into a ball on the ground, breathing shallowly, heart thumping rapidly as his brain overloaded with sensation.

"Shit, that was- Stanley?!" 

Stan let out a hiss of a response, unable to open his mouth further than the gritted grimace it was locked in. He'd felt this kind of pain before, years and years ago, of course he had- young, homeless, running for his life, still, despite that it didn't really prepare him for a repetition. It was the kind of pain that your mind slowly forgot the true taste of, time taking the edge off. The body, however, never truly forgot. Like, that gut feeling not to put your hand near a flame even if you couldn't quite recall how much it had hurt the last time. And so, adrenaline pumped abruptly through this system, nerves sparking, his body trying it's best to keep him level-headed. His hands clenched tightly at his thigh, pushing down around the wound without being able to look at it. The memories from the last time this had happened were rising from the depths to greet him, skewing reality as all the interlocking recollections, that had quite never made their way to the surface since his 'lapse in memory', were now exposed to the light. 

It had been a baseball bat that time, a sudden solid snap to his leg that had made his eyes smart and black dots fizzle across his vision. It had knocked all the air out of him, a wheeze all that he could pull forth from his lungs, even though he felt the need to scream through the agony. Looking down had not been his most sensible idea. As soon as he saw the damage, his vision had blacked out, his muscles going limp. Even now, he had no idea how long he passed out for. It could have been minutes or mere seconds before he joltingly came to again, still locked in a terrible situation he'd found himself in with little means of escape. 

But now he was smarter, his body reacting to the pain as if it were an old adversary, a familiar routine that his muscle memory knew how to respond to. 

He turned his gaze away, eyes tightly screwed shut and took as steady a breath as he could muster, reminding himself that this time- this time- he wasn't alone to deal with it.

"F-Ford?" The word barely made it past teeth and a pain addled tongue. Heavy footfalls vibrated through the wooden floor, rattling around his skull where it lay. They should have made him flinch, would have if he'd had any sense to spare through the pain. But as it was, the much heavier, louder thump right beside his head of two knees hitting the deck without a care and the warm hand that fell atop his shoulder, instead caused a swell of relief to muddle into the mix of heady adrenaline coursing through him.

"I'm here. I'm right here."

Stan tried to relax under the slow soft movements on his forearm, the reassuring warmth that ran soothing circles across his skin, tried to lock on to the comforting voice, the familiar safety that he hadn't been able to rely on the first time. But the bolts of pain that snapped all the way up his spine, and the bright flare of his injured leg outweighed any optimism he could latch on to. All he could do under the tidal wave of agony was ride out the storm, curling up even further and pulling his leg in tighter to his chest.

"Stan? Stan, can you hear me?"

Ford's voice was an echo of worry at the back of his skull. As much as he couldn't respond to the frantic urgency his brother was trying to urge him with, the cold release of his arm as his brother moved away almost made him sob. 

No- no, please don't leave me. 

He hadn't even realised he'd latched onto the warmth to keep him tethered. The storm held him in it's thrall and the knowledge that someone else was there with him had been a rope, a life line that connected him to reality even if he couldn't quite break the surface of the water.

I can't do this alone.

He was drowning, water muffling his ear drums until all he could hear was the dissonant ring of a metal bat being swung, over and over with every pulse of pain, a death knell growing louder with every stuttering heartbeat. A distorted laugh bubbled through his skull, bouncing and splintering, increasingly scrambled until it became a cacophony of all the people he had double crossed. Scornful, mocking sounds, jeering at his plight. All of them shadows that surrounded him in the darkness, pushed him deeper and deeper into the water, flashes of yellow sparking up to fill the empty spaces in between that he might have somehow escaped through.

And the one person who might have been willing to help him, the light that might have helped him resurface, was on the other side of them all, pulling further and further away the more he let him, fading from his view with every sinking second.

If only he could open his mouth, if only his jaw wasn't locked and his entire being trembling. If only-

I'm sorry, I can't- It hurts- I'm sorry, I'm sorry-

"Stan."

The word was solid, determined, laced with a hint of fear but none of the anger that he was so despondently sure would follow. 

Pull yourself together. What are you? A Child? 

"Stan? I'm here. Whatever's happening in there, I need you to focus on me."

It was weird after so many years to hear his brother and father in the same vicinity, even if that vicinity was his own mind.

Especially when they seemed so at odds with one another.

"Please. Please open your eyes."

The warmth from before returned, now resting on his cheeks, small circular embers that dotted across his temples and his eyelids. The heat pulled him from the dark eddies, dragged him out of ice cold waters- but it was the edge to his voice that cut through him. That fear, that urgency, the thought that Ford needed him right that instant. It hushed the laughter, the mocking cries, until with all the energy he possessed, he squinted his eyes open.

The sunlight burned.

But he found solace in Ford's face above him.

Ford's shoulders slumped, arms shaking in tremors that Stan felt travel across his cheeks, but he held him fast, still continuing the soft motions against his skin. "There he is. Welcome back."

"For-" Stan grunted, close to uttering his name but without enough mobility to get his tongue to move in the correct pattern.

"Shh, it's OK." Ford's eyes became focused, quick fleeting glances at the rest of him even whilst his hands continued to soothe and his gaze so obviously wanted to latch to Stan's face. "Just- just tell me what hurts- if you can- whatever you can manage." His words were soft, sharply urgent but with no actual bite to them.

Stan didn't know whether it made him feel fragile or protected but either way he couldn't help the gratitude welling up inside him as his brother stayed at his side.

"Leg." 

It was probably pretty obvious with the way he was clutching it, but if he knew Ford, then he'd want to be sure. Either way Stan knew he was in capable hands even if he couldn't quite bring himself to try and struggle out of the foetal position he'd managed to curl himself into.

"Your leg?" Ford nodded, relief awash in his eyes at Stan's utterance. "OK. We can deal with that- we will deal with that, OK?" Stan wasn't sure which one of them the words were for exactly but he took comfort in them nonetheless. "I'm going to take a look, is that alright? I just need you to stay with me." 

Stan swallowed, the lump in his throat, solid and unyielding. He nodded once, a sharp tense motion as he braced himself for more pain.

"Easy. Easy- just, stay calm." Ford kept one hand on his face, moving it to act as a divider between his head and the floor. The other hand slowly pulled away, moving to cover Stan's hand on his thigh. "It's OK, Stan, just let me take a look." The hand slowly pried at his fingers, insistent and gentle, urging him to pull away from the pain. Ford's eyes found his again, reassuring and calming. "You trust me, right?"

And just like that it was as simple as breathing. 

Stan hissed, an annoyed sound that would have made them both laugh in any other circumstance at the low blow Ford had levied. Instead it did at least lighten the mood ever so slightly, relaxed the tight coil of his muscles enough that even if he couldn't move it himself, Ford could slowly pull his hand away and lay it gently on the floor after giving it a tight squeeze of thanks.

"That's it, you're doing great, Stan."

Stan didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the sentiment. 

He didn't feel like he was doing good, let alone great. When he'd been younger...

Well, younger him hadn't had Ford to take care of him. It was deal with the situation or get a much more fatal blow to the back of the head.

So hopefully he'd be forgiven for allowing himself to give in, now that he was a lot older, and greyer, and his brother was knelt beside him, offering to do whatever he could to help.

The soft push on tender flesh snapped him from his desolate thoughts. He whimpered, biting down on the noise almost instantly as Ford's eyes snapped back to his face, watching every subtle change and he couldn't help but try to turn away from it, not wanting to be seen this weak.

"Stan. It's OK." Ford's hand moved, running over his forehead and into his hair before reclaiming its spot around his neck. "It's just us, no one's judging you on how well you deal with this. Besides-" His mouth twisted up into a smile that didn't reach the concern gleaming in his eyes. "I'm the one that's had to patch you up after you've got yourself into fights before. So, out of everyone I think I know your pain thresholds." He kept their eyes locked, hoping to distract as his hand gently pressed again, following the line of his thigh, testing the waters with each ministration. "And I know that you aren't one to let pain get the better of you like this unless it's serious."

Stan tried to scoff, each lance of pain stopping his progress as he took deep breaths in and out. "Y-you say that like it's only me who gets us into fights."

Ford's smile brightened, more genuine than before. "True. True." He hummed, happy to divert attention as Stan's eyes focused more and more on his face. "Then again I've also seen you cry when the twins manage to send us a care package. Remember? That sweater you refused to take off for like a week? So, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe you have gone soft in your old age."

Stan's breathing hitched, a half chuckle escaping him. "Shut it, nerd." 

"Never." 

Ford shifted back onto his haunches, relief marring his expression as he smiled down at Stan, hand moving away from his injury to find his shoulder. "Well, it doesn't seem to be broken, so that's a relief." 

Stan blinked blankly at him, the pain a dull ache in the background as he stared at him. "Wha-?"

Ford frowned, glancing back over as Stan's hand moved once more to cradle his wound. "There's no break from what I can feel. No cuts or blood either... It's a strange place for a sprain but there's obviously something going on. If you can sit up, I might be able to get a better look?"

The world was becoming fuzzy around the edges again, his ears ringing, as Ford continued to talk. Not broken? What does he mean not broken? I felt it- And even as he got lost in his thoughts, Ford was slowly pushing and prodding him to move, his body letting him take the reigns as his mind succumbed to the confused buzz of pain still fizzling through his system.

"There we go. Still with me?"

Stan flinched back to reality, the hand on his shoulder tight and firm as it shook him ever so. He nodded, staring down at his own legs, trying to find the source of the pain, to visualise the break he'd felt beneath his fingers. His vision doubled for a second, black spots forming as his leg deformed and reformed, superimposing memory and present day before realigning every time he blinked. His hand trailed down but Ford caught it, putting it back beside him with a few small taps.

"Let me. I'm the Doctor here, remember?"

Stan snorted. "Not a medical one though." His head felt heavy, exhaustion tugging at his every movement as he watched Ford continue his examination. Sparks of pain still zapped through him as he was checked over but it felt strange, on his peripherals. Like it was just out of sync, each flare of pain linked to what he was seeing instead of as soon as the touch physically came. "What happened?"

"Hmm?"

"To the boat, what-?"

"Oh." Ford glanced back at him before continuing his ministrations. "We hit something. Nothing too serious, just an outcropping we hadn't picked up on when we chartered the course by the looks of it." He grinned sheepishly. "Guess that'll teach us for relying on autopilot."

Stan let his head fall back against the railing he'd been propped up on, eyes drifting shut, too heavy to hold open. "Ehh, once in a while we're allowed to make a mistake."

"Quite right." Ford hummed back. A few more moments passed before he finally sat back, turning to Stan once more. "There really doesn't seem to be a break. Can you stand?" 

Stan pushed himself up, staring wide eyed at him.

Stand? On a broken leg?

Sure, he'd hobbled on one before. The pain had been excruciating as he stumbled agonisingly away from captors that wanted him dead, biting on his knuckles to keep from making any noise as he all but dragged himself through dark winding corridors. But - well, there was a time and place for that kind of foolhardy response to a broken leg.

And now didn't seem like one of those times.

"But it broke."

Ford frowned, eyebrows furrowing as Stan spoke. "What?"

"It broke. I felt it break."

"You felt it-" Ford's frown deepened, alarm flashing in his eyes as he took in Stan's expression. "Stan, I really can't find a break, are you sure?"

Stan nodded, own mind racing as the dull throb persisted in his leg. "I had my hand on my knee and I felt it-" Nausea flared up then, thick and fast, his entire body listing to the side as he felt the need to heave. His fingers tingled with residual feeling, the unnatural creak and bend of his bones still lodged inside his grasp.

"Whoa, whoa, easy-" Ford's hand propped him up again, gently sitting him upright as he coughed on air. The next words out of his brother's mouth were hesitant, worried, but in a way that suggested he was scared to start an argument. Which didn't make any sense at all to Stan given the circumstances.

"Now, Stan. Are you sure... and don't get mad at me- but are you sure you didn't feel, well... that?"

Stan followed the line of his pointing finger, frowning in disappointed irritation- why didn't Ford believe him- before they finally alighted on what Ford was trying to show him. He stared, uncomprehendingly, at the strange heap of fibreglass and string that he was sure hadn't been there when he sat down earlier that day. 

It took a few long seconds to realise it was actually his fishing rod- or what was left of it.

...Oh.

It was neatly snapped in two, held together only by the fishing line that ran through it's eyelets. A line that was now also impossibly tangled around his folding chair and the railing he'd been propping it against. 

"Stan?"

He couldn't speak. What could he say?

"Stan... have you broken your femur before?"

"Hmm?"

"Your leg. Have you broken your leg before?"

Stan's head was turned back to the conversation, Ford's face holding a different kind of worry, one that by now he was used to, what with everything they had been through before they'd left on their journey across the sea. It didn't, however, make him feel any better, his heart sinking to rest in his stomach, in a churning mass of shame.

The pain in his leg was dissipating, like clouds dispersing once a storm has passed. As if nothing had ever happened in the first place.

"But I really felt it."

He hated how small his voice had gone, how pleading and childish he sounded. He just needed his brother to believe him- it had to have happened.

Because if it hadn't-

Stan swallowed, lump once more firmly lodged in his throat.

If it hadn't...

"I know you did, Stan." Stan scrunched up his nose at the pity filtering through his brother's voice. "But whatever the memory was that latched on to you, I need you to know you're safe. You're alright." Ford tilted his head to catch his eye, guilt swirling in his gaze and Stan wasn't sure if he hated it more or less than the pity. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Stan let his head fall forwards, hiding his expression from Ford's inquisitive gaze. His fingers fisting in his trousers, above the old wound, the old scar that pulsed in tandem with his heart but only as if to remind him of the memory. "It's not broken?"

"No." Ford's voice was genuine, a doctor letting someone know they were completely healthy and could face the world again.

He didn't feel like he could face the world though.

Stan laughed, a hollow sound as he covered his eyes with his hand. When had he started to well up? How much more shame did he have to go through today? "Great. Brilliant. Fantastic."

"Stan-"

"So, it's just my head that's broken then?" Stan dropped his hand to stare at his brother, almost wishing he hadn't said anything as he physically saw Ford's heart break across his face. Stan tried for a crooked grin, heart hammering in his chest in guilt. "What? It-it's not a new observation, now is it, Sixer?" 

"Lee." The old nickname cut off his dark laugh, sobering him up from whatever hysterical road he'd been about to wander down. Ford's eyes were harder, sharper as he came closer and for a second there was fear. That awful paranoia that Ford was about to up and leave, snap at him for being a nuisance and go back to whatever he was doing before he got in his way like he always did. "Lee, don't you ever talk about yourself like that."

"What?"

"I can't listen to you do that. Not anymore."

Ford sat beside him, arm curling around his shoulders before tugging him in against his chest. Stan felt him breathe heavily against his hair, puffs of air that felt and sounded shaky as they sat against the railing together, the boat peacefully bobbing in the water. 

"You're not broken, Stan. Anyone whose been through what you have-" There was a definite swallow as his voice cut off, a tightness to his words that Stan couldn't help but blanch at. 

Had he made Ford cry?

"Ford-"

"No one's been through what you've been through, Stan." Ford rested his head against the top of his skull, taking a deep breath in and tightening his hold, as if scared that by letting go, Stan would vanish entirely. "You've been through so much and done so much and no one will ever be allowed to judge you, least of all me."

Stan's throat constricted all the more as he struggled to regain control of the conversation. "Ford-"

"I won't hear it." Ford kissed the top of his head. 

"You're not broken."

A tear fell then, one that Stan couldn't hold in any longer. He turned, pushing himself into the hug that was being offered and choked out a soft protest as he did so. 

"It's alright." Ford muttered above him, slowly rocking them as they sat safe in their own little bubble, their small slice of home gently swaying on calm seas as the empty blue sky stretched far above them. "I promise you, everything's alright."

Warm water hit Stan's scalp and he tightened his hold, a physical apology for making his brother cry, but Ford just gently shushed him, rubbing a hand down his back. 

"You don't ever have to feel broken again."

[inkedstarlight]

Bittersweet: Chapter Ten

Summary: It's the first Christmas in six years where the three Archeron sisters will all be celebrating together, and Nesta struggles with feelings of guilt. Also her new neighbor gets on her nerves, making things a little awkward during their Christmas celebration. Notes: Read it here on AO3! Warnings: brief mentions of self-harm and depression, PTSD Bittersweet Masterlist

She stared into the water’s depths. Most pools were crystal blue, lapping quietly under the sunshine. This one was different. The water seemed to be thicker, like it was heavy. Dark like an ocean during a storm. Violent, unceasing. But confined neatly in the underground walls of the pool.

Nesta’s toes were at the edge as she stared into the water with a contemplative stare. She could barely see her reflection on the pool’s surface, for it was distorted and translucent and almost ceasing to exist. No matter how hard she squinted her eyes, she couldn’t tell what she looked like to everyone else.

It was silent around her. So quiet that the only audible sound was her shallow breaths. Just Nesta and the water and the night. She closed her eyes.

But all serenity was lost when hands pushed her from behind, launching her into the pool face first.

 She had been right. The water was heavy. That was the first thing she noticed as she sunk lower and lower into the pool, struggling to keep afloat. Nesta squinted her eyes open but it was dark, as if she were alone in space among nothing but stars.

Except there were no stars below the surface. There was nothing down here.

Nesta tried to use her arms to propel herself upward, to no avail. Her limbs were moving in slow motion, her kicking legs barely moving an inch. She tried and tried and tried, but she only kept sinking downward instead.

 Her throat constricted with terror as she realized she wasn’t going to make it.

Nesta’s feet hit the bottom of the pool. She raised her eyes skyward. Somehow, she could now see what awaited above the water’s surface. The water above was no longer opaque; she could easily see through it as if it were a normal pool. But she knew it was anything but. Nesta noticed that, despite the transparent surface, the black water that directly surrounded her still remained. It was like she was trapped in a bubble of her own darkness, light unable to protrude within.

 A shadow reflected off the pool's surface as a figure approached the edge. Her mother stared down at her. She looked so far away, but Nesta could see every pore of her being. A twisted smile played at the curve of her mother's lips.

 “I told you no one would ever love you.” Her voice was muffled, but Nesta heard it as if it had been shouted into her ears. The words rang in her head, echoing what her mother had said over and over again.

Nesta clutched her wrist instinctively, squeezing tight and feeling nothing. Her lower lip trembled, but no tears escaped her eyes.

You were right, Nesta tried to say. But when she opened her mouth, she only inhaled water. Nesta choked as she felt it drip into her lungs.

A dark figure stepped beside her mother.

“It was your fault,” Tomas sneered down at her. An empty bottle of whiskey was in his hand.

I know, she tried again, only allowing more water into her mouth. Nesta clawed at her throat as if she could release the water that was burning in her lungs.

Her father appeared next.

“You're the most selfish person I know,” he accused. Disappointment was written all over his face. “You are useless to this family."

 Nesta agreed. She choked on another mouthful of water.

Then, she came to the edge of the pool. Her hair was a mousy brown. It could have been beautiful if it weren’t twisted in knots full of neglect. Nesta could nearly see every bone in her body. Her teeth rotting from starvation, her skin bumpy with acne. She was fragile, but her eyes could destroy. Her arms were exposed, red crisscrossed cuts visible all over. It was like looking at Death itself.

“You don’t deserve to live," the girl's voice - Nesta's voice - was cold and unforgiving.

This time, Nesta didn’t say anything. She didn't have to.

She just opened her mouth and invited the water to fill her lungs. A small, haunted smile played at her lips as she drowned.

Everything turned black.

The water went still.

Nesta awoke with a gasp only to be blinded by the bright light of the morning. Sunlight peered through the half-closed blinds and into her dusty bedroom. She looked down to see that the sheets were tangled up around her sweaty body, the comforter thrown completely off the bed. A quick glance at the clock told her it was just past eleven.

She noticed Iroh staring at her from the foot of her bed as if he were waiting for her to wake up. She patted the empty space next to her and he immediately slinked his way closer to her. With a quick nose-boop and a lick on her chin, he purred as Nesta gently stroked his impossibly soft fur. She tried to control her breathing as she comforted Iroh.

Her night terrors were getting worse. She’d always had them, sure, but they’d never been this frequent - nor this vivid - since her undergraduate years in college. Now, they were happening nearly every night. Often enough that Nesta didn’t even bother to try to sleep some nights. She was scared to see what her consciousness had in store for her when she conceded to sleep.

Nesta wiped off the sweat on her forehead and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head ached painfully, most likely due to the millions of thoughts that were constantly circling in her head. She checked her phone and groaned when she noticed the date. She’d completely forgotten today was Christmas.

With a heavy sigh, Nesta managed to heave herself off the messily made bed. With a quick look at the sheets, she noticed the wet spot on the pillow, most likely from tears that were shed throughout the night.

Pathetic.

Opening her door and padding to the kitchen, Nesta noticed the wreath Elain must've hung on their door. It looked like a massive flower crown rather than a wreath. It screamed "Elain."

Before Nesta could make her way to the fridge to take a couple sips of whatever the fuck kind of alcohol they had, something else caught her eye as she passed the front door.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Elain!” she called out for her sister, her eyes still on the door, unwavering.

Elain popped her head from the kitchen archway. Her cheeks were covered in flour, and she was wearing her chef hat. She looked adorable. “Merry Christmas, sleepyhead! What's up?”

Nesta pointed to the very obvious new locks that were now on their door frame. “Did you install new locks on our door?”

Elain followed her gesture and seemed to hesitate. “Er, no... not exactly.”

Nesta tapped her foot on the floor and waited for her to finish.

Elain raised her hands in surrender and sighed. “Okay, okay. Cassian may have come by early this morning.” Nesta’s mouth dropped to the floor. “I tried to pay him but he said it was a Christmas gift.”

Elain must've seen the anger on Nesta's face. She knew – both from what Nesta had told her and the behavior she’d noticed – that Nesta wasn’t exactly a huge fan of Cassian. Sensing that Nesta was seconds away from stomping her way to Cassian's apartment, Elain called out, "Nesta, just wait - "

But she was unable to finish her sentence. Nesta was already storming out the door and up the stairs to the third floor.

Air whooshed in her ears as she climbed up the stairs. She was pissed. No, that was an understatement. She was livid.

Why the fuck did Cassian find the need to insert himself into their lives beyond the “family” dinners they attended? She had no interest in seeing his face outside of Feyre's house. She didn't want him to interfere with her and Elain's lives. It wasn't like they needed help - she certainly didn't need his help.

What’s he playing at?

As she approached Cassian's door, a thought wiggled its way through the angry cloud in her head.

Nesta wondered... wondered if she would have been this bothered if she hadn't awoken to that nightmare this morning. Would she even pay Cassian any mind? Would she perhaps be thankful for what he did?

She scoffed inwardly. No, her moodiness was Cassian's doing. He was responsible. And he was going to pay for pissing her off.

She banged loudly on the door, not a care in the world if she woke up his neighbors.

A few seconds passed before the door opened, revealing Cassian. He was wearing a white tee and low-hanging, grey sweatpants, hair sticking out in every which way. His eyes were red with exhaustion as if he’d only gotten an hour or two of sleep. Dark purple shadows were under his eyes. Gods, he looked horrible.

It was then that Nesta remembered what she’d overheard from Rhys and Feyre’s conversation the other night.

He's not the same.

Do you even notice how lost your own fucking brother is?

I don't want to lose him.

In all honesty, Nesta forgot that Cassian had been in the Marines for five months. Maybe it was because he - along with everyone else - hadn't even mentioned it since meeting Nesta.

On the other hand, his physique was certainly a reminder of the time he served.

But Nesta blocked out her sister and Rhysand's conversation. She wouldn't allow herself to have an ounce of sympathy for this man.

Nesta didn’t waste a second as she shoved a twenty-dollar bill in his face. “Here.”

She was prepared to storm away from him right after, but she paused as he looked down at the money with a puzzled expression. “Uh, what –“

“For the locks,” Nesta explained impatiently. You dumb oaf, she wanted to add.

Cassian looked up from the money and raised a brow at her. Shaking his head, he extended it back to her. “I don’t want it.”

“It’s not a request,” Nesta seethed. “Take the damn money. I don’t want your charity.”

“Charity?” he repeated, baffled. She noticed that his hand tightened around the money he held.

Nesta only narrowed her eyes in response.

He sighed and leaned on the doorframe, realizing that this wasn’t going to be an amicable conversation. “It’s not charity.”

“Isn’t it though?”

“No,” Cassian told her, finality in his tone. He was getting frustrated. Good. “It’s a friendly gesture because I was the one who broke them in the first place.”

They both glared at each other.

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Nesta spat, craning her neck just to be able to glare into his eyes. Gods, he was tall.

“I never asked you to be my friend,” he growled impatiently. His voice was getting louder. Sighing, Cassian tried to compose himself. “Rhys – who will more than likely become your brother-in-law – is my brother. That means we,” he gestured between them, “are going to see a lot of each other, whether you like it or not.”

Nesta chewed her bottom lip in contemplation. She wasn’t quite sure what it was about Cassian, but there was something that just… irked her. Maybe it was his arrogant attitude or the way he taunted her or the way he reminded her of herself. Either way, he was a thorn on her side and she wanted him out of her life. But she knew that wasn’t quite a possibility, unless she decided to up and leave her family again.

That wasn’t an option though. Not this time. Not again.

“If I could get your brother out of my sister's damn life, I wouldn't hesitate for a second," Nesta snapped. "But for some reason, Feyre likes your fucked up family. So just stay out of my fucking way, okay?”

She didn't care how cruel it was. She wanted to get a reaction out of him.

She wanted him to hate her.

Cassian stared at her speechlessly for a moment. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to find the words, but decided against it. He turned away to close the door in her face.

Nesta scoffed at his back, just loud enough for him to hear.

Cassian stopped in his tracks, turning slowly to face her once more.

“You know, I thought maybe we could be friends,” he laughed humorlessly. “I thought the locks could be a peace offering. But then you opened your mouth and Gods, was that just a fucking treat,” he spat out before taking a step closer to her. "Insult me, that's fine. But insult my family again, and I'll make the time we spend together a living hell."

Nesta’s fists clenched tightly at his words. "You've already done that."

Cassian shot her a smirk. "What can I say? It's pretty entertaining to watch you lose control."

 Ugh!

“Gods, you’re insufferable!”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Nesta," he sang before slamming the door in her face.

“Fuck you," she told him, but it was too late. Cassian had already gotten the last word in.

It wasn’t until she got back to her apartment did she realize that the twenty-dollar bill had been slipped into the pocket of her jacket.

She cursed Cassian all the way to hell.

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

It was about five o’clock in the evening when Elain and Nesta drove to Mor and Aurra’s house; they took turns hosting every once in a while. It was dark outside, the lampposts on the side of the street providing a soft, yellow glow. In its light, the flurries of snow were visible as they floated down, down, down. The radio was on, a Christmas tune playing quietly in the background. Elain was staring out the window, dessert in lap, as Nesta drove.

Nesta was tapping her thumb on the steering wheel when Elain turned to her.

“You know, we haven’t spent a Christmas together in…” Elain trailed off as she tried to count.

“Six years,” Nesta finished quietly. She didn’t need to do the math. No, she knew exactly how many years ago she’d lost her family.

A contemplative silence grew between them. Nesta shifted uncomfortably, her words hanging in the air.

“Well,” Elain murmured, turning to look at Nesta. She reached across the center console and took the hand that was resting on Nesta’s lap. “I’m happy we’re together. I… I hope we spend the holidays together even after this year.”

We will, Nesta promised silently. She wasn’t sure if it was a promise to herself or to Elain. It didn't matter because she had every intention of keeping it.

They turned onto Mor and Aurra’s street and pulled up to their driveway. There were several cars parked next to each other. Nesta recognized Feyre and Amren’s car. Her eyes slid to the one next to Amren’s. She recognized it from her building’s parking garage. Cassian.

Elain began unbuckling her seatbelt when Nesta stopped her. “I, uh… I actually wanted to give you your gift here,” she explained, biting her lip. “Privately.”

Elain smiled. “Okay.”

Nesta handed her a poorly wrapped box. “I suck at giving gifts, as I’m sure you remember,” she prefaced.

Elain giggled. “How could I forget? That was the best part of every Christmas,” Elain remembered fondly. “Feyre and I would always look forward to getting your gift. Remember that one year you captured all those fireflies in a jar, but when we opened them on Christmas Day, they were all dead?”

Nesta nodded with a little smile "You thought I did it on purpose. You kept screaming 'How could you?!'"

Elain burst out laughing. "I was quite the dramatic."

"No," Nesta murmured. "You're an empath, and I love that about you."

Elain's eyes widened in surprise, but it was quickly replaced by a smile that could melt hearts. "Nesta, I - "

"Just open the damn gift," Nesta joked. Elain conceded, but not before leaning over to plant a small kiss on Nesta's cheek.

Anxiety filled Nesta's stomach as she watched her unwrap the box with a delicacy only Elain could possess.

“It’s…” Elain’s brow twisted as she inspected it. "Cookie cutters?"

Nesta nodded in confirmation. She'd found them online the other week. They were pink plastic formed into different kinds of flowers and very clearly made for kids. But Elain loved pink and flowers, so Nesta was quick to add them to her shopping cart.

"I know that you don't bake cookies that often, and I know they look like they're made for kindergartners, but - "

"I love it!" Elain squealed, clutching them to her chest. "I've never had cookie cutters before!"

Nesta held her breath. "You don't have to pretend like you like them. I have the receipt."

Elain turned her body to her and gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm not pretending. They're from you, and I love them."

The sisters hugged each other before gathering their things and heading to the house.

It was boisterous inside. Christmas music played on the speakers as everyone chatted and laughed with each other. Right as Elain hung her jacket in the closet, Azriel approached her with a smile. She grinned up at him, cheeks flushed as if she'd had a few drinks. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the living room.

As Nesta walked past the foyer, she saw Cassian talking with Azriel at the bar area. He seemed to sense her stare, because his eyes met hers in just a matter of seconds. She quickly looked away and approached Amren.

"You're looking cute," Amren complimented her as a greeting. Nesta was just wearing a grey knit sweater and dark jeans, her golden hair flowing down her shoulders. She didn't often wear it down.

"You look hot," Nesta shot back with a grin. Amren was always stylish in her clothing. Tonight, she had on a long-sleeved black velvet dress, adorned with a ruby necklace and earrings. "Cute" didn't quite do her justice.

Amren reached behind her and grabbed a full wine glass to hand to Nesta. "Here. You're going to need this."

Nesta gratefully accepted, taking a gulp or two before leveling a stare at her friend. "What does that mean?"

Amren shrugged. "There's always some sort of drama on the holidays. Especially with you and Rhysand in the same room. What's with that?"

Nesta snorted. "I have a feeling my dear sister shared a little too much information about me to her wonderful boyfriend."

"Rhysand can be difficult," Amren agreed, taking a sip from her wine glass. "He just wants to protect people he loves. But with that being said..." Amren leaned in closer and whispered, "He's being a fucking asshole, in my personal opinion."

"Cheers to that."

Just as Nesta was about to tell Amren about her interaction with Cassian that morning, a loud shattering noise interrupted them. Nesta looked to the other side of the room where Elain was staring down at her broken wine glass that had fallen on the floor. Mor came over with a broom and paper towels, and Elain apologized over and over again. Mor just laughed it off and reassured her it was okay.

Everyone resumed their conversations, but Nesta noticed Cassian was frozen in place, his eyes still on the shards of glass that were pooled in dark red wine. He didn't look as though he was breathing, and she saw his hands shaking at his sides. His face was pale like a ghost. He looked... haunted.

Nesta took a step forward but stopped when Rhys walked up to Cassian. He leaned in close and whispered something. Cassian's stare didn't falter, but he nodded absentmindedly at what Rhysand had said. Then, Rhysand guided him into the hallway. And although they disappeared from her view, Nesta found herself continuing to stare in their direction.

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

Nesta was sitting on the couch after dinner, her third glass of wine in hand, when the cushion next to her sunk with someone’s weight. She looked to the left to see Cassian sitting beside her.

Rhysand and Cassian were gone for about fifteen minutes before returning to the festivities. They both came back looking better, though Cassian remained quieter for the rest of the night. No one mentioned their brief absence.

"I know you saw."

Nesta barely heard his whisper as everyone gathered around the tree in the living room. No one was paying attention to them.

"I don't want your pity."

She didn't even look over to him as she responded. "Good. You don't have it, asshole."

Nesta could have sworn she saw him smile out of the corner of her eye.

As everyone began opening gifts, Nesta moved to the armchair that sat in the corner. It had been a long night, and she was utterly exhausted. She observed as everyone traded gifts. Since Nesta had already given Elain her gift, the only other person she needed to give a present to was Feyre. Luckily, Elain's present for her was arriving late so Nesta didn't have to worry about opening that in front of everyone. She'd assumed that no one else would be expecting a gift from her, nor would they give her something. She'd assumed correctly.

It was nearing nine o'clock when only a few gifts remained under the tree. Nesta's heart stopped when Rhysand handed a present to Elain. She knew he hadn't gotten her one, and that was fine. She didn't give a fuck if Rhysand liked her or not, much less if he gave her a Christmas present. But to make it so apparent in front of everyone? To deliberately not give her a gift? Could he be more of a dick?

Nesta willed herself not to turn red with embarrassment as Elain began opening the gift. She didn't even want to know if anyone noticed.

Elain thanked Rhysand after unwrapping the customized cookbook stand. It was fucking engraved with Elain's name on it. Engraved.

After the final gifts were given out, Nesta looked down at her lap to see what she'd received. Feyre had gotten her a $20 gift card for gas. And that was it.

She didn’t belong here. It was like they were sending the message to her in all caps.

But then Amren threw something at her. And it wasn’t a softball toss – no, she chucked it at Nesta. Caught off by surprise, Nesta just barely caught the neatly wrapped package. She merely looked down at it before raising her eyes to where Amren sat.

Her friend was smirking and tilted her chin at the gift, silently demanding Nesta to open the damn thing.

Everyone watched with curiosity as Nesta opened her gift. She held up what was inside and inspected it.

It was a homemade bracelet. The kind that six-years make for their friends. Only, instead of multi-colored beads, they were just black. And instead of the words "BFFs Forever" or some shit, it said, "Amren is my best fucking friend."

Nesta stared at it. Then she laughed. Not a fake one. A real, loud laugh. A sound she hadn't made in months. It was brief, but it took everyone by surprise.

She grinned across the room at Amren, whose eyes were full of mischief.

Thank you, Nesta mouthed.

Whatever, bitch, Amren responded with a wink.

Everyone around them began to clean up the wrapping paper that littered the floor. Nesta remained seated. She put the bracelet on and admired it.

If Nesta had looked to where Cassian was sitting quietly on the other couch, she would have seen the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

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

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[concussed-to-pieces]

To Tell You The Truth Part Three

Fandom: Prospect [2018]

Pairing: Eventual Ezra/Prospector!Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Good morning, good evening! I hope you're all doing well. Enjoy!

Tag List: @huliabitch @renegademustelid @wrestlingfae @zombiexbody @sporadic-fics @rzrcrst @lackofhonor @the-feckless-wonder @arrowswithwifi

Part One

Part Two

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains graphic depictions of gore and allusions to previous abuse. Stay safe!]

Bakhroma loomed massive and pinkish-tan on the horizon ahead as you bent double, hands on your knees while you struggled for breath. No doubt you had pushed your filter carbon far past its limits with your headlong sprint heats through the Green. A quick look confirmed your suspicions; the indicator blinked sluggishly at the bottom of the red lines.

You bit your lip, barely reining in the panic threatening to engulf you yet again. You had no idea where you were. Damon was the one with the map, and Ezra...he was the only person alive who might be able to help you. Your heart dropped as you realized that all your running had really done was prolong the inevitable. 

You sank to the ground, staring up at the planet that dominated most of the sky in front of you. The hazy atmosphere around it was bright orange, fading into the navy blue of the cosmos backdrop. Checking your watch, you saw that the first cycle had kicked into the second several hours ago, though the light level didn't seem to have changed at all. The cloying, overbearing vegetation around you abruptly made sense. This moon was not only humid, it was also bathed in light for much longer than the standard twenty-four cycle. 

Moving robotically as your legs began to protest, you lumbered stiffly back to the treeline to suss out the spring you had passed by. You would need water. Even if you weren't in the right headspace to be thirsty, dehydration was not something to sneeze at.

You knelt in the mud alongside the spring, the coolness welcome on your overworked knees even through your suit. Pumping and purifying water always took longer than it ought to, and you found yourself staring blankly off into the distance as you filled your first jug.

You were working on the second when your helmet earpiece suddenly crackled to life with a shrill whine of static. 

"-llo...hello to the Green."

Ezra?

You swiveled your head wildly to look around and the static increased with the motion, making you slow to a stop. It was a stationary transmission, then. Your helmet must be picking up a long range somewhere nearby.

You rose to your feet while rushing to stow the jugs of filtered water in your day pack, tilting your head and mentally begging Ezra to keep talking. He did not disappoint, his drawling voice and the bursts of intermittent static your compass through the tangled overgrowth.

"...one or two pearls...that I will be willing to part with for well under the peakest commercial rates. Nothin' funny." 

It sounded like he hadn't managed to get what he needed to fix the drop pod. Your eyes burned with tears. 

"Just a desperate man tryin' to make a bad deal with the right holdout."

Brick red flickered through the Green's lush verdancy and you realized after a moment that it was canvas. A tent solidified out of the thick brush as you advanced, the roof coated in a generous layer of amber-yellow dust. 

"...anyone is out there...don't hesitate to click on." The signal was nearly free of static at this point. This tent was the obvious origin of the broadcast. But now the question was...whether that message was prerecorded or not. 

You hid beside a large, gnarled tree and pondered your next move. Sure, you had the pistol. If it did you any good was an entirely different animal, but you definitely had it. 

It felt sturdy in your hand compared to the flimsy Boscelot thrower rifle. Solid. 

Maybe...maybe you could reason with Ezra at gunpoint. Strike some kind of new bargain. You had nothing to put on the table this time, however. Everything had been in that pack, and you highly doubted the other prospector was interested in your sketchbooks. It would have to be at gunpoint. He had the resources, but you had the gun. 

Just like Damon. 

You hated yourself in that moment, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. Then, you darted across the space to the tent, ears straining to catch any noise from inside the structure. You couldn't hear much through your helmet to begin with.

After a quick prayer, you unzipped the tent and cautiously ducked your head to enter, leading with the thrower pistol clutched in your hands.

Someone seized your arm like a steel trap and you were ripped through the doorway, the pistol getting knocked out of your grasp in the process. Your plan effectively destroyed, you succumbed to panic, thrashing and attempting to claw at your assailant even with your gloves on. You twisted your head around to try and catch a glimpse--

And those bloodshot blue eyes seemed to loom up at you from the dimly-lit interior, making you scream out in terror, "No, no, Damon please!" as you struggled to get free. 

He all but wrestled you bodily into one of the tent bunks, grunting in pain when you beat your gloved fists into his ribs. You weren't sure if it was just because of the adrenaline or if it was due to how long you had been separated from him, but you had never fought him this hard in your life! You had always just accepted, given in, bowed to his demands. Where had this tenacity even come from?

"Not again, not again!" You sobbed, futilely kicking your legs to try and throw him off of you. "P-Please, please, please--!"

"Gentle soul, if you do not cease tenderizin' my ribcage in this most belligerent and unneighborly manner," a familiar drawl met your ears through your thick helmet, "I will have no resource but to employ far more drastically militant tactics. Be still."

That voice! You froze, your hands still bunched up to tear at the fabric of his exosuit. Ezra. 

His large form seemed to solidify in the exceedingly-dreary tent lighting now that you weren't fighting for your life, and you realized with a rush of embarrassment that it hadn't been Damon's eyes you saw, but the distorted reflection of the whites of your own in your helmet's dome. That, coupled with your imagination...

Damon was dead. How could you have forgotten? Damon was dead. It was just Ezra.

Does that make it any better?

You released him without a word, scrambling back as far as you could and drawing your knees to your chest in a defensive stance. Ezra stumbled upright, reaching overhead with his left hand to press a few buttons. The tent's air scrubber rattled sluggishly to life. "You can take off the helmet." He muttered.

You did so almost immediately, taking a greedy inhale of the dubiously-clean oxygen. A bit bar hit the threadbare bunk webbing by your feet and you ripped the colorful wrapper open, tearing chunks out of the crunchy substance with your teeth. As you devoured the bar ravenously, you realized that Ezra was utterly silent. 

You dared to flick your eyes up and found him studying you, his expression pensive in the sickly orange twilight of the tent. You gulped down the bite of Calori-paste that now threatened to choke you. "I...I'm sorry." You apologized thickly. "I shouldn't have-"

"Be quiet and finish the bar, gentle soul." Ezra instructed softly. He sounded unsettled, of all things. Like he expected you to turn on him any second. "I believe I have unfortunately deduced the answer to the mystery I had pondered earlier, though I wholeheartedly regret opening that proverbial Pandora's box." He shook his head.

The Calori-paste sat in your stomach like a block of lead. You struggled through the last few bites, washing them down with swigs of plasticky water from your canteen. You held out the other bottle that you had filtered as a sort of silent peace offering and Ezra accepted it without hesitation, the older man proceeding to gulp half the bottle in one go.

"I know you may not be overly inclined towards listenin' to me at the moment," he gasped out, wiping the moisture off his mustache. "But I'm afraid my situation has grown even more dire than previously implied." He raised his eyes to meet your own. "I...I need your help." He confessed.

You took another drink of water to give you the time to collect your thoughts. You were certain your disbelief was plain on your face; you had never been gifted in the art of hiding your turns of expression.

Ezra snorted, lowering his body to sit on the far end of the bunk. "The Saders were not exceptionally keen on barterin' with me once you made your timely departure." He held his arm, wincing and no longer looking at you. "I managed to convince them to swap me some of their ambrosia for supplies, instead of-" He halted, his shoulders going rigid before he carefully continued, "I cannot excise the infection without assistance, and if I do not remove it with an exceedingly low degree of error, I will lose the whole arm."

You swallowed hard, clenching your fist so tight that the handle on the water jug creaked as you asked, "Were you going to give me to them?" 

You knew that all Ezra had to do was say exactly what you wanted to hear. But you could live with the prettier lie if it got you off the Green. You could pretend to trust, pantomime the partnership.

His eyebrows drew together in a dark frown and you watched his jaw work sporadically before he finally exhaled a singular, monosyllabic, "no."

You waited for the rest of the sentence, the emphatic declarations of I would never! or what kind of man do you take me for?, but he remained silent, staring at the tent floor. Weirdly, the lack of long-winded antics made his answer feel more honest somehow. He was obviously a gifted liar, tailoring his technique to his target. 

You sighed heavily through your nose. "Okay." 

You told yourself that the bewildered gratitude in his eyes must have also been part of his ability to tell falsehoods.

Ezra prepared the sparse surgical supplies from your kit with a somber, almost funereal air. He seemed to be already convinced that his arm was a total loss. Maybe he knew better than to put much stock in the abilities of a battered floater. 

You were seized with the uncanny urge to prove him wrong. Your need for validation was what had landed you in this mess with Damon all those stands ago, you reminded yourself, but you couldn't shake the habit so easily. "Did I hurt you? When I...when I hit you?" You asked before you could think better of it. 

"No more than the average lighthearted dig dust-up would, gentle soul. Do not trouble yourself on my behalf." Ezra replied dully. "I offer my most sincere reparations for givin' you a fright."

"I spooked myself. I...I saw the reflection of my own eyes in my helmet and I thought…" you trailed off, nervously sipping your water.

"That man, Damon." Ezra hesitated, struggling to secure the band around his upper arm. "I know it is rude to ask after personal affairs, but did he-"

"Don't." You said softly. 

To his credit Ezra stopped immediately, busying himself with the tourniquet. After he had completed that arduous task, he bit the cap off of one of the porta-surge syrettes, spitting it out to land neatly in the lid of the field kit. He jabbed the needle home in his shoulder with a poorly-muffled gasp of pain, nearly crushing the tube with the force of his motion before dropping that into the kit lid as well. "The lid is for sharps." He informed you. "We lack a tray or a proper sterile environment, so keep your hands clear."

"I'll cap that once I get gloved up." You assured him. "I'm not leaving a sharp in the field kit. Knowing me, I'd forget it was in there and wind up accidentally pricking myself or something." 

Ezra nodded, swallowing convulsively. You took the Ralon scalpel from his slightly-shaky hand. "You ever used one of these?" He asked, his voice gone a bit reedy. His breathing in general seemed poor, off-tempo. He was afraid. The knowledge that he was just as scared as you were made you feel more sure of yourself, for good or ill. 

You shook your head in reply to his question, explaining, "I've never used this model before. The one I have for harvesting is much older."

Ezra reached over, flashing you a disingenuous smile. "It's easy." 

He pressed down on the side of the scalpel battery pack, activating the laser blade. The whole handle buzzed in your grip, feeling uncannily like your handheld stitcher.

"There's five levels of intensity. Use two for flesh. Four for bone." Bone?! You jerked your head up, meeting his terrified gaze. "You got it?" He choked out after a second.

You nodded stiffly. If he wanted you to know the bone setting, then by Kevva, you would.

His eyes softened and for a split-second he looked like he might cry. "Thank you." He rasped, blinking rapidly and then glancing away. 

You rummaged around in the porta-surge for the tiny, standard-issue penlight, immensely thankful that the battery still had enough power to work. The tent was poorly illuminated, outside light barely able to filter through the thick material. "Will this...when I start, is it going to hurt you?" The sterile glove packet made an ungodly amount of noise, crinkling and crackling in your hands as you fought to tear the seal.

Ezra scoffed, demonstrating the sensation that his right arm currently possessed by slapping his limp hand a few times. "I won't feel a thing. Hack away." His breathing was still too fast even as he continued to prattle, "quick, confident strokes are best. Try to go full circuit on the first cut."

You nodded again, one-handedly scooping the syrette and pushing it against the side of the lid to shove the cap back on. Then, you disposed  of it in the trash bag by the door. Holding the penlight between your teeth, you smoothed your gloved hand down his arm to pin it securely in place. You were really going to do this. Well, if he wasn't able to feel it...

You had peeled multitudes of aurelac gems in your mining career. You were exceptionally delicate when it came to skinning the pearls. You couldn't recall the last time you had punctured one of the blisters and ruined a pull. Surely...surely this wouldn't be much different. 

"I've never had to use these syrettes before. Kinda' nice. Tingly." Ezra commented as the scalpel buzzed to life. "Almost like it's…" With something that might have resembled quick confidence, you began your excision. The laser blade whirred through his epidermis with enviable ease, smoking slightly. "Oh shit. Oh shit." The older man muttered over your head, his whole body gone tense.

"What?" You asked around the penlight. Ezra started panting, his chest heaving violently underneath his threadbare waffle thermal layer. "Does it hurt?"

"No. N...h--I-I don't know. Keep goin'." He stammered. "You're doin' great, k-keep goin' until you think you've got it all." His left hand was clenched so tightly that his knuckles had gone nearly stark white beneath the layers of ground-in dirt. "Once y...once you finish, dump the juice into the wound and th-then cream it a-all sh-iiit, shut, shut." He continued to instruct you through gritted teeth. 

You nodded, wholly focused on your task. At least it wasn't difficult to spot where the infection had reached. It turned the tissue and muscle it consumed to a sinister purple-black. You tried to keep your brain separated from the fact that this was a human arm you were methodically carving a chunk out of, a human arm attached to a living person who, despite his incredibly convincing big talk, could definitely feel what you were doing. You deliberately narrowed everything down to being as rapid and thorough as possible, like when you had to harvest in a poor environment. Every extra second you spent was a precious resource you could ill-afford to waste, literally. Thank stars that he had the tourniquet wrapped so tightly, even if the blade did it's damnedest to cauterize as you cut.

Once you were as certain as you could conceivably be that you had removed all the infected matter from the wound, you sloshed some of the Sader's juice from Ezra's canteen onto the exposed area. It hissed and steamed like boiling water and Ezra buried his face in the crook of his left elbow, biting down on his sleeve and screaming into the fabric. 

Your hands finally started to tremble as you loaded the patch gun and listened to him dry heave, but you doggedly kept at it. Just a little more to go. It felt like it took an eternity for the stupid cream to expand. The reload was probably years past its expiration date. 

And then it was over. 

You carefully gathered up the grotesque little pieces of your handiwork that had fallen on the floor, balling everything into your fist. The gloves squeaked wetly when you stripped them, turning them inside out as you did to keep the blood and organic matter contained. They dropped into the waste bag by the door, plopping sadly down next to the spent syrette on a bed of bit bar wrappers. 

You shakily switched off your penlight and took a step back, reaching for one of the tiny antiseptic wipe packets. Despite your best efforts, the skin of your wrists was spattered here and there with blood. You scrubbed at the rusty fluid silently. 

Ezra's whole body was shuddering with every groaning retch, saliva hanging in thick strands from the bottom of his slack mouth as he rocked his way through the pain and clearly fought down the urge to vomit. Moved by the admittedly-pitiful sight, you tugged loose your bandanna and wiped off his chin. "It's done." You informed him softly.

He caught your wrist before you could pull away and you were shocked when he pressed a sloppy kiss to your knuckles. "You are Kevva-sent, gentle soul, never let anyone t-tell you otherwise." He grated, "Divinity incarnate; a damn valkyrie in floater's clothing, decidin' my fate on the battlefield."

You squinted at him, down at the grisly mass of expanded foam and then back at his face. "I don't know if I would count this as a battlefield, Ezra." 

"Martyr's malfeasance," he swore, his voice cracking, "you can attempt to dismiss it but I will never forget this kindness, gentle soul. Not even in the next life." 

"Don't...look, let's just hope I did everything right." The insanity of the task you had just performed struck you anew and hysteria bloomed in your chest. At the same time, his heartfelt proclamations of gratitude settled low in your belly, a flickering flame of pride that you wanted to shelter and nurture. You sat down hard on the bunk, pulling your knees up again. The still-smoking scalpel gleamed at you in the dim light of the tent. "I'm probably gonna' be sick." You warned him faintly.

"You are far from alone in that camp, gentle soul." Ezra replied dolefully. "We'll be spewin' in the same trough shortly, I imagine. I have always been a man...afflicted by the trials of sympathetic vomiting." 

"Oh no!" You found yourself caught between laughing and gagging, settling for a retching little snicker. "Come on, don't say stuff like that, you're gonna' make me hurl."

After several queasy moments had passed, he spoke up again, "I know you are just as eager as I to continue on to that mercenary camp, but I must insist on a short reprieve. A burge...burgeoning cloud of exhaustion is relieving me of what little sensibility I possess." He tucked his wounded arm against his chest as he curled up in his bunk. "And I will need time for the syrette to wear off, lest I be rendered an incompetent, staggering buffoon."

"We have to go to them, don't we?" Your voice was tiny.

Ezra sighed. "It would appear so. We will have to throw ourselves upon their proverbial mercies and hope that they are willing to acquiesce in exchange for our harvestin'." He cocked his head to look at you curiously. "Do you actually believe that it's the Queen's Lair they've stumbled upon entirely by chance?"

"Does it matter?" You asked. "Damon thought it was legitimate enough to throw the both of us across the universe in a trashy rental pod. I would say that must count for something, but…" You shrugged, propping yourself up against the end of the bunk.

"I understand. Still though, we will need rest if we are to successfully tackle this conundrum." He drowsily watched you as you dug around in your suit pockets to locate your sketchbook. The current iteration was a beaten memo pad from the pod rental company, each page stamped with the letterhead of Dasha Landcraft Rental. 

This was a familiar ritual to you. Turning your brain off whenever you needed to rest was a difficult thing to manage. In your mid-teens you had begun sketching before lights out and found that for some reason, the activity emptied your thoughts enough to allow you to sleep much easier than you had ever managed without it.

You unwound the twine that kept the pages closed and flipped to a fresh one. Trying to recreate the scenery you had witnessed earlier, sketching Bakhroma hovering imposing on the Green's horizon. 

"An artist, now that I did not anticipate." Ezra commented. You flinched, realizing how close he had leaned in to watch you. "What else have you drawn, gentle soul? Might I peruse your work?" He requested, his hand extended.

"I'm not--!" You floundered, tilting away and clutching the pad protectively to your chest. "I-I'm not...I'm not an artist. I just…I can't sleep without um, doing. Something like this." You tapped the notepad nervously. "It helps me relax." 

Drawing is a waste of time, you should be spending that time cultivating skills relevant to your field.

"No harm in that." Ezra replied agreeably, his words striking a sharp contrast against the echoes of Damon's belittling in your head. His hand remained outstretched, patiently waiting. 

You let out your breath slowly, rooting around in your hip pocket for the previous pad you had filled. That one you had pilfered from the Jata Bhalu processing facility, it had an actual hard cover and a loop for a writing implement. You tugged it free and hesitantly passed it to him, stammering once again that you weren't an artist, this was just something you did.

Ezra was devastatingly silent as he leafed through your tiny sketchbook. For someone that you had come to expect to talk, the stillness that permeated the tent made you unnaturally fearful. Your fingernails dug into your memo pad. What if...what if he was judging you? Some of the sketches were tired and messy, some of them smudged from your environment. Tea and coffee and tears blotted the pages. What if he didn't like them?

This was why you didn't show anyone your drawings, you-

"Have you ever considered acquirin' one of the draw-pads? I am no artist myself, but I know that the digital method saves precious space in pods." Ezra suggested. "And a single rainy day could ruins months of this hard work you have stockpiled."

"I...I want one, of course. It's just...they're so expensive and I could never justify it." You murmured, a little sad as you thought back to standing outside the pawn shop of the last freighter and gazing down at the battered box in the window. Out of date models alone were well removed from your price range. You could only imagine how much a brand new one would set you back.

"Puggart Bench West! I'd recognize that dock anywhere." Ezra exclaimed suddenly, wiping his hand off on his leg before he tapped on the page. "West dock is a real hive, isn't it?"

"Oh, y-yeah." You stuttered. 

"And this one...a deep space miner? Thing looks at least Fringe kestron grade." Ezra continued, squinting. "Not quite Testin, but it'll do in a pinch. I had a few stands on one of those. Food was shit."

"That was...um, it was just a ship that went by the transport freighter that I was on. Out in the Fringe." You shrugged, grimacing. "I didn't know what kind it was." You reached over with your pencil. "How do you spell 'kestron'?"

"K-e-s," Ezra paused, his brow furrowing, "t-r-o-n. If I'm not mistaken. Hell, it might be t-r-e-n." He admitted. "I'm uncertain, gentle soul. It has been so many stands since I've...since I've seen…" he yawned widely, then set off on another tangent. "In the Pug, there was this...vendor, you follow me, in this mercado." He rolled the 'r' in the unfamiliar word, like he was luxuriating in being able to say it. "They had--shit, it was some sort of...treat, the name is eludin' me. Drizzled honey, cinnamon, that fancy sugar dustin'…"

"Little pillowy things?" You supplied. "When the place made them fresh you could smell them all the way down the block?"

"Kevva, yes, now you got my stomach beggin'." Ezra groaned. "What were they called though?"

"It started with an 's', so...pa-"

"Sopaipillas!" He erupted, his eyes lighting up. "I swear, gentle soul, my heart just skipped a beat." He chuckled dreamily, "As much as I bemoaned the drudgery of it when I was there, I'd love to be back on the Pug right about now. Bench was a eternal shit hole, but at least I could breathe." He lolled his head to the side, looking at you once more. "When you and I escape this Green hell, I insist that you give me the pleasure of your gracious company on an expedition to that hallowed mercado." The older man slurred, his eyes sliding closed. "We will devour countless treats in safety and stroll the docks. A heavenly concept, you must admit."

"That does sound nice." You replied wistfully.

"It is settled, then." He held out his left hand to shake yours and you obliged, feeling childishly hopeful about the whole thing. "Now, set the alarm on that platinum chronometer of yours. Maybe...four hours or so? Kevva knows I'd love longer, but if we hope to arrive with adequate harvest time, we'll need to manage ourselves with caution." Ezra squeezed your hand, his smile weary. "Rest well, gentle soul."

Part Four

[imjusthereforbatfam]

Never-Ending Encore, ch.2

Chapters: 1 2 3 4

Chapter Summary: Cookies make everything better, right? RIGHT!?

Warning: minor swearing, minor panic/anxiety attack

---

Chapter 2:

“You planning on staying like that all night or…?”

Eden silently cursed herself, the world, and everything in it. Some small part of her still hoped whoever it was wasn’t actually talking to her. Just… somehow magically right next to her without noticing her. And... talking to someone else on her fire escape. Yeah.

Eden quietly huffed at her own idiocy and slowly began to move. She scooted back onto the metal stair, shifting her weight off her aching toes. For a moment she just stayed like that. Praying for… she didn’t know what. Some kind of miracle. Then, with a gulp, she finally inched her head in the direction of the voice. 

A man – a huge man – leaned casually against the metal railing of her fire escape. He wore a full red helmet that obscured his every thought and intention from the world. His arms were crossed as he, apparently, observed her.

"What, nothing to say?" he asked, his voice somehow modulated to sound almost robotic.

Eden just stared at him. The white “eyes” of his helmet were forever etched into an angry sort-of look that made her nervous.

Well... more nervous. She was already struggling with the fact that he had suddenly, magically, appeared on her fire escape on the 9th freaking floor. And with the fact that he was a thick, 6-foot-something mass of muscle who could probably snap her in half if he wanted. And that he had a pair of pistols holstered to his hips. And that this was happening in Gotham City; the place filled with not only violence and corruption on every corner, but actual, real-life, will-kill-you-for-funsies villains.

Needless to say, it was a lot to take in.

“Unless you wanna risk getting shot,” the man said evenly, apparently choosing to ignore her silence, “you should go inside now. Shit’s about to go down out here.” 

“Are you a good guy,” she blurted in a high, fearful pitch, “or a bad guy?”

The man said nothing. After a moment, his helmet shifted very slightly to the side.

A stream of curses ran through Eden’s mind. She was so dumb. Why was she so dumb? Why was she like this? Why couldn’t she just keep her damn mouth shut? She knew, logically, that she’d eventually be fine no matter what – she always got another encore – but that didn’t mean she had to help dig her own grave, damn it!

The man shrugged and, after a moment, said, “Depends on who you ask.”

“I asked you,” she shot back, then blanched at her own brazenness. This was no time to be Louanne Smith’s daughter. “Sorry,” she said dropping her head. “I, uh— I meant… I asked you,” she tried sweetly. “Um, sir.”

A short sound came out of him. It was too distorted to know what it was meant to convey, but Eden desperately hoped it was amusement.

“As long as you’re not working for any drug cartels or mob bosses, you should be fine.”

“Oh, darn!” she said snapping her fingers. “There goes my five-year plan!”

The man didn't say anything. His head shifted back slightly. Eden had no idea if that was a good thing or not.

An actress needs to know how to read their audience, and Eden usually considered herself pretty good at it. But with Mr. Ominous Angry Helmet, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He could be amused; he could think she’s an idiot; he could be thinking about shooting her. She just didn’t know. That only made everything worse.

Anxious, jittery energy shot through her limbs, jerking her into motion. She swung her body away from the unnerving man, picked up the plate at her side, and turned back to him in one quick, unbroken movement. Her blanket fell off her shoulders with the action and the cool night air felt like knives against her hot skin.

“Would you like a cookie, sir?” Her voice was up a few octaves and moving fast. “They’re snickerdoodles. Homemade. My mama’s recipe. Fresh from the oven and still–” she lifted one trembling hand, hovering it over the few remaining cookies “–yep, still pretty warm.” She lifted the plate closer to him. “Do you want some, Mister, uh–” she glanced down at the symbol on his chest “–Red Bat, sir?” 

The man’s silence was deafening.

Eden stared at the cookies, hating her brain, questioning her sanity, and cursing herself internally. She didn’t want to die tonight. More importantly, she didn't want to be shot tonight. Or ever again, really. Being shot hurt. If she were never shot again in her life, it would be too soon. And yet, here she was. Probably about to be shot again because she couldn’t shut her goddamn flap. 

After what felt like an eternity, the man finally asked, “Did you really just offer me cookies... and call me Red Bat?”

“Yes?” she squeaked. Then, unable to stop herself, a slew of words spewed out from her. “I’m really, really sorry if I offended you, sir, but I only just moved to Gotham a little while ago, so I still don’t know who all the important masked people in the city are, and, in my defense, there are a lot of important masked people in this city, and honestly, I still don’t even know all the good guys from the bad guys yet, which is why I was asking you earlier, but I really don’t wanna get shot either way, so if you could maybe just consider sparing me this one time, I swear I’ll figure it all out and just forget this whole thing ever happened and move somewhere far, far away, or I could start a fan club for you or something if you really wanted me to, or maybe even—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Mister Not-Red-Bat said putting up his hands. “Easy there!” He knelt down, making himself far smaller. “I get it. You’re new in town.” His distorted voice wavered, like maybe he was either trying not to laugh or not freak out himself. “Calm down and take a breath before you pass out, alright? It’s no big deal.”

“Oh. Okay. Good. No big deal. Good to know.”

“Breathe,” he reminded her.

“Right. Sorry. Breathing. Important. I should do that." 

The man nodded along, urging Eden to do that. 

It took a few tries, but eventually, she was actually able to take a full, deep breath. The man breathed with her, moving his whole body with the motion to guide her. His movements were so exaggerated Eden couldn't help but feel like she was on a stage with him, performing in front of an invisible crowd. She watched him, following his slow lead as her nerves began to settle. 

Eden turned away, letting out a long, even breath before doing it on her own. 

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah... Thanks." She looked at him again, wondering why in the world he even bothered to help her in the first place. "Are you... one of Gotham’s vigilante people?”

He nodded. “Yeah, Red Hood.” He reached behind his helmet and lifted a red hood attached to the back of his leather jacket for her to see. “Hood,” he said again. “Not bat.”

She smiled at the action. “Hood, not bat,” she repeated. “Got it. Sorry about that."

“It's fine. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

“Sor—"

He lowered his head in her direction. She could almost feel him giving her a "Really?" look. 

"Uh— I mean—” Her cheeks burned against the cool night air. She offered up the plate of cookies again. “Snickerdoodle?”

Red Hood shook and lowered his head as a small noise escaped him. “I’m good.”

Eden's brows lifted up in surprise. She was almost positive he was amused.

“No, really, I insist!" she said quickly. "This is going to be burned in my brain as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life anyway,” she admitted with playful ease, “I’d at least like to know I compensated you for your role in it. Beautiful performance, by the way, Mr. Hood. Very well done. Excellent timing.”

Red Hood leaned forward again, clearly snickering this time.

“And besides,” she continued, excited now, “you’re a vigilante in Gotham City, of all places! That’s a tough gig, Mr. Hood. You deserve to be rewarded for your troubles! And what reward could be better than homemade snickerdoodles by a random civilian? I mean, really now, I ask you.”

He shook his head minutely as she waved a hand around the plate of cookies like a showgirl. She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

“Alright, alright,” he conceded, sounding like he might be fighting back a laugh. He grabbed a small handful of snickerdoodles and tucked them into a coat pocket. “Thanks for the reward, random civilian.”

She smiled up at him. “You’re more than welcome, Mr. Hood.” She took a cookie for herself, pleased to find it tasted better than they had a bit ago.

“You really should get inside now, though,” he said getting serious again. “I doubt your neighbors,” he nodded toward one of the buildings not far from her apartment, “will be as willing to share their goodies with me when I come knocking.”

Eden stopped chewing and stared at the building. Part of her was a little in awe. She knew she was in a not-so-great part of the crime capital of the world, but she hadn’t imagined anything vigilante-worthy was actually happening on her crummy little street.

She looked back at Red Hood a moment, processing the information, then quickly finished her cookie and started tossing her things into her apartment.

“Okay, well, good luck, Mr. Hood!” she chimed climbing through the window. “Have fun, or whatever you’re supposed to tell a vigilante before they go, uh…” She frowned and quirked a quick brow at him. “Vigilanteeing?”

With one foot resting atop the wrought iron railing, Red Hood looked as big and threatening as he had before, but Eden wasn't afraid this time. He was a good guy. Ready to jump off into the night and bust some bad guys. But he didn’t. He just stared at her.

He tilted his head. “Vigilanteeing?” he teased, undeniably amused.

Eden turned away from him, her face heating up. “Whatever you call it! Do good deeds, don’t get shot — all that fun stuff. Have fun vigilante times or whatever.”

Red Hood made another sound – laughing at her – and Eden stared at the floor, hating her big mouth and wishing she could just phase out of existence. When she gathered the courage to look up again, she was surprised to find her fire escape empty.

A bit foolishly, she poked her head back out the window. She looked in the direction of the building Red Hood had indicated, but there was nothing to see. No Red Hood, no thugs, no nothing. Just an unusually quiet night on her even-less-safe-than-she-thought street.

But somewhere in the shadows, a vigilante was about to make things a little better. Eden was glad to know that, and glad to have thanked him for it in her own small way. She knew how hard a life like that could be and had nothing but respect for the people who chose it.

Eden, however, didn’t choose a life like that. She was perfectly happy being a totally random civilian, thank you very much. So she shut and locked her window, put on her headphones, and tried to have as much of a totally random civilian evening as possible.

She cleaned the dishes, studied her script, and went to bed early. Just like any normal person might. She ignored the sound of gunshots that managed to pierce through her music. She ignored the red and blue lights that eventually flashed outside her window. She ignored the voice in her head that told her she should've offered Red Hood her help – which was stupid for many, many reasons – and desperately fought off the thought that kept drilling into her head — that if he died tonight, it would be her fault.

When she got up in the morning, haggard and ill-rested, she went to the window straight away. There was nothing in the light of the day to suggest anything vigilante-worthy had happened on her street in the night. It was as dirty as usual, with the usual suspects mulling around their usual spaces. Everything was in its grubby, crummy place. The only difference was the yellow line of police tape and the few broken windows in the building Red Hood had nodded to.

Eden sighed, wondering about the vigilante and what had happened to him. She started to shut the window again when she noticed a folded scrap of paper sticking out from one of her tiny pots of herbs. She plucked it out and carefully opened it. 

‘Thanks again for the cookies. They were really good. - RH’

Eden smiled and let out a breath, the night's worries instantly lifted from her shoulders. She re-folded the little note and went to find a safe place for it — completely and totally ignoring the bloodstain along the paper's edge. 

Yup. Totally ignoring it.

----

Chapter 3

[hartigays]

Could you also maybe do a sick fic where Steve gets sick? I love a good angsty sick fic but I feel like it's always Billy getting sick. Thank you so much! Love you and your superbly gorgeous writing!!! 💛💛💛

steve feels like shit.

it’s the first thing he recognizes upon waking up. his head feels like there’s a construction crew drilling away at it, and his throat is on fire. like it’s been rubbed raw with some steel wool. he can’t breathe through his nose, the pressure of his congestion making his face throb.

groaning, steve burrows deeper into his covers, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to ignore the persistent ringing in his ears.

his parents are out of the country for the next two weeks. in germany, maybe? steve can’t really remember what they told him. he can’t remember much of anything right now. other than that he’s basically on his fucking own with this shit.

except - oh, god. his history midterm. that’s fucking - fuck. that’s today. steve presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, hard enough that he sees stars. rolls out of bed, lands on the floor with a soft thump.

today is clearly just not going to be his day.

steve can’t muster the energy to get up. instead, he drags himself across the floor. little by little. reaches the bathroom, throws an assortment of bottles from under the cabinet at the light switch until the room floods with light.

it’s too bright. his head gives a hearty throb. steve grips the edge of the bathroom counter and heaves himself off the ground. or tries to, anyway. it takes him a few tries before he’s upright, both of his feet under him.

getting ready is hard. he can realistically only brush his teeth and scrub on some deodorant. his hair is just going to have to look like a rat’s nest today. he doesn’t even bother looking in the mirror before stumbling out of the house.

steve doesn’t remember getting to school. he knows he drove, given that he’s sitting in the parking lot. the beemer is practically diagonal in the parking space.

he’s still in his sweats and a t-shirt, the look complete with three layers of sweaters and the biggest coat he could find. somehow, steve is both boiling and freezing. he’s definitely running a fever.

mr. osborne doesn’t comment on steve’s appearance when he stumbles into the classroom. he does, however, set steve’s exam on the corner of his desk instead of handing it to him directly. steve clumsily grabs it off the desk, trudging slowly to his seat.

the font on the paper is too small. or maybe steve’s eyes are just super out of focus. either way, it makes his brain pulse. his head feels like it’s full of wet cement, and steve is pretty sure his skin is on fire.

the room feels like it’s spinning. maybe he’s dying? steve thinks he’d be okay with that. no, he’d definitely be okay with that. if it saves him from being conscious right now, he’ll take it.

it doesn’t take steve long to just start circling random answers. he’s finding it harder and harder to stay upright and he just needs to be done. no one says a word when he drops his exam on the teacher’s desk and practically flings himself out the door.

he’s cold now. too cold. steve is forgetting rather quickly what warmth feels like. he needs to get to his car but he’s starting to forget where that is, too. he just keeps walking. ends up in the boy’s locker room.

steve slumps against a row of lockers. slides down to the ground with a groan and puts his head between his knees. if he dies here, so be it. he only wishes he’d made it the few extra feet to the showers, so he could die happily under the warm spray of water.

he must fall asleep, or black out, or something. because the next thing steve knows, he’s coming to with the sound of his name ringing in his ears.

“harrington. harrington. jesus christ.”

steve makes a noise of protest at the feeling of someone’s hands on his face. it makes the pressure in his head double. there’s a warm hand covering his forehead, and another tucked under his chin, holding his head up.

“fuck off, dad.”

distantly, he hears someone snort.

“‘m not your fuckin’ dad, harrington,” the person says.

the voice is familiar? kind of. steve’s ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton - everything sounds distorted and distant. steve finally blinks at the person hovering in his line of sight. and - jesus. of course. of course it had to be him.

“billy? what’re you doing in my bathroom?”

the look billy gives him is both amused and exasperated. it’s an unfamiliar look for him.

“i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…” billy starts, then pauses, brushing the sweat-matted hair from steve’s forehead. “last time i checked, this wasn’t your bathroom.”

steve blinks, glancing around. they’re surrounded by lockers and the stench of dirty gym socks. right. he’s still at school, dying a slow death on the grimy locker room floors.

“leave me here to die,” steve whines, his head falling back against the cool metal behind him. “my time has come.”

an honest-to-god laugh escapes billy’s lips. steve has to be dead. because he’s pretty sure billy hargrove is physically incapable of laughter.

“c’mon, pretty boy. can’t stay here forever,” billy coaxes once he sobers. “up and at ‘em.”

steve doesn’t move. billy doesn’t seem to care. he wedges both hands under steve’s armpits before hauling him off the ground, almost effortlessly.

and okay, steve knows billy is strong. he’s seen billy without a shirt on more times than he’s seen him dressed - he knows the guy is built like a truck. but steve hadn’t been expecting billy to be able to scoop him up with ease, like he’s nothing more than a rag doll.

it makes steve feel warm in a way that has nothing to do with his fever. it’s good that he’s sick - he likes having something to blame that feeling on. something other than the truth.

billy has one arm wrapped around steve’s waist. he slings one of steve’s arms around his neck, grabbing his hand to keep it in place. billy guides them out of the locker room with more patience than steve would’ve ever thought possible.

“where’s your car?” billy asks once they hit the parking lot, still supporting the majority of steve’s weight.

steve doesn’t think before burying his face into billy’s shoulder, shielding his eyes from the offending sunlight.

“what’s a car?”

“mother of god, harrington. fuckin’ useless,” billy groans. his voice is almost inaudible when he says, “you’re lucky you’re pretty.”

steve still hears it.

the camaro smells like cigarettes and billy’s cologne. steve lets billy tuck him into the passenger’s seat. doesn’t protest when billy leans in close to buckle him in.

the drive is a black spot in steve’s memory once again. one minute, billy is backing out of his parking space, and the next, they’re sitting in steve’s driveway.

billy pulls his keys from the ignition, then disappears out into the sunlight. a moment later, he’s guiding steve out of the car and into the house. steve is covered in a layer of sweat, so he must’ve been hot on the drive over. but he’s back to freezing again, his teeth chattering.

“you need to knock that fever down,” billy orders, kicking the door shut with his heel. “think you can handle that? i gotta get back for practice.”

steve nods slowly. billy releases him from his grip, and steve immediately folds in on himself, collapsing on the ground with a disgruntled moan.

“guess that answers that question,” billy mutters, squatting down next to steve. “you got anyone you can call, pretty boy? someone who can come stay with you?”

mentally thumbing through every person he knows, steve makes a face. shakes his head. because no, he doesn’t.

his parents probably wouldn’t fly home even if steve keeled over and died. his only friends at this point are middle schoolers. nancy is most certainly not an option. he could try jonathan, but he’s obviously still back at school and more than likely has work right after. god knows he can’t miss a fucking shift.

“‘m good. all good. super duper,” steve rambles, just on this side of delirious. “go to bed, jimmy.”

billy sighs, staring up at the ceiling with a look that screams this guy really is fucking hopeless.

“alright, alright. let’s get you in bed,” billy says, shaking his head in defeat.

he hauls steve up off the ground. somehow manages to drag steve’s nearly lifeless body up the stairs and into his room. billy tries to let steve down onto the bed gently, but steve slips from his grip and face-plants onto his mattress.

“mmm,” steve sighs appreciatively, swinging his legs onto the bed and curling up into a ball. “‘s like a cloud. soft cloud. fluffy…”

billy just gives him a look, one brow raised. “yeah? well, do me a favor and don’t leave the cloud, alright? i’ll be back soon.”

steve doesn’t remember where billy said he’s going. he doesn’t have the chance to ask, because billy disappears from his bedroom a moment later. he probably wouldn’t have had the strength to form a sentence anyway.

he lets his eyelids flutter shut. drifts for a while, in and out of consciousness. his body feels hot and cold all the while, and fever dreams do nothing to settle the tension building at the base of his neck.

the dreams are the same ones he always has, but also - not. they’re darker, more intense. more vivid. steve is pretty sure he can actually feel the bite of the demo-dog’s teeth shredding his calf. the impact of his nail bat colliding with the side of his head. the terrifying chill that settles in his bones when the mind flayer looms over him.

the life draining from the bodies of his friends.

steve comes to with a scream dying on his tongue. he sits up wildly, drenched in sweat. swings himself over the side of his bed and grabs his bat in one smooth motion. doesn’t think before swinging.

“jesus - fuck! the fuck, harrington? what the fuck - what are you doing? why do you even fuckin’ have that?”

the bat clatters to the floor, falling from steve’s hands. he looks at billy in horror, an apology stuck in his throat. “fuck, i’m - god, i’m so sorry. shit.”

“shit is right,” billy mutters. but he doesn’t leave.

he stays perched on the side of steve’s bed. leans in and rests his palm over steve’s forehead. swears under his breath when he does.

“if you’re done trying to kill me,” billy starts, still eyeing the discarded bat warily, “you need to take these. you gotta get that fever down.”

“sorry, i just. dreams. bad dreams,” steve says. a shudder runs through him, one that has nothing to do with his fever. his dreams still have his spine in their icy grip.

“that why you keep that under your bed? for some stupid fuckin’ dreams?”

steve makes a face, his cheeks burning. “they’re not - forget it. point is, i’m sorry.”

billy gives him a calculating look, his expression unreadable. then, he stretches out a hand. steve takes the concoction of pills gratefully, choking them down dry. billy rolls his eyes, grabbing the tea that steve had yet to spot from the side table and handing it to him.

“‘s good,” steve acknowledges, sipping the drink almost greedily. it warms his icicle fingers better than any blanket.

“mom’s recipe,” billy tells him, seemingly without thinking. he steels his expression immediately after, clearing his throat. “drink it all, it’ll help.”

“thanks.” steve continues to sip at his tea. “you don’t have to stay, you know. ‘m feeling better. i can take it from here.”

billy snorts. shakes his head. “yeah, good one. last thing i need is to see your dumbass on the news for trying to jump into the quarry after having one of your fuckin’ dreams again.”

that has nothing to do with steve being sick. he looks up sharply, giving billy a strange look. billy is staying with him because of his dreams now? if that’s the case, well. billy should be prepared for an extended fucking stay. steve says as much.

“beats going home,” is all billy says in response.

he gets up wordlessly, exiting steve’s room. steve hears his footsteps stomp down the stairs. continues to sip at his tea, rolling billy’s words around in his head.

it’s weird, knowing billy cares. it’s weird having billy be gentle with him, period. sick or not. but it seems like something practiced, something that billy has done a thousand times before.

he makes a mental note to ask him about that later.

for now, steve polishes off his tea. flops back onto his pillows, and falls into another restless slumber. this time, he dreams of blue eyes and heated, secret touches in dark corners.

he has to change his boxers when he wakes up.

his fever is down, though. at least a few degrees. steve gets changed, tossing his soiled boxers in his laundry basket, his cheeks flushed bright red. makes his way downstairs, noting that the sun has completely set.

steve hears the tv before he sees billy. pads into the living room, feeling his stomach flip flop at the sight of billy lounging on his couch. he just so happens to be in steve’s favorite spot, curled up under steve’s favorite throw blanket.

“fever’s down,” steve says, alerting billy of his presence. “not sure if that’s because of the meds, or the tea. either way, thanks for both.”

billy glances up at him, his brows coming together in mild concern. “you should be in bed.”

“and you should be home, not laying on my couch worrying about my sorry ass,” steve tells him with a shrug. moves to sit next to billy on the couch, eyes fixed on the tv without really taking in what’s playing.

“well. clearly, someone’s gotta.”

steve flinches, but doesn’t deny the truth to billy’s words. because honestly, he’s right. if billy doesn’t, no one will. and steve has clearly demonstrated that being on his own is not an option at the moment.

he’s about to speak, but billy beats him to it. “i, uh. made you some soup. chicken noodle, or what the fuck ever. ‘s in the fridge. just gotta warm it up.”

steve nods appreciatively. his stomach turns at the thought of food, but it also grumbles desperately. of all the things he has to eat in this house, soup seems to be his safest bet. he thanks billy before heading into the kitchen.

he’s just setting the time on the microwave when billy bursts in, waving steve away with an exaggerated sigh.

“who fuckin’ raised you, harrington? stovetop. always stovetop for soup,” billy lectures, shooing him away from the microwave.

steve watches him pull out a decent-sized pot, pouring the soup from his bowl into it before beginning to heat it on the stove.

“who raised you that made you so damn good at this shit?” steve asks incredulously, rolling his eyes.

billy clears his throat and turns fully towards the stove. doesn’t speak for a long moment, until, “mom did. ‘fore she died.”

steve swallows around the lump that has suddenly formed in his throat. “oh. i’m - shit. i’m sorry.”

all he gets in response is a half-hearted shrug, with billy’s back still to him. the silence stretches on, though it’s more melancholic than uncomfortable. soon, billy is dumping the soup back into the bowl, placing it and a spoon in front of steve.

“long time ago, harrington,” billy finally says. places the same mixture of meds on the counter beside him. “keep taking these. should knock that fever down completely by morning.”

“how’d she die?” steve blurts, then gives billy a horrified look. “jesus christ, i’m sorry. that wasn’t - i didn’t mean to pry. forget i asked.”

billy looks like he’s torn between wanting to turn and walk away, and wanting to genuinely answer the question.

steve is a little more than surprised when billy chooses the latter.

“brain cancer. she got sick a lot, during treatment. took care of her after her surgeries and shit, too. fuck knows dad never did.”

“do you miss her?” steve asks, quietly. doesn’t bother poking more at that bit of information about his father. knows that there’s a limit to this conversation.

“‘course,” billy says, his voice hot. irritated. then, that heat drains out of him, and he just looks tired. “wouldn’t you?”

steve looks down at his now half-empty bowl. feels that lonely echo bounce around in his chest. “uh, i don’t - i don’t really know. can’t say i know her very well.”

billy has this look of dawning realization on his face, before the shutters close over his expression once again. he gestures to the bowl in front of steve. says, “finish up. i’ll clean up when you’re done.”

steve does as he’s asked. if he’s good at one thing, it’s doing what’s expected of him. he’s got that going for him, at least.

true to his word, billy cleans up when steve is finished. then, heads back into the living room wordlessly. steve doesn’t ask if he’s allowed to follow - he just does it anyway. like, fuck it. it’s his house.

they take the same spots as before, but it feels different. it’s been like, twenty minutes max, but with the information that has just been shared between them, the silence between them is more amicable than anything.

“thanks,” steve says suddenly, peeling his eyes from the tv. “y’know, for helping me out today.”

billy shrugs. “‘s no big. you needed it.”

“yeah, well. you don’t see anyone else around offering a hand, do you?”

“point taken,” billy snorts. “you’ve got some shitty friends, you know that?”

“they have their reasons,” is all steve says. defensive.

because they do. steve knows that better than anyone. they all can hardly take care of themselves, much less each other. it comes with the monster-fighting territory. he’s long since gotten used to that - to them leaning on each other when the world is in danger of ending, and being lost in their own lives when things are calm.

what’s truly unfamiliar is having someone around that actually seems to want to take care of him. to offer help and support. steve knew people like that existed, objectively. he just never fucking expected billy hargrove to be one of them.

“sure they do,” billy tells him, his voice carefully neutral. “‘but ‘til they get their shit together, all you get is me.”

“‘s not so bad,” steve says, voice quiet.

steve doesn’t know if his subconscious intended it, but their knees knock together when steve says it. billy looks at him sharply, suddenly watching him like a hawk.

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

another long stretch of silence follows. it seems to be a common occurrence between them. steve doesn’t mind as much as he would’ve thought.

soon, though, that tension begins to build again at the base of his neck. it happens every time he gets a fever, feeling like someone poured a gallon of wet concrete right where his spine meets his neck. steve rubs at it with a grimace, and billy notices.

“you should go lay down, get some more rest,” billy advises, eyeing him warily.

“i don’t want to be - um,” steve starts, then breaks off in the middle of his sentence. flushes cherry red. “i mean - i want to see the end. of the movie.”

billy gives him a long look, his brows raised in disbelief. steve thinks he’s going to push that, ask more questions, but he doesn’t. he just sits up, starting to move out of his spot.

“then lay down here, if you’re gonna be such a baby about it.”

steve glares at him without any real heat. “‘m not taking your spot.”

billy huffs out a disbelieving sigh, his eyes cast up at the ceiling. “fuckin’ hell, harrington. you’ve got like, ten couches. i think i’ll be alright.”

“but you were comfortable.”

they stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, but in reality was probably only about fifteen seconds.

then, billy lays back down, slowly but surely. keeps his eyes on steve the entire time. gestures to steve, then his chest. “fuckin’ come on, then.”

steve’s mouth pops open in surprise. “wait, you want me to - you’re just gonna - me? on you?”

billy cracks a small half-smile, steve is sure of it. it’s fleeting, but it’s there. “would you quit being such a fuckin’ whiny baby about everything and lay the fuck down?”

steve moves quickly, before billy can change his mind. shifts to lay down on billy, squirming and adjusting until he gets comfortable. he’s laying pretty much face-down on billy, his face pressed into his chest. he turns his head so that his cheek is resting there instead, so he can breathe, and also so he can see the tv. billy slings an arm around him casually, eyes turned back to the movie.

seemingly completely relaxed and nonchalant.

steve, on the other hand, feels tense and stiff as a board. too scared to move, for fear that billy will shove him away and tell him to get lost.

that is, until billy’s hand comes to rest at the small of steve’s back, his thumb making these little soothing circles into one of the dimples at the base of his spine. it’s through the shirt, but steve goes pliant anyway, bonelessly relaxed. drifts off again, this time with the grounding weight of billy beneath him.

steve doesn’t dream this time. in fact, he thinks it’s the most restful sleep he’s gotten in a while. he pries his eyes open when his brain starts to come back online, an hour or so later, emitting a soft groan of appreciation at the feeling of billy’s fingers running through his hair, gently massaging his scalp.

“you okay? ‘m not hurting you, am i?” billy asks, looking down at him with mild concern.

“feels good,” steve sighs into billy’s chest, curling deeper into his warmth. “keep doin’ it.”

billy answers with a soft snort, his fingers continuing their journey through his hair.

“you’re pretty cute when you’re not tryna punch me in the face,” steve mumbles, without thinking. his eyes pop open in horror, and he sits up a little, about to begin his ten part apology.

billy beats him to the punch. “yeah, well. you’re pretty cute when you’re fuckin’ helpless as shit. and when you sleep. you snore like a puppy, you know that?”

steve is pretty sure his cheeks flush tomato red. billy thinks he’s cute. since when the fuck did that happen?

he’s about to ask, but the hand billy isn’t using to comb through his hair comes up, cupping steve’s jaw. his thumb catches on steve’s bottom lip, and he gives him a soft smile. and like, since when the fuck did that happen?

billy hargrove and soft are not two things that naturally coexist. and yet, here they are, billy holding him like he’s a porcelain doll and telling him he’s cute.

steve really fucking wants to kiss him. even shifts forward to do so, but billy stops him.

“nuh-uh. no sir. not kissin’ you while you’ve got a fever,” billy tells him, shaking his head.

steve pouts a little, but can’t help the goofy grin that spreads across his face. “but you do want to kiss me?”

“would i be touchin’ you like this if i didn’t?”

“i dunno, would you?” steve asks, voice quiet. it’s meant to come out as teasing, but he can’t help the insecurity that bleeds into it.

billy gives him a soft look. tugs steve up close, before pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. then, tucks steve into his neck, wrapping his arms around him and holding on tight. safe and sound.

“no, i wouldn’t.”

steve lets out an audible sigh of relief. it was obvious to begin with, sure. but he’s been burned before. just had to double check, for the sake of his own sanity.

“fine. but for the record, as soon as this fever breaks, you’re in for a hell of a makeout session,” steve vows, pressing a series of lingering kisses to billy’s neck.

billy just laughs, his arms winding around him just a bit tighter.

“yeah, yeah. i’m holding you to that, princess.”

and steve? well, he’s beyond okay with that. he’s never been one to break a promise, anyway.

[xxxmaydayxxx]

Shigaraki Tomura x Reader Dry Humping Headcanons NSFW

This is my first headcanon post...so it’ll be shite, especially since I’m writing for this cute lil freak. Just wanna add there will be spoilers to Boku No Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) and I do not own the character at all.                        

Trigger warning: Bad language (I swear a lot), Shiggy being creepy, spoilers, NSFW dry humping scene but not full on sex, also Shiggy’s a bit OOC...

also cringe ahead.

- When you first met Shiggy, you came to the LOV’s hideout with Dabi ‘n’ Toga (how original)

- You weren't rude like him or batshit crazy like her, you were...normal?

- What was someone like you doing in a place like this?

- Does he ask? No. Did he want to? Yes. Why didn't he?

- Too busy.

- Not that important.

- The truth was the mere thought of talking to you one to one made him feel like his heart was in his throat. So much so he couldn't breath.

- His face would feel hot.

- His mouth would dry out.

- His leg would bounce up and down uncontrollably.

- And just everything would become distorted. Sound, sight, touch and smell.

- And don't get me started on how you'd make his cock twinge ever so slightly.

- Jesus, was he sick? Why did you start making him feel like this?

- He didn't properly talk to you until after a stressful mission, he came back tired, stressed and out of breath.

- Everything was hazy and moving in slow motion. 

- But when he bumped into you... 

- Everything felt safe, comfortable, complete.

- If you asked him he'd just say you made things better. That’s all.

- He didn't remember how the conversation started but somehow you both got to why you joined.

- You had witnessed hero society first hand when you and a few friends decided to conduct an experiment that could've gotten you into trouble with some heroes.

- You had walked around the city looking like you'd been attacked and wounded while your friends filmed the bystanders reactions from afar.

- No one helped, all they did was look away.

- You found it pitiful, you wanted to make everyone suffer and teach them to help others in their time of need.

- You didn't care if you had to become the bad guy to do some good.

- Things had to change.

- You didn't realise you were ranting until you turned to Tomura.

- He was just staring at you, a look of interest and admiration on his crusty face.

- He thought you were so innocent yet so determined and brave, almost heroic even though you were part of the league.

- Everything about you drew him in.

- Your beauty.

- Your smell.

- Your beliefs.

- God your fucking eyes.

- Smile 

- Hair

- Body

- Ass 

- Tits 

- The way you breathed.

- And talked.

- The way you talked so softly and passionately at the same time.

- He started noticing so many things about you.

- These new feelings were getting overwhelming.

- Everything made him want to touch you. 

- Kiss you. 

- Rub you.

- Fuck you.

- God this isn some crush anymore it’s a fucking obsession.

- He doesn’t want you, if anything he wants you to stay away.

- He needs you, so much so he’s scared he’ll lose control.

- He doesn't want to do anything too harsh to scare you off. Just enough for him to know you’ll still be around and not dispise him completely.

- Maybe he coul-

- “Shigaraki-san?”

- He snapped back into reality.

- He was now sitting closely to you on the couch, your thighs touching his. His face a breath away from yours.

- He didn't realise he had gotten so close.

- “Are you, ok? You kind of zoned out while I was talking”.

- Tomura stiffened as sound of you voice sent strange feelings straight to his member.

- Now or never, might as well get it over with.

- He carefully leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on your lips.

- His lips were chapped but that didn't matter, they had barely even touched yours and it was so brief you'd have to blink to miss it.

- He stared at you and you stared back intensely. 

- You hands quickly wrap around the back of his scratched up neck and pull him in roughly for another kiss before he could leave.

- He’s in shock for a split second. so many thoughts were racing through his brain.

- Why weren't you running?

- He coud kill you right now.

- You’re making a big mistake.

- But he was already in love with the feeling of your lips on his.

- He let his hormones take over.

- And kissed back just as hard.

- He let his arms wrap round you waist and rested his hands on your hips, making sure to lift up a finger on each hand. 

- He pulled you onto his lap without breaking the delicious contact with your lips as his hands made there way down to your short skirt.

- Your hands tangled themselves in his light blue locks, though they looked knotted and unkept they were pretty damn soft. You gave them a slight tug and he gasped quietly and swiftly moved his hands under your skirt to your panty clad ass, grasping it tightly and grinding it on his clothed erection.

-Which was now hard as a rock, and fucking huge.

- The only things between that and your dripping, tight little pussy was your underwear and his sweats, which were doing absolutely nothing to cover his large, aching cock.

- As your hips moved in sync, his mouth had made its way to your neck, littering it with kisses and love bites. He hummed aggressively against your sweet spot as your ground your wet panty covered pussy on his bulge. 

- You were moaning like a bitch in heat as the feeling of his sweats over his hard cock rubbed your swollen clit over and over again sending shockwaves throughout you body. Your keep one hand in his hair, softy clutching it and massaging his scalp while the other snuck down between her legs.

- Tomura’s eyes widened as you lifted yourself up and pulled your underwear to the side and started grinding on his clothed dick again, moaning even louder than before, not caring if anyone could hear.

- “F-fuck Y/N, this is-is incrediBLe”

- “Hah, Shi-Shigaraki-s-san”

- “Tomura” He growled out. Fuck he was getting so close.

- Before you could speak, he forced his tongue into your mouth and battled your own for dominance and muffling your erotic cries.

- He was now humping up at your naked pussy fast and hard, desperate for release, you could feel his hard cock pulsing and throbbing through his sweatpants.

- You could also feel yourself coming undone on his lap. Your pussy was about to-to!

_ “Tomura I-I’m cumming!”

- “Me t-too, Fuck!” he cried as his strong thrusts became unhinged and erratic. With a final three thrusts he filled his pants up with his hot cum, over and over again as you shook against him, soaking his pants with your juices.

- Tomura sat on the couch breathing heavily, his quivering member shrinking in his pants, completely drained. His body shined with sweat and his heart was beating rapidly. He turned his head to look at you in his lap.

- Sweat covered your body like his and you twitched a couple times after your release. Your sleepy eyes glossed over with lust as you looked back at him with a lovesick expression, which he gladly returned. 

- It took a little while afterwards for you both to get your energy back, but once you did, Tomura and you made your ways to the shower to “clean up”.

Ok, done, this is my first time posting so I’m well aware this isn't a piece of art. Feel free to request one-shots, head canons, nsfw I’m not too bothered, I do need time to figure out what I won't do. Also if you know anyways I can improve please let me know, I’m clearly very desperate for help.

Anyway thanks for reading!! Love you!

[itsme-autumn]

Coming to Terms  |  part 2

Author: @itsme-autumn​ Pairing: Will “Ironhead” Miller x Reader Warnings: possible trigger for violence/sexual assault, swearing

Part 1

The silence on the drive home was not the comfortable kind that you and Will often shared. He spared a concerned glance at you every chance he could take his eyes off the road, not pushing you to say something, but hoping you would. 

Every instinct in Will’s body–both as a soldier and a man who wanted nothing more than to keep you safe–told him to turn the car around find that motherfucker. He hadn’t formed a plan much beyond that point, he didn’t have enough information–yet, but he still thought it was a pretty good plan. He’s betting he could get Benny in on it. Fish, too. 

That would have to wait though. 

Back in the grocery store, he had a mission: to get you out of there. Now, sitting in the car–and on the way to most likely sit in silence at home–he didn’t know what to do. Will Miller thrived on order, on having a system in place. On having a plan. and a plan B. and a plan C.

But this– he has no plan for this. You had flinched when he had tried to hold your hand at the beginning of the drive. Actually flinched. You were in pain, that much was obvious. He could see you trying to work through something in your head, and he knew he needed to give you the space to do that. Clutching the steering wheel, Will had to keep himself from speeding the whole way back. He wanted to get you home, to make you feel safe. Maybe then he could get you to talk to him.

Through your peripheral vision you could see the pained expression on Will’s face every time he turned to look at you. Any other time your heart would warm at the thought that he was so concerned. But right now you couldn’t focus on much of anything. You were stuck staring straight ahead through the windshield, hands clenched together in your lap.

You were thinking everything...and nothing.

You felt numb but also buzzed with awareness.

Were the cars flying by you? Or moving in slow motion?

It was stupid to think you could bury this. To hide this from Will forever. You had done it to protect him, as cliche as it sounded. Even though it made sense at the time, you know at a certain point the truth should’ve come out. He didn’t deserve the lies, the secrecy. Guilt poured over you in huge waves. 

Hot tears pooled in your eyes, you bit the inside of your cheek, trying desperately to keep them from falling over.

Suddenly, you feel hands on your cheeks, Will is standing over you, brushing tears away with his thumbs. You didn’t even realize you had arrived at your apartment already–or noticed Will round the car and open your door.

“Oh, babe...” Will breathed out, his voice thick. His eyes shining, he looks so worried–almost scared–and you realize you’ve never seen Will scared before. Ever. Now in this moment, even if it’s in the damn apartment parking lot, you need this to be done. You need it to be over. You have to know that it was real.

Pushing through the lump in your throat and your own fear, you finally force the words out–and you can’t dance around it, you need to rip the band-aid off. You take Will’s hands in your own, gripping them for support.

“I...I was a-attacked...” Your voice is so small you don’t even recognize it.

Will’s hands tighten their grip. Not enough to hurt you, but you know he’s tensing himself for you to continue. You close your eyes, not able to look at him, or anything while you utter the words out loud for possibly the first time. 

“The man...at the store. I didn’t know him, but I know his face.” You pause, taking a deep breath. “I’ll never forget his face–” The last word breaks off in a sob. You grip Will’s hands tighter, recovering quickly. You can do this. 

Will’s pretty certain he knows already, but he has to ask. He has to know for sure. “Did he–” he can’t finish, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” Your voice is weak, but not shaky. A couple more tears escape in a mixture of pain and relief. Opening your eyes, you finally look at Will, not sure what you’ll find.

Will has let go of your hands and is gripping the top of the car above his head, his eyes closed. His face is set in a hard mask and he’s afraid to move. All of his will power is being tested in this moment and he’s not sure he’s up for the task. 

He needs his ten seconds. Somehow you sense this, “take your ten, Will.” This was something Will needed from time to time. To let out his aggression and stay in control. It was something it took him a long time to learn, and it was something you loved him for.

God, you really are the strongest fucking person he knows, Will thinks. In this moment where you’re in pain, vulnerable–you recognize that he is, too. Even if he doesn’t deserve to be.

Will backs up and retreats to the back of the car. Taking a deep breath in, he lets all of the anger course through him. As if he can feel it fueling his blood, he flexes his fists. Yelling out, he throws his fist into the back of the vehicle, leaving a small dent. He leans forward, bracing himself with both arms stretched out on the back windshield and takes several deep breaths. 

Just as quickly, the anger seeps out of him, and Will is at your side again. He brings you into his arms, crushing you to his chest. One hand snaked through your hair and another around your waist, Will was holding you as if trying to build a wall of protection around you with his body. You feel his own tears on the top of your head and that’s when you lose it. Sobs wrack your body and you pull into Will, your shaking form a stark contrast to his solid one. 

“When?” Will’s question hangs in the air.

Your body stills. This is the part that will hurt him the most.

“About six months ago...” You say vaguely.

Hoping that answer will be enough that he won’t question it more. But Will is smart. Too smart. As soon as you say it you know he’s calculating in his head, going back to find a timeline that make sense. 

You know it as soon as he made the connection. As soon as he’s realized that this happened while you were together.

He pulls away and leans down to look you in the eye, a look of pure anguish distorting his beautiful features. 

“When you were in that car accident?”

“...yeah.”

A long stretch of silence passes between you as Will thinks of what to say. You know his next question, you just can’t decide what your answer will be yet.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

You wince at the pain in Will’s voice. Tears are streaming down to your neck and soaking into your shirt, but you don’t move to wipe them away. “I couldn’t hear much...something about money...about a fire...” You pause.

If you lie now, there’s no going back. 

“He...he said that it was for you, Will. You and the guys.”

Realization dawns on Will. Fear, anger, and guilt grip him in equal measure. 

Lorea.

Lorea’s men did this. 

He did this.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

A/N: And here’s part 2! I haven’t decided how far I’m going to take this. I can see wrapping it up in one more part, or possibly extending it. I wasn’t necessarily planning on connecting it like this from the beginning but it just seemed to go there. Let me know what you think!

Will Tag List: (let me know if you’d like to be added/removed!) @calirindo​, @leapingoveroblivion​, @curly-minnie​, @melissataggart87​, @mrsjaxtellerfan​, @kitkat-589​, @gottahavefaithxo, @soldierfirstclasszeldafair​, @shelbygeek, @luvs2read2018, @captainfreecandyvan​, @lokilvrr​,

[thetimelesscycle]

Tales of Arcadia Wizards Fanfiction: Hope Dies Last - Chapter 9

The Guardians of Arcadia grapple with the loss of yet another Master Wizard.

Zoe and Claire hatch a new plan.

A/N: I return!

A week later than I had planned, but I digress.

Turns out I spent my holiday actually working on some of my original pieces, which means this little project got set aside in favour of works that have been neglected for far longer. I intend to try and keep working on those stories going forward, so updates for this fic may not be quite as regular.

We'll still get there in the end, though. ;-)

Enjoy, TTC

Chapter 9

For Want of a Wizard

Like all wizards, Claire had been born with her abilities. They had always been a part of her; A silent power thrumming beneath the surface without her ever having been aware of it. It was strange to think that, were it not for Jim becoming the Trollhunter and pulling her into the wonderful world of trolls and magic, she might never have realised what she was capable of. She had pulled off her fair share of miracles since then, and it hadn’t even been a full year since the first time she’d used the Shadow Staff. Part of that was definitely luck — she’d been given a headstart thanks to Morgana’s attempt to steal her body, and the Shadow Staff itself had seemed to guide her in its own way long before that — but the rest had all been instinctual. Magic just felt right in the same way that being on stage had always come naturally to her, though it wasn’t until she met Douxie and the hedge wizards of HexTech that she realised how rare that kind of intuitive casting was.

All of them were her seniors in age and experience to varying degrees, though Zoe and Douxie easily outstripped their peers on both counts. She’d been given the impression when she asked that there was an unhappy reason so few wizards of their generation were still wandering the world today. She hadn’t asked again, more than capable of filling in the blanks even without a front row seat to history, and not wanting to waste what precious little of Douxie’s time she was able to claim for herself.

It was a calculated risk, making the trip between Arcadia and the Master Wizard’s new hideout, even infrequently and via the Shadow Realm. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been given much of a choice. The Arcane Order was still at large and Claire needed training beyond that which a hedge wizard could provide; Even a centuries old, very skilled hedge wizard. Douxie might not have been able to use Shadow Magic himself, but he’d learned the majority of his own skill the same way she had — through a sometimes painful process of trial and error — and was more than capable of steering her away from what might cause trouble. He was also an adept translator of the book she had taken from Morgana’s rooms, and she went to him for explanations even after he and Zoe had each set time aside to help her learn to read the tome’s contents herself. She found it easier to follow his directions than try and comprehend the words on the page, and with time set firmly against them the sooner she could learn to do more than open portals and create illusions the better.

Technically speaking, she had done more than that when she had fought to save Jim, but it had all been wild, desperate, and exhausting. She needed to learn how to do those things deliberately, and without pouring more of her energy into each spell than she could safely get away with. It was frustratingly difficult sometimes, even with Douxie’s relentless encouragement and stout belief that she was capable of anything she put her mind to. He’d laughed when she’d admitted as much, freely pointing out she’d picked up a whole lot considering she hadn’t yet had her magic for a fraction of the time Morgana had. She’d wanted to argue, not because she didn’t think he was being honest, but because for a moment her mind had completely tripped over the short passage of time that had passed since this whole adventure started. 

They had accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. The Eternal Night. Gunmar. Morgana. The search for the new Heartstone. The return of the Arcane Order. Jim and Toby had been at it only a few months longer than she had, yet, somehow, between them they had been involved in saving the world no less than three times. Surely, surely those adventures could not have taken place over a single year. But they had, and Douxie’s gentle amusement at her impatience had reminded her that her chosen teacher had spent nine centuries learning his craft and had still only just earned his staff.

That had put things into perspective.

So had watching Arcadia burn.

She was not a stranger to battle anymore. Even if she didn’t count the various, small skirmishes she’d taken part in there had been the Eternal Night and the Battle of Killahead Bridge to introduce her to the horrors of this millennia long war. Young though she might be, she knew what it was to stare death in the face. To stand on a pitched battlefield knowing you were outnumbered and outmatched and choosing to fight anyway. But even Gunmar had only wanted to conquer the human world — the Arcane Order wanted to burn it all to the ground — and it was there, standing in the midst of the calamity they had caused, that she most keenly felt her lack of experience.

Even without the soulless husk of Arthur to support them, the Arcane Order had them outmatched. They weren’t invincible — Deya had landed a hit on Bellroc at Killahead, and apparently caused some serious damage — but they had replaced their lost pawns with an army formed of what seemed to be every magical creature they could hold beneath their sway. She didn’t even recognise all of those swarming the streets, despite the hours she had spent pouring over Blinky’s bestiaries. There were shadow mephets, nyarlagroths, goblins, and hellheetis alongside countless others. She thought she saw a gruesome briefly out of the corner of her eye, and the stars above were blotted out by the winged outline of at least three stalklings.

It was madness, utter and complete, made all the worse by the innocent bystanders caught in the midst of it all. The three of them had been given the unenviable task of rescuing as many people from the heart of the battlefield as they could. Claire’s shadow portals were the only reliable way to transport people safely in and out, with neither the airship nor the Hextech wizards able to risk getting close to the Arcane Order themselves. That was Douxie’s role, and Claire hadn’t been able to argue when he declined her offer for assistance. Her skills were needed elsewhere, and she’d already tested her strength against the Orders and been found wanting. Douxie had promised he would manage. He’d smiled and gripped her shoulder and she’d let him walk away like a fool.

“Claire?”

The sky was spinning above her, half obscured by smoke as her mind wandered in aimless recollections, dredging up recriminations for a mistake she did not yet realise she had made.

“Claire! Wake up!”

The smoke burned the back of her throat as she unwittingly inhaled it. There was a ringing in her ears, loud and distracting and muffling Jim’s voice as he shook her urgently.

“Are you alright? Claire?”

“I’m fine,” she said, or thought she said. Her own voice sounded like a whisper, her hearing still as distorted as her vision. She coughed, her bruised sides protesting the motion, her lungs screaming for fresh air. “I’m fine. What—”

If Jim answered her she didn’t catch his reply, but he did help her off her back into a sitting position. His face was blackened with soot and streaked with blood from a dozen small cuts. No doubt she looked just as battered. Judging by the rubble surrounding them, half a building had come down with Bellroc’s last fireball. Still dizzy, she leaned against Jim a moment, trying to get her bearings, trying to gather her wits because now was not the time to lose focus.

The ringing in her ears was fading, replaced by what sounded like screams. Not sounded like, she realised, was. The smoke had parted behind them, so that when she and Jim whirled to face the source of that dreadful sound they were both given a clear view of the battlefield once more. Of her teacher — her friend —on his knees at the Arcane Order’s mercy.

“No!”

‘Magic is emotion’, Douxie had told her, something she had always known but never fully understood. Not until she was forced to embrace her fear or be rendered helpless once again. It wasn’t fear she was feeling when she staggered upright, bleeding and still choking on smoke; It was absolute, white-hot fury, and her magic reacted accordingly. The shadows took on a will of their own as soon as they left her hand, the energy torn from her fingers to join the violent maelstrom their battle had created. What she had meant to be an escape route turned instead into a whirlpool of darkness that dragged anyone and anything in the vicinity into its heart.

It should have calmed once they reached the other side, like diving beneath the surface of a pool in the middle of a storm. Unfortunately, she had unwittingly brought the Arcane Order along for the ride, and found herself emerging into chaos. Magic roared around her; Raw, unbridled, and dangerous. She couldn’t see anything, the clashing forces spinning her in circles and blinding her to both friend and foe. She could hear screams, voices she recognised, and a slow, swelling chant that settled sinisterly at the back of her mind, reeking of ill intent.

It was terrifying, but so was everything else they had faced today, and she wasn’t about to be the reason they didn’t make it out of this alive.

Giving up on righting herself, ignoring the chips of ice slicing through bare skin and the flames nipping at the edges of her hair, she let the whirlwind carry her where it would, pouring all of her focus, all of her energy, into locating her friends. She wasn’t Nari, she couldn’t simply sense the soul of any living thing, but she could picture the one’s she cared about clearly in her mind, imagine the shadows wrapping about them all in a protective blanket, and yank them to safety.

The landing was rough. They emerged from too high and crashed against the floor in a tangle of limbs and weapons. Claire had the breath knocked out of her when Krel landed on her back, a stream of what she was fairly certain were Akaridion curse words falling from his lips as they disentangled. She paid no attention, crawling on hands and knees towards the two among them who weren’t moving. Archie was closer, and she paused beside the small dragon, fingers seeking and finding the shard of ice that had felled him. She could feel the dark magic that infused it, an enchantment too complex for her to try and dispel on her own. She tugged the shard free instead, her fear easing a little when it did not resist, and watched with bated breath as the frost that had spread from its impact slowly began to melt. Archie’s wing twitched as the invisible layer crumbled away, and she nearly choked on her relief, hastily shoving the familiar into Jim’s arms as she turned to Douxie.

“Teach?”

He’d fallen face down without making any attempt to catch himself. She could still hear the screams Bellroc had been ringing out of him when they’d done... whatever it was they’d done. With a shaking hand, she reached to turn him over. There was no resistance; He rolled limply onto his back, skin pallid and face still, blood streaking the side of his face from a nasty gash on his temple. His chest had been branded with a strange rune that looked like it had been burnt directly into his skin, still bright in places, like hot embers in a dying fire.

She placed her fingers at his throat, searching for some sign of life as she pleaded under her breath, “Come on, Doux. Don’t do this again.”     

There was no pulse that she could find. She tried to convince herself not to panic. This had happened before and he’d been fine, despite the fact the fall alone should have killed him. She just had to trust he could do it again. A minute ticked by, and then another, agonisingly slow and all too fast at the same time.

“He’s breathing, right?” Toby was behind her, Jim on her other side, still carefully cradling Archie. “Tell me he’s breathing.”

“I don’t…” she moved her hand to his chest, careful of the brand as she felt for the rise and fall that would indicate life. “I don’t think he is.”

“I could not hold him.” It was a fragile whisper, and Claire looked up to find Nari crouched on Douxie’s other side, staring at her own hands as if they had betrayed her. “I could not... I was not strong enough.”

“What did they do?”

Nari startled, lowering her hands as she lifted her eyes to meet Claire’s frantic gaze. “They have destroyed his soul. I tried to stop the spell, to hold him together, but I could not... I could not...”

“No.” She shook her head, denial rising. “No. There has to be a way to fix this. I can—”

“Guys!” The exasperated shout came from the other end of the dark cavern. Claire looked up to see Steve running towards them, Blinky a stride behind. “What is taking so long? We gotta move!”

The gyres. Of course. Their escape route. Their means of ferrying an entire town of people out of danger as quickly as possible. It had been her job to get everyone here safely, and she had failed.

“Great Gronka Morka!” Blinky had reached them, shoving his way through the circle they had unwittingly formed. “What happened?”

“No time for that,” Jim interrupted, moving Archie’s weight to one arm so he could reach down and pull Claire to her feet. “Steve’s right. We’ve got to move before the Order realises where we’ve gone.”

“But—!”

“We’ll figure something out,” he promised, stepping aside to let AAARRRGGHH!!! collect their fallen friend. “Just not here. Come on.”

Stumbling, she let herself be pulled along. The battle had exhausted them all, she could see it in the faces of those running alongside her, but they couldn’t stop yet. Douxie had been clear on that. They needed to get out and away, or the Order would just keep on coming. If they could. She didn’t know if Skrael or Bellroc could control the Shadow Realm now that Morgana was gone. No doubt they were powerful enough to find a way even if the magic was not in their repertoire, but leaving them trapped within its boundaries might buy a little more time.

Jim was leaning on her almost as much as she was leaning on him when they reached the gyre, his stamina not what it had once been as a half troll. Their sorry group piled on one after the other as Blinky wrestled with the controls. AAARRRGGHH!!! braced himself in the corner as they took off, cradling Douxie’s limp form gently to his chest. Claire found herself watching him as she swayed back and forth with the gyre’s sharp turns, still waiting on a miracle that wasn’t coming. Nari huddled at the large troll’s feet, her arms wrapped around herself as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked devastated; Claire hadn’t yet moved past numb.

The station was crowded when they arrived, filled to overflowing with frightened Arcadians and equally unsettled trolls. These people had faced the Eternal Night and Alien invasion, only to be left shell shocked by an ancient order of wizards marching in without warning to burn their town to the ground. She could hear Dictatious shouting somewhere amidst the crowd, trying to ferry people to where they were meant to be as if he could actually see what was going on. Her parents were somewhere in that mess, as was her brother. Douxie had been adamant they get their families to safety before joining the fight. He’d sworn he could handle the Order for as long as they needed.

He’d lied.

The guilt was an old companion, a heavy weight bearing down on her shoulders as she disembarked. They drew attention. Human or troll, people knew Jim, and AAARRRGGHH!!! was much too large to pass unnoticed. Even if very few of those present knew who Douxie really was, they seemed to recognise that something terrible had happened. The crowd parted without prompting to let them pass, battered bodies shuffling out of the way and then watching them hasten by with curious eyes.

All except one.

“Zoe...”

Claire trailed off before she had even begun, the words dying on her tongue. The hedge wizard had clearly raced to reach them, her chest still heaving from the dead sprint she had just stumbled out of, dust in her hair and rips in her shirt that had not been there the last time they had spoken. There was a wild look in her eyes that had nothing to do with her battle-worn state, and Claire stepped aside, tugging Jim with her, as Zoe staggered forward. Static energy crackled behind her as she walked right up to AAARRRGGHH!!! and his precious burden, the large troll crouching lower to allow her near.

Without missing a beat, she leant across Douxie’s prone form to grab a hold of his singed shirt. “Hisirdoux Casperan, you are not going to pull this nonsense on me again!”

The answer was, predictably, silence. Zoe waited a beat longer, then her eyes flashed down to the burning rune. “What is this?”

“The Arcane Order…” Nari answered meekly. “Bellroc turned his soul to ashes.”

Zoe went a shade paler, her voice sharpening to a verbal razor. “His soul?”

“I tried to stop them.” There was an apology and regret both in those words. “I failed. I am sorry.”

“No.” Zoe’s hand turned into a fist, Douxie shirt still clutched within her fingers. “No, that’s not good enough. I haven’t spent centuries helping Archie keep this idiot alive for it to end like this. You were a part of the Order, you must know a way to fix this. They brought Morgana back. Twice.”

“Morgana’s soul was still intact,” Nari explained, shrinking a little more with each word. “Even if I could still sense his spirit on this plane, I cannot complete the ritual alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Claire interrupted, earning the attention of both her fellow spellcasters. “You have us, Nari, there must be something we can do.” The tiny sorceress looked up at her helplessly, her lips parted without words, and Claire felt her own determination wavering. “Please.”

“Come.” Laying a supportive hand on hers and Jim’s shoulders, Blinky started them moving again. “We should find somewhere quieter to discuss this.”

Suddenly hyper aware of all the eyes on them, Claire let herself be led, finding and grasping Jim’s hand tightly in her own. They left the crowded chamber, passing by the glowing doorway where the new Heartstone rested; A triumph she had all but forgotten in the wake of all that had followed. Holding aside a thick curtain of fabric, Blinky ushered them all within the comparative privacy of his new library, then hastened to clear room on the table for AAARRRGGHH!!! to set their fallen comrade down.

The large troll did so with care, folding Douxie’s hands across his stomach. It reminded Claire entirely too much of Merlin’s tomb, and she tore her gaze away to watch Jim settle Archie into place beside his wizard. The familiar was still under the influence of whatever dark magic had been locked within that icy shard, though the paralysis seemed to have eased somewhat, his eyes no longer staring blankly into the distance. He still wasn’t conscious, and Claire thought that was probably a mercy right now.

“What the hell happened out there?” Zoe was still choosing anger over any of the other emotions she might be feeling, standing rigid with her arms folded as she searched the faces of those gathered in the room.

“We were too slow.” Jim spoke, and Claire tried not to flinch. She had been too slow. If she had been able to evacuate the town faster, Douxie wouldn’t have been trapped facing the Order alone. They’d been overrun, yes, by mephits and stalklings and all manner of dark creatures, but that was no excuse. She should have found a way. “Skrael hit Archie, and then...”

He trailed off. Scowling, Zoe moved to check the familiar herself, Nari clambering up to perch atop the table beside Douxie’s head as she did so. The small sorceress reached out as though intending to touch him, only to snatch her hand back at the last second with a guilty flinch. “This is my fault.”

“It’s nobody’s fault.” There were tears pricking at the corner of her eyes; She refused to let them fall. “The Arcane Order did this, and we are going to make sure they don’t get away with it.”

She didn’t care how. Enough was enough. She wasn’t going to lose anyone else to these monsters. Never, ever again.

“He can’t be dead.” She hadn’t realised Steve had followed them until he started speaking. “Don’t wizards like, turn to ash or something when they die?”

“That would require his soul departing to the next realm.” Blinky, one of only three in the room with the authority to comment, offered his knowledge. “Without that, I fear our wizard friend may remain like this forever.”

“What? Really?” Steve blinked, giving their fallen friend a sidelong look. “That’s… that’s just creepy.”

“One of the many mysteries of magic,” Blinky shrugged, turning to Jim. “I must go and make sure everyone is getting settled in alright. You’ll call, if you need anything?”

“Of course.” Jim nodded. “Can you let mom know we’re here?”

“Right away, Master Jim.” Blinky bustled out, AAARRRGGHH!!! shuffling behind him, and the room was plunged back into a heavy silence.

“What about Archie?” Claire couldn’t stand it, and spoke in spite of her shaking voice, “Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know what this enchantment is,” Zoe admitted, running her hands over the familiar with a gentle care that was at odds with the fury still radiating off her. “Curses aren’t exactly my specialty, but one of the others might be able to help.”

“I will go ask.” As eager as any of them to have something to do, Krel bolted from the room.

“And Douxie?” Toby pressed. “Is there some sort of wizard guidebook on soul reconstruction too? Some sort of relic we need to find? Some spooky, dark lair we’ve gotta sneak inside? Oh, oh! Maybe Gatto has something that would help?”

“Nari?” Claire kept her eyes on the forest guardian, the only one among them who had any true understanding of the magic that had been used here. “How do we fix this?”

“I know of no magic capable of restoring a soul once it has been destroyed.” Nari shook her head, her own gaze fixated on the unmoving wizard in their midst. “There are spells, rituals that might help if a fragment had survived, but I cannot sense any part of Douxie still with us.”

“You couldn’t sense Jim either,” Claire reminded her. “But he was still there, in the Shadow Realm.”

“Then that’s where we’ll start.” Zoe made a decision, stepping away from the table to stand closer to Claire. “We are not letting it end like this.”

“You can’t go alone.” Not about to be left out, Jim added, “The Order might still be there.”

“You stuck the Arcane Order in the Shadow Realm?” Zoe gave her a look that was equal parts bemused and impressed. “Douxie really has been training you, hasn’t he? You’ll have to ask him about that nyarlagroth he stuck in Limbo one day.”

“I will,” she promised, holding that fragile thread of hope for all it was worth. “As soon as we get him back.”

[septembriseur]

A comprehensive theory of The Terror, pt. V

Hickey.

Oh, Hickey.

Or should I say: not-Hickey?

Hickey is a man who, over the course of the series, undergoes a profound transformation. When we first meet him, he’s a sullen and fairly useless caulker’s mate whose clumsy manipulations always seem to go slightly awry— he mistakes Crozier’s eagerness to get sloshed as an overture of friendship; he deploys his awareness that the tuunbaq isn’t really an animal to an unimpressed panel of officers; his daring escapade to kidnap Silna gets him flogged. Yet by the end of the show, he’s become a kind of ragged, savage would-be prophet, an unstoppable and hardly-human consumer of other men. 

The seeds of this are already present in his initial appearances. The first time we see Hickey as Hickey, rather than as one of a group of seamen, is when he helps to bury David Young in episode one. There is a miniature transformation that takes place here: at first, he’s a comic figure, flicking Tozer the V before hastily turning it into a thumbs-up, but when the other men leave him to work, he opts to climb down into Young’s grave. This is ostensibly so he can fix the broken lid of Young’s coffin, but in fact (we later learn) to rob Young’s corpse, and perhaps for some other, less articulable reason. 

The scene in the grave is lit dramatically, which my terrible capping probably can’t really capture; there are several distinct moments at which the sun is positioned just above Hickey’s head, obliterating him like a particularly ruthless halo.

When it isn’t, he remains wreathed in a foggy light, or else struck by a sort of painterly chiaroscuro.

There’s something uncanny about the effect thus produced, particularly at the moment when Adam Nagaitis does a brilliant bit of physical acting: a lizard-like head-flick and lip-licking that will recur later, when Hickey kills Irving. It’s a gesture that looks wrong, at the same time as it communicates a kind of joy or a physical release. 

Hickey wants to be in the grave, face-to-face with the dead body. I’m undecided how much he’s indifferent to any potential taboo— how much we should believe the casualness with which he later says, about the ring he steals from Young’s body, that he got it from “someone who didn’t need it anymore”— and how much it’s the very violation of that taboo that excites him, the touching-the-corpse and the going-down-into-the-grave. Either way, we know from this point on that he is someone whose nature is to transgress boundaries.

Sometimes that transgression is sympathetic! Why shouldn’t he get off with Billy belowdecks? He seems genuinely besotted with Billy, in a sort of feral, half-formed way. But the explanation he gives as to why Irving won’t inform on the two of them should raise red flags. Irving won’t say what he saw, Hickey says, because to do so would mean “he’d have to open his imagination to what he didn’t... That’s a man afraid of chaos. He’s not going to invite more if he can help it.” 

Here, “order” becomes what is seen, and “chaos” what is not seen— not only what is not seen, but what cannot be seen without puncturing order. This is tremendously important, I think, because the grave scene above also features one of several moments in the show at which the camera deliberately does not follow Hickey, barring the audience from seeing what he sees. 

This is what the audience sees while Hickey is actually in the process of rifling through Young’s corpse: a long, slow push in on the exterior of the grave. We hear Hickey’s noises of effort, but we don’t rejoin him until he’s slipped the ring into his pocket. 

This is exactly the technique used in the scene in episode six where Hickey puts his fingers into Heather’s exposed brain. We see Hickey pull the “veil” back to expose Heather’s injury, then bend over his body to inspect him:

However, we then cut to an angle at which the camera is positioned behind the veil, watching Hickey’s face yet concealing his actions.

We hear the wet noises as he touches Heather’s brain, but the show has literally drawn a veil across his actions, preventing us from seeing them and allowing us to leave them unimagined. (There is, I must note, a grimly clever little cut from this scene to Jacko the monkey digging his fingers into a tin of food.)

This isn’t a show that shies away from gore. I mean, in the final episode, we get multiple straightforward shots of Goodsir’s naked, butchered, and partly-consumed corpse. So it seems significant that there are these moments when the camera specifically will not let us follow Hickey where he is going, as though it does not want to implicate us in his violation. 

When I say violation, I don’t want to imply that these things are somehow inherently morally wrong. What they are is exactly what Hickey says: chaotic. (I should note that the scene in which Irving finds Hickey and Billy having sex draws on elements of this same pattern— we distinctly hear Hickey and Billy going at it, but don’t see them until they’re clothed— but everything about the way the show depicts not only their relationship but also that of Bridgens and Peglar suggests that we are meant to find these relationships tender and tragic, not unpleasant.) Hickey is, characteristically and centrally, chaotic. To paraphrase a wise man: he sees a boundary, he eats a boundary and washes it down with a cup of hot steaming rules. He’s a social transgressor, having sex with men and drinking with the captain. He’s a spatial transgressor: he sneaks back onto the ship during Franklin’s funeral and wanders through everyone’s private places, touching their intimate possessions. He takes a shit in Billy’s bed. There are other elements of confusion: he’s a man who’s “punished as a boy.” And, of course, deeper than all of these things runs the abiding formlessness at the heart of Hickey: he isn’t really Hickey. We never know who he is. He has no name, no past; he’s just someone who wandered onto the ship, looking for a “change of everything.”

We find this out about him in episode seven, the end of which marks the break between his nascent chaos and chaos unleashed. Something... happens to Hickey. In the scene that sees Irving return from his meeting with the Netsilik, Hickey is shot from angles and in poses that are designed to make him appear inhuman. First there’s this—

—a weird, disturbing shot in which Hickey is crouched, mostly naked, concealed under a greatcoat, and vaguely monstrous over Farr’s corpse. Then, as Irving approaches, Hickey springs animalistically at him, stabs him, and proceeds to squat over Irving and hold a hand over his mouth until he dies. We see Hickey through Irving’s eyes while this happens, at an unnatural angle that not only accentuates the sharp, triangular shapes of his body, but also seems to distort him slightly. He looks demonic, even before he repeats his restless and lizard-like head-flick...

And then: yikes.

It’s a shedding-his-skin motion, is what I think of that head-flick. From this point forward, Hickey is no longer a resentful man kicking against his confines. He has escaped those confines. He slips into an easy, ruthless, natural command of the mutineers, including men who outrank him and have previously mocked him. 

He also slips further and further away from humanity, moving towards something else. “I’ve shot smaller hawks than you,” Jopson says, but Hickey isn’t a hawk, exactly. He looks like a man, albeit a man who’s mostly running around in his long underwear and a greatcoat in the Arctic, seemingly unable to feel the cold, but gradually all his previous strangenesses come to the fore. With a rope around his neck (once more lit strangely through a haze) he tells Crozier that he “must pierce this thing [Crozier] calls truth,” and takes on Crozier’s own voice/accent to do it— another absenting of identity, another piece of evidence that Hickey is not so much a person or a thing as a void of anything, a formlessness.

I can’t help but think that what the mutineers are following is not Hickey, but the formlessness that has broken free from within him. At the mutineers’ camp, Hickey takes on the demeanor and appearance of a prophet, embracing the air with his arms open (in the same pose that recurs throughout the series as an emblem of chaos and collapse) while skinned of most of his clothing— 

—or meditating alone on hillsides for hours, “listening to his thoughts.” (“I dare not go up” to interrupt him, Tozer says.) He’s killed and eaten Billy by this point, and if we were looking for a logic to his actions, it would be possible to read it in the toast he reminds Crozier of: “Ourselves.” Crozier intended it as a self-deprecating joke, he says, but for Hickey it’s become a tenet: he is a wholly self-interested being whose principle is survival, a formlessness that wants to go on being a formlessness.

Yet he has contrived a strange plan that he doesn’t reveal to anyone, which rests on an observation that Crozier makes about him: “You must be a surpassingly lonely man, Mr. Hickey.” I’m not sure how sincere Crozier’s being in this moment; it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t agree that he and Hickey were each other’s only “equals” on the expedition. The observation is accurate, however, I think. Hickey is a surpassingly lonely man, but: “Not for long,” he tells Crozier. He plans to bind himself to the tuunbaq, becoming a shaman.

So let’s talk about this plan.

Hickey arranges this bizarre sacrificial tableau in which he stands atop the boat, again almost unclad in the middle of the Arctic, and rambles from what seems like a place of holy madness, cursing all the national and religious figures of England while offering what are pretty nakedly incisive truths. “What if we’re not the heroes?” he asks. “Our empire is not the only empire. I’ve seen that now.” Arguably, what allows him this vision is that he now stands outside of all the empires, having transcended every taboo, every boundary line. 

Yet when he offers his tongue to the tuunbaq, the tuunbaq rejects it and eats him. The important question is: why?

Let me get philosophical for a second: what is a connection? It’s a point of contact between two beings, right? It’s a touch; the place where two parts of the world are joined to one another. For this to happen, there has to first be a dividing line; there has to be a way in which the world is divided up into things to start with. I am separate from you. Man is separate from animals. The sea is separate from the land. There are these boundaries in the world that allot us places; there are rules that govern how we relate to every other kind of thing. It’s not good or bad, any more than chaos is; it’s just order. And fundamentally there has to be an interplay; we always have to be moving towards a synthesis of order and chaos. But when you have just chaos, with no boundaries, then what you have is an everythingness that is also a nothingness, which is: Hickey. Everything is permitted, is his attitude, pretty explicitly; or alternatively: everything can be consumed, an act that literally treats everyone and everything around him as just a potential part of his body. The result of this is that it is impossible for him to connect. 

When I was first trying to figure out why the tuunbaq refuses Hickey, I thought to myself: is it because Hickey thinks he’s the shaman, but he’s actually the monster? It’s possible to view him as “a spirit that dresses as an animal,” or as an animal that dresses as a man. But I think it’s that, at this point, Hickey has become so formless that he simply isn’t enough of a thing to be able to touch another thing. I think that’s the birthplace of the urge that drives him to to bind himself to the tuunbaq in the first place, but it’s also the reason why he can’t.

I find Hickey quite tragic, actually, because I can understand his frustration with order— with boundaries that are arbitrary and don’t seem to make sense. But in breaking and breaking and breaking forwards past those boundaries, Hickey fails to understand that the boundaries don’t exist to be boundaries qua boundaries. They create the possibility of relationship. And while touch is perhaps the push of chaos that nudges us to new and more perfect iterations of order, we can’t allow it to become the will to consume. 

And on that note... next time, I have much to say about Goodsir.

[thedirtpreferences]

Preference #5 - Virgin

Nikki: “You’re so beautiful,” Nikki breathed against the base of your throat, moving his lips behind your ear to press another open mouth kiss there. Nikki was currently hovering over you as you laid beneath him on the couch, completely at the mercy of his actions. “God, how did I get so fucking lucky?” He whispered, in your ear nipping at your earlobe softly. The longer you felt his breath on your skin, the more disconnected you became with reality. You felt good, too good. Moving slowly down your throat, Nikki peppered your collarbone with sloppy, wet kisses knowing full well that this was the place that made you go weak every time. Letting out an involuntary moan, you tangled your fingers in his hair as you threw your head back. This only caused him to look up at you with mischievous grin, as he began to suck harder against the spot. “You think that feels good?” Nikki mumbled against you as he peaked up at you through his incredibly long lashes. You could feel the lump growing in the back of your throat as nerves began to take over you like a possession. “Y/N, I could make you feel...so fucking incredible..If you would just let me.” At his words, you could almost tell that he knew you were about to make him stop; that he was purposefully pushing you to that stopping point that always seem to come too quick. “I-I’m scared, Nik.” You breathed, sitting up as Nikki sighed running a hand through his hair. “Baby, how many times have we gone through this? I’m never going to leave you, we’re in this together for-” Shaking your head, you cut him off. “Nikki, I’m a virgin.” It seemed like everything came to a screeching halt; almost like the world ceased to spin. You could see the cogs turning in Nikki’s head as he connected the dots, his eyebrows beginning to furrow. You wanted to run out of the room, tears burning noticeably in your eyes as you fought to keep them from overflowing. You had never felt embarrassment quite like this. “I should go,” You muttered, scooching to the end of the couch as you began to grab your purse. “And where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Nikki asked, grabbing your wrist tightly as he yanked you back down on the couch. “I just thought-” “Because you’re a virgin, I don’t want you?” Nikki cut you off, raising his eyebrows at your red cheeks. “Y/N, let me make this special. I don’t give a single shit that this is your first time, in fact, I think it’s pretty fucking cool.” You smiled slightly at this as you met his gaze with chagrin and relief. “Yeah?” You asked and Nikki leaned forward and kissed your lips sweetly. “Of course, you silly girl. Now, let’s continue.”

Vince: Vince had currently disposed of your shirt and bra and was currently trailing down your stomach with sloppy, open mouth kisses. Your back arched as he bit your hip lovingly, laughing as you clamped your eyes close and yanked his blonde hair in your small fists. “You like that, huh?” He laughed, stopping to look up your face that was currently distorted with both pain and pleasure. “You’re killing me, Neil.” You groaned as he continued to move his tongue across your hip, eventually making his way to the hem of your jeans, biting them playfully. You giggled as he growled, barring his pearly whites out at you before pulling the hem back so that it snapped against your skin. All was fun and games until Vince moved to the front of your jeans, however, swiftly unbuttoning the top button of your jeans. It was then that you froze before suddenly sitting up. “Your turn,” You mumbled, using your index finger to lift his chin to your face as you leaned down to kiss his neck. “I don’t want it to be my turn, I want to make you happy for once.” Vince argued as he bent back down to your waist, working on the front of your jeans. “You always make me happy,” You frantically sat up straighter, re-buttoning your jeans in the process. Vince couldn’t help but to stare at you incredulously due to your sudden mood change. “What is with you? You’ve never let me pleasure you, we’ve never had sex, it’s almost like you’re-” “A virgin?” You cut off his rant in irritation, refusing to make eye contact with him. “Y/N, are you...Are you a virgin?” Vince asked his voice now softer, kinder than you had ever heard it before. When you looked up at him, his features matched his voice: gentle, kind, and understanding. “I was holding out, y’know. Holding out for someone special,” You sighed as Vince pursed his lips and furrowed his brows. “Are you still holding out? I think what we have here is pretty fucking special.” Your eyes widened in alarm at his words, realizing that you had given the wrong impression. “No, Vin, no. You-You are the one, it’s just...You’ve been with many women. I don’t want to disappoint you.” You grimaced at him as his face softened and his body relaxed. Vince pressed his palm to your cheek as he shook his head. “So, that’s what you’re worried about? Disappointing me? Y/N...You could never...What you don’t realize is that with you, this feels like the first time. I’m just as nervous as you are, baby.” Vince smiled sadly at you as your heart fluttered. “I think we need to get over ourselves.” You sighed as Vince nodded his head giggling as he pulled you in for a passionate kiss.

Tommy: “Fucking finally,” Tommy growled, slamming your body against the back of the hotel door, locking the deadbolt in one swift motion. “I’ve been dying to do this all day.” Peeling your shirt off your body, he lifted you from your waist and pinned you to the wall as you wrapped your legs around his waist instinctively. You and Tommy had shared over a thousand kisses since you had first met, but this was by far the wildest one. Biting your bottom lip, you gasped when Tommy slipped his tongue into your mouth kissing you passionately and hungrily. Things were starting to get out of hand, you could feel the familiar burn aching from inside you. You wanted him; you wanted ALL of him, but you were hesitant. Tommy would be your first; your very first. Carrying you from the wall, to the bed, Tommy threw you down as he began to yank your leather skirt down your thighs. “Wait, wait, wait!” You gasped, stopping Tommy in his tracks as he stared down at you, his eyes dark from lust. “Oh, sorry, did you want to do it yourself?” Tommy inquired as he peeled his shirt from his own body, his bare chest rapidly moving up and down from the excitement. You gulped at how good he looked. “Not exactly. Just wanted to give you the heads up that this is my first time,” You blurted and suddenly Tommy stopped what he was doing as he sat beside you, running a hand through his hair. “Ever?” Tommy asked, concern coloring his features. “Ever.” You grimaced as Tommy scrutinized your expression carefully. “Should we stop then? I don’t, I want it to be special...” He reasoned kindly, as you pursed your lips pretending to think. You knew Tommy was the one from the moment you met him. Furthermore, never in your life had you felt so strongly about another person. You knew if you were going to lose it to anyone that it was going to be Tommy without a doubt of hesitation; there wasn’t anyone else you would rather want to be with. “Fuck no, I just want you to be careful with me.” You giggled and bellowing when Tommy hovered over you, peppering your face with a thousand small kisses. “God, I fucking love you.” He laughed before kissing you with the same force as he had earlier.

Mick: Nervous. So fucking nervous. Your hands were noticeably shaking as they trailed from Mick’s chest, to the back of his neck deepening the kiss. Everything was gentle with Mick; from the way he held you, kissed you, hugged you. It was almost as if Mick had sensed the overwhelming anxiety that so often swirled inside your brain; it was almost as if he himself knew to be patient with you. A large part of this was because you were so incredibly inexperienced. Really, before you met Mick there was a part of you that had been taped away from the rest of the world. But since Mick had came into your life, however, you had been exposed to him in every way possible, or so you had thought. It wasn’t until now that you realized you hadn’t been as open as you had once thought you were. Clad in only your bra and underwear, body pressed against him softly as you shared a passionate and slow kiss, this was as open as you had ever been with him or even anyone. And somehow you were ready to go even deeper. “I love you.” You breathed as Mick broke away from your lips, kissing you gently on the corner of your mouth, then your chin, then your neck. “I love you,” he whispered, reaching behind you to unclasp your bra. Shrugging out of the bra and stepping over it as it fell to the floor, you pressed yourself against him harder this time, breathing in his sweet scent. “I’ve never done this before.” You murmured into his ear, smiling as his fingertips traced the indents of your back slowly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” Mick murmured in response pulling back to kiss you passionately on the lips. Somehow with Mick, losing your virginity didn’t embarrass you, but only made you want him more. You were blessed to feel so comfortable with the man you loved the most. 

[mistraliprincess]

Qilin’s Descent

“Yo͝u'̀r̛e̕ ͠s̕l̶a̧ćk̡i͏ng͟”

The distorted voice rings clear over the sounds of Grimm, of howls and roars, squawks and snorts, hissing and screeching. Somehow always the clearest noise of everything assaulting her ears, not forgetting the pounding of her heart, the rushing blood through her body, and her many different kinds of breaths. Her body tired and sore, her mouth numb from how many times she’s spit fire, blasted something with water, or fired off bolts of lightning. All while cutting away at some sort of dark creature of negativity.

She had set out for a simple hunt, just a lone Ursa Major that had strayed too close to a village. But of course, something that should’ve been so simple was rudely interrupted by the dark figure that seemed to have attached itself to her. Still unknown as to why exactly, or what the thing even wanted, she could only deal with it when it showed itself or decided to speak. Yet with how it’d been the past while, the Qilin was getting very irritated by it, and when it first appeared by a tree in the middle of her hunt of the Ursa Major only to laugh at her, she wasn’t having it. Though her anger in the moment must’ve been exactly what it wanted from her, as one Ursa Major suddenly became an Ursa Major and a King Taijitu.

From that moment onward, she was getting more and more tired of this thing’s games, thus growing more angered, thus attracting more of the creatures of darkness. She had lost track of everything approaching her, of how many she’d killed, not like she currently cared. More kept coming, she had to survive, all she could do was continue to fight. Even throwing up a thick mist to attempt to distract the beasts part way through, though not even the smaller of the Grimm seemed bothered by it. Not with her current mood, she was essentially a beacon to these things.

Though while she’d seen people in a similar situation as her own before, it was never to this extreme unless it was a whole village. One person would attract a few other Grimm that were nearby, yes, but not what seemed to be every Grimm in the same portion of the continent. She was fighting way to many for them to have been purely local, and more just kept coming with seemingly no end. 

All while she fought, she could catch little glimpses of the pure black figure in different spots near her. Turn one way to bisect a Boarbatusk, she sees it standing just beyond the spinning swine. Spin back the opposite way to deflect an attack then jump to avoid another, the figure’s leaning against a tree in the corner of her vision. Every single time she catches sight of it, the smile once slight and subtle on it’s otherwise featureless face just seems to keep growing and growing. Now spanning the whole of their face between where it’s ears would’ve been, and all the way down to where it’s chin had to be. Sharp, jagged teeth filling the vile grin it was constantly shooting her way.

“Y͡ou're ̢weak̵“

The uncomfortable voice, once more sounding as if it’s right next to her ear, even feeling like it is with the warmth of breath brushing against her skin. Snarling, she throws her elbow back, feeling it connect with something. Her body turns in a second to see if she actually just struck the normally non-physical being. Instead she was met with the sight of a Beowolf’s head reeling back, a crack in the bone mask atop it’s face. 

Kemuri quickly steps and swings her Katana to slice at the weakened point of the bone, cutting through the center of the canine head. Immediately having to adjust and send herself into a back-flip just after as she watches the flaking corpse get pushed down by another Beowolf launching itself at her. Clicking her tongue mid breath as she’s air-born to call down a strike of lightning from the sky above at the unnatural creature leaping over her. The force sending it flying far past where it likely intended to land, leaving her free to recover and react to the next Grimm to approach her. Seemingly a Taijitu, black serpentine head arching high above her to rush down with maw wide and fangs bared. Though she knew better than to blindly evade, it’s white counter part would be coming from a different angle to try and catch her in her evasion.

“Y̛͝o҉ư͟'̸͢͝r̷e̢̨ ̧͝n̢o͝t̡̀͠h͏ì͝n͘g̡̛͟” 

Distortion in the voice is heavier now, disturbing enough to make the Huntress physically flinch away upon hearing it. A reaction that would cost her, having distracted the woman from the Taijitu coming down on her from above and keeping her oblivious to it’s other end rushing at her from behind. Jumping backward, she watches the darker head of the serpent crash into the ground, but in turn ends up enveloped by the shade of the brighter head’s maw. On instinct pulling her limbs in to avoid the fangs, though she’d have to act quick to not get swallowed. Gripping at her weapon’s handle to thrust it up into the head of the creature through the roof of it’s mouth.

When the pained hiss bursts free from the serpent Grimm’s open mouth, it’s loud in her ears. Almost painfully so, leaving a ringing to echo briefly as she tries to plant her feet on the floor of the creature’s maw to keep it from closing it’s jaws. Being covered in it’s saliva and traces of it’s venom, her footing was slippery, but she had it for a short instance. One where she spun herself around and breathed long, deep, feeling heat fill her chest and throat before flames roar as she expels a stream of fire down the Taijitu’s throat. The flames boiling away the moisture within quickly, and setting the monstrous serpent aflame from the inside.

As it moves to flail it’s head about with the pain it’s suffering, the Huntress uses the opportunity to let herself be flung from the maw to the grassy ground after freeing her sword. Before she could recover, she turns her attention down from the blazing snake to catch sight of a Boarbatusk rolling her way. Too fast and too close by the time she sees it to be able to get out of it’s way, she’s struck by the rolling beast. 

Being sent across the ground with the spinning swine still giving chase, hitting her any time her momentum began to slow to just keep hitting her farther and farther until she smacks into the base of a tree, back first. The impact stinging, though thankfully not breaking her spine with aura still available to protect her body. Though not more than a second after, the Boarbatusk comes crashing into her stomach, rounded tusks first. Again, thankfully nothing broke, but it most definitely hurt, and she knew already it’d bruise as she gasped for air, having what was in her lungs knocked out at the hit.

The pressure of the creature presses to her belly eases a moment, only for her to see it step back and rear up on it’s hind legs to let loose some sound of aggression. Afterward falling to all four hooves again with head lowered ti angle it’s tusks to gouge into her if it could get past her aura. She wasn’t going to give it the chance, though with her body still momentarily stiff from the subsequent hits, she couldn’t do a whole lot. Instead settling for making her hand drop in front of her body with her blade and angle the tip to pierce into the Grimm as it charges forward to strike her again. In turn making the creature impale itself, setting it’s body to flake into the wind.

Breaths, deep, yet short are taken by the Faunus as she pushes her arm out while rolling her body to her stomach. She could hear more already surrounding her, A Beowolf growling as it rounds the tree to get to her, the beating wings of a Nevermore diving to peck and scratch at her from above, and countless more beyond. All the other noises of the beasts all flowing together too well for her to hear anything else clearly beyond those two, and the voice once more.

“Ỳ̨̧͠͝O̷͢͡U҉̕͠͠ ̨͠҉Ń̵̢͟E҉̸̷̡̀E̴̕͠D͟҉̡̕͢ ͞M̨̕͟E̷̢̨͝”

The words were barely understandable with the heavy distortion, yet they seemed to be so clear at the same time. The mere idea of such a thing didn’t make sense, but that wasn’t alone in such disturbance of understanding. In the moment following such words sounding as if they were spoken within her own head, everything around her seemed to go still. She couldn’t see much with her cheek pressed to the grass, but from what she could, the flames engulfing the Taijitu had slowed exponentially. Now just barely inching their way along every few seconds, a painfully slow crawl which shouldn’t be possible. Serpent itself almost entirely still. 

But she could move just fine, the ease in which she brought her left arm to press hand-first to the ground beneath her to lift herself and allow her right arm to be pulled to press to the ground as well. This support allowing her legs to be pulled under her in turn, each motion with a heavy, huffed breath. Though before she could attempt to rise to her feet, a cold chill shoots down her back, making her head raise to look around herself. 

It was just like the time before, when this figure pulled her from the garden at home. Ahead of her she could see grass set ablaze, though right next to it a spike of ice, unaffected by the fire so close by. In the distance buildings rising above the treeline, towers of smoke rising from raging fires. The same western view to counter the east with what she could only assume to be Mantle the last time she was brought here. Though the difference now, the trees that surrounded her were still present. So were the dark clouds in the sky above, hinting at a rainstorm before night sets in. And massive wisps of pitch black... something, rushing past her in every direction.

A turn of her head would reveal the form of dark legs standing next to her. Twisting to look further revealing the unknown figure standing over her in full, a hand rather lazily outstretched down toward her. The smile across it’s face still ever present.

“Y͞Ò̵҉̧U̡̧ ̛͘̕͡͠H̢̢À͘͘͟V̵̧̀͠͝E̸̡̛ ̷̨͜T̨̧͏H̨͞҉͘E̸҉̵̀͡ ̛̛҉̛K̡̀̀͡N̶̛͜Ơ͘W̵̕L̷̕E̢̧͡D̷͝Ǵ̴̸͘͞E͜͏,̵̵̴́͝ ̢̧̀̕Y͏̀͏E͏̷T̸̷̢̨ ̶̧͘͡Ý̢̨̛Ơ̵͝U̴͢͡ ҉̴̶̵͘R͏̸̧E̸͞͞F̴̛̕͘͜U͞҉͠S̶̢͏E̸̶̵̢̕ ̧͘͟T̶̵̕͟Ò̴̡ ̕͝C̷̸A̡ĹL̛҉̛͢ ̷͡҉U̴̕P̵Ó̵̧͟͞N͡͡ ̶̶̡̕͞I̷͟͝T̸͡͞,̸̀̀͜ ̛̕͘͡͡T͟͡H̀͟Ư̵͞S̨̡̛͢ ͠͏͢Y̵̨̡͜͠Ò̀Ú͜͡ ̶̛͝Ŗ̷̧̢͘E̡̛͜͟͠M͝͝À̧̕Į̴̡N̢͟͟͞҉ ͏̡͏͡W̸̸̢͢͠È̛͘͢A̸͝K̵̶̶͜,҉̵̀ ͠͠͝͝B̨̛͜͜͢Ų̶͢T̷ ̶̶̸́T͢͢͞H͏̸̵͢͞A͠͞҉̵T̨̛̕ ̴̷C̴̴͢͡͞Ą̷Ņ̴́ ̸̡͢C̀͢͟H͏̶̡́Ą̵̀͟Ņ́͢͠G̨̧͘̕͜E̶̢”

It’s voice is loud, painfully so, she could swear her ears would bleed if she had to listen to it for a prolonged period of time. Yet still, even with the extreme distortion and the volume, she understood every word. Understood, and despite her better judgement, agreed. They were right, she knew everything she needed to in order to get stronger, they gave her that knowledge when they beat her in their fight. It was there, in the back of her mind, always nagging at her to slow down and learn. But she couldn’t find the time to, between relations with others, her job, and dealing with this thing, her ancestor, her mind was always on other things.

If she just stopped and thought about it, this wouldn’t be happening. She’d be stronger. She’d be able to keep herself safe, and do the same for others. Her hand moving from the ground beneath, leaving her Katana where it was, it rises for the outstretched hand. Understanding that if it didn’t, she was likely going to die. She didn’t have to even look at the flickering white that sparks across her body now and then, she could feel that her aura was getting dangerously low. Yet the Grimm weren’t ever stopping.

She takes the hand offered, feeling it close around her own and give a swift, hard tug to pull her to her feet, and-

Everything goes dark.

“N̷̴̡̛̥̗̫̣̠̣͈͈̜̩̊̂͑ͧ̈̐̒͌ͧ̓ͥ̒̚͝O̢̟̰͇̟̜̞̬̰̪͖̗̤͇̪̦̯̼̺̥̅ͬ̐̊͌̋͐̍ͬ̕̕͜W̶͎͖̖͈̬̯̱̻͙̝̜̦̩͕̗̞̓ͫ͒̀̀ ̴̵̢͈͈̣̱̫̬ͩ̿̉̎ͬ́͌̍̐ͥ̽̉͐͑̓̿̚̚T̶̶̡̛̟̯̭͓͚̻̟͈̠̤̰̯ͤͯͦͬ͒̊̃͌ͪH͓̟̬̺͕̦̜͓͈̣̪̬̻̦̜̖̫̝̼̐͋̔ͧ̇͊̅͌̃̇̄̈́̀̀͜E̸̢̹̜̼̱͎̬̼̙̻̙̾͒̌̈́̑̓͛̈́ͬͬ͢ͅͅͅ ̶̛͑ͬ̄͂̈́̓ͫ̑͘҉̸͚̗̯̱̰͉̦͇̹͔͎̖̠͈ͅFͮ͑ͧ̄̒̈́̈̉͏̪͚͔͍̙͎̙͖͈̱͖̣̤̳̘̘Ǔ̶̶̺̲̦̖̫̮͓̲͉̹̯̍ͩ̀̈̕ͅN̴̷̨̜̝̲̣̣̺̬̣̦̠͉̤͉̟̿̄̈́̋ͭ̊͑ͤ̆̚͘ ̵̴̢̧̝̯͕̣̬̱̥̤̦̜̩͔̳̻͕͑ͤ̃͑̂ͥ̇̓͗̒̔̃̑͠B̛͎͈̮͈͔̱̟̦̬̣̰̭̙͇͔̦͍͂͐̓̇̓ͨͫ̄͛͢ͅẺ̊ͤͬ̏͂̉̌̾̍҉̖̘̳̠̖̙͇͓̦̘̠̳̼͇́G̷̶̩̠̺͍̣͓̣̙̺̞̩͎͖͙͓͖̹͌̆̆̌ͤ͂ͦ̎̔̋́̀ͣ̚͘͘͘İ̷͉͈̼̜͒̏͛̉ͮͬ̆̒̔ͫ̽ͣ͛ͥŅ̶͚̝͓̣̪̘̗̣̘̘͓͓̹͍́ͤͥ̎ͭ͐͋̾̑̈̂ͣ̔͆ͩ̍̐̈́̚͠͞S̸ͩͨͬ̇̉̈́̃̂ͮ͌̆́҉̼͔̮̲͈̫̟̥̘̀͘”

[krinatheladysnake]

Lady Snake (and the Jedi Killer) Chapter 5

Summary: The galaxy calls her Lady Snake- a quick and merciless killer. Kylo Ren calls her a nuisance. Krina, a Commander and the only other Force user of the First Order, despises what the dark side has become and wishes to return it to its true state of power but what she hates the most is the naive man-child ruling over it.

Chapter 5: Defluo (To Fall Away, Disappear, Be Lost )

Words: 2,144

“Supreme Leader,” She started. “Kylo Ren. Kylo. Please. Please, Kylo. Help me,” Krina was begging so fast, her words slurred. She didn’t know how much time she had left and she wanted to be able to say it all. “Kylo, I- I’m sorry. Please, just save me and we can start over. Please I-” 

The blast was so loud, everything froze. 

Sweaty palms gripped at silk sheets as Krina jolted up in bed. Her heartbeat was so loud, it throbbed in her head. The red glow of her lightsaber filled the room as she instinctively reached for and ignited it. Her eyes scanned the space around her and slowly, she realized where she was. Her quarters. She was safe for now.  

Krina held her saber sideways, using its illumination to give herself a little more vision. She knew this room like the back of her hand and could navigate through it with her eyes closed, without the guidance of the Force, but it felt so foriegn in the moment. Her quarters were nothing to gloat about- a single room with a small refresher attached- but it was hers and she should feel safe while laying in her own bed. When she proved to herself that she was in fact alone, she extinguished the blade and laid back down, tossing the hilt on the pillow beside her own. 

A bad dream- a nightmare. Merciless killing had its consequences and the Force was unforgiving with the emphasis it gave to the weight of guilt. Krina had gotten used to it and let it roll off her back- most of the time. Tonight was different. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the dream play back in her head. 

Krina could see the Resistance troops so clearly as they gathered and prepared to march towards the First Order, who outnumbered them tenfold. Krina stood behind lines of stormtroopers. Her lightsaber crackled at her side, and she tightened her grip in anticipation. 

Directly next to her was the one and only Supreme Leader Kylo Ren whose one lightsaber was much louder, much angrier. It drowned hers out almost completely. They didn’t dare to look at each other or mutter a word. They were both perfectly still and silent as Hux shouted orders and prepared troopers. They both knew this was the battle that was going to end years of fighting, years of being unable to let go of the past. There was a sudden shift in the Force that left Krina winded. It was the beginning of the end.

“Fire!” The word came out of Hux’s mouth so harshly, it would’ve startled Krina if she hadn’t sensed it coming. The First Order always made the first move. They were far brasher than their enemy who had anticipated this very thing. 

The first cannon, the first blaster bullet, the first airstrike. The first kill.

The Resistance reacted logically. Their retaliations were slow at first but sped up over seconds and suddenly, it was an all-out war. 

The sound of blasters was deafening. Krina couldn’t make out what side the sound, or the bullets, were coming from. It had to be both but keeping up was almost impossible and she could only stop and redirect so many. Stormtroopers scattered and attacked so quickly, they became streaks of white as they charged. Screams, pained grunts, and commands all mixed into the air and made it impossible to make out anything. 

The first shot to her exposed arm only felt like a pinch, a poke. She brushed it off, kept running towards the one person she wanted to murder the most: Rey. The three force-sensitive people in the area could sense it the second their eyes met. They knew Krina was going to put an end to the scavenger who tore Kylo Ren’s soul in two. She didn’t hesitate. Her feet practically glided against the ground as the Force surged her forward, pumping in her veins more powerfully than adrenaline ever could. 

Krina was interrupted by a Resistance fighter who ran at her with all their might, screaming a battle cry at the top of their lungs. Their shouts immediately silenced as Krina slid her lightsaber out of their chest. 

Rey was becoming clearer as she got closer. There was no one around the new Jedi, no one trying to attack her or aim anything her way. Serenity surrounded her, she was the calm in the eye of the storm.

“Scavenger scum!” Krina screamed with her lightsaber up in the air like the head of a cobra, ready to strike. Rey stood her guard in her stance, eyes locked on Krina, who couldn’t quite place the emotions the girl was giving off. It sat somewhere between sadness and guilt. Krina didn’t care to know why. 

The clashing of their sabers created a splash of color, a scream of sound. Krina was one step ahead of her enemy, already forming her next move before Rey had any time to plan, to think. It didn’t matter. Rey was just as quick to counter as Krina was to strike. 

“You’ve trained well, Jedi, but not well enough,” Krina commented through gritted teeth. Rey was silent, only speaking through the look in her eye. They continued like this for what seemed like forever. Attacking, parrying, fueling their own power through the Force. Krina was growing tired. Rey was not. 

The Force, and the impact of the nightmare, were not being kind or letting up on Krina at all. The weight on her chest had become enough and she slipped out the bed in a quick motion. Bare feet padded against the cold floor as she made her way into her refresher. 

She hesitated before she dared to look at herself in the mirror – she hardly gave a thought to her appearance on any given day. What stared back at her was unfamiliar. Disheveled hair poorly framed her face as it covered her scar and hung low by her eye. She batted it away but didn’t bother to fix the other messy strands that were out of place. Her usually dark brown irises were practically black in the dim light and her pupils were blown. There was a paleness to her skin that would’ve caused her to be sent straight to the med bay if anyone of importance saw. 

Dreams- nightmares- had never left such a noticeable impact on Krina. Frustration bubbled in her chest and she let out a frustrated scream, punching the glass in front of her. The impact left a spider web crack in its wake. She didn’t flinch at the pain or the action. She just retracted her fist and rolled her shoulders back. 

The shrieking sound of a blaster bolt tore through the air and echoed in Krina’s ears even after it silenced as the intense plasmic energy wracked through her body. She let out an angry snarl as it radiated through her muscles. Somehow, the first wound was suddenly much more prominent and she was hyper-aware of her disadvantage: the bleeding and aching injuries that were beginning to litter her body. Krina flipped around, eyes wildly searching for her attacker. She located a Resistance member, whose face felt familiar, and took them out easily enough, crushing their windpipe with a single swipe of her hand. 

Krina searched again, this time for First Order members, stormtroopers, officers, Kylo Ren, anyone. She was surprised by her realization that she was alone, surrounded by no one else but Rey who had reminded her of the task at hand with a violent slash to Krina’s waist. 

Another scream left Krina’s lips that were now beginning to stain with blood. Pain flooded her senses in place of panic. She looked at Rey as her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. 

“I’m going to kill you so mercilessly, your friends are going to be seeing your mangled body in their dreams,” Krina threatened, striking again. This time, her attack was sloppy and brash and felt as if someone else was attacking for her. This was hardly her style but she was tired, weak, and angry- so angry that her vision was beginning to blur. 

This time, it wasn’t Rey who blocked the attack. There stood the traitor, FN-2187, wielding a weapon that didn’t belong to him at all. The scavenger's staff soaked up the attack as much as it could, cracking in the process. Krina looked up from her illuminated blade and was met by Finn’s expressionless gaze as he attacked her again, swiping at her feet. Krina lost her balance, falling to the ground. She scrambled and reached for her weapon that was too far from her grasp as it had rolled closer to the enemy. 

As Krina began to stand, a strong hand pushed her back down, causing a snarl to tear from her throat. Her head bounced back as it hit the soil and she blinked rapidly, trying to keep conscious. 

Krina ignored the physical pain as her knuckles throbbed and focused on the way the Force was crushing her morale. Using her uninjured hand, she turned on the facet as far as it would give, inviting the warm water to begin to fill up the sink and try to wash the remnants of the nightmare away. 

She couldn’t keep her gaze from slowly trail back up to that reflection, so uninviting and cold. Years of training, killing, and living for the sake of the First Order should’ve cleansed her of any warmth anyway but there was something so frigid about the current version of herself that it brought hatred up through her veins. 

The Force wouldn’t allow her to have such a dream with little to no reason. She felt it to be true: she meant nothing to the First Order or anyone in it, regardless of how much she had given up for it. She was a cog in a machine much larger than herself.

Her eyes snapped back down to the water and she impatiently shoved her fist into it, unbothered by the sting. The water worked to wash away glass shards and blood but it could never wash away Krina’s skeletons that had begun to show themselves. Eventually, the pain subsided but she continued to let the water run anyway and ignored the pang of guilt in her chest as she looked back into the distorted glass once again. 

The realization, the whole purpose of having to bear such a nightmare, hardly mattered to Krina. Her whole life had been dedicated to this very cause and she was going to continue fighting for it until her very last breath.

“Scum!” She screamed at no one in particular, even though Poe Dameron was standing directly above her with a blaster pointed at her uncovered head. “All of you!” 

Krina thrashed, begging the Force to help her. She just needed another rush of power, even if it was hardly any power at all. She just needed something. She snarled, gnashed her teeth, and continued to struggle. 

A boot smashed right against her chest, earning a wheeze from the wounded Commander. She could barely make out the new attacker but something in Krina’s aching body knew exactly who it was: Rose Tico. Of course, she would want a piece of Krina’s demise. They all did. 

Tired eyes began to look frantically, searching once again for anyone who was coming to save her. Her eyes first landed on a large group of stormtroopers fighting just feet away from where she was surrounded. They had been ignoring her pleas as they fought their own enemies. Once she finally got herself to tear her gaze away from them, she found Hux standing alone, watching on. His arms rested behind his back and disappointment was written all over his face.

“General,” Krina cried, reaching out a shaky hand. Hux remained still and his expression became unreadable. He wasn’t trying to save her either. None of them were. They all watched on and let it happen, silently cheering. 

There was one more person Krina needed to see before the end of her life. The only person her mind could stand to think of in the moment. Time was moving so fast yet so slow, she almost missed him standing there. There was no helmet covering his face nor a scar staring back at her own. His eyes shined in the darkness that was blurring the edges of Krina’s vision. Kylo Ren looked more peaceful at the moment of Krina’s death than he ever had in his life. She reached out the same hand she offered to Hux. Salty tears stung the cuts on her face. She had so much and yet so little to say, to feel, to think. None of it mattered anyway. Her time was up and she knew it as she began to speak. 

[rkxsoojin-blog]

 MGA5 C A L L B A C K SINGING I DON’T WANT IT AT ALL by KIM PETRAS [1:53-2:28, 3:05-4:06]

 It takes Minkyung a minute to check her email, even after she hears the tiny little ding of the notification, and when she does, she’s initially a little surprised; she thinks she did pretty well at her audition, she just hadn’t given much thought to the what if of her actually making it through. Somehow in her mind it had been done and dusted the moment she’d returned her cute little nametag and left, and mentally, she had moved on. 

 For a moment, she considers backing out; she hadn’t really auditioned out of any true desire to be an idol, right? But there’s already a pool of leaden resolve forming in her belly, one that she recognises, and one that she isn’t exactly happy to see. 

 Minkyung loves a good challenge. She’s competitive down to her very core, and knowing that out of all the idol hopefuls, all the fame-hungry whomevers that would have auditioned for this show, that she’s in the top hundred? She’s satisfied with that, she just thinks she could do a whole lot better, that’s all. 

 Not to mention that the audition itself had been really quite fun. Minkyung feels like she’s her best self when she’s performing, and the allure of a bigger stage, more of a production, as opposed to some practice room in the back of a high school is positively alluring. 

 She immediately begins bouncing options around in her mind, and as always, she’s got a thousand ideas buzzing about her, so it’s really a job of whittling the numbers down. 

 The one thing she knows for absolute certain is that she wants to make a bit of a scene, it’s just a question of how to do so in the way she wanted to, with a bit of subtlety, so it might seem a little more organic. 

 She decides that she wants to lean into the cutesy thing, in an ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek way, as always. She supposes that’s just her thing. 

 The outfit comes first, for some reason, a little high-waisted denim mini skirt, a faded Spice World tee, a choker, and a pair of glittery silver knee-high boots that she’d gotten from a stall in Hongdae that were almost certainly some kind of designer bootleg. 

 It’s then, looking at the bootleg leg boots that she has a bit of a creative epiphany. 

 She doesn’t want to do something dour, or serious, not yet at the very least. She wants something bubblegum bubbly, something fun and bouncy, so she designs to lean into the fraudulent designer aesthetic and do I Don’t Want It At All; a high energy bop with cutesy materialistic lyrics that will be fun to jump around to. It’s also a rather challenging song in some respects, and Minkyung relishes chances to show-off just a tad. 

 She isn’t a dancer, so she doesn’t bother with a choreography, or any such thing, but instead sets into figuring out an arrangement. She only has two minutes and wants to make sure that her performance still has a sense of build, some peaks and valleys, lest it become monotonous by remaining at a singular level the entire time. She also wants to make sure she can show off a decent range of vocal technique within that short time span. 

  She opts to do the second verse and the pre-chorus, to create a bit of a build from a lower energy to a higher one, but instead of going straight into the chorus, she’ll instead jump into the bridge, and finish off with the final chorus, which is higher energy than all the ones before it, and will also give her the opportunity to really belt out a high note or two. She thinks it’s a well-balanced arrangement, and she practices it often enough that the song clings to her head like glue, almost driving her nuts. 

 By the time the day of rolls around, she wakes up to the song already playing in her head, which is perhaps a good thing. 

 She dolls herself up, throwing a denim jacket over the outfit she’d previously selected, cinching her hair into a high pony, something fun to throw around, and before long, she’s arrived. 

 It’s always interesting seeing the other side of this sort of a production, the security check-ins, the form-signing, the cameras and boom mics and stage lighting, the bones of the operation all naked like you never see them on the actual show. Its both grounding and a little exciting, like being let in on a big secret. 

 She finds a seat at random, smiling at Yuqi and her little girlfriend as she passes them by, quietly wishing them luck and ending up sat between a girl called Kyulkyung, and a boy called Suwoong, surrounded by a great load of noisy people, which ends up being great fun. Her and Kyulkyung eye one another up for a moment, whispering a few mild critiques and some small talk between one another before she’s distracted by Suwoong, who is uniquely friendly, on a similar wavelength to herself, Minkyung thinks. He initiates small talk with her, leaning over after every performance so they can express some brief opinions on it, their opinions becoming more imaginative as the performances continue, eventually turning into a strange game of elaborating on the theoretical life of the contestant in question based on their outfit, or gait, or choice of song and dance. 

 The section she’s sat with are all chatter, and they cheer and clap for every contestant who goes up, and by the time Minkyung hears her name called, shes been imbued with enough of that joyous energy that she hops up with zeal, finding her way to the stage easily where she she bounces into the the designated spot, the stage lights immediately rather warm against her skin, the cameras trained on her. 

 She gives the judges, and the camera, a sweet smile, bowing a good ninety degrees before pulling back up and introducing herself with a bit of a giggle. 

 “Hello! I’m Kim Minkyung! It’s nice to meet you on the stage today” she says, the smile that parts her lips suddenly a little strange, mysterious almost, as though she knew something those whom she smiled at did not. The glimmer of confidence, the cool unarrogant sort, unmistakable in her eyes. She doesn’t bother expressing some hope that they’ll enjoy her performance, as she’s more than hopeful that they will. She’ll make sure they do.

 There’s a brief count from some staff members behind the cameras, and without time to waste, the music starts, an instrumental that she’d artfully snipped together herself to match the arrangement she was doing. As it does, she doesn’t begin to sing, having purposely left a few extra seconds of music on the front of the track, but rather feigns surprise, almost worry, lifting an urgent finger to the judges to indicate that they wait, as though she’d forgotten something crucial, skittering quickly to the side of the stage in her boots, where she bends down to accept a plastic tiara, with little LED lights spelling the word “princess” on its front from a waiting staff member, a gag that she’d arranged beforehand, even though everyone on the show’s end seemed to be confused by the request. She secures the fluffy pink tiara tightly to the front of her head with a smile, flicking a switch on its rearside to turn the lights on, and then skips confidently back to the centre of the stage, stomping her feet into a self-assured stance and jumping right into her verse.

If you wanna get down tonight You better hook it up at the place I like Better make it fit like the perfect size Aw yeah, aw yeah And if you give me everything I want You go from none to number one Yeah, you're so cute, yeah, you're so fun Aw yeah, aw yeah

 She holds her position for this potion of her performance, her voice easy over top the bright, glittery synths. As she slides into the pre-chorus she begins to strut along the stage, each girlish stomp in time with a beat of the song. She’s not a dancer, but she’s got enough bodily sense to keep on rhythm as she bops and sways along with the song, a grin on her lips, pivoting her head so that she can feel her ponytail whipping about behind her. 

Baby, don't you fight it Close your eyes and swipe it Maybe I could be with you If you buy me diamonds And you keep me smiling Baby, I can be with you Oh, with you 

 Minkyung is having a lot of fun with her performance, bouncing along with each word, the vocals themselves having yet to become too demanding for that. She flutters her eyes with girlish flourish, mimicking the motion of a credit card swipe alongside the pertinent words, pointing at the camera with a wink, smiling wide and flashing the cartoonishly large hunk of plastic masquerading as a diamond on the cheap costume jewelry she was wearing. She’d initially wanted to strike a balance, to figure out how to be peppy and referential without being too much, but she had realised that being a little too much was a perfect fit for this particular song, and had decided to lean into it as a concept, summoning every drop of pseudo-ironic bubbly zest she could, although the gleam in her eye was entirely real. 

 She ends the pre-chorus with a high note on “Oh, with you,” ceasing her gleeful prancing so she could properly belt in out, the music fading into a more subtle, slow synth build beneath her as she flips her ponytail with apparent delight to sing an adorable “Woo! ah...” once the high note is through, blowing a kiss with the judges with her two fingers before bringing her hand forward so she could form a finger heart in the same motion, in time with each syllable. The gallivanting she’d been doing across the edge of the stage now slowing to a sensuous prowl to reflect the energy of the song itself.

I don't want it all  Give me summer in the Hamptons Give me summer in the Hamptons (I don't want it at all) Give me summer in the Hamptons In the Hamptons In the Hamptons I want all I want

 On the original track, the bridge made use of a robotic filter of sorts, but Minkyung takes the opportunity to show off some of her technique, leaning into a bit of vocal fry distortion to give her voice some edge and grit in lieu of any metallic effect, the bridge slowly building into a belt before she jumps straight into the final chorus, which she opts to stand still for, having found her way to centre stage once again, she focuses her attention back onto the microphone, and her singing, knowing that this bit was a challenge in terms of maintaining proper breath support, the way she wanted to do it. 

I want all my clothes designer (Ooh!) I want someone else to buy 'em (Yeah!) If I cannot get it right now (Now!) I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it at all I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it at all Give me all of your attention (Ooh!) Give me summer in the Hamptons (Yeah!) If I cannot get it right now (Now!) I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it at all I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it at all

 The synths rocket upwards in intensity the minute the bridge ends, and Minkyung launches right into the chorus, asserting what she wants and how she wants it. She chooses to lean into some of the ad-libs that Kim had done on the final chorus, including a sustained belt at the end of the fifth line. It’s fairly close to the ceiling of her range, especially after all of the energy she’d just expended, right in the middle of a bunch of other singing, and she has to sneak a breath as inconspicuously as possible, almost gasping it, turning her head away from the mic to do so. She manages it, however, having practiced this exact part almost endlessly, and plows through the rest of the chorus with a smile of self-satisfaction gracing her lips. 

 The song ends just as she makes one final declaration of how she wants it, and she’s sure to close with a bit of flourish, bringing her arm up in a big dramatic swoop to pose cutely with a v-sign at her temple. 

 She’s shocked at first, by the cheers from her little loud section, jumping ever so slightly before bursting into a laugh, bowing and thanking the judges quickly before she returned to her seat, happy to plop down in her seat, her legs trembling with the rush of adrenaline.

 As she watches the next contestant step up to bat, she begins to process just how much she enjoyed that, the bloom of desire to win this in her chest now twofold in nature.